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is supplanted by that wiser humility which tells us that "all the world is a wiser man than any man in the world." The individual is seen to be but the nursling of Humanity, and the present as the product of the past. The atomic theory of the race is superseded by the dynamic, thus giving the only condition under which history can assume the dignity of a science. It is studied not as an aggregate of atoms, but as a complex of powers. The race is viewed in the Christian aspect of its unity, and not in the infidel aspect of a mere flock of individuals. It is imaged forth, now, as the life of one man, in its successive periods of youth, of manhood, and of maturity; now, as a growth, through all its stages, like that of a tree with its blossoms and its fruit; again, as a constant ascent in a spiral, steadily aspiring, in spite of alternations, to a high consummation; or, yet again, as the orderly development of one consecutive plan, embracing all nations and races in their progress towards some adequate ultimate end. What is called its antiquity, is seen to be but its youth; antiquitas sæculi, juventus mundi; and its most youthful races are recognized as its most mature, having the heritage of the past. And the object of the whole historic course, the grand historic problem of the destiny of the race; what is it for? whither doth it tend? is inquired after with an earnestness which betokens its impor

tance.

And accordingly we find the so-called philosophy of history assuming an unwonted space in the meditations of the contemplative, as well as in the dreams of the ardent. Every leading tendency of the times, philosophical, religious, political, moral, and even literary and aesthetic, attempts to justify itself on historic grounds, to construct its philosophy of history. Not mere abstract reason and right are appealed to, but also the concrete testimony of history. The European absolutist and democrat are equally confident on historic grounds. Gervinus. is subjected to judicial accusation for lighting that dry light in which he showed that the course of history has been ever, through aristocracy and monarchy, to a democratic rule, in the land in which Schlegel was applauded for teaching, that the supremacy of the Roman Catholic hierarchy is the sense and aim of the historic course. And the revived activity of the

Roman Catholic literature, under Bonald and De Maistre in France, Möhler and Moliter in Germany, Balmes in Spain, Wiseman and Newman in England, has planted itself on this field of investigation, as on no other. By the great modern Protestant theologians and historians, especially of Germany, the very sphere of controversy with the enemies of our faith has been transferred, from the speculative to the historic domain; and our political and social theorists also feel the necessity of finding at least the fulcrum for their levers in that which has been and is. It is almost unconsciously assumed, that every legitimate speculation in respect to government and society, must authenticate its claims by the sure word of history, ere it can be received as a prophecy. Nor is this tendency excluded even from the purely speculative sciences; for from Schelling to Hegel, we have elaborate attempts to show that the whole of history has been ever laboring in the throes of birth with their systems, as the best progeny of time.

This characteristic of modern thought, which has led it to throw itself so resolutely upon the solution of the historic problem of the race, is not accidental, and therefore it is not likely to be transient. It is not the product of enthusiasm alone, nor has it been dissipated in mere imaginations. It is rather to be regarded as a legitimate product of that movement of the human mind, inaugurated by the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The most general characteristic of that movement, as exemplified, though not exhausted, in its religious reforms, may be said, perhaps, to have been the application of the inductive, in distinction from the too exclusively logical, method of investigation to all the spheres of human knowledge. We call Bacon the father of the Inductive Philosophy, but his service consisted in applying to the study of nature that very method which all the leading reformers had previously applied to the Church and to theology. They only went back to the authentic facts and documents to get at the laws and principles of ecclesiastical authority; they went back from the later to the earlier Fathers, and from these to the original source in the Divine Word. And so Bacon bid men go to nature, to study its authentic records, if they would know what nature was. Thus Descartes taught men to study the mind, if they would know the mind. To know what anything is, you must study that thing

itself; first the facts, and then the laws and principles. From the facts learn the laws, and by the laws read the facts; this is the substance of that inductive method which was applied in successive order to the church, to nature, to the mind, to polities, and which is now, in a natural and necessary order, engrossing attention in social inquiries. And last and most difficult of all, it is applied to the solution of the historic problem of the race; in the facts of history to find its laws, and by those laws to read its facts, and to attempt to forecast its destiny. The very pressure of the inductive philosophy leads us to this high inquiry, and it has come up last in order, not only because man must have had a history before he can have a philosophy of history, but also because this is the central stream into which all these other investigations flow.

Of the possibility of such a philosophy of history grave doubts are indeed entertained. The vastness of the problem is confronted with the littleness of our knowledge. The fact that history moves in the sphere of human freedom, leads many to say with Kant, "that even if one should find that humanity has been always advancing, no one could say but that it might to-day begin to decay; for that we have here to do with free beings to whom we may indeed prescribe what they ought to do, but of whom we cannot predict what they will do." And it further seems improbable, that any one could have both that scope of knowledge and that scope of generalization, which are essential in the working out of so broad an investigation. Will not the very pressure of the inquiry force from the brain its own coinage, rather than the image and superscription of the reality itself? And has the race run so far in its course, that we can see the end from the beginning, and that a definitive solution. of its historic destiny is possible? While it may be true, as Dugald Stuart argues, that the largest generalizations about human affairs are of the readiest application, is it not also true, that they are to be made with the utmost reserve, since they can only be made with the utmost difficulty?

And to these general scruples are added, the doubts especially of Protestant Christians, as they see how the extreme conservative and the extreme radical tendencies of the day, the Romanist on the one hand and the infidel on the other, have

been most prodigal of such theories. The latter assumes that the day of Christianity is past, that its night has come, and that "through the shadow of that night" the world is "sweeping into a new and younger day," to be ushered in by reorganization of society in church and in state. The Romanist as confidently maintains, that the ultra-montane view of the Church is the central idea in human history and destiny. And both equally predict and labor for the extermination of our Protestant Christianity. And so it is hardly strange, when history is made to read only such lessons, that many wise men are made willing, in faith, to let the historic problem work itself out, as it is most surely doing, without their aid or comfort.

But if Christian and Protestant men neglect such investigations, will not many ardent minds lend a willing ear to the bold generalizations of both papist and infidel? Will not many an imagination be set on fire by the dream of a splendid hierarchy, or by the vision of an occidental republic? And did not alchemy precede chemistry; and did not astrology anticipate astronomy?

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And while we fear, as well we may, the presumption of grappling with the historic problem itself, and propounding a solution of it, are we not, by this sketch of the nature and sent state of these inquiries, prompted and authorized to ask: What is the real problem of investigation in the philosophy of history? What are the conditions of the right solution of that problem? And in what sequence of historical events must that solution be found, if at all? To such preliminary questions as these, it may be the part of wisdom, and not of arrogance, to give an earnest heed. And even if Protestant Christianity is too reverential to attempt definitely to solve the historic problem, there may at least be a vital necessity for its showing, that the theories of its two instinctive foes are premature, and not conformed to the demands of science in this high region of research.

What, then, is the real problem which the philosophy of history attempts to solve?

The philosophy of history proposes to treat history as a branch of science. This takes for granted, that it is susceptible of a scientific exposition; that from the study of its facts,

we can come to a knowledge of its laws and principles. It supposes, also, that only through the facts, can we come to a knowledge of its principles; that in a legitimate way the inductive method can be applied to these facts; and that the induction must precede the deduction, or the application of the historic laws to any future possible cases. The inquiry, then, is the same in kind with that in any other branch of philosophy. It may be more difficult, the causes more complex, and the mass of facts greater; but the process of investigation must be the same as in all the inductive sciences, and that is, from the facts learn the principles, and by the principles read the past, and, if possible, forecast the future.

The facts of human history do indeed cover a long tract of time, and a large sphere of space. They constitute one vast, progressive, connected series of events, having the earth for its material basis, time for its condition, moral freedom for its essential element, and the final destiny of the race for its end. They are the product of human freedom, but so far as they are facts, they have come out of the region of mere possibility into that of reality, and are proper subjects of investigation. Supernatural elements may be intermingled with the natural, but still, as extant in history, we may lawfully inquire for their origin and aim. This body of facts comprises whatever has been done or suffered by man's myriad tribes, so far as the record has survived, from the beginning until the most recent times. And it is with this body of facts, that the philosophy of history has to do; and, as a philosophy, the question it has to answer about them is one and simple, however difficult may be the answer; and it is this: What is the destiny of the race, as that is contained in, and may be inferred from, the whole history of the race? The historic problem is without significance, unless it be understood as seeking for the rational grounds, order and ends of that which has actually occurred in the history of the race.

Many of the so-called philosophies of history have chiefly failed, from not keeping in view the only legitimate object of their investigation. They have not let history explain itself, they have laid their own theories to the judgment of it. They have not sought to infer the destiny of man from his

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