Universal history

“ It is only by making the study of universal history a science that the politician can ever hope to become a statesman. This means a thorough and comprehensive grasp of ancient as well as modern history. ”

“ If we are to account mind not matter, ideas not force, the spiritual property that gives dignity, and grace, and intellectual value to history, and its action on the ascending life of man, then we shall not be prone to explain the universal by the national, and civilisation by custom. ”

“ A philosophical attempt to work out a universal history according to a natural plan directed to achieving the civic union of the human race must be regarded as possible and, indeed, as contributing to this end of Nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the progressive march of social man which constitutes the subject of universal history, or, as we term it, the formation and growth of humanity, are regulated by principles somewhat different from those which determine the internal life of individual man. ”

“ The history of civilization is the history of the growth amongst human beings of the habit of submitting their dealings with each other to the direction of rules of universal application, and their withdrawal of them from the domain of personal feeling. ”

“ Civilization is a result of sociological build-up at a certain cultural level. It has not been universal in all human societies, but exceptional, both in time and in geographical space.
What has caused the pattern of civilization to appear, disappear and reappear again and again during the period of written 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 the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many generations. ”

“ And, indeed, without something of this instinct—this sense of an intrinsic traditional humanity persisting through particular progressive variations, this belief in a co-equality of at least some minds through all the succession of human ages in what we call the historic period—what were the past of mankind to us much more than a history of dogs or ruminants? ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have but to turn our gaze to humanity’s blood-stained history to realize that nothing short of intense mental as well as physical agony has been able to precipitate those epoch-making changes that constitute the greatest landmarks in the history of human civilization.
Great and far-reaching as have been those changes in the past, they cannot but appear, when viewed in their proper perspective, except as subsidiary adjustments preluding that transformation of unparalleled majesty and scope which humanity is in this age bound to undergo. ”

“ With all the ardour of our hearts, we appeal to the leaders of all nations to seize this opportune moment and take irreversible steps to convoke this world meeting. All the forces of history impel the human race towards this act which will mark for all time the dawn of its long-awaited maturity. ”

“ Under these two different forms, therefore doth Tradition reveal to us the primitive world, or in other words, these are the two grand conditions of humanity which fill the records of primitive history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each human soul in which this power of life is has “its secrets and histories and marvels of destiny, heaven's splendors are over its dead, hell's terrors are under its feet, tragedies and poetries are in it, and a history for eternity.” Every social organism, every grand national aggregation of lives but generalizes the history of the individual, and thus the history of all life and of all living, whether in individuals, families, societies or nations, is one history, and that history the record of its conflicts, its defeats, its victories. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are writing this introduction in an effort to make our word pictures of mankind and its doings correspond with the facts of social history. With the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, it is high time for us to exchange the clouds of fancy and the flowers of rhetoric for the solid ground of historical reality. The word "civilization" must generalize what has been and what is, as nearly as the past and present can be embodied in language. ”

“ It does not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of language and tradition, of thought and habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that has animated the human race. It insists upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other. Its watchword is unity in diversity”. ”

“ Do we find a different state of things in the history of peoples, which man, in his anthropocentric presumption, loves to call “the history of the world”? Do we find in every phase of it a lofty moral principle or a wise ruler, guiding the destinies of nations? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, like the State, embodied history; and as such lives with its own life, a life transcending and embracing that of the individual souls of which it is built. And here, in its combined social and historic character, lie the sources alike of its enormous importance for human life and of its inevitable defects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The various springs from which human action flows, the various types which human crises produce, the virtues and the vices which great historic conflicts heat into activity—all these features of social motion, never jointly reproduced in works of history, are here drawn in vivid colors and present a historic canvas that is prime in the domain of literature. ”

“ The great movements in the troublous advance of the nations from barbarism to civilization are full of lessons which we must learn. History, regarded as a series of wars, an unceasing fury of bloodshed and misgovernment, is of slight interest to peace-loving people. But history as a series of pictures, showing the conditions of life in various ages and countries, picturing the spread of liberty and equality, and the slow yet sure increase of justice—history viewed in this manner is one of the most stirring and educative subjects for reading and study. ”

“ The story of how we have come by our inheritance of freedom, of the age-long upward struggle of mankind, this above all should furnish the inspiration and the guidance for our service of the present. For this reason, emphasis should be laid upon the history of peoples rather than of states, upon the movement of social life rather than upon historical biography. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And we add, as a new and farther limitation, that we shall confine ourselves to the simple and obvious traces of civilization which have come down to us; employing only our own History,—that of civilized Europe, as the existing domain of Culture ”

“ 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. ”

“ The religions brought to mankind by a succession of spiritual luminaries have been the primary link between humanity and that ultimate reality, and have galvanized and refined mankind’s capacity to achieve spiritual success together with social progress.
No serious attempt to set human affairs aright, to achieve world peace, can ignore religion. Man’s perception and practice of it are largely the stuff of history. An eminent historian described religion as a “faculty of human nature”. ”

“ We must live by our historic sense, by some ideal of a future for our nation; the people must have some vision of a glorious future, and not be expected to see only an unending vista of problems and labors, but this history must be understood and taught intimately and appreciatively and not merely objectively and logically. ”

“ Historical particulars can only serve to characterize the inward motives, the prevailing opinions, the decisive moments, the critical points in the progress of human society; and thus place more vividly before our eyes the peculiar character of every age—each step of mankind in intellectual refinement and moral improvement. ”

“ The teaching that we should treat others as we ourselves would wish to be treated, an ethic variously repeated in all the great religions, lends force to this latter observation in two particular respects: it sums up the moral attitude, the peace-inducing aspect, extending through these religions irrespective of their place or time of origin; it also signifies an aspect of unity which is their essential virtue, a virtue mankind in its disjointed view of history has failed to appreciate. ”

“ In this general survey, we must confine ourselves to those mighty and celebrated nations who have attained [73] to a high degree of intellectual excellence; and we shall select and briefly state remarkable traits or extraordinary historical facts illustrative of the manners, social institutions, political refinement, and even political history of every nation, worthy of occupying a place in this sketch, in order the better to mark the progress of the intellectual principle in the peculiar culture and modes of thinking of each. ”

“ Our own brief history as a nation, and our finding and founding and maintaining of it, left our forefathers little time indeed for the delicate cultivation of the arts and graces of refined and scholarly attainments. ”

“ LECTURE XV. General observations on the Philosophy of History.—On the corrupt state of society in the fifteenth century.—Origin of Protestantism, and character of the times of the Reformation.
The Philosophy of History—that is to say, the right comprehension of its wonderful course, the solution and illustration of its mighty problems, and of the complex enigmas of humanity, and its destiny in the lapse of ages—is not to be found in isolated events, or detached historical facts, but in the principles of social progress. ”

“ History, which, like charity, best begins at home, but, like charity, should not end there, will ramify into anthropology, archaeology, political history, and geography, with the history of the growth of the human mind and of its products in the shape of philosophy, science, and art. ”