Modern history

“ 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 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. ”

“ Modern history may conveniently be defined as that part of history which deals with the origin and evolution of the great distinguishing characteristics of the present. No precise dates can be assigned to modern history as contrasted with what has commonly been called ancient or medieval. ”

“ It is no paradox to say that Modern History, including Medieval History in the term, is co-extensive in its field of view, in its habits of criticism, in the persons of its most famous students, with Ecclesiastical History. ”

“ The aim of this work is to record, in the way most useful to the greatest number of readers, the fulness of knowledge in the field of modern history which the nineteenth century has bequeathed to its successor. The idea of a universal Modern History is not in itself new ”

“ The most precious Histories are those in which we read the successive stages of God's dispensations with man, the growth of the highest natures, under the most favourable circumstances, in the most fully developed institutions, in the successive contributions which those natures, regions and institutions have furnished to the general welfare of the whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This new progress of social man under the Christian form of government, and this progress of the human mind in Christian science, mark the third epoch of modern history, or the seven centuries which elapsed from the reign of Charlemagne, to the discovery of the New World, and the commencement of the Reformation. ”

“ The false idea, or that which to me seems practically misleading in the term the Unity of History, is the acceptance as a practical rule or maxim that there are no new points of departure in human history; that modern life is a continuation of medieval, of ancient and medieval, history, by a continuity and unity that is at all points equally important, of the same consistency in fact. ”

“ The history of modern civilization is the history of advances in this direction—of the struggles and triumphs of personal, political, and religious freedom. And the general law is shown by the fact that just as this tendency has asserted itself civilization has advanced, while just as it has been repressed or forced back civilization has been checked. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet even among those peoples where national governments did not appear, some progress was made towards unity through the formation of national languages and literatures, and the development of common feelings, sentiments, and aspirations, so that these peoples were manifestly only awaiting the opportunities of a happier period for the maturing of their national life. ”

“ History will also afford frequent Opportunities of showing the Necessity of a Publick Religion, from its Usefulness to the Publick; the Advantage of a Religious Character among private Persons; the Mischiefs of Superstition, &c. and the Excellency of the Christian Religion above all others antient or modern. [204]
History will also give Occasion to expatiate on the Advantage of Civil Orders and Constitutions; how Men and their Properties are protected by joining in Societies and establishing Government; their Industry encouraged and rewarded, Arts invented, and Life made more comfortable: ”

“ You shall have the simple, accurate presentation of facts from history—and plain reasoning upon these facts—and from Ancient History, rich as it is in proofs, I will draw nothing!—all shall be drawn from the history of modern States—the history of men living under the influence of great religious and political ideas which are active to-day—and among ourselves. ”

“ For the science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the stream of history, like grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to the making of the future. ”

“ The existence of a primitive revelation—the establishment of Christianity, which was the principle and power of a new moral life in society—and the pre-eminence of modern Europe in civilization, in which she outshines all other portions of the globe, and even in many respects most periods of antiquity, are three historical data—three mighty facts in civilization, which evince the successive stages of human progress and improvement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have also tried to give a proper setting to the great historic forces which have shaped and moulded human progress, and have made the evolution of modern state school systems and the world-wide spread of Western civilization both possible and inevitable. ”

“ America has recently produced two well-illustrated and up-to-date class books, Breasted’s Ancient Times and Robinson’s Medieval and Modern Times, which together give a very good idea of the story of mankind since the beginning of human societies. ”

“ The effect of all these changes in the mode of living of peoples is written large on the national life. The political and industrial revolutions which have marked the ushering-in of the modern age have been far-reaching in their consequences. ”

“ War cannot be thought or wished out of the world: it is the only medicine for a sick nation. When we are sunk in the selfish individualism of peace, war comes to make us realize that we are members one of another. 'Therein lies the majesty of war, that the petty individual altogether vanishes before the great thought of the state.' War alone makes us realize the social organism to which we belong: 'it is political idealism which demands war.' And again, 'what a perversion of morality it were, if one struck out of humanity heroism' (Heldentum) —as if Heldentum could not exist in peace! ”

“ England cannot afford that her weaker neighbours should become less prosperous or less independent than they are. So far as the long arm of naval power reaches, England is bound to give them whatever help she can. From motives of self-preservation, if on no other ground, she could not tolerate their subordination to such a power as Germany aspires to found. Her quarrel is not with the German people, but with the political system for which the German Empire, in its present temper, stands. That system England is bound to resist, no matter by what power it is adopted. ”

“ We are a people in whose blood the cause of law is the vital element. It is no new thing in our history that we should fight for that cause. When England and Revolutionary France went to war in 1793, the cause, on the side of England, was a legal cause. We fought for the public law of Europe, as it had stood since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. We did not fight in 1870, because neither France nor Germany had infringed the public law of Europe by attacking the neutrality of Belgium, but we were ready to fight if they did. ”

“ Those who have hitherto known Belgium only as a hive of manufacturing and mining industry, or as a land of historic memories and monuments, are now recognizing, with some shame for their past blindness, the moral and spiritual qualities which her people have developed under the aegis of a European guarantee. It is now beyond dispute that, if Belgium were obliterated from the map of Europe, the world would be the poorer and Europe put to shame. The proofs which Belgium has given of her nationality will never be forgotten while liberty has any value or patriotism any meaning among men. ”

“ The emotions of the present may incline us to look back regretfully upon that past which reminds us of so much that is great and noble, in spite of its many and inevitable drawbacks, and which, by showing us the origin of modern society, by revealing to us the manner of its birth and its onward progress, may give us the key to its present critical condition when a profound and universal transformation seems about to take place. ”

“ She did not support Greece and Italy for the sake of any help that they could give her. The goodwill of England to Holland, to Switzerland, to the Scandinavian states, is largely based upon their achievements in science and art and literature. They have proved that they can serve the higher interests of humanity. They have contributed to the growth of that common civilization which links together the small powers and the great with bonds more sacred and more durable than those of race, of government, of material interest. In this fraternity each nation has a duty to the rest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now this great century, the last of the true Middle Ages, which as it drew to its own end gave birth to Modern Society, has a special character of its own, a character that gives it an abiding and enchanting interest. ”

“ America once fought and beat England, in long-forgotten days, on the ground of law. That very ground of law—that law-abidingness which is as deeply engrained in the men of Massachusetts to-day as it is in any Britisher—is a bond of sympathy between the two in this great struggle of the nations. ”

“ What we are doing, they feel, is to strike at Germany, our competitor for 'world-empire', with its dangerous navy, while Germany is engaged in a life and death struggle with France and Russia. We too, they feel, are Machiavellians; but we have put on what Machiavelli called 'the mantle of superstition', the pretence of morality and law, to cover our craft. It is true that we are fighting for our own interest. But what is our interest? We are fighting for Right, because Right is our supreme interest. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ His ideas, if conceived by the reason, took shape and colour from the splendour and fire of his imagination. A nation was to him a great living society, so complex in its relations, and whose institutions were so interwoven with glorious events in the past, that to touch it rudely was a sacrilege. ”

“ The whole philosophy seems paganism, or rather barbarism, with a moral veneer. It seems barbarism, because it brings us back to the good old days when mere might was right. Bernhardi, speaking of the right of conquest of new territory inherent in a growing people, tells us that in such cases 'might is at once the supreme right, and the dispute as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war', which gives a 'biologically just decision'! And he expresses wonder and surprise at those who think that 'the weak nation is to have the same right to live as the powerful and vigorous nation'. ”

“ Few seemed to reflect that the forcible intervention of a Great Power in the Balkans must inevitably call other Great Powers into the field. So just was the cause of Austria held to be, that it seemed to her people inconceivable that any country should place itself in her path, or that questions of mere policy or prestige should be regarded anywhere as superseding the necessity which had arisen to exact summary vengeance for the crime of Serajevo. The conviction had been expressed to me by the German Ambassador on the 24th July that Russia would stand aside. ”

“ England blocked the way to the growth of Germany from a European into a World-power; Germany, to preserve intact for German culture the surplus of the growing population, must be a World-power or perish. ”

“ It is a doctrine of the omnipotence of the super-nation, which 'to maintain its state', as Machiavelli said, 'will go to work against faith and charity and humanity and religion', and which will stride ruthlessly to war when 'the day' comes. And when it goes to war, all the veneer of culture goes. ”

“ The power of the state is precious and ultimate because the state is a vehicle of culture: the armed sword of the German state is precious because that state is the colporteur of German culture. And thus Treitschke holds that Machiavelli, the great apostle of might, is only wrong in so far as he failed to see that might must justify itself by having a content, that is to say, by being used to spread the highest moral culture. ”