Upper world

“ 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. ”

“ I have seen the capitals of the old world illuminated, when the masters of kingdoms and empires tried to honor themselves in honoring each other; artificial suns baffling the moonlight, thousands of rockets mocking the stars ”

“ For on that day men from Europe, then the centre of civilization, first gazed on a rich new land beyond the seas, a great virgin continent, destined to become the seat of flourishing civilizations and to play a leading part in the later history of the world. ”

“ Questions of exhibited type, questions as to a range of form and tradition, a measure of sensibility and activity, not our own, dwindled and died before the gross fact of our having here an example of such a world-tragedy as we supposed Europe had outlived, and that nothing at all therefore mattered but that we should bravely and handsomely hold up our quite heavy enough end of it. ”

“ Look at the high and the low, all the world over, and it's the same story,—the lower class used up, body, soul and spirit, for the good of the upper. ”

“ She would rise to the loftier table-land of that really great world which governs and admonishes the ruck of mankind by examples of noble deeds and noble thoughts; the world of statesmen, and soldiers, and thinkers, and reformers; the salt wherewithal society is salted. ”

“ Recalling the history of knowledge and history per se, we can say that the European Occident achieved the meaning of knowledge and world control, while the Orient achieved self-knowledge and self-control. ”

“ All around, as the sun sinks and the cool shadows quench the hot light on the white pavements, the ever-increasing crowds of men—always more men than women—move inward, half unconsciously, out of inborn instinct, to the Forum, the centre of the Empire, the middle of the world, the [Pg 96] boiling-point of the whole earth's riches and strength and life. ”

“ Sundry sturdy European ideas, transplanted into this western soil, have triumphed over all competitors and thriven so mightily as to react upon all parts of the Old World, some more, some less, and thus to modify the whole course of civilization. ”

“ Such is the riddle of America, which, for some time past, has been steadily forcing itself upon the attention of Europe. To arrive at an answer, we must know whether the influence of a too swift economic development of the New World upon the higher activities of the mind, upon morals, upon science, art, and religion is beneficial or the reverse. ”

“ In them the old truth of the oneness of humanity is once more made manifest and we see that the magnificent altruism, the spirit of inquiry, and the almost morbid desire for self-searching and analysis that characterize the opening years of the Twentieth Century were not peculiar to Europe or to America, but were universal and belonged to the world, to the East as well as to the West. ”

“ At the beginning of the next period another great man appeared, the waves of whose power were felt over the whole world, and who, by the grandeur of his conceptions, power and executive will, rose from obscurity to dictate to Europe, which was at that time the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moreover, the endeavour to realize this ambition follows with inner necessity in the case of all political organizations that call themselves world empires, particularly at the period of their zenith and of an increasing consciousness of power. ”

“ We may conclude our work, by a retrospective view of society, considered in reference to that invisible world and higher region, from which the operations of this visible world proceed, in which its great destinies have their root, and which is the ultimate and highest term of all its movements. ”

“ As he excelled in these humble arts, just so did he add to his power over his less progressive fellows and lay the foundations for the first glimmering civilizations — crude they were beyond conception, sporadic and ephemeral, but each formed a necessary part of the groundwork upon which was to rise the mighty civilization of our latter-day world. ”

“ Forrest, and at the present moment, viewing the state of Europe, looking at the fact that at this very time two of the largest nations in the world are carrying on a deadly strife; that on either side deeds of daring have been done, which we all admire, and by which we are all fascinated--and why? Because the human mind admired daring and enterprise. ”

“ For by country we understand a definitely bounded tract of land, definitely limited interests, a definitely circumscribed history; but by party in this sense we understand a system of ideas which, from their very nature, are not confined to any place—world-wide thoughts, the great general interests of humanity. ”

“ Race and language, culture and government, border line and climate, religion and economic system, are each an influence, and, together, [120] they shape the people in face and habit till they walk the earth with a new stride and look out on the world with different eyes from those of any people elsewhere. ”

“ Here, at length, we reach a point of view from which the general bearing of the New World on the parallel growth of European economics and politics on the one hand, and of religious theory, philosophical thought, and scientific advancement on the other, might be brought under observation. ”

“ For example, if Nations abstained from stealing, what need were there of fighting,—with its butcherings and burnings, decidedly the most expensive thing in this world? How much more two Nations, which, as I said, are but one Nation; knit in a thousand ways by Nature and Practical Intercourse ”

“ By the fourth great power of the world I mean the mighty commonwealth of the western continent, which now commands the admiration of mankind. That homage is sometimes reluctantly given, and is sometimes accompanied with suspicion and ill-will. ”

“ The masters of Europe might quarrel among themselves. 2. Non-Europeans might set up rival wealth power centers and challenge Europe's world hegemony. 3. Colonials and other dependants might demand independence, and equal status in the family of nations. 4. Rootless middle classes and the wretched of the earth might join forces and pull down western civilization's house of cards. Western civilization, like its predecessors, was accepting and following one central principle: expand, grab and keep. ”

“ We, who are accustomed to applaud our civilization as the hope of the world, may well look across the water and take suggestions from the institutions of Great Britain, not with the idea of imitation, but with a view to consider the forces at work there. ”

“ And, lo! at last here is a great continent, virgin, fertile, a land of sun and shower and bloom, discovered, organized into a great nation, with a government flexible in a distributed home rule, stiff as steel in a central power, already rich, already powerful. It is a land of promise. The materials are all here. Will you repeat the old experiment of a material success and a moral and spiritual failure? Or will you make it what humanity has passionately longed for? Only good individual lives can do that. ”

“ And this function is particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole civilisation is, to a much greater degree than the civilisation of Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to become more so. ”

“ and because we cannot shake off from our shoes this dust of Europe and Asia, the world seems to be born old, society is under a spell, every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical, and literature a quotation; ”

“ In the great wild West, way out there, where some of the best easterners by leaving their homes and their comforts therein, and enduring all the hardships of pioneering life they succeeded at last to put a solid foundation of a new and perma [Pg 95] nent civilization astonishingly wonderful not only in the development of this great land of liberty but revolutionizing the whole commercial and social system of the world. ”

“ If this general efficiency and spontaneity of the people—the union of the sense of freedom with the love of knowledge—isn't the very essence of a high civilization, I don't know what a high civilization is. ”

“ Hence it was that due rewards, and the various works of civilization, were displayed in such vast abundance in those times. For these later ages, the enlarged boundaries of the habitable world, and the vast extent of our empire, have been a positive injury. ”

“ Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with, civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles, and were, indeed, the result of both combined: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion. ”

“ May we take it for granted that western civilization has turned its corner or may we assume that it is still replete with the possibilities of further maneuver, development and expansion? Perhaps the best way to approach the problem would be to ask three questions: What contribution has western civilization made to human nature, to human society and to mother nature, and what further contribution can it make in the foreseeable future? ”

“ In yonder mountains, as tenantless, as forbidding, as inaccessible, and almost as unexplored as when they were first upheaved from the tortured breast of chaos, there reposed the golden power which, in the hands of David Morning, was to change the economic and social relations of mankind, and, possibly, the governments, the boundaries, and the history of nations. ”

“ And more and more each day Would men more strong in sense, more wise in heart, Teach them to change their earlier mode and life By fire and new devices. Kings began Cities to found and citadels to set, As strongholds and asylums for themselves, And flocks and fields to portion for each man After the beauty, strength, and sense of each— For beauty then imported much, and strength Had its own rights supreme. ”

“ THE close of the sixteenth century saw western Europe undergoing a curious and comfortable change. Civilization, with her handmaid, luxury, and her schoolmaster, the printing-press, had seduced the souls of men. ”

“ The world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer bought than those of war. ”

“ Out of this stir and agitation came the aggressive, conquering spirit that carried civilization straight across the continent, that built up cities and States, that developed wealth, and by invention, ingenuity, and energy performed miracles in the way of the subjugation of nature and the assimilation of societies. Out of this free agitation sprang a literary product, great in quantity and to some degree distinguished in quality, groups of historians, poets, novelists, essayists, biographers, scientific writers. ”

“ To observe the origin of civilization—the gradual progress of society, and the refinements of manners, policy, morality and religion—to observe the progress of mankind from simplicity to luxury, from luxury to effeminacy, and the gradual steps of the decline of empire, and the dissolution of states and kingdoms, must blend that happy union of instruction and entertainment, which never fails to win our attention to the pursuit of all subjects. ”

“ Commerce, religion, politics, capital and labor, education, our whole social fabric, must be affected more or less. Occident and Orient stand face to face at last, and the meeting must signalize a notable era in the history of mankind. ”

“ Wherever, Eusebius, this portrait was taken, it was, and is, an epitome, an emblem of high civilisation. It speaks so plainly of all exemption from toil and care, of the unapproachableness of danger. There is living elegance in a garden of peace. It is, in fact, the type of civilisation. What! will the economist, the philosopher of our day, be ready to say,—Civilisation amongst Chinese and Tartars! and that centuries perhaps ago. Civilisation is “The Nineteenth Century!” The glory of the Nineteenth Century is the Press. We are Civilisation. ”

“ Such conclusions, based on history, are underlined by current experience with the over-ballyhooed, over-priced variant of the life pattern which signs itself western civilization. Dating from the Crusades a thousand years ago, western civilization has been promoted, built up and carried forward by the blood, sweat and tears of credulous, hopeful, eager human beings. ”

“ Almost all the signs which, according to the above paragraphs, distinguish a higher stage of civilization from a lower, may be shown within the limits of the same age and nation to characterize the upper classes as compared with the lower. ”

“ Yes, yes, I see it all—an enormous social activity, a mighty civilization, an accumulation of science, of art, of industry, of morality, and afterwards, when we have filled the world with industrial marvels, with great factories, with roads, with museums, with libraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will endure—for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man? ”

“ The art of this land—or these lands, if you like—should be so considered; not as an interesting and even stimulating by-product of social, industrial, and political evolution, with only an accidental relationship to them, and only an empirical interest for the men of to-day, but as the most perfect material expression of the great{14} reality that existed through and by these agencies that were in themselves nothing; the character that emerged through the turmoil of human activity, as it shows itself in the men and women of the time, and expresses itself in their art. ”