CHAPTER XII

THE OLD GREEK LIFE

The Old Greek Life Was the Starting Point of Western Civilization.—Civilization is a continuous movement—hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.

Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress.

Another great distinction in the development of European civilization was the recognition of humanity. In ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. Even the old tribal government was for the few. The national government was for selected citizens only. Specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. This invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. The broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. If he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. If he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. On the other hand, the triumph of Western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations for which he is fitted. While the Greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of Egypt and Asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the Oriental influences. They had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life.

The Aegean Culture Preceded the Coming of the Greeks.—Spreading over the islands of the Aegean Sea was a pre-Greek civilization known as Minoan. Its highest centre of development was in the Island of Crete, whose principal city was Cnossos. Whence these people came and what their ethnological classification are still unsettled.[1] They had a number of centres of development, which varied somewhat in type of culture. They were a dark-haired people, who probably came from Africa or Asia Minor, settling in Crete about 5,000 years B.C. It is thought by some that the Etruscans of Italy were of Aegean origin. Prior to the Minoans there existed a Neolithic culture throughout the islands of Greece.

In the great city of Cnossos, which was sacked and burned about the fourteenth century B.C., were found ruins which show a culture of relatively high degree. By the excavations in Crete at this point a stratum of earth twenty feet thick was discovered, in which were found evidences of all grades of civilization, from the Neolithic implements to the highest Minoan culture. Palaces with frescoes and carvings, ornaments formed of metal and skilfully wrought vases with significant colorings, all evinced a civilization worthy of intensive study. These people had developed commerce and trade with Egypt, and their boats passed along the shores of the Mediterranean, carrying their civilization to Italy, northern Africa, and everywhere among the islands of Greece, as well as on the mainland. The cause of the decline of their civilization is not known, unless it could be attributed to the Greek pirates who invaded their territory, and possibly, like all nations that decline, they were beset by internal maladies which marked their future destiny. Possibly, high specialization along certain lines of life rendered them unadaptable to new conditions, and they passed away because of this lack.

The Greeks Were of Aryan Stock.—Many thousand years ago there appeared along the shores of the Baltic, at the beginning of the Neolithic period of culture, a group of people who seem to have come from central Asia. It is thought by some that these were at least the forerunners of the great Nordic race. Whatever conjectures there may be as to their origin, it is known that about 2,000 years before Christ, wandering tribes extended from the Baltic region far eastward to the Caspian Sea, to the north of Persia, down to the borderland of India. These people were of Caucasian features, with fair hair and blue eyes—a type of the Nordic race. They were known as the Aryan branch of the Caucasian race. Whether this was their primitive abode, or whether their ancestors had come at a much earlier time from a central home in northern Africa, which is considered by ethnologists as the centre from which developed the Caucasian race, is not known.

They were not a highly cultured people, but were living a nomadic life, engaged in hunting, fishing, piratical exploits, and carrying on agriculture intermittently. They had also become acquainted with the use of metals, having passed during this period from the Neolithic into the Bronze Age. About the year 1500 B.C. they had become acquainted with iron, and about the same time had come into possession of the horse, probably through their contact with central Asia.

The social life of these people was very simple. While they undoubtedly met and mingled with many tribes, they had a language sufficiently common for ordinary intercourse. They had no writing or means of records at all, but depended upon the recital of deeds of warriors and nations and tribes. Wherever the Aryan people have been found, whether in Greece, Italy, Germany, along the Danube, central Asia, or India, they have been noted for their epics, sagas, and vedas, which told the tales of historic deeds and exploits of the tribal or national life. It is thought that this was the reason they developed such a strong and beautiful language.

They came in contact with Semitic civilization in northern Persia, with the primitive tribes in Italy, with the Dravidian peoples of India, and represented the vigorous fighting power of the Scythians, Medes, and Persians. They or their kindred later moved up the Danube into Spain and France, with branches into Germany and Russia, and others finally into the British Islands. It was a branch of these people that came into the Grecian peninsula and overthrew and supplanted the Aegean civilization—where they were known as the Greeks.

The Coming of the Greeks.—It is not known when they came down through Asia Minor. Not earlier than 2000 B.C. nor later than 1500 B.C. the invasion began. In successive waves came the Phrygians, Aeolians, the Ionians, and the Dorians—different divisions of the same race. Soon they spread over the mainland of Greece and all the surrounding islands, and established their trading cities along the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. These people, though uncultured, seemed to absorb culture wherever they went. They learned the methods of the civilization that had been established in the Orient wherever they came in contact with other peoples, and also in the Aegean country. In fact, though they conquered and occupied the Aegean country, they took on the best of the Minoan civilization.[2] As marauders, pirates, and conquerors, they were masterful, but they came in conflict with the ideas developed among the Semitic people of Asia and the Hamitic of Egypt. Undoubtedly, this conquest of the Minoan civilization furnished the origin of many of the tales or folklore that afterward were woven into the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. It is not known how early in Greek life these songs originated, but it is a known fact that in the eighth century the Greeks were in possession of their epics, and at this period not only had conquered the Minoan civilization but had absorbed it so far as they had use for it.

They came into this territory in the form of the old tribal government, with their primitive social customs, and as they settled in different parts of the territory in tribes, they developed independent communities of a primitive sort. They had what was known in modern historical literature as the village community, which was always found in the primitive life of the Aryans. Their mode of life tended to develop individualism, and when the group life was established, it became independent and was lacking in co-operation—that is, it became a self-sufficient social order. Later in the development of the Greek life the individual, so far as political organization goes, was absorbed in the larger state, after it had developed from the old Greek family life. These primitive Greeks soon had a well-developed language. They began systematic agriculture, became skilled in the industrial arts, domesticated animals, and had a pure home life with religious sentiments of a high order. Wherever they went they carried with them the characteristics of nation-building and progressive life. They mastered the earth and its contents by living it down with force and vigor.

The Greek peninsula was favorably situated for development. Protected on the north by a mountain range from the rigors of a northern climate and from the predatory tribes, with a range of mountains through the centre, with its short spurs cutting the entire country into valleys, in which were developed independent community states, circumstances were favorable to local self-government of the several tribes. This independent social life was of great importance in the development of Greek thought. In the north the grains and cereals were grown, and in the south the citrus and the orange. This wide range from a temperate to a semi-tropical climate furnished a variety of fruits and diversity of life which gave great opportunity for development. The variety of scenery caused by mountain and valley and proximity to the sea, the thousand islands washed by the Aegean Sea, brought a new life which tended to impress the sensitive mind of the Greek and to develop his imagination and to advance culture in art.

Character of the Primitive Greeks.—The magnificent development of the Greeks in art, literature, philosophy, and learning, together with the fortunate circumstance of having powerful writers, gives us rather an exaggerated notion of the Greeks, if we attempt to apply a lofty manner and a magnificent culture to the Homeric period. They had a good deal of piratical boldness, and, after the formation of their small states, gave examples of spurts of courage such as that at Marathon and Thermopylae. Yet these evidences were rare exceptions rather than the rule, for even the Spartan, trained on a military basis, seldom evinced any great degree of bravery. Perhaps the gloomy forebodings of the future, characteristic of the Greeks, made them fear death, and consequently caused them to lack in courage. However, this is a disputed point. Pages of the earlier records are full of the sanction of deception of enemies, friends, and strangers. Evidently, there was a low moral sense regarding truth. While the Greek might be loyal to his family and possibly to his tribe, there are many examples of disloyalty to one another, and, in the later development, a disloyalty of one state toward another. Excessive egoism seems to have prevailed, and this principle was extended to the family and local government group. Each group appeared to look out for its own interests, irrespective of the welfare of others. How much a united Greece might have done to have continued the splendors and the service of a magnificent civilization is open to conjecture.

The Greeks were not sympathetic with children nor with the aged. Far from being anxious to preserve the life of the aged, their greatest trouble was in disposing of them. The honor and rights of women were not observed. In war women were the property of their captors. Yet the home life of the Greeks seems to have been in its purity and loyalty an advance on the Oriental home life. In their treatment of servants and slaves, in the care of the aged and helpless, the Greeks were cold and without compassion. While the poets, historians, and philosophers have been portraying with such efficiency the character of the higher classes; while they have presented such a beautiful exterior of the old Greek life; the Greeks, in common with other primitive peoples, were not lacking in coarseness, injustice, and cruelty in their internal life. Here, as elsewhere in the beginnings of civilization, only the best of the real and the ideal of life was represented, while the lower classes were suffering a degraded life.

The family was closely organized in Greece. Monogamic marriage and the exclusive home life prevailed at an early time. The patriarchal family, in which the oldest male member was chief and ruler, was the unit of society. Within this group were the house families, formed whenever a separate marriage took place and a separate altar was erected. The house religion was one of the characteristic features of Greek life. Each family had its own household gods, its own worship, its private shrine. This tended to unify the family and promote a sacred family life. A special form of ancestral worship, from the early Aryan house-spirit worship, prevailed to a certain extent. The worship of the family expanded with the expansion of social life. Thus the gens, and the tribe, and the city when founded, had each its separate worship. Religion formed a strong cement to bind the different social units of a tribe together. The worship of the Greeks was associated with the common meal and the pouring of libations to the gods.

As religion became more general, it united to make a more common social practice, and in the later period of Greek life was made the basis of the games and general social gatherings. Religion brought the Greeks together in a social way, and finally led to the mutual advantage of members of society. Later, mutual advantage superseded religion in its practice. The Greeks, at an early period, attempted to explain the origin of the earth and unknown phenomena by referring it to the supernatural powers. Every island had its myth, every phenomenon its god, and every mountain was the residence of some deity. They sought to find out the causes of the creation of the universe, and developed a theogony. There was the origin of the Greeks to be accounted for, and then the origin of the earth, and the relation of man to the deities. Everything must be explained, but as the imagination was especially strong, it was easier to create a god as a first cause than to ascertain the development of the earth by scientific study.

Influence of Old Greek Life.—In all of the traditions and writings descriptive of the old Greek social life, with the exception of the Works and Days of Hesiod, the aristocratic class appears uppermost. Hesiod "pictures a hopeless and miserable existence, in which care and the despair of better things tended to make men hard and selfish and to blot out those fairer features which cannot be denied to the courts and palaces of the Iliad and Odyssey." It appears that the foundation of aristocracy—living in comparative luxury, in devotion to art and the culture of life—was early laid by the side of the foundation of poverty and wretchedness of the great mass of the people. While, then, the Greeks derived from their ancestry the beautiful pictures of heroic Greece, they inherited the evils of imperfect social conditions. As we pass to the historical period of Greece, these different phases of life appear and reappear in changeable forms. If to the nobleman life was full of inspiration; if poetry, religion, art, and politics gave him lofty thoughts and noble aspirations; to the peasant and the slave, life was full of misery and degradation. If one picture is to be drawn in glowing colors, let not the other be omitted.

The freedom from great centralized government, the development of the individual life, the influences of the early ideas of art and life, and the religious conceptions, were of great importance in shaping the Greek philosophy and the Greek national character. They had a tendency to develop men who could think and act. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first real historical period was characterized by struggles of citizens within the town for supremacy. Fierce quarrels between the upper and the lower classes prevailed everywhere, and resulted in developing an intense hatred of the former for the latter. This hatred and selfishness became the uppermost causes of action in the development of Greek social polity. Strife led to compromise, and this in turn to the recognition of the rights and privileges of different classes.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The Aegean culture.

2. The relation of Greek to Egyptian culture.

3. What were the great Greek masterpieces of (a) Literature, (b) Sculpture, (c) Architecture, (d) Art, (e) Philosophy?

4. Compare Greek democracy with American democracy.

5. What historical significance have Thermopylae, Marathon, Alexandria, Crete, and Delphi?

[1] Sergi, in his Mediterranean Race, says that they came from N. E. Africa. Beginning about 5000 years B.C., they gradually infiltrated the whole Mediterranean region. This is becoming the general belief among ethnologists, archaeologists, and historians.

[2] Recent studies indicate that some of the Cretan inscriptions are prototypes of the Greece-Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenicians evidently derived the original characters of their alphabet from a number of sources. The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet about 800-1000 B.C.

CHAPTER XIII

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The Transition from Theology to Inquiry.—The Greek theology prepared the way for the Ionian philosophy. The religious opinions led directly up to the philosophy of the early inquirers. The Greeks passed slowly from accepting everything with a blind faith to the rational inquiry into the development of nature. The beginnings of knowing the scientific causes were very small, and sometimes ridiculous, yet they were of immense importance. To take a single step from the "age of credulity" toward the "age of reason" was of great importance to Greek progress. To cease to accept on faith the statements that the world was created by the gods, and ordered by the gods, and that all mysteries were in their hands, and to endeavor to find out by observation of natural phenomena something of the elements of nature, was to gradually break from the mythology of the past as explanatory of the creation. The first feeble attempt at this was to seek in a crude way the material structure and source of the universe.

Explanation of the Universe by Observation and Inquiry.—The Greek mind had settled down to the fact that there was absolute knowledge of truth, and that cosmogony had established the method of creation; that theogony had accounted for the creation of gods, heroes, and men, and that theology had foretold their relations. A blind faith had accepted what the imagination had pictured. But as geographical study began to increase, doubts arose as to the preconceived constitution of the earth. As travel increased and it was found that none of the terrible creatures that tradition had created inhabited the islands of the sea or coasts of the mainland, earth lost its terrors and disbelief in the system of established knowledge prevailed. Free inquiry was slowly substituted for blind credulity.

This freedom of inquiry had great influence on the intellectual development of man. It was the discovery of truth through the relation of cause and effect, which he might observe by opening his eyes and using his reason. The development of theories of the universe through tradition and the imagination gave exercise to the emotions and beliefs; but change from faith in the fixity of the past to the future by observation led to intellectual development. The exercise of faith and the imagination even in unproductive ways prepared the way for broader service of investigation. But these standing alone could permit nothing more than a childish conception of the universe. They could not discover the reign of law. They could not advance the observing and reflecting powers of man; they could not develop the stronger qualities of his intellect. Individual action would be continually stultified by the process of accepting through credulity the trite sayings of the ancients. The attempt to find out how things were made was an acknowledgment of the powers of the individual mind. It was a recognition that man has a mind to use, and that there is truth around him to be discovered. This was no small beginning in intellectual development.

The Ionian Philosophy Turned the Mind Toward Nature.—Greek philosophy began in the seventh century before Christ. The first philosopher of note was Thales, born at Miletus, in Asia Minor, about 640 B.C. Thales sought to establish the idea that water is the first principle and cause of the universe. He held that water is filled with life and soul, the essential element in the foundation of all nature. Thales had great learning for his time, being well versed in geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. He travelled in Egypt and the Orient, and became acquainted with ancient lore. It is said that being impressed with the importance of water in Egypt, where the Nile is the source of all life, he was led to assert the importance of water in animate nature. In his attempts to break away from the old cosmogony, he still exhibits traces of the old superstitions, for he regarded the sun and stars as living beings, who received their warmth and life from the ocean, in which they bathed at the time of setting. He held that the whole world was full of soul, manifested in individual daemons, or spirits. Puerile as his philosophy appears in comparison with the later development of Greek philosophy, it created violent antagonism with mythical theology and led the way to further investigation and speculation.

Anaximander, born at Miletus 611 B.C., an astronomer and geographer, following Thales chronologically, wrote a book on "Nature," the first written on the subject in the philosophy of Greece. He held that all things arose from the "infinite," a primordial chaos in which was an internal energy. From a universal mixture things arose by separation, the parts once formed remaining unchanged. The earth was cylindrical in shape, suspended in the air in the centre of the universe, and the stars and planets revolved around it, each fastened in a crystalline ring; the moon and sun revolved in the same manner, only at a farther distance. The generation of the universe was by the action of contraries, by heat and cold, the moist and the dry. From the moisture all things were originally generated by heat. Animals and men came from fishes by a process of evolution. There is evidence in his philosophy of a belief in the development of the universe by the action of heat and cold on matter. It is also evident that the principles of biology and the theory of evolution are hinted at by this philosopher. Also, he was the first to observe the obliquity of the ecliptic; he taught that the moon received its light from the sun and that the earth is round.

Anaximenes, born at Miletus 588 B.C., asserted that air was the first principle of the universe; indeed, he held that on it "the very earth floats like a broad leaf." He held that air was infinite in extent; that it touched all things, and was the source of life of all. The human soul was nothing but air, since life consists in inhaling and exhaling, and when this is no longer continued death ensues. Warmth and cold arose from rarefaction and condensation, and probably the origin of the sun and planets was caused by the rarefaction of air; but when air underwent great condensation, snow, water, and hail appeared, and, indeed, with sufficient condensation, the earth itself was formed. It was only a step further to suppose that the infinite air was the source of life, the god of the universe.

Somewhat later Diogenes of Apollonia asserted that all things originated from one essence, and that air was the soul of the world, eternal and endowed with consciousness. This was an attempt to explain the development of the universe by a conscious power. It led to the suggestion of psychology, as the mind of man was conscious air. "But that which has knowledge is what men call air; it is it that regulates all and governs all, and hence it is the use of air to pervade all, and to dispose all, and to be in all, for there is nothing that has not part in it."

Other philosophers of this school reasoned or speculated upon the probable first causes in the creation. In a similar manner Heraclitus asserted that fire was the first principle, and states as the fundamental maxim of his philosophy that "all is convertible into fire, and fire into all." There was so much confusion in his doctrines as to give him the name of "The Obscure." "The moral system of Heraclitus was based on the physical. He held that heat developed morality, moisture immorality. He accounted for the wickedness of the drunkard by his having a moist soul, and inferred that a warm, dry soul was noblest and best."

Anaxagoras taught the mechanical processes of the universe, and advanced many theories of the origin of animal life and of material objects. Anaxagoras was a man of wealth, who devoted all of his time and means to philosophy. He recognized two principles, one material and the other spiritual, but failed to connect the two, and in determining causes he came into open conflict with the religion of the times, and asserted that the "divine miracles" were nothing more than natural causes. He was condemned for his atheism and thrown into prison, but, escaping, he was obliged to end his days in exile.

Another notable example of the early Greek philosophy is found in Pythagoras, who asserted that number was the first principle. He and his followers found that the "whole heaven was a harmony of number." The Pythagoreans taught that all comes from one, but that the odd number is finite, the even infinite; that ten was a perfect number. They sought for a criterion of truth in the relation of numbers. Nothing could exist or be formed without harmony, and this harmony depended upon number, that is, upon the union of contrary elements. The musical octave was their best example to illustrate their meaning. The union of the atoms in modern chemistry illustrates in full the principle of number after which they were striving. It emphasized the importance of measurements in investigation. Much more might be said about the elaborate system of the Pythagoreans; but the main principle herein stated must suffice.

The Weakness of Ionian Philosophy.—Viewed from the modern standpoint of scientific research, the early philosophers of Greece appear puerile and insignificant. They directed their thoughts largely toward nature, but instead of systematic observation and comparison they used the speculative and hypothetical methods to ascertain truth. They had turned from the credulity of ancient tradition to simple faith in the mind to determine the nature and cause of the universe. But this was followed by a scepticism as to the sense perception, a scepticism which could only be overcome by a larger observation of facts. Simple as it appears, this process was an essential transition from the theology of the Greeks to the perfected philosophy built upon reason. The attitude of the mind was of great value, and the attention directed to external nature was sure to turn again to man, and the supernatural. While there is a mixture of the physical, metaphysical, and mystical, the final lesson to be learned is the recognition of reality of nature as external to mind.

The Eleatic Philosophers.—About 500 B.C., and nearly contemporary with the Pythagoreans, flourished the Eleatic philosophers, among whom Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus were the principal leaders. They speculated about the nature of the mind, or soul, and departed from the speculations respecting the origin of the earth. The nature of the infinite and the philosophy of being suggested by the Ionian philosophers were themes that occupied the attention of this new school. Parmenides believed in the knowledge of an absolute being, and affirmed the unity of thought and being. He won the distinction of being the first logical philosopher among the Greeks, and was called the father of idealism.

Zeno is said to have been the most remarkable of this school. He held that if there was a distinction between being and not being, only being existed. This led him to the final assumption that the laws of nature are unchangeable and God remains permanent. His method of reasoning was to reduce the opposite to absurdity.

Upon the whole, the Eleatic philosophy is one relating to knowledge and being, which considered thought primarily as dependent upon being. It holds closely to monism, that is, that nature and mind are of the same substance; yet there is a slight distinction, for there is really a dualism expressed in knowledge and being. Many other philosophers followed, who discoursed upon nature, mind, and being, but they arrived at no definite conclusions. The central idea in the early philosophy up to this time was to account for the existence and substance of nature. It gave little consideration to man in himself, and said little of the supernatural. Everything was speculative in nature, hypothetical in proposition, and deductive in argument. The Greek mind, departing from its dependence upon mythology, began boldly to assert its ability to find out nature, but ended in a scepticism as to its power to ascertain certainty. There was a final determination as to the distinction of reality as external to mind, and this represents the best product of the early philosophers.

The Sophists.—Following the Eleatics was a group of philosophers whose principle characteristic was scepticism. Man, not nature, was the central idea in their philosophy, and they changed the point of view from objective to subjective contemplation. They accomplished very little in their speculation except to shift the entire attitude of philosophy from external nature to man. They were interested in the culture of the individual, yet, in their psychological treatment of man, they relied entirely upon sense perception. In the consideration of man's ethical nature they were individualistic, considering private right and private judgment the standards of truth. They led the way to greater speculation in this subject and to a higher philosophy.

Socrates the First Moral Philosopher (b. 469 B.C.).—Following the sophists in the progressive development of philosophy, Socrates turned his attention almost exclusively to human nature. He questioned all things, political, ethical, and theological, and insisted upon the moral worth of the individual man. While he cast aside the nature studies of the early philosophy and repudiated the pseudo-wisdom of the sophists, he was not without his own interpretation of nature. He was interested in questions pertaining to the order of nature and the wise adaptation of means to an end. Nature is animated by a soul, yet it is considered as a wise contrivance for man's benefit rather than a living, self-determining organism. In the subordination of all nature to the good, Socrates lays the foundation of natural theology.

But the ethical philosophy of Socrates is more prominent and positive. He asserted that scientific knowledge is the sole condition to virtue; that vice is ignorance. Hence virtue will always follow knowledge because they are a unity. His ethical principles are founded on utility, the good of which he speaks is useful, and is the end of individual acts and aims. Wisdom is the foundation of all virtues; indeed, every virtue is wisdom.

Socrates made much of friendship and love, and thought temperance to be the fundamental virtue. Without temperance, men were not useful to themselves or to others, and temperance meant the complete mastery of self. Friendship and love were cardinal points in the doctrine of ethical life. The proper conduct of life, justice in the treatment of man by his fellow-man, and the observance of the duties of citizenship, were part of the ethical philosophy of Socrates.

Beauty is only another name for goodness, but it is only a harmony or adaptation of means to an end. The Socratic method of ascertaining truth by the art of suggestive questioning was a logical mode of procedure. The meeting of individuals in conversation was a method of arriving at the truth of ethical conduct and ethical relations. It was made up of induction and definition. No doubt the spirit of his teaching was sceptical in the extreme. While having a deeper sense of the reality of life than others, he realized that he did not know much. He criticized freely the prevailing beliefs, customs, and religious practice. For this he was accused of impiety, and forced to drink the hemlock. With an irony in manner and thought, Socrates introduced the problem of self-knowledge; he hastened the study of man and reason; he instituted the doctrine of true manhood as an essential part in the philosophy of life. Conscience was enthroned, and the moral life of man began with Socrates.

Platonic Philosophy Develops the Ideal.—Plato was the pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. These three represent the culmination of Greek philosophy. In its fundamental principles the Platonic philosophy represents the highest flight of the mind in its conception of being and of the nature of mind and matter, entertained by the philosophers. The doctrine of Plato consisted of three primary principles: matter, ideas, and God. While matter is co-eternal with God, he created all animate and inanimate things from matter. Plato maintained that there was a unity in design. And as God was an independent and individual creator of the world, who fashioned the universe, and is father to all creatures, there was unity in God. Plato advanced the doctrine of reminiscences, in which he accounted for what had otherwise been termed innate ideas. Plato also taught, to a certain extent, the transmigration of souls. He was evidently influenced in many ways by the Indian philosophy; but the special doctrine of Plato made ideas the most permanent of all things. Visible things are only fleeting shadows, which soon pass away; only ideas remain. The universal concept, or notion, is the only real thing. Thus the perfect globe is the concept held in the mind; the marble, ball, or sphere of material is only an imperfect representation of the same. The horse is a type to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. His work was purely deductive. His major premise was accepted on faith rather than determined by his reason. Yet in philosophical speculations the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, the unity of the creation and the unity of the creator, and an all-wise ruler of the universe, were among the most important points of doctrine.

Aristotle the Master Mind of the Greeks.—While Aristotle and Plato sought to prove the same things, and agreed with each other on many principles of philosophy, the method employed by the former was exactly the reverse of that of the latter. Plato founded his doctrine on the unity of all being, and observed the particular only through the universal. For proof he relied on the intuitive and the synthetic. Aristotle, on the contrary, found it necessary to consider the particular in order that the universal might be established. He therefore gathered facts, analyzed material, and discoursed upon the results. He was patient and persistent in his investigations, and not only gave the world a great lesson by his example, but he obtained better results than any other philosopher of antiquity. It is generally conceded that he showed the greatest strength of intellect, the deepest insight, the greatest breadth of speculative thought, and the clearest judgment of all philosophers, either ancient or modern.

Perhaps his doctrine of the necessity of a final cause, or sufficient reason, which gives a rational explanation of individual things, is Aristotle's greatest contribution to pure philosophy. The doctrine of empiricism has been ascribed to Aristotle, but he fully recognized the universal, and thought it connected with the individual, and not separated from it, as represented by Plato. The universal is self-determining in its individualization, and is, therefore, a process of identification rather than of differentiation. The attention which Aristotle gave to fact as opposed to theory, to investigation as opposed to speculation, and to final cause, led men from a condition of necessity to that of freedom, and taught philosophers to substantiate their theories by reason and by fact. There is no better illustration of his painstaking investigation than his writing 250 constitutional histories as the foundation of his work on "Politics." In this masterly work will be found an exposition of political theories and practice worthy the attention of all modern political philosophers. The service given by Aristotle to the learning of the Middle Ages, and, in fact, to modern philosophy, was very great.

Aristotle was of a more practical turn of mind than Plato. While he introduced the formal syllogism in logic, he also introduced the inductive method. Perhaps Aristotle represented the wisest and most learned of the Greeks, because he advanced beyond the speculative philosophy to a point where he attempted to substantiate theory by facts, and thus laid the foundation for comparative study.

Other Schools.—The Epicureans taught a philosophy based upon pleasure-seeking—or, as it may be stated, making happiness the highest aim of life. They said that to seek happiness was to seek the highest good. This philosophy in its pure state had no evil ethical tendency, but under the bad influences of remote followers of Epicurus it led to the degeneration of ethical practice. "Beware of excesses," says Epicurus, "for they will lead to unhappiness." Beware of folly and sin, for they lead to wretchedness. Nothing could have been better than this, until people began to follow sensuality as the immediate return of efforts to secure happiness. Then it led to corruption, and was one of the causes of the downfall of Greek as well as the Roman civilization.

The Stoics were a group of philosophers who placed great emphasis upon ethics in comparison with logic and physics. They looked on the world from the pessimistic side and made themselves happy by becoming martyrs. They taught that suffering, the endurance of pain without complaint, was the highest virtue. To them logic was the science of thought and of expression, physics was the science of nature, and ethics the science of the good. All ideas originated from sensation, and perception was the only criterion of truth. "We know only what we perceive (by sense); only those ideas contain certain knowledge for us which are ideas of real objects." The soul of man was corporeal and material, hence physics and metaphysics were almost identical. There is much incoherency in their philosophy; it abounds in paradoxes. For instance, it recognizes sense as the criterion and source of knowledge, and asserts that reason is universal and knowable. Yet it asserts that there is no rational element in sense that is universal. It confuses individual human nature and universal nature, though its final result was to unite both in one concept. The result of their entire philosophy was to create confusion, although they had much influence on the practical life.

The Sceptics doubted all knowledge obtained by the senses. There was no criterion of truth in the intellect, consequently no knowledge. If truth existed it was in conduct, and thus the judgment must be suspended. They held that there was nothing that could be determined of specific nature, nothing that could be of certainty. Eventually the whole Greek philosophy went out in scepticism. The three schools, the sceptic, the Epicurean, and the stoic, though widely differing in many ways, agreed upon one thing, in basing their philosophy on subjectivity, on mind rather than on objective nature.

Results Obtained in Greek Philosophy.—The philosophical conclusions aimed at by the Greeks related to the origin and destiny of the world. The world is an emanation from God, and in due time it will return to Him. It may be considered as a part of the substance of God, or it may be considered as something objective proceeding from him. The visible world around us becomes thus but an expression of the God mind. But as it came forth a thing of beauty, so it will return again to Him after its mission is fulfilled. On the existence and attributes of God the Greeks dwelt with great force. There is established first a unity of God, and this unity is the first cause in the creation. To what extent this unity is independent and separate in existence from nature, is left in great doubt. It was held that God is present everywhere in nature, though His being is not limited by time or space. Much of the philosophy bordered upon, if it did not openly avow, a belief in pantheism. The highest conception recognizes design in creation, which would give an individual existence to the Creator. Yet the most acute mind did not depart from the assumption of the idea of an all-pervading being of God extending throughout the universe, mingling with nature and to a certain extent inseparable from it. In their highest conception the most favored of the Greeks were not free from pantheistic notions.

The nature of the soul occupied much of the attention of the Greeks. They began by giving material characteristics to the mind. They soon separated it in concept from material nature and placed it as a part of God himself, who existed apart from material form. The soul has a past life, a present, and a future, as a final outcome of philosophical speculations. The attributes of the soul were confused with the attributes of the Supreme Being. These conceptions of the Divine Being and of the soul border on the Hindu philosophy.

Perhaps the subject which caused the most discussion was the attempt to determine a criterion of truth. Soon after the time when they broke away from the ancient religious faith, the thinkers of Greece began to doubt the ability of the mind to ascertain absolute truth. This arose out of the imperfections of knowledge obtained through the senses. Sense perception was held in much doubt. The world is full of delusions. Man thinks he sees when he does not. The rainbow is but an illusion when we attempt to analyze it. The eye deceives, the ear hears what does not exist; even touch and taste frequently deceive us. What, then, can be relied upon as accurate in determining knowledge? To this the Greek mind answers, "Nothing"; it reaches no definite conclusion, and this is the cardinal weakness of the philosophy. Indeed, the great weakness of the entire age of philosophy was want of data. It was a time of intense activity of the mind, but the lack of data led to much worthless speculation. The systematic method of scientific observation had not yet been discovered.

But how could this philosophical speculation affect civilization? It determined the views of life entertained by the Greeks, and human progress depended upon this. The progress of the world depends upon the attitude of the human mind toward nature, toward man and his life. The study of philosophy developed the mental capacity of man, gave him power to cope with nature, and enhanced his possibility of right living. More than this, it taught man to rely upon himself in explaining the origin and growth of the universe and the development of human life. Though these points were gained only by the few and soon lost sight of by all, yet they were revived in after years, and placed man upon the right basis for improvement.

The quickening impulse of philosophy had its influence on art and language. The language of the Greeks stands as their most powerful creation. The development of philosophy enlarged the scope of language and increased its already rich vocabulary. Art was a representation of nature. The predominance given to man in life, the study of heroes and gods, gave ideal creations and led to the expression of beauty. Philosophy, literature, language, and art, including architecture, represent the products of Greek civilization, and as such have been the lasting heritage of the nations that have followed. The philosophy and practice of social life and government received a high development in Greece. They will be treated in a separate chapter.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What was the importance of Socrates' teaching? Why was he put to death?

2. What has been the influence of Plato's teaching on modern life?

3. Why is Aristotle considered the greatest of the Greeks?

4. What was the influence of the library at Alexandria?

5. What caused the decline in Greek philosophy?

6. What was the influence on civilization of the Greek attitudes of mind toward nature?

7. Compare the use of Greek philosophy with modern science as to their value in education.

CHAPTER XIV

THE GREEK SOCIAL POLITY

The Struggle for Greek Equality and Liberty.—The greater part of the activity of Western nations has been a struggle for social equality and for political and religious liberty. These phases of European social life are clearly discerned in the development of the Greek states. The Greeks were recognized as having the highest intellectual culture and the largest mental endowments of all the ancients, characteristics which gave them great prestige in the development of political life and social philosophy. The problem of how communities of people should live together, their relations to one another, and their rights, privileges, and duties, early concerned the philosophers of Greece; but more potent than all the philosophies that have been uttered, than all of the theories concerning man's social relation, is the vivid portrayal of the actual struggle of men to live together in community life, pictured in the course of Grecian history.

In the presentation of this life, writers have differed much in many ways. Some have eulogized the Greeks as a liberty-loving people, who sought to grant rights and duties to every one on an altruistic basis; others have pictured them as entirely egoistic, with a morality of a narrow nature, and with no sublime conception of the relation of the rights of humanity as such. Without entering into a discussion of the various views entertained by philosophers concerning the characteristics of the Greeks, it may be said that, with all their noble characteristics, the ideal pictures which are presented to us by the poet, the philosopher, and the historian are too frequently of the few, while the great mass of the people remained in a state of ignorance, superstition, and slavery. With a due recognition of the existence of the germs of democracy, we find that Greece, after all, was in spirit an aristocracy. There was an aristocracy of birth, of wealth, of learning, and of hereditary power. While we must recognize the greatness of the Greek life in comparison with that of Oriental nations, it must still be evident to us that the best phases of this life and the magnificent features of Greek learning have been emphasized much by writers, while the wretched and debasing conditions of the people of Greece have seldom been recounted.

The Greek Government an Expanded Family.—The original family was ruled by the father, who acted as king, priest, and lawgiver. As long as life lasted he had supreme control over all members of his family, whether they were so by birth or adoption. All that they owned, all of the products of their hands, all the wealth of the family, belonged to him; even their lives were at his disposal.

As the family becomes stronger and is known as a gens, it represents a close, compact organization, looking after its own interests, and with definite customs concerning its own government. As the gentes are multiplied they form tribes, and the oldest male member of the tribal group acts as its leader and king, while the heads of the various gentes thus united become his counsellors and advisers in later development, and the senate after democratic government organization takes place. As time passes the head of this family is called a king or chief, and rules on the ground that he has descended from the gods, is under the divine protection, and represents the oldest aristocratic family in the tribe.

In the beginning this tribal chief holds unlimited sway over all of his subjects. But to maintain his power well he must be a soldier who is able to command the forces in war; he must be able to lead in the councils with the chiefs and, when occasion requires, discuss matters with the people. Gradually passing from the ancient hereditary power, he reaches a stage when it becomes a custom to consult with all the chiefs of the tribe in the management of the affairs. The earliest picture of Greek government represents a king who is equal in birth with other heads of the gentes, presiding over a group of elders deliberating upon the affairs of the state. The influence of the nobles over whom he presided must have been great. It appears that the king or chief must convince his associates in council before any decision could be considered a success.

The second phase of Greek government represents this same king as appearing in the assembly of all the people and presenting for their consideration the affairs of the state. It is evident from this that, although he was a hereditary monarch, deriving his power from aristocratic lineage traced even to the gods themselves, he was responsible to the people for his government, and this principle extends all the way through the development of Greek social and political life.

The right to free discussion of affairs in open council, the right to object to methods of procedure, were cardinal principles in Greek politics; but while the great mass of people were not taken into account in the affairs of the government, there was an equality among all those called citizens which had much to do with the establishment of the civil polity of all nations. The whole Greek political life, then, represents the slow evolution from aristocratic government of hereditary chiefs toward a complete democracy, which unfortunately it failed to reach before the decline of the Greek state.

As before related, the Greeks had established a large number of independent communities which developed into small states. These small states were mostly isolated from one another, hence they developed an independent social and political existence. This was of great consequence in the establishing of the character of the Greek government. In the first place, the kings, chiefs, and rulers were brought closely in contact with the people. Everybody knew them, understood the character of the men, realizing that they had passions and prejudices similar to other men, and that, notwithstanding they were elevated to positions of power, they nevertheless were human beings like the people themselves. This led to a democratic feeling.

Again, the development of these separate small states led to great diversity of government. All kinds of government were exercised in Greece, from the democracy to the hereditary monarchy. Many of these governments passed in their history through all stages of government to be conceived of—the monarchy, absolute and constitutional, the aristocracy, the oligarchy, the tyranny, the democracy, and the polity. All phases of politics had their representation in the development of the Greek life.

In a far larger way the development of these isolated communities made local self-government the primary basis of the state. When the Greek had developed his own small state he had done his duty so far as government was concerned. He might be on friendly terms with the neighboring states, especially as they might use the same language as his own and belonged to the same race, but he could in no way be responsible for the success or the failure of men outside of his community. This was many times a detriment to the development of the Greek race, as the time arrived when it should stand as a unit against the encroachments of foreign nations. No unity of national life found expression in the repulsion of the Persians, no unity in the Peloponnesian war, no unity in the defense against the Romans; indeed, the Macedonians found a divided people, which made conquering easy.

There was another phase of this Greek life worthy of notice: the fact that it developed extreme selfishness and egoism respecting government. We shall find in this development, in spite of the pretensions for the interests of the many, that government existed for the few; notwithstanding the professions of an enlarged social life, we shall find a narrowness almost beyond belief in the treatment of Greeks by one another in the social life. It is true that the recognition of citizenship was much wider than in the Orient, and that the individual life of man received more marked attention than in any ancient despotism; yet, after all, when we recognize the multitudes of slaves, who were considered not worthy to take part in government affairs, the numbers of the freedmen and non-citizens, and realize that the few who had power or privilege of government looked with disdain upon all others, it gives us no great enthusiasm for Greek democracy when compared with the modern conception of that term.

As Mr. Freeman says in his Federal Government, the citizen "looked down upon the vulgar herd of slaves, the freedmen and unqualified residents, as his own plebeian fathers had been looked down upon by the old Eupatrides in the days of Cleisthenes and Solon." Whatever phase of this Greek society we discuss, we must not forget that there was a large class excluded from rights of government, and that the few sought always to maintain their own rights and privileges supported by the many, and the pretensions of an enlarged privilege of citizenship had little effect in changing the actual conditions of the aristocratic government.

The Athenian Government a Type of Grecian Democracy.—Indeed, it was the only completed government in Greece. The civilization of Athens shows the character of the Greek race in its richest and most beautiful development. Here art, learning, culture, and government reached their highest development. It was a small territory that surrounded the city of Athens, containing a little over 850 English square miles, possibly less, as some authorities say. The soil was poor, but the climate was superb. It was impossible for the Athenian to support a high civilization from the soil of Attica, hence trade sprang up and Athens grew wealthy on account of its great maritime commerce.

The population of all Attica in the most flourishing times was about 500,000 people, 150,000 of whom were slaves, 45,000 settlers, or unqualified people, while the free citizens did not exceed 90,000—so that the equality so much spoken of in Grecian democracies belonged to only 90,000 out of 500,000, leaving 410,000 disfranchised. The district was thickly populous for Greece, and the stock of the Athenian had little mixture of foreign blood in it. The city itself was formed of villages or cantons, united into one central government. These appear to be survivals of the old village communities united under the title of city-state. It was the perfection of this city-state that occupied the chief thought of the Athenian political philosophers.

The ancient kingship of Athens passed, on deposition of the last of the Medoutidae, about 712 B.C., into the hands of the nobles. This was the first step in the passage from monarchy toward democracy; it was the beginning of the foundation of the republican constitution. In 682 B.C. the government passed into the hands of nine archons, chosen from all the rest of the nobles. It was a movement on the part of the nobles to obtain a partition of the government, while the common people were not improved at all by the process. The kings, indeed, in the ancient time made a better government for the people than did the nobles. The people at this period were in great trouble. The nobles had loaned money to their wretched neighbors and, as the law was very strict, the creditor might take possession of the property and even of the person of the debtor, making of him a slave.

In this way the small proprietors had become serfs, and the masters took from them five-sixths of the products of the soil, and would, no doubt, have taken their lands had these not been inalienable. Sometimes the debtors were sold into foreign countries as slaves, and at other times their children were taken as slaves according to the law. On account of the oppression of the poor by the nobility, there sprang up a hatred between these two classes.

A few changes were made by the laws of Draco and others, but nothing gave decided relief to the people. The nine archons, representing the power of the state, managed nearly all of its affairs, and retained likewise their seats in the council of nobles. The old national council formed by the aristocratic members of the community still retained its hold, and the council of archons, though it divided the country into administrative districts and sought to secure more specific management of the several districts, failed to keep down internal disorders or to satisfy the people. The people were formed into three classes: the wealthy nobility, or land-owners of the plain, the peasants of the mountains districts, and the people of the coast country, the so-called middle classes. The hatred of the nobility by the peasants of the mountains was intense. The nobles demanded their complete suppression and subordination to the rule of their own class. The people of the coast would have been contented with moderate concessions from the nobility, which would give them a part in the government and leave them unmolested.

Constitution of Solon Seeks a Remedy.—Such was the condition of affairs when Solon proposed his reforms. He sought to remove the burdens of the people, first, by remitting all fines which had been imposed; second, by preventing the people from offering their persons as security against debt; and third, by depreciating the coin so as to make payment of debt easy. He replaced the Pheidonian talent by that of the Euboic coinage, thus increasing the debt-paying capacity of money twenty-seven per cent, or, in other words, reduced the debt about that amount. It was further provided that all debts could be paid in three annual instalments, thus allowing poor farmers with mortgages upon their farms an opportunity to pay their debts. There was also granted an amnesty to all persons who had been condemned to payment of money penalties. By further measures the exclusive privileges of the old nobility were broken down, and a new government established on the basis of wealth. People were divided into classes according to their property, and their privileges in government, as well as their taxes, were based upon these classes.

Revising the old council of 401, Solon established a council (Boule) of 400, 100 from each district. These were probably elected at first, but later were chosen by lot. The duties of this council were to prepare all business for passage in the popular assembly. No business could come before the assembly of the people except by decree of the council, and in nearly every case the council could decide what measures should be brought before the assembly. While in some instances the law made it obligatory for certain cases to be brought before the assembly, there were some measures which could be disposed of by the council without reference to the assembly.

The administration of justice was distributed among the nine archons, each one of whom administered some particular department. The archon as judge could dispose of matters or refer them to an arbitrator for decision. In every case the dissatisfied party had a right to appeal to the court made up of a collective body of 6,000 citizens, called the Heliaea. This body was annually chosen from the whole body of citizens, and acted as jurors and judges. In civil matters the services of the Heliaea were slight. They consisted in holding open court on certain matters appealed to them from the archons. In criminal matters the Heliaea frequently acted immediately as a sole tribunal, whose decision was final.

It is one of the remarkable things in the Greek polity that the supreme court or court of appeals should be elected from the common people, while in other courts judges should hold their offices on account of position. Solon also recognized what is known as the Council of the Areopagus. The functions of this body had formerly belonged to the old council included in the Draconian code. The Council of the Areopagus was formed from the ex-archons who had held the office without blame. It became a sort of supreme advisory council, watching over the whole collective administration. It took account of the behavior of the magistrates in office and of the proceedings of the public assembly, and could interpose in other cases when, in its judgment, it thought it necessary. It could advise as to the proper conducting of affairs and criticise the process of administration. It could also administer private discipline and call citizens to account for their individual acts. In this respect it somewhat resembled the Ephors of Sparta.

The popular assembly would meet and consider the questions put before it by the council, voting yes or no, but the subject was not open for discussion. However, it was possible for the assembly to bring other subjects up for discussion and, through motion, refer them to the consideration of the council. It was also possible to attach to the proposition of the council a motion, called in modern terms "a rider," and thus enlarge upon the work of the council; but it was so arranged that the preponderance of all the offices went to the nobility and that the council be made up of this class, and hence there was no danger that the government would fall into the hands of the people. Solon claimed to have put into the hands of the people all the power that they deserved, and to have established numerous checks on government which made it possible for each group of people to be well represented.

Thus the council limited the power of the assembly, the Areopagus supervised the council, while the courts of the people had the final decision in cases of appeal. As is well known, Solon could not carry out his own reforms, but was forced to leave the country. Had he been of a different nature and at once seized the government, or appealed to the people, as did his successor, Pisistratus, he might have made his measures of reform more effective. As it was, he was obliged to leave their execution to others.

Cleisthenes Continues the Reforms of Solon.—Some years later (509 B.C.) Cleisthenes instituted other reforms, increasing the council to 500, the members of which might be drawn from the first three classes rather than the first, limiting the archonship to the first class, and breaking up the four ancient tribes formed from the nobility. He formed ten new tribes of religious and political unions, thus intending to break down the influence of the nobility. Although the popular assembly was composed of all citizens of the four classes, the functions of this body in the early period were very meagre. It gave them the privilege of voting on the principal affairs of the nation when the council desired them to assume the responsibility. The time for holding it was in the beginning indefinite, it being only occasionally convened, but in later times there were ten[1] assemblies in each year, when business was regularly placed before it. Meetings were held in the market-place at first; later a special building was erected for this purpose. Sometimes, however, special assemblies were held elsewhere.

The assembly was convoked by the prytanes, while the right of convoking extraordinary assemblies fell to the lot of the strategi. There were various means for the compulsion of the attendance of the crowd. There was a fine for non-attendance, and police kept out people who ought not to appear. Each assembly opened with religious service. Usually sucking pigs were sacrificed, which were carried around to purify the place, and their blood was sprinkled over the floor. This ceremony was followed by the offering of incense. This having been done, the president stated the question to be considered and summoned the people to vote.

As the assembly developed in the advanced stage of Athenian life, every member in good standing had a right to speak. The old men were called upon first and then the younger men. This discussion was generally upon open questions, and not upon resolutions prepared by the council, though amendments to these resolutions were sometimes allowed. No speaker could be interrupted except by the presiding officer, and no member could speak more than once. As each speaker arose, he mounted the rostrum and placed a wreath of myrtle upon his head, which signified that he was performing a duty to the state. The Greeks appear to have developed considerable parliamentary usage and to have practised a system of voting similar to our ballot reform. Each individual entered an enclosure and voted by means of pebbles. Subsequently the functions of the assembly grew quite large. The demagogues found it to their interests to extend its powers. They tried to establish the principle in Athens that the people were the rulers of everything by right.

The powers of the assembly were generally divided into four groups, the first including the confirmation of appointments, the accusation of offenders against the state, the confiscation of goods, and claims to succession of property. The second group considered petitions of the people, the third acted upon motions for the remission of sentences, and the fourth had charge of dealings with foreign states and religious matters in general.

It is observed that the Athenians represented the highest class of the Greeks and that government received its highest development among them. But the only real political liberty in Greece may be summed up in the principle of hearing both sides of a question and of obtaining a decision on the merits of the case presented. Far different is this from the old methods of despotic rule, under which kings were looked upon as authority in themselves, whose will must be carried out without question. The democracy of Athens, too, was the first instance of the substitution of law for force.

It is true that in the beginning all of the Greek communities rested upon a military basis. Their foundations were laid in military exploits, and they maintained their position by the force of arms for a long period. But this is true of nearly all states and nations when they make their first attempt at permanent civilization. But after they were once established they sought to rule their subjects by the introduction of well-regulated laws and not by the force of arms. The military discipline, no doubt, was the best foundation for a state of primitive people, but as this passed away the newer life was regulated best by law and civil power. Under this the military became subordinate.

To Greece must be given the credit of founding the city, and, indeed, this is one of the chief characteristics of the Greek people. They established the city-state, or polis. It represented a full and complete sovereignty in itself. When they had accomplished this idea of sovereignty the political organization had reached its highest aim.

Athenian Democracy Failed in Obtaining Its Best and Highest Development.—It is a disappointment to the reader that Athens, when in the height of power, when the possibilities for extending and promoting the best interests of humanity in social capacity were greatest, should end in decline and failure. In the first place, extreme democracy in that early period was more open than now to excessive dangers. It was in danger of control by mobs, who were ignorant of their own real interests and the interests of popular government; it was in danger of falling into the hands of tyrants, who would rule for their own private interests; it was in danger of falling into the hands of a few, which frequently happened. And this democracy in the ancient time was a rule of class—class subordination was the essence of its constitution. There was no universal rule by the majority. The franchise was an exclusive privilege extended to a minority, hence it differed little from aristocracy, being a government of class with a rather wider extension.

The ancient democracies were pure in form, in which the people governed immediately. For every citizen had a right to appear in the assembly and vote, and he could sit in the assembly, which acted as an open court. Indeed, the elective officers of the democracy were not considered as representatives of the people. They were the state and not subject to impeachment, though they should break over all law. After they returned among the citizens and were no longer the state they could be tried for their misdemeanors in office.

Now, a state of this nature and form must of necessity be small, and as government expanded and its functions increased, the representative principle should have been introduced as a mainstay to the public system. The individual in the ancient democracy lived for the state, being subordinate to its existence as the highest form of life. We find this entirely different from the modern democracy, in which slavery and class subordination are both excluded, as opposed to its theory and antagonistic to its very being. Its citizenship is wide, extending to its native population, and its suffrage is universal to all who qualify as citizens. The citizens, too, in modern democracies, live for themselves, and believe that the state is made by them for themselves.

The decline of the Athenian democracy was hastened, also, by the Peloponnesian war, caused first by the domineering attitude of Athens, which posed as an empire, and the jealousy of Sparta. This struggle between Athens and Sparta amounted almost to civil war. And although it brought Sparta to the front as the most powerful state in all Greece, she was unable to advance the higher civilization, but really exercised a depressing influence upon it. It might be mentioned briefly, too, that the overthrow of Athens somewhat later, and the establishment of the 400 as rulers, soon led to political disintegration. It was the beginning of the founding of Athenian clubs, or political factions, which attempted to control the elections by fear or force. These, by their power, forced the decrees of the assembly to suit themselves, and thus gave the death-blow to liberty. There was the reaction from this to the establishment of 5,000 citizens as a controlling body, and restricting the constitution, which attempted to unite all classes into one body and approximated the modern democracy, or that which is represented in the "polity" of Aristotle.

After the domination of Sparta, Lysander and the thirty tyrants rose to oppress the citizens, and deposed a previous council of ten made for the ruling of the city. But once more after this domination democracy was restored, and under the Theban and Macedonian supremacies the old spirit of "equality of equals" was once more established. But Athens could no longer maintain her ancient position; her warlike ambitions had passed away, her national intelligence had declined; the dangers of the populace, too, threatened her at every turn, and the selfishness of the nobility in respect to the other classes, as well as the selfishness of the Spartan state outside, soon led to her downfall. At first, too, all the officers were not paid, it being considered a misdemeanor to take pay for office; but finally regular salaries were paid, and this forced the leaders to establish free theatres for the people.

And finally, it may be said, that the power for good or evil in the democracy lacking in permanent foundations is so great that it can never lead on to perfect success. It will prosper to-day and decline to-morrow. So the attempt of the Athenians to found a democracy led not to permanent success; nevertheless, it gave to the world for the first time the principles of government founded upon equality and justice, and these principles have remained unchanged in the practice of the more perfect republics of modern times.

The Spartan State Differs from All Others.—If we turn our attention to Sparta we shall find an entirely different state—a state which may be represented by calling it an aristocratic republic. Not only was it founded on a military basis, but its very existence was perpetuated by military form. The Dorian conquest brought these people in from the north to settle in the Peloponnesus, and by degrees they obtained a foothold and conquered their surrounding neighbors. Having established themselves on a small portion of the land, the Dorians, or Spartans, possessed themselves of superior military skill in order to obtain the overlordship of the surrounding territory. Soon they had control of nearly all of the Peloponnesus. Although Argos was at first the ruling city of the conquerors, Sparta soon obtained the supremacy, and the Spartan state became noted as the great military state of the Greeks.

The population of Sparta was composed of the Dorians, or citizens, who were the conquerors, and the independent subjects, who had been conquered but who had no part in the government, and the serfs or helots, who were the lower class of the conquered ones. The total population is estimated at about 380,000 to 400,000, while the serfs numbered at least 175,000 to 224,000. These serfs were always a cause of fear and anxiety to the conquerors, and they were watched over by night and day by spies who kept them from rising. The helots were employed in peace as well as in war, and in all occupations where excessive toil was needed. The middle class (Perioeci) were subjects dependent upon the citizens. They had no share in the Spartan state except to obey its administration. They were obliged to accept the obligations of military service, to pay taxes and dues when required. Their occupations were largely the promotion of agriculture and the various trades and industries. Their proportion to the citizens was about thirty to nine, or, as is commonly given, there was one citizen to four of the middle class and twelve of the helots, making the ratio of citizens to the entire population about one-seventeenth, or every seventeenth man was a citizen.

Attempts were made to divide the lands of the rich among the poor, and this redistribution of lands occurred from time to time. There were other semblances of pure democracy of communistic nature. It was a pure military state, and all were treated as soldiers. There was a common table, or "mess," for a group, called the social union. There all the men were obliged to assemble at meal-time, the women remaining at home. The male children were taken at the age of seven years and trained as soldiers. These were then in charge of the state, and the home was relieved of its responsibility concerning them.

The state also adopted many sumptuary laws regulating what should be eaten and what should be used, and what not. All male persons were subjected to severe physical training, for Sparta, in her education, always dwelt upon physical development and military training. The development of language and literature, art and sculpture, was not observed here as it was in Athens. The ideal of aristocracy was the rule of the nobler elements of the nation and the subordination of the mass. This was supposed to be the best that could be done for the state and hence the best for the people. There was no opportunity for subjects to rise to citizenship—nor, indeed, was this true in Athens, except by the gradual widening force of legal privilege. Individual life in Sparta was completely subordinate to the state life, and here the citizen existed more fully for the state than in Athens in her worst days.

Finally abuses grew. It was the old story of the few rich dominating and oppressing the many poor. The minority had grown insolent and overbearing, and attempted to rule a hopeless and discontented majority. The reforms of Lycurgus led to some improvements, by the institution of new divisions of citizens and territory and the division of the land, not only among citizens but the half-citizens and dependents. Nevertheless, it appears that in spite of these attempted reforms, in spite of the establishment of the council, the public assembly, and the judicial process, Sparta still remained an arbitrary military power. Yet the government continued to expand in form and function until it had obtained a complex existence. But there was a non-progressive element in it all. The denial of rights of marriage between citizens and other groups limited the increase of the number of citizens, and while powers were gradually extended to those outside of the pale of citizenship, they were given so niggardly, and in such a manner, as to fail to establish the great principle of civil government on the basis of a free democracy.

The military rÉgime was non-progressive in its nature. It could lead to conquest of enemies, but could not lead to the perpetuation of the rights and privileges of citizens; it could lead to domination of others, but could not bring about the subordination of universal citizenship to law and order, nor permit the expansion and growth of individual life under benevolent institutions of government.

So the Greek government, the democracy with all of its great promises and glorious prospects, declined certainly from the height which was great in contrast to the Oriental despotisms. It declined at a time when, as we look back from the present, it ought apparently to have gone on to the completion of the modern representative government. Probably, had the Greeks adopted the representative principle and enlarged their citizenship, their government would have been more lasting. It is quite evident, also, that had they adopted the principle of federation and, instead of allowing the operation of government to cease when one small state had been perfected, united these small states into a great nation throbbing with patriotism for the entire country, Greece might have withstood the warlike shocks of foreign nations. But, thus unprepared alike to resist internal dissension and foreign oppression, the Greek states, notwithstanding all of their valuable contributions to government and society, were forced to yield their position of establishing a permanent government for the people.

Some attempts were made to unify and organize Greek national life, not entirely without good results. The first instance of this arose out of temple worship, where members of different states met about a common shrine erected to a special deity. This led to temporary organization and mutual aid. Important among these centres was the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. This assemblage was governed by a council of general representation. Important customs were established, such as the keeping of roads in repair which led to the shrine, and providing that pilgrims should have safe conduct and be free from tolls and taxes on their way to and from the shrine. The members of the league were sworn not to destroy a city member or to cut off running water from the city. This latter rule was the foundation of the law of riparian rights—one of the oldest and most continuous in Western civilization. The inspiration for the great national Olympic Games came from these early assemblages about shrines.[2]

Also the Aetolian and Achaean leagues, which occurred in the later development of Greece, after the Macedonian conquest, were serious attempts for federal unity. Although they were meritorious and partially successful, they came too late to make a unified nation of Greece. In form and purpose these federal leagues are suggestive of the early federation of the colonies of America.

Greek Colonization Spreads Knowledge.—The colonies of Greece, established on the different islands and along the shores of the Mediterranean, were among the important civilizers of this early period. Its colonies were established for the purpose of relieving the population of congested districts, on the one hand, and for the purpose of increasing trade, on the other. They were always independent in government of the mother country, but were in sympathy with her in language, in customs, and in laws and religion. As the ships plied their trade between the central government and these distant colonies, they carried with them the fundamentals of civilization—the language, the laws, the customs, the art, the architecture, the philosophy and thought of the Greeks.

There was a tendency, then, to spread abroad over a large territory the Grecian philosophy and life. More potent, indeed, than war is the civilizing influence of maritime trade. It brings with it exchange of ideas, inspiration, and new life; it enables the planting of new countries with the best products. No better evidence of this can be seen than in the planting of modern English colonies, which has spread the civilization of England around the world. This was begun by the Greeks in that early period, and in the dissemination of knowledge it represents a wide influence.

The Conquests of Alexander.—Another means of the dissemination of Greek thought, philosophy, and learning was the Alexandrian conquest and domination. The ambitious Alexander, extending the plan of Philip of Macedon, who attempted to conquer the Greeks and the surrounding countries, desired to master the whole known world. And so into Egypt and Asia Minor, into Central Asia, and even to the banks of the Ganges, he carried his conquests, and with them the products of Greek learning and literature. And most potent of all these influences was the founding of Alexandria in Egypt, which he hoped to make the central city of the world. Into this place flowed the products of learning, not only of Greece but of the Orient, and developed a mighty city with its schools and libraries, with its philosophy and doctrines and strange religious influences. And for many years the learning of the world centred about Alexandria, forming a great rival to Athens, which, though never losing its prominence in certain lines of culture, was dominated by the greater Alexandria.

The Age of Pericles.—In considering all phases of life the splendors of Greece culminated in a period of 50 years immediately following the close of the Persian wars. This period is known as the Age of Pericles. Although the rule of Pericles was about thirty years (466-429), his influence extended long after. The important part Athens performed in the Persian wars gave her the political ascendancy in Greece and enabled her to assume the beginning of the states; in fact, enabled her to establish an empire. Pericles rebuilt Athens after the destructive work of the Persians. The public buildings, the Parthenon and the Acropolis, were among the noted structures of the world. A symmetrical city was planned on a magnificent scale hitherto unknown. Pericles gathered about him architects, sculptors, poets, dramatists, teachers, and philosophers.

The age represents a galaxy of great men: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Socrates, Thucydides, Phidias, Ictinus, and others. Greek government reached its culmination and society had its fullest life in this age. The glory of the period extended on through the Peloponnesian war, and after the Macedonian conquest it gradually waned and the splendor gradually passed from Athens to Alexandria.

Contributions of Greece to Civilization.—It is difficult to enumerate all of the influences of Greece on modern civilization. First of all, we might mention the language of Greece, which became so powerful in the development of the Roman literature and Roman civilization and, in the later Renaissance, a powerful engine of progress. Associated with the language is the literature of the Greeks. The epic poems of Homer, the later lyrics, the drama, the history, and the polemic, all had their highest types presented in the Greek literature. Latin and modern German, English and French owe to these great originators a debt of gratitude for every form of modern literature. The architecture of Greece was broad enough to lay the foundation of the future, and so we find, even in our modern life, the Grecian elements combined in all of our great buildings.

Painting and frescoing were well established in principle, though not carried to a high state until the mediaeval period; but in sculpture nothing yet has exceeded the perfection of the Greek art. It stands a monument of the love of the beauty of the human form and the power to represent it in marble.

The Greek philosophy finds its best results not only in developing the human mind to a high state but in giving to us the freedom of thought which belongs by right to every individual. An attempt to find out things as they are, to rest all philosophy upon observation, and to determine by the human reason the real essence of truth, is of such stupendous magnitude in the development of the human mind that it has entered into the philosophy of every educational system presented since by any people or any individual. The philosophers of modern times, while they may not adopt the principles of the ancient philosophy, still recognize their power, their forms of thought, and their activities, and their great influence on the intellectual development of the world.

Last, but not least, are the great lessons recounted of the foundations of civil liberty. Incomplete as the ancient democracies were, they pointed to the world the great lessons of the duties of man to man and the relations of mankind in social life. When we consider the greatness of the social function and the prominence of social organization in modern life, we shall see how essential it is that, though the development of the individual may be the highest aim of civilization, the social organization must be established upon a right basis to promote individual interests. Freedom, liberty, righteousness, justice, free discussion, all these were given to us by the Greeks, and more—the forms of government, the assembly, the senate, the judiciary, the constitutional government, although in their imperfect forms, are represented in the Greek government. These represent the chief contributions of the Greeks to civilization.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What were the achievements of the Age of Pericles?

2. Which are more important to civilization, Greek ideals or Greek practice?

3. The ownership of land in Greece.

4. The characteristics of the city-state of Athens.

5. Alexandria as an educational centre.

6. Why did the Greeks fail to make a strong central nation?

7. The causes of the decline of Greek civilization.

8. Give a summary of the most important contributions of Greece to modern civilization.

[1] Some authorities state forty assemblies were held each year.

[2] The Confederation of Delos, the Athenian Empire, and the Peloponnesian League were attempts to federalize Greece. They were successful only in part.

CHAPTER XV

ROMAN CIVILIZATION

The Romans Differed in Nature from the Greeks.—Instead of being of a philosophic, speculative nature, the Romans were a practical, even a stoical, people of great achievement. They turned their ideas always toward the concrete, and when they desired to use the abstract they borrowed the principles and theories established by other nations. They were poor theorizers, both in philosophy and in religion, but were intensely interested in that which they could turn to immediate and practical benefit. They were great borrowers of the products of other people's imagination. In the very early period they borrowed the gods of the Greeks and somewhat of their forms of religion!

Later they borrowed forms of art from other nations and developed them to suit their own, and, still later, they used the literary language of the Greeks to enrich their own. This method of borrowing the best products of others and putting them to practical service led to immense consequences in the development of civilization. The Romans lacked not in originality, for practical application leads to original creation, but their best efforts in civilization were wrought out from this practical standpoint. Thus, in the improvement of agriculture, in the perfection of the art of war, in the development of law and of government, their work was masterly in the extreme; and to this extent it was worked out rather than thought out. Indeed, their whole civilization was evolved from the practical standpoint.

The Social Structure of Early Rome and That of Early Greece.—Rome started, like Greece, with the early patriarchal kings, who ruled over the expanded family, but with this difference, that these kings, from the earliest historical records, were elected by the people. Nevertheless there is no evidence that the democratic spirit was greater in early Rome than in early Greece, except in form. In the early period all Italy was filled with tribes, mostly of Aryan descent, and in the regal period the small territory of Latium was filled with independent city communities; but all these cities were federated on a religious basis and met at Alba Longa as a centre, where they conducted their worship and duly instituted certain regulations concerning the government of all. Later, after the decline of Alba Longa, the seat of this federal government was removed to Rome, which was another of the federated cities. Subsequently this territory was invaded by the Sabines, who settled at Rome, and, as an independent community, allied themselves with the Romans.

And, finally, the invasion of the Etruscans gave the last of three separate communities, which were federated into one state and laid the foundation of the imperial city. But if some leader founded Rome in the early period, it is quite natural that he should be called Romulus, after the name of Rome. Considering the nature of the Romans and the tendency to the old ancestral worship among them, it does not seem strange that they should deify this founder and worship him. Subsequently, we find that this priestly monarchy was changed to a military monarchy, in which everything was based upon property and military service. Whatever may be the stories of early Rome, so much may be mentioned as historical fact.

The foundation was laid in three great tribes, composed of the ancient families, or patricians, who formed the body of the league. Those who settled at Rome at an early period became the aristocracy; they were members of the tribes of immemorial foundation. At first the old tribal exclusiveness prevailed, and people who came later into Rome were treated as unequal to those who long had a right to the soil. This led to a division among the people based on hereditary right, which lasted in its effect as long as Rome endured. It became the custom to call those persons belonging to the first families patricians, and all who were not patricians plebeians, representing that class who did not belong to the first families. The plebeians were composed of foreigners, who had only commercial rights, of the clients who attached themselves to these ancient families, but who gradually passed into the plebeian rank, and of land-holders, craftsmen, and laborers. The plebeians were free inhabitants, without political rights. As there was no great opportunity for the patricians to increase in number, the plebeians, in the regal period, soon grew to outnumber them. They were increased by those conquered ones who were permitted to come to Rome and dwell. Also the tradesmen and immigrants who dwelt at Rome increased rapidly, for they could have the protection of the Roman state without having the responsibility of Roman soldiers. It was of great significance in the development of the Roman government that these two great classes existed.

Civil Organization of Rome.—The organization of the government of early Rome rested in a peculiar sense upon the family group. The first tribes that settled in the territory were governed upon a family basis, and their land was held by family holdings. No other nation appears to have perpetuated such a power of the family in the affairs of the state. The father, as the head of the family, had absolute power over all; the son never became of age so far as the rights of property are considered as long as the father lived. The father was priest, king, and legislator for all in the family group. Parental authority was arbitrary, and when the head of the family passed away the oldest male member of the family took his place, and ruled as his father had ruled.

A group of these families constituted a clan, and a group of clans made a tribe, and three tribes, according to the formula for the formation of Rome, made a state. Whether this formal process was carried out exactly remains to be proved, but the families related to one another by ties of blood were united in distinct groups, which were again reorganized into larger groups, and the formula at the time of the organization of the state was that there were 30 cantons formed by 300 clans, and these clans averaged about 10 families each. This is based upon the number of representatives which afterward formed the senate, and upon the number of soldiers furnished by the various families. The state became then an enlarged family, with a king at the head, whose prerogatives were somewhat limited by his position. There were also a popular assembly, consisting of all the freeholders of the state, and the senate, formed by the heads of all the most influential families, for the government of Rome. These ancient hereditary forms of government extended with various changes in the progress of Rome.

The Struggle for Liberty.—The members of the Roman senate were chosen from the noble families of Rome, and were elected for life, which made the senate of Rome a perpetual body. Having no legal declaration of legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative authority, it was, nevertheless, the most powerful body of its kind ever in existence. Representing the power of intellect, and having within its ranks men of the foremost character and ability of the city, this aristocracy overpowered and ruled the affairs of Rome until the close of the republic, and afterward became a service to the imperial government of the Caesars.

From a very early period in the history of the Roman nation the people struggled for their rights and privileges against this aristocracy of wealth and hereditary power. At the expulsion of the kings, in 500 B.C., the senate lived on, as did the old popular assembly of the people, the former gaining strength, the latter becoming weakened. Realizing what they had lost in political power, having lost their farms by borrowing money of the rich patricians, and suffered imprisonment and distress on that account, the plebeians, resolved to endure no longer, marched out upon the hill, Mons Sacer, and demanded redress by way of tribunes and other officers.

This was the beginning of an earnest struggle for 50 years for mere protection, to be followed by a struggle of 150 years for equality of power and rights. The result of this was that a compromise was made with the senate, which allowed the people to have tribunes chosen from the plebeians, and a law was passed giving them the right of protection against the oppression of any official, and subsequently the right of intercession against any administrative or judicial act, except in the case when a dictator was appointed. This gave the plebeians some representation in the government of Rome. They worked at first for protection, and also for the privilege of intermarriage among the patricians. After this they began to struggle for equal rights and privileges.

A few years after the revolt in 486 B.C. Spurius Cassius brought forward the first agrarian law. The lands of the original Roman territory belonged at first to the great families, and were divided and subdivided among the various family groups. But a large part of the land obtained by conquest of the Italians became the public domain, the property of the entire people of Rome. It became necessary for these lands to be leased by the Roman patricians, and as these same Roman patricians were members of the senate, they became careless about collecting rent of themselves, and so the lands were occupied year after year, and, indeed, century after century, by the Roman families, who were led to claim them as their own without rental. Cassius proposed to divide a part of these lands among the needy plebeians and the Latins as well, and to lease the rest for the profit of the public treasury. The patricians fought against Cassius because he was to take away their lands, and the plebeians were discontented with him because he had favored the Latins. The result was that at the close of his office he was sentenced and executed for the mere attempt to do justice to humanity.

The tribunes of the people finally gained more power, and a resolution was introduced in the senate providing that a body of ten men should be selected to reduce the laws of the state to a written code. In 451 B.C. the ten men were chosen from the patricians, who formed ten tables of laws, had them engraved on copper plates, and placed them where everybody could read them. The following year ten men were again appointed, three of whom were plebeians, who added two more tables; the whole body became known as the Laws of the Twelve Tables. It was a great step in advance when the laws of a community could be thus published. Soon after this the laws of Valerius and Horatius made the acts of the assembly of the tribunes of equal force with those of the assembly of the centuries, and established that every magistrate, including the dictator, was obliged in the future to allow appeals from his decision. They also recognized the inviolability of the tribunes of the people and of the aediles who represented them. But in order to circumvent the plebeians, two quaestors were appointed in charge of the military treasury.

Indeed, at every step forward which the people made for equality and justice, the senate, representing the aristocracy, passed laws to circumvent the plebeians. In 445 B.C. the tribune Canuleius introduced a law legalizing marriage between the patricians and plebeians. The children were to inherit the rank of their father. This tribune further attempted to pass a law allowing consuls to be chosen from the plebeians. To this a fierce opposition sprang up, and a compromise measure was adopted which allowed military tribunes to be elected from the plebeians, who had consular power. But again the senate sought to circumvent the plebeians, and created the new patrician office of censor, to take the census, make lists of citizens and taxes, appoint senators, prepare the publication of the budget, manage the state property, farm out the taxes, and superintend public buildings; also he might supervise the public morality.

With the year 587 B.C. came the invasion of the Gauls from the north and the famous battle of the Allia, in which the Romans suffered defeat and were forced to the right bank of the Tiber, leaving the city of Rome defenseless. Abandoned by the citizens, the city was taken, plundered, and burned by the Gauls. Senators were slaughtered, though the capitol was not taken. Finally, surprised and overcome by a contingent of the Roman army, the enemy was forced to retire and the inhabitants again returned. But no sooner had they returned than the peaceful struggle of the plebeians against the patricians began again.

First, there were the poor, indebted plebeians, who sought the reform of the laws relating to debtor and creditor and desired a share in the public lands. Second, the whole body of the plebeians were engaged in an attempt to open the consulate to their ranks. In 367 B.C. the Licinian laws were passed, which gave relief to the debtors by deducting the interest already accrued from the principal, and allowing the rest to be paid in three annual instalments; and a second law forbade that any one should possess more than 500 jugera of the public lands. This was to prevent the wealthy patricians from holding lands in large tracts and keeping them from the plebeians. This law also abolished the military tribuneship and insisted that one at least of the two consuls should be chosen from the plebeians—giving a possibility of two. The patricians, in order to counteract undue influence in this respect, established the praetorship, the praetor having jurisdiction and vicegerence of the consuls during their absence.

There also sprang up about this time the new nobility (optimates), composed of the plebeians and patricians who had held office for a long time, and representing the aristocracy of the community. From this time on all the Roman citizens tended to go into two classes, the optimates and, exclusive of these, the great Roman populace. In the former all the wealth and power were combined; in the latter the poverty, wretchedness, and dependence. Various other changes in the constitution succeeded, until the great wars of the Samnites and those of the Carthaginians directed the attention of the people to foreign conquest. After the close of these great wars and the firm establishment of the universal power of Rome abroad, there sprang up a great civil war, induced largely by the disturbance of the Gracchi, who sought to carry out the will of the people in regard to popular democracy and the division of the public lands.

Thus, step by step, the plebeians, by a peaceful civil struggle, had obtained the consulship, and, indeed, the right to all other civil offices. They had obtained a right to sit in the senate, had obtained the declaration of social equality, had settled the great land question; and yet the will of the people never prevailed. The great Roman senate, made up of the aristocracy of Rome, an aristocracy of both plebeians and patricians, ruled with unyielding sway, and the common people never obtained full possession of their rights and privileges. Civil strife continued; the gulf between the rich and the poor, the nobility and the proletariat representing a few rich political manipulators, on the one side, and the half-fed, half-mad populace, on the other, grew wider and wider, finally ending in civil war. In the midst of the strife the republic passed away, and only the coming of the imperial power of the Caesars perpetuated Roman institutions.

Rome Becomes a Dominant City.—In all of this struggle at home and abroad, foreign conquest led to the establishment of Rome as the central city. The constitution of Rome was the typical constitution for all provincial cities, and from this one centre all provinces were ruled. No example heretofore had existed of the centralization of government similar to this. The overlordship of the Persians was only for the purpose of collecting tribute; there was little attempt to carry abroad the Persian institutions or to amalgamate the conquered provinces in one great homogeneous nation.

The empire of Athens was but a temporary hegemony over tributary states. But the Roman government conquered and absorbed. Wherever went the Roman arms, there the Roman laws and the Roman government followed; there followed the Roman language, architecture, art, institutions, and civilization. Great highways passed from the Eternal City to all parts of the territory, binding together the separate elements of national life, and levelling down the barriers between all nations. Every colony planted by Rome in the new provinces was a type of the old Roman life, and the provincial government everywhere became the type of this central city. Here was reached a state in the development of government which no nation had hitherto attained—the dominant city and the rule of a mighty empire from central authority.

The Development of Government.—The remarkable development of Rome in government from the old hereditary nobility, in which priest-kings ruled the people, to a military king who was leader, subsequently into a republic which stood the test for several centuries of a fierce struggle for the rights of the people, finally into an imperial government to last for 450 years, represents the growth of one of the most remarkable governments in the world's history. The fundamental idea in government was the ruling of an entire state from the central city, and out of this idea grew imperialism as a later development, vesting all authority in a single monarch. The governments of conquered provinces were gradually made over into the Roman system. The Roman municipal government was found in all the cities of the provinces, and the provincial government became an integral part of the Roman system. The provinces were under the supervision of imperial officers appointed by the emperor. Thus the tendency was to bind the whole government into one unified system, with its power and authority at Rome. So long as this central authority remained and had its full sway there was little danger of the decline of Roman power, but when disintegration began in the central government the whole structure was doomed.

One of the remarkable characteristics of the Roman government was a system of checks of one part by every other part. Thus, in the republic, the consuls were checked by the senate, the senate by the consular power, the various assemblies, such as the Curiata, Tributa, and Centuriata, each having its own particular powers, were checks upon each other and upon other departments of the government. The whole system of magistrates was subject to the same checks or limits in authority. And while impeachment was not introduced, each officer, at the close of his term, was accountable for his actions while in office. But under imperialism the tendency was to break down the power of each separate form of government and to absorb it in the imperial power. Thus Augustus soon attributed to himself the power of the chief magistrates and obtained a dominating power in the senate until the functions of government were all centralized in the emperor. While this made a strong government, in many phases it was open to great dangers, and in due time it failed, as a result of the corruption that clustered around the despotism of a single ruler unchecked by constitutional power.

The Development of Law Is the Most Remarkable Phase of the Roman Civilization.—Perhaps the most lasting effect of the Roman civilization is observed in the contribution of law to the nations which arose at the time of the decline of the imperial sway. From the time of the posting of the Twelve Tables in a public place, where they could be read by all the citizens of Rome, there was a steady growth of the Roman law. The decrees of the senate, as well as the influence of judicial decisions, gradually developed a system of jurisprudence. There sprang up, also, interpreters of the law, who had much influence in shaping its course. Also, in the early period of the republic, the acts of the popular assemblies became laws. This was before the senate became the supreme lawmaking body of the state.

During the imperial period the emperor acted somewhat through the senate, but the latter body was more or less under his control, for he frequently dictated its actions. Having assumed the powers of a magistrate, he could issue an edict; as a judge he could give decrees and issue commands to his own officials, all of which tended to increase the body of Roman law. In the selection of jurists for the interpretation of the law the emperor also had great control over its character. The great accomplishment of the lawmaking methods of the Romans was, in the first place, to allow laws to be made by popular assemblies and the senate, according to the needs of a developing social organization. This having once been established, the foundation of lawmaking was laid for all nations to follow. The Roman law soon passed into a complex system of jurisprudence which has formed a large element in the structure, principles, and practice of all modern legal systems. The character of the law in itself was superior and masterly, and its universality was accomplished through the universal rule of the empire.

The later emperors performed a great service to the world by collecting and codifying Roman laws. The Theodosian code (Theodosius II, 408-450 A.D.) was a very important one on account of the influence it exercised over the various Teutonic systems of law practised by the different barbarian tribes that came within the borders of the Roman Empire. The jurists who gave the law a great development had by the close of the fourth century placed on record all the principal legal acts of the empire. They had collected and edited all the sources of law and made extensive commentaries of great importance upon them, but it remained for Theodosius to arrange the digests of these jurists and to codify the later imperial decrees. But the Theodosian code went but a little way in the process of digesting the laws.

The Justinian code, however, gave a complete codification of the law in four distinct parts, known as (1) "the Pandects, or digest of the scientific law literature; (2) the Codex, or summary of imperial legislation; (3) the Institutes, a general review or text-book, founded upon the digest and code, an introductory restatement of the law; and (4) the Novels, or new imperial legislation issued after the codification, to fill the gaps and cure the inconsistencies discovered in the course of the work of codification and manifest in its published results."[1] Thus the whole body of the civil law was incorporated.

Here, then, is seen the progress of the Roman law from the semireligious rules governing the patricians in the early patriarchal period, whose practice was generally a form of arbitration, to the formal writing of the Twelve Tables, the development of the great body of the law through interpretation, the decrees of magistrates, acts of legislative assemblies, and finally the codification of the laws under the later emperors. This accumulation of legal enactments and precedents formed the basis of legislation under the declining empire and in the new nationalities. It also occupied an important place in the curriculum of the university.

Influence of the Greek Life on Rome.—The principal influence of the Greeks on Roman civilization was found first in the early religion and its development in the Latin race at Rome. The religion of the Romans was polytheistic, but far different from that of the Greeks. The deification of nature was not so analytic, and their deities were not so human as those of the Greek religion. There was no poetry in the Roman religion; it all had a practical tendency. Their gods were for use, and, while they were honored and worshipped, they were clothed with few fancies. The Romans seldom speculated on the origin of the gods and very little as to their personal character, and failed to develop an independent theogony. They were behind the Greeks in their mental effort in this respect, and hence we find all the early religion was influenced by the ideas of the Latins, the Etruscans, and the Greeks, the last largely through the colonies which were established in Italy. Archaeology points conclusively to the fact of early Greek influence.

In later development the conquest of the Greeks brought to Rome the religion, art, paintings, and philosophy of the conquered. The Romans were shrewd and acute in the appreciation of all which they had found that was good in the Greeks. From the time of this contact there was a constant and continued adoption of Grecian models in Rome. The first Roman writers, Fabius Pictor and Quintus Ennius, both wrote in Greek. All the early Roman writers considered Greek the finished style. The influence of the Greek language was felt at Rome on the first acquaintance of the Italians with it, through trade and commerce and through the introduction of Greek forms of religion.

The early influence of language was less than the influence of art. While the Phoenicians and Etruscans furnished some of the models, they were usually unproductive and barren types, and not to be compared with those furnished by Greece. The young Romans who devoted themselves to the state and its service were from the fifth century B.C. well versed in the Greek language. No education was considered complete in the latter days of the republic, and under the imperial power, until it had been finished at Athens or Alexandria. The effect on literature, particularly poetry and the drama, was great in the first period of Roman literature, and even Horace, the most original of all Latin poets, began his career by writing Greek verse, and no doubt his beautiful style was acquired by his ardent study of the Greek language. The plays of Plautus and Terence deal also with the products of Athens, and, indeed, every Roman comedy was to a certain extent a copy, either in form or spirit, of the Greek. In tragedy, the spirit of Euripides, the master, came into Rome.

The influence of the Greek philosophy was more marked than that of language. Its first contact with Rome was antagonistic. The philosophers and rhetoricians, because of the disturbance they created, were expelled from Rome in the second century. As early as 161 A.D. those who pursued the study of philosophy always read and disputed in Greek. Many Greek schools of philosophy of an elementary nature were established temporarily at Rome, while the large number of students of philosophy went to Athens, and those of rhetoric to Rhodes, for the completion of their education. The philosophy of Greece that came into Rome was something of a degenerate Epicureanism, fragments of a broken-down system, which created an unwholesome atmosphere.

The only science which Rome developed was that of jurisprudence, and the scientific writings of the Greeks had comparatively little influence upon Roman culture. Mr. Duruy, in speaking of the influence of the Greeks on Rome, particularly in the days of its decline, says: "In conclusion, we find in certain sciences, for which Rome cared nothing, great splendor, but in art and poetry no mighty inspiration; in eloquence, vain chatter of words and images (the rhetoricians), habits but no faith; in philosophy, the materialism which came from the school of Aristotle, the doubt born of Plato, the atheism of Theodorus, the sensualism of Epicurus vainly combated by the moral protests of Zeno; and lastly, in the public life, the enfeeblement or the total loss of all of those virtues which make the man and the citizen; such were the Greeks at the time. And now we say, with Cato, Polybius, Livy, Pliny, Justinian, and Plutarch, that all this passed into the Eternal City. The conquest of Greece by Rome was followed by the conquest of Rome by Greece. Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit."

Latin Literature and Language.—The importance of the Latin language and literature in the later history of the Romans and throughout the Middle Ages is a matter of common knowledge. The language of the Latin tribes congregating at Rome finally predominated over all Italy and followed the Roman arms through all the provinces. It became to a great extent the language of the common people and subsequently the literary language of the empire. It became finally the great vehicle of thought in all civil and ecclesiastical proceedings in the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the modern era. As such it has performed a great service to the world. Cato wrote in Latin, and so did the annalists of the early period of Latin literature. Livy became a master of his own language, and Cicero presents the improved and elevated speech. The study of these masterpieces, full of thought and beauty of expression, has had a mighty influence in the education of the youth of modern times. It must be conceded, however, that in Rome the productions of the great masters were not as universally known or as widely celebrated as one would suppose. But, like all great works of art, they have lived on to bear their influence through succeeding ages.

Development of Roman Art.—The elements of art and architecture were largely borrowed from the Greeks. We find, however, a distinctive style of architecture called Roman, which varies from that of the Greek, although the influence of Greek form is seen not only in the decorations but in the massive structure of the buildings. Without doubt, in architecture the Romans perfected the arch as their chief characteristic and contribution to art progress. But this in itself was a great step in advance and laid the foundation of a new style. As might be expected from the Romans, it became a great economic advantage in building. In artistic decoration they made but little advancement until the time of the Greek influence.

Decline of the Roman Empire.—The evolution of the Roman nation from a few federated tribes with archaic forms of government to a fully developed republic with a complex system of government, and the passage of the republic into an imperialism, magnificent and powerful in its sway, are subjects worthy of our most profound contemplation; and the gradual decline and decay of this great superstructure is a subject of great interest and wonder. In the contemplation of the progress of human civilization, it is indeed a mournful subject. It seems to be the common lot of man to build and destroy in order to build again. But the Roman government declined on account of causes which were apparent to every one. It was an impossibility to build up such a great system without its accompanying evils, and it was impossible for such a system to remain when such glaring evils were allowed to continue.

If it should be asked what caused the decline of this great civilization, it may be said that the causes were many. In the first place, the laws of labor were despised and capital was consumed without any adequate return. There was consequently nothing left of an economic nature to withstand the rude shocks of pestilence and war. The few home industries, when Rome ceased to obtain support from the plunder of war, were not sufficient to supply the needs of a great nation. The industrial condition of Rome had become deplorable. In all the large cities there were a few wealthy and luxurious families, a small number of foreigners and freedmen who were superintending a large number of slaves, and a large number of free citizens who were too proud to work and yet willing to be fed by the government. The industrial conditions of the rural districts and small cities were no better.

There were a few non-residents who cultivated the soil by means of slaves, or by coloni, or serfs who were bound to the soil. These classes were recruited from the conquered provinces. Farming had fallen into disrepute. The small farmers, through the introduction of slavery, were crowded from their holdings and were compelled to join the great unfed populace of the city. Taxation fell heavily and unjustly upon the people. The method of raising taxes by farming them out was a pernicious system that led to gross abuse. All enterprise and all investments were discouraged. There was no inducement for men to enter business, as labor had been dishonored and industry crippled. The great body of Roman people were divided into two classes, those who formed the lower classes of laborers and those who had concentrated the wealth of the country in their own hands and held the power of the nation in their own control. The mainstay of the nation had fallen with the disappearance of the sterling middle class. The lower classes were reduced to a mob by the unjust and unsympathetic treatment received at the hands of the governing class.

In the civil administration there was a division of citizens into two classes: those who had influence in the local affairs of their towns or neighborhood, and those who were simply interested in the central organization. During the days of the republic these people were closely related, because all citizens were forced to come to Rome in order to have a voice in the political interests of the government. But during the empire there came about a change, and the citizens of a distant province were interested only in the management of their own local affairs and lost their interest in the general government, so that when the central government weakened there was a tendency for the local interests to destroy the central.

After the close of Constantine's reign very great evils threatened the Roman administration. First of these was the barbarians; second, the populace; and third, the soldiers. The barbarians continually made inroads upon the territory, broke down the governmental system, and established their own, not so much for the sake of destruction and plunder, as is usually supposed, but to seek the betterment of their condition as immigrants into a new territory. That they were in some instances detrimental to the Roman institutions is true, but in others they gave new life to the declining empire. The populace was a rude, clamorous mass of people, seeking to satisfy their hunger in the easiest possible way. These were fed by the politicians for the sake of their influence. The soldiery of Rome had changed. Formerly made up of patriots who marched out to defend their own country or to conquer surrounding provinces in the name of the Eternal City, the ranks were filled with mercenary soldiers taken from the barbarians, who had little interest in the perpetuation of the Roman institutions. They had finally obtained so much power that they set up an emperor, or dethroned him, at their will.

And finally it may be said that of all these internal maladies and external dangers, the decline in moral worth of the Roman nation is the most appalling. Influenced by a broken-down philosophy, degenerated in morals, corrupt in family and social life, the whole system decayed, and could not withstand the shock of external influence.

Summary of Roman Civilization.—The Roman contribution, then, to civilization is largely embraced in the development of a system of government with forms and functions which have been perpetuated to this day; the development of a system of law which has found its place in all modern legal codes; a beautiful and rich language and literature; a few elements of art and architecture; the development of agriculture on a systematic basis; the tendency to unify separate races in one national life; the practice of the art of war on a humane basis, and the development of the municipal system of government which has had its influence on every town of modern life. These are among the chief contributions of the Roman system to the progress of humanity.

While it is common to talk of the fall of the Roman Empire, Rome is greater to-day in the perpetuity of her institutions than during the glorious days of the republic or of the magnificent rule of the Caesars. Rome also left a questionable inheritance to the posterity of nations. The idea of imperialism revived in the empire of Charlemagne, and later in the Holy Roman Empire, and, cropping out again and again in the monarchies of new nations, has not become extinct to this day. The recent World War gave a great shock to the idea of czarism. The imperial crowns of the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs, and the royal crowns of minor nations fell from the heads of great rulers, because the Emperor of Germany overworked the idea of czarism after the type of imperial Rome. But the idea is not dead. In shattered Europe, the authority and infallibility of the state divorced from the participation of the people, though put in question, is yet a smouldering power to be reckoned with. It is difficult to erase Rome's impress upon the world.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. How were the Greeks and Romans related racially?

2. Difference between the Greek and the Roman attitude toward life.

3. What were the land reforms of the Gracchi?

4. What advancement did the Romans make in architecture?

5. What were the internal causes of the decline of Rome?

6. Why did the Celts and the Germans invade Rome?

7. Enumerate the permanent contributions of Rome to subsequent civilization.

[1] Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

Important Factors in the Foundation of Western Civilization.—When the European world entered the period of the Middle Ages, there were a few factors more important than others that influenced civilization.[1] (1) The Oriental cultures, not inspiring as a whole, left by-products from Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. These were widely spread through the influence of world wars and world empires. (2) The Greek cultures in the form of art, architecture, philosophy, and literature, and newer forms of political and social organization were widely diffused. (3) The Romans had established agriculture, universal centralized government and citizenship, and developed a magnificent body of law; moreover, they had formed a standing army which was used in the support of monarchy, added some new features to architecture and industrial structures, and developed the Latin language, which was to be the carrier of thought for many centuries. (4) The Christian religion with a new philosophy of life was to penetrate and modify all society, all thought, government, law, art, and, in fact, all phases of human conduct. (5) The barbarian invasion carried with it the Teutonic idea of individual liberty and established a new practice of human relationships. It was vigor of life against tradition and convention. With these contributions, the European world was to start out with the venture of mediaeval civilization, after the decline of the Roman Empire.

The Social Contacts of the Christian Religion.—Of the factors enumerated above, none was more powerful than the teaching of the Christians. For it came in direct contrast and opposition to established opinions and old systems. It was also constructive, for it furnished a definite plan of social order different from all existing ones, which it opposed. The religions of the Orient centred society around the temple. Among all the Semitic races, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hebrew, temple worship was an expression of religious and national unity. National gods, national worship, and a priesthood were the rule. Egypt was similar in many respects, and the Greeks used the temple worship in a limited degree, though no less real in its influences.

The Romans, though they had national gods, yet during the empire had liberalized the right of nations to worship whom they pleased, provided nothing was done to militate against the Roman government, which was committed to the worship of certain gods, in which the worship of the emperor became a more or less distinctive feature. The Christian teaching recognized no national gods, no national religion, but a world god who was a father of all men. Furthermore, it recognized that all men, of whatsoever race and country, were brethren. So this doctrine of love crossed boundaries of all nations and races, penetrated systems of religion and philosophy, and established the idea of international and universal brotherhood.

Social Conditions at the Beginning of the Christian Era.—The philosophy of the Greeks and Romans had reached a state of degeneracy at the time of the coming of Christ. Thought had become weak and illogical. Trusting to the influence of the senses, which were at first believed to be infallible, scepticism of the worst nature influenced all classes of the people. Epicureanism, not very bad in the beginning, had come to a stage of decrepitude. To seek immediate pleasure regardless of consequences was far different from avoiding extravagance and intemperance, in order to make a higher happiness. Licentiousness, debauchery, the demoralized condition of the home and family ties, made all society corrupt. Stoicism had been taken up by the Romans; it agreed with their nature, and, coupled with Epicureanism, led to the extinction of faith. There was no clear vision of life; no hope, no high and worthy aspirations, no inspiration for a noble life.

The character of worship of the Romans of their various gods led to a non-religious attitude of mind. Religion, like everything else, had become a commercial matter, to be used temporarily for the benefit of all parties who indulged. While each separate nationality had its own shrine in the temple, and while the emperor was deified, all worship was carried on in a selfish manner. There was no reverence, no devout attitude of worship, and consequently no real benefit derived from the religious life. The Roman merchant went to the temple to offer petitions for the safety of his ship on the seas, laden with merchandise. After its safe entrance, the affair troubled him no more; his religious emotion was satisfied. Moral degeneration could be the only outcome of following a broken-down philosophy and an empty religion. Men had no faith in one another, and consequently felt no obligation to moral actions. Dishonesty in all business transactions was the rule. Injustice in the administration of the law was worked by the influence of factions and cliques. The Roman world was politically corrupt. Men were struggling for office regardless of the effect of their methods on the social welfare. The marriage relation became indefinite and unholy. The home life lost its hallowed influence as a support to general, social, and political life.

The result of a superficial religion, an empty philosophy, and a low grade of morality, was to drive men to scepticism, to a doubt in all things, or to a stoic indifference to all things, or perhaps in a minority of cases to a search for light. To nearly all there was nothing in the world to give permanent satisfaction to the sensual nature, or nothing to call out the higher qualities of the soul. Men turned with loathing from their own revels and immoral practices and recognized nothing worthy of their thoughts in life. Those who held to a moral plane at all found no inspiration in living, had no enthusiasm for anything or any person. It were as well that man did not exist; that there was no earth, no starry firmament, no heaven, no hell, no present, no future. The few who sought for the light did so from their inner consciousness or through reflection. Desiring a better life, they advocated higher aspirations of the soul and an elevated, moral life, and sought consolation in the wisdom of the sages. Their life bordered on the monastic.

The Contact of Christianity with Social Life.—The most striking contrast to be observed in comparing the state of the world with Christianity is the novelty of its teachings. No doctrine like the fatherhood of God had hitherto been taught in the European world. Plato reached, in his philosophy, a conception of a universal creator and father of all, but his doctrine was influenced by dualism. There was no conception of the fatherly care which Christians supposed God to exercise over all of his creatures. It also taught the brotherhood of man, that all people of every nation are brethren, with a common father, a doctrine that had never been forcibly advanced before. The Jehovah of the Jews watched over their especial affairs and was considered in no sense the God of the Gentiles. For how could Jehovah favor Jews and also their enemies at the same time? So, too, for the Greek and the barbarian, the Roman and the Teuton, the jurisdiction of deities was limited by national boundaries, or, in case of family worship, by the tribe, for the household god belonged only to a limited number of worshippers. A common brotherhood of all men on a basis of religious equality of right and privilege was decidedly new.

Christianity taught of the nature and punishment of sin. This, too, was unknown to the degenerate days of the Roman life. To sin against the Creator and Father was new in their conception, and to consider such as worthy of punishment was also beyond their philosophy. Christianity clearly pointed out what sin is, and asserted boldly that there is a just retribution to all lawbreakers. It taught of righteousness and justice, and that acts were to be performed because they were right. Individuals were to be treated justly by their fellows, regardless of birth or position. And finally, making marriage a divine institution, Christianity introduced a pure moral code in the home.

While a few philosophers, following after Plato, conjectured respecting the immortality of the soul, Christianity was the first religious system to teach eternal life as a fundamental doctrine. Coupled with this was the doctrine of the future judgment, at which man should give an account of his actions on this side of the grave. This was a new doctrine to the people of the world.

The Christians introduced a new phase of social life by making their practice agree with their profession. It had been the fault of the moral sentiments of the ancient sages that they were never carried out in practice. Many fine precepts respecting right conduct had been uttered, but these were not realized by the great mass of humanity, and were put in practice by very few people. They had seldom been vitalized by humanizing use. Hence Christianity appeared in strong relief in the presence of the artificial system with which it came in contact. It had a faith and genuineness which were vigorous and refreshing.

The Christians practised true benevolence, which was a great point in these latter days of selfishness and indifference. They systematically looked after their own poor and cared for the stranger at the gates. Later the church built hospitals and refuges and prepared for the care of all the oppressed. Thousands who were careworn, oppressed, or disgusted with the ways of the world turned instinctively to Christianity for relief, and were not disappointed. The Greeks and the Romans had never practised systematic charity until taught by the Christians. The Romans gave away large sums for political reasons, to appease the populace, but with no spirit of charity.

But one of the most important of the teachings of the early church was to dignify labor. There was a new dignity lent to service. Prior to the dominion of the church, labor had become degrading, for slavery had supplanted free labor to such an extent that all labor appeared dishonorable. Another potent cause of the demoralization of labor was the entrance of a large amount of products from the conquered nations. The introduction of these supplies, won by conquest, paralyzed home industries and developed a spirit of pauperism. The actions of the nobility intensified the evils. They spent their time in politics, and purchased the favor of the populace for the right of manipulating the wealth and power of the community. The Christians taught that labor was honorable, and they labored with their own hands, built monasteries, developed agriculture, and in many other ways taught that it is noble to labor.

Christianity Influenced the Legislation of the Times.—At first Christians were a weak and despised group of individuals. Later they obtained sufficient force to become partners with the empire and in a measure dictate some of the laws of the community. The most significant of these were to abolish the inhuman treatment of criminals, who were considered not so well as the beasts of the field. Organized Christianity secured human treatment of prisoners while they were in confinement, and the abolition of punishment by crucifixion. Gladiatorial shows were suppressed, and laws permitting the freer manumission of slaves were passed. The exposure of children, common to both Greeks and Romans, was finally forbidden by law. The laws of marriage were modified so that the sanctity of the home was secured; and, finally, a law was passed securing Sunday as a day of rest to be observed by the whole nation. This all came about gradually as the church came into power. This early influence of the Christian religion on the legislation of the Roman government presaged a time when, in the decline of the empire, the church would exercise the greatest power of any organization, political or religious, in western Europe.

Christians Come Into Conflict with Civil Authority.—It was impossible that a movement so antagonistic to the usual condition of affairs as Christianity should not come into conflict with the civil authority. Its insignificant beginning, although it excited the hatred and the contempt of the jealous and the discontented, gave no promise of a formidable power sufficient to contend with the imperial authority. But as it gained power it excited the alarm of rulers, as they beheld it opposing cherished institutions. Nearly all of the persecutions came about through the attitude of the church toward the temporal rulers. The Roman religion was a part of the civil system, and he who would not subscribe to it was in opposition to the state.

The Christians would not worship the emperor, nor indeed would they, in common with other nations, set up an image or shrine in the temple at Rome and worship according to the privilege granted. They recognized One higher in power than the emperor. The Romans in their practical view of life could not discriminate between spiritual and temporal affairs, and a recognition of a higher spiritual being as giving authority was in their sight the acknowledgment of allegiance to a foreign power. The fact that the Christians met in secret excited the suspicions of many, and it became customary to accuse them on account of any mishap or evil that came upon the people. Thus it happened at the burning of Rome that the Christians were accused of setting it on fire, and many suffered persecution on account of these suspicions.

Christians also despised civic virtues, or made light of their importance. In this they were greatly mistaken in their practical service, for they could have wielded more power had they given more attention to civic life. Like many good people of modern times, they observed the corruption of government, and held themselves aloof from it rather than to enter in and attempt to make it better. The result of this indifference of the Christians was to make the Romans believe that they were antagonistic to the best interests of the community.

The persecution of the Christians continued at intervals with greater or less intensity for more than two centuries; the Christians were early persecuted by the Jews, later by the Romans. In the first century they were persecuted under Nero and Domitian, through personal spite or selfish interests. After this their persecution was political; there was a desire to suppress a religion that was held to be contrary to law. The persecution under Hadrian arose on account of the supposition that the Christians were the cause of plagues and troubles on account of their impiety. Among later emperors it became customary to attribute to them any unusual occurrence or strange phenomenon which was destructive of life or property.

Organized Christianity grew so strong that it came in direct contact with the empire, and the latter had need of real apprehension, for the conflict brought about by the divergence of belief suddenly precipitated a great struggle within the empire. The strong and growing power of the Christians was observed everywhere. It was no insignificant opponent, and it attacked the imperial system at all points.

Finally Constantine, who was a wise ruler as well as an astute politician, saw that it would be good policy to recognize the church as an important body in the empire and to turn this growing social force to his own account. From this time on the church may be said to have become a part of the imperial system, which greatly influenced its subsequent history. While in a measure it brought an element of strength into the social and political world, it rapidly undermined the system of government, and was a potent force in the decline of the empire by rendering obsolete many phases of the Roman government.

The Wealth of the Church Accumulates.—As Rome declined and new governments arose, the church grew rapidly in the accumulation of wealth, particularly in church edifices and lands. It is always a sign of growing power when large ownership of property is obtained. The favors of Constantine, the gifts of Pepin and Charlemagne, and the large number of private gifts of property brought the church into the Middle Ages with large feudal possessions. This gave it prestige and power, which it could not otherwise have held, and hastened the development of a system of government which was powerful in many ways.

Development of the Hierarchy.—The clergy finally assumed powers of control of the church separate from the laity. Consequently there was a gradual decline in the power of lay members to have a voice in the affairs of the church. While the early church appeared as a simple democratic association, the organization had developed into a formal system or hierarchy, which extended from pope to simple lay members. The power of control falling into the hands of high officials, there soon became a distinction between the ordinary membership and the machinery of government. Moreover, the clergy were exempt from taxation and any control or discipline similar to that imposed on ordinary lay members.

These conditions soon led to the exercise of undue authority of the hierarchy over the lay membership. This dominating principle became dogmatic, until the members of the church became slaves to an arbitrary government. The only saving quality in this was the fact that the members of the clergy were chosen from the laity, which kept up the connection between the higher and lower members of the church. The separation of the governors from the governed proceeded slowly but surely until the higher officers were appointed from the central authority of the church, and all, even to the clergy, were directly under the imperial control of the papacy. Moreover, the clergy assumed legal powers and attempted to regulate the conduct of the laymen. There finally grew up a great body of canon law, according to which the clergy ruled the entire church and, to a certain extent, civil life.

But the church, under the canon law, must add a penalty to its enforcement and must assume the punishment of offenders within its own jurisdiction. This led to the assumption that all crime is sin, and as its particular function was to punish sin, the church claimed jurisdiction over all sinners and the right to apprehend and sentence criminals; but the actual punishment of the more grievous offenses was usually given over to the civil authority.

Attempt to Dominate the Temporal Powers.—Having developed a strong hierarchy which completely dominated the laity, from which it had separated, having amassed wealth and gained power, and having invaded the temporal power in the apprehension and punishment of crime, the church was prepared to go a step farther and set its authority above kings and princes in the management of all temporal affairs. In this it almost succeeded, for its power of excommunication was so great as to make the civil authorities tremble and bow down before it. The struggle of church and empire in the Middle Ages, and, indeed, into the so-called modern era, represents one of the important phases of history. The idea of a world empire had long dominated the minds of the people, who looked to the Roman imperialism as the final solution of all government. But as this gradually declined and was replaced by the Christian church, the idea of a world religion finally became prevalent. Hence the ideas of a world religion and a world empire were joined in the Holy Roman Empire, begun by Charlemagne and established by Otto the Great. In this combination the church assumed first place as representing the eternal God, as the head of all things temporal and spiritual.

In this respect the church easily overreached itself in the employment of force to carry out its plans. Assuming to control by love, it had entered the lists to contend with force and intrigue, and it became subject to all forms of degradation arising from political corruption. In this respect its high object became degraded to the mere attempt to dominate. The greed for power and force was very great, and this again and again led the church into error and lessened its influence in the actual regeneration of man and society.

Dogmatism.—The progress of the imperial power of the church finally settled into the condition of absolute authority over the thoughts and minds of the people. The church assumed to be absolutely correct in its theory of authority, and assumed to be infallible in regard to matters of right and wrong. It went farther, and prescribed what men should believe, and insisted that they should accept that dictum without question, on the authority of the church. This monopoly of religious belief assumed by the church had a tendency to stifle free inquiry and to retard progress. It more than once led to irregularities of practice on the part of the church in order to maintain its position, and on the part of the members to avoid the harsh treatment of the church. Religious progress, except in government-building, was not rapid, spirituality declined, and the fervent zeal for the right and for justice passed into fanaticism for purity.

This caused the church to fail to utilize the means of progress. It might have advanced its own interest more rapidly by encouraging free inquiry and developing a struggle for the truth. By exercising liberality it could have ingratiated itself into the government of all nations as a helpful adviser, and thus have conserved morality and justice; but by its illiberality it retarded the progress of the mind and the development of spirituality. While it lowered the conception of religion, on the one hand, it lowered the estimate of knowledge, on the other, and in all suppressed truth through dogmatic belief. This course not only affected the character and quality of the clergy, and created discontent in the laymen, but finally lessened respect for the church, and consequently for the gospel, in the minds of men.

The Church Becomes the Conservator of Knowledge.—Very early in the days of the decline of the Roman Empire, when the inroads of the barbarian had destroyed reverence for knowledge, and, indeed, when within the tottering empire all philosophy and learning had fallen into contempt, the church possessed the learning of the times. Through its monasteries and its schools all the learning of the period was found. It sought in a measure to preserve, by copying, the manuscripts of many of the ancient and those of later times. Thus the church preserved the knowledge which otherwise must have passed away through Roman degeneration and barbarian influences.

Service of Christianity.[2]—The service of Christianity to European civilization consists chiefly in: (1) the respect paid to woman; (2) the establishment of the home and the enthronement of the home relation; (3) the advancement of the idea of humanity; (4) the development of morality; (5) the conservation of spiritual power; (6) the conservation of knowledge during the Dark Ages; (7) the development of faith; (8) the introduction of a new social order founded on brotherhood, which manifested itself in many ways in the development of community life.

If the church fell into evil habits it was on account of the conditions under which it existed. Its struggle with Oriental despotism, as well as with Oriental mysticism, a degenerate philosophy, corrupt social and political conditions, could not leave it unscathed. If evil at times, it was better than the temporal government. If its rulers were dogmatic, arbitrary, and inconsistent, they were better, nevertheless, than the ruling temporal princes. The church represented the only light there was in the Dark Ages. It was far superior in morality and justice to all other institutions. If it assumed too much power it must be remembered that it came naturally to this assumption by attending specifically to its apparent duty in exercising the power that the civil authority failed to exercise. The development of faith in itself is a great factor in civilization. It must not be ignored, although it is in great danger of passing into dogmatism. A world burdened with dogmatism is a dead world; a world without faith is a corrupt world leading on to death.

The Christian religion taught the value of the individual, but also taught of the Kingdom of God, which involved a community spirit—the universal citizenship of the Romans prepared the way, and the individual liberty of the Germans strengthened it. Whenever the church adhered to the teachings of the four gospels, it made for liberty of thought, freedom of life, progress in knowledge and in the arts of right living. Whenever it ceased to follow these and put institutionalism first, it retarded progress, in learning, science, and philosophy, and likewise in justice and righteousness.

To the church organization as an institution are due the preservation, perpetuation, and propagation of the teachings of Jesus, which otherwise might have been lost or passed into legend. All the way through the development of the Christian doctrine in Europe, under the direction of the church there are two conflicting forces—the rule by dogma and the freedom of individual belief. The former comes from the Greeks and Latins, the latter from the Nordic idea of personal liberty. Both have been essential to the development of the Christian religion and the political life alike. The dominant force in the religious dogma of the church was necessary to a people untutored in spiritual development. Its error was to insist that the individual had no right to personal belief. Yet the former established rules of faith and prevented the dissipation of the treasured teachings of Jesus.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. In what ways was the Christian religion antagonistic to other religions?

2. What new elements did it add to human progress?

3. How did the fall of Rome contribute to the power of the church?

4. What particular service did the church contribute to social order during the decline of the Roman Empire?

5. How did the church conserve learning and at the same time suppress freedom of thought?

6. How do you discriminate between Christianity as a religious culture and the church as an institution?

[1] Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages.

[2] Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, chap. I.

CHAPTER XVII

TEUTONIC INFLUENCE ON CIVILIZATION

The Coming of the Barbarians.—The picture usually presented by the historical story-tellers of the barbarian hordes that invaded the Roman Empire is that of bold pirates, plunderers of civilization, and destroyers of property. No doubt, as compared with the Roman system of warfare and plunder, their conduct was somewhat irregular. They were wandering groups or tribes, who lived rudely, seeking new territory for exploitation after the manner of their lives. They were largely a pastoral people with cattle as the chief source of industry with intermittent agriculture. Doubtless, they were attracted by the splendor of Rome, its wealth and its luxury, but primarily they were seeking a chance to live. It was the old luring food quest, which is the foundation of most migrations, that was the impelling force of their invasion. In accordance with their methods of life, the northern territory was over-crowded, and tribe pressed upon tribe in the struggle for existence. Moreover, the pressure of the Asiatic populations drove one tribe upon another and forced those of northern Europe south and east.

All of the invaders, except the Huns who settled in Pannonia, were of the Aryan branch of the Caucasian race. They were nearly all of the Nordic branch of the Aryan stock and were similar in racial characteristics and social life to the Greeks, who conquered the ancient Aegean races of Greece, and to those others who conquered the primitive inhabitants of Italy prior to the founding of the Roman nation. The Celts were of Aryan stock but not of Nordic race. They appeared at an early time along the Danube, moved westward into France, Spain, and Britain, and took side excursions into Italy, the most notable of which was the invasion of Rome 390 B.C. Wherever the Nordic people have gone, they have brought vigor of life and achieved much after they had acquired the tools of civilization. If they were pirates of property, they also were appropriators of the civilization of other nations, into which they projected the vigor of their own life.

Importance of Teutonic Influence.—Various estimates have been made as to the actual influence of the Teutonic races in shaping the civilization of western Europe. Mr. Guizot insists that this influence is entirely overestimated, and also, to a certain extent, misrepresented: that much has been done in their name which does not rightfully belong to them. He freely admits that the idea of law came from the Romans, morality from the Christian church, and the principle of liberty from the Germans. Yet he fails to emphasize the result of the union of liberty with the law, with morality, and with the church. It is just this leaven of liberty introduced into the various elements of civilization that gave it a new life and brought about progress, the primary element of civilization.

France, in the early period of European history, had an immense prestige in the advancement of civilization. There was a large population in a compact territory, with a closely organized government, both civil and ecclesiastical, and a large use of the Roman products of language, government, law, and other institutions. Consequently, France took the lead in progress, and Mr. Guizot is quite right in assuming that every element of progress passed through France to give it form, before it became recognized. Yet, in the later development of political liberty, law, and education, the Teutonic element becomes more prominent, until it would seem that the native and acquired qualities of the Teutonic life have the stronger representation in modern civilization. In stating this, due acknowledgment must be made to the Roman influence through law and government. But the spirit of progress is Teutonic, although the form, in many instances, may be Roman. It must be observed, too, that the foundation of local government in Germany, England, and the United States was of Teutonic origin; that the road from imperialism to democracy is lined with Teutonic institutions and lighted with Teutonic liberty, and that the whole system of individual rights and popular government has been influenced by the attitude of the Teutonic spirit toward government and law.

Teutonic Liberty.—All writers recognize that the Germanic tribes contributed the quality of personal liberty to the civilization of the West. The Roman writers, in setting forth their own institutions, have left a fair record of the customs and habits of the so-called barbarians. Titus said of them: "Their bodies are, indeed, great, but their souls are greater." Caesar had a remarkable method of eulogizing his own generalship by praising the valor and strength of the vanquished foes. "Liberty," wrote Lucanus, "is the German's birthright." And Florus, speaking of liberty, said: "It is a privilege which nature has granted to the Germans, and which the Greeks, with all of their arts, knew not how to obtain." At a later period Montesquieu was led to exclaim: "Liberty, that lovely thing, was discovered in the wild forests of Germany." While Hume, viewing the results of this discovery, said: "If our part of the world maintains sentiments of liberty, honor, equity, and valor superior to the rest of mankind, it owes these advantages to the seeds implanted by the generous barbarians."

More forcible than all these expressions of sentiment are the results of the study of modern historians of the laws and customs of the early Teutons, and the tracing of these laws in the later civilization. This shows facts of the vitalizing process of the Teutonic element. The various nations to-day which speak the Teutonic languages, of which the English is the most important, are carrying the burden of civilization. These, rather than those overcome by a preponderance of Roman influences, are forwarding the progress of the world.

Tribal Life.—Referring to the period of Germanic history prior to the influence of the Romans on the customs, laws, and institutions of the people, which transformed them from wandering tribes into settled nationalities, it is easy to observe, even at this time, the Teutonic character. The tribes had come in contact with Roman civilization, and many of them were already being influenced by the contact. Their social life and habits were becoming somewhat fixed, and the elements of feudalism were already prominent as the foundation of the great institution of the Middle Ages. This period also embraces the time when the tribes were about to take on the influence of the Christian religion, and when there was a constant mingling of the Christian spirit with the spirit of heathenism. In fact, the subject should cover all that is known of the Germanic tribes prior to the Roman contact and after it, down to the full entrance of the Middle Ages and the rise of new nationalities. In this period we shall miss the full interest of the society of the Middle Ages after the feudal system had transformed Europe or, rather, after Europe had entered into a great period of transformation from the indefinite, broken-down tribal life into the new life of modern nations.

Tribal society has its limitations and types distinctive from every other. The very name "tribe" suggests to us something different from the conditions of a modern nation. Caesar and Tacitus were accustomed to speak of the Germanic tribes as nationes, although with no such fulness of meaning as we attach to our modern nations. The Germanic, like the Grecian, tribe is founded upon two cardinal principles, and is a natural and not an artificial assemblage of people. These two principles are religion and kinship, or consanguinity. In addition to this there is a growth of the tribe by adoption, largely through the means of matrimony and the desire for protection.

These principles in the formation of the tribe are universal with the Aryan people, and, probably, with all other races. There is a clustering of the relatives around the eldest parent, who becomes the natural leader of the tribe and who has great power over the members of the expanded family. There is no state, there are no citizens, consequently the social life must be far different from that which we are accustomed to see. At the time of our first knowledge of the Germans, the family had departed a step from the conditions which bound the old families of Greece and Rome into such compact and firmly organized bodies. There was a tendency toward individualism, freedom, and the private ownership of land. All of these points, and more, must be taken into consideration, as we take a brief survey of the characteristics of the early Teutonic society. What has been said in reference to the tribe, points at once to the fact that there must have been different ranks of society, according to the manner in which a person became a member of the tribe.

Classes of Society.—The classes of people were the freemen of noble blood, or the nobility, the common freemen, the freedmen, or half-free, and the slaves.

The class of the nobility was based largely upon ancient lineage, some of whom could trace their ancestry to such a distance that they made tenable the claim that they were descended from the gods. The position of a noble was so important in the community that he found no difficulty in making good his claim to pure blood and a title of reverence, but this in no way gave him any especial political privilege. It assured a consideration which put him in the way of winning offices of preferment by his wealth and influence, but he must submit to the decision of the people for his power rather than depend upon the virtues of his ancestry. This is why, in a later period, the formation of the new kingship left out the idea of nobility and placed the right of government upon personal service. The second class represented the rank and file of the German freemen, the long-haired and free-necked men, who had never felt the yoke of bondage. Those were the churls of society, but upon them fell the burden of service and the power of leadership. Out of this rank came the honest yeomen of England.

The third class represented those who held lands of the freemen as serfs, and in the later period of feudal society they became attached to the soil and were bought with the land and sold with the land, though not slaves in the common acceptation of the term. The fourth class were those who were reduced to the personal service of others. They were either captives taken in war or those who had lost their freedom by gambling. This body was not large in the early society, although it tended to increase as society developed.

It will be seen at once that in the primitive life of a people like the one we are studying, there is a mingling of the political, religious, and social elements of society. There are no careful lines of distinction to be drawn as in present society, and more than this—there was a tendency to consolidate and simplify all of the forms of political and social life. There was a simplicity of forms and a lack of conventional usage, with a complexity of functions.

The Home and the Home Life.—The family of the Germans, like the family of all other Aryan races, was the social, political, and religious unit of the larger organization. As compared with the Oriental nations, the family was monogamic and noted for purity and virtue. Add to this the idea of reverence for women that characterized the early German people, and we may infer that the home life, though of a somewhat rude nature, was genuine, and that the home circle was not without a salutary influence in those times of wandering and war. The mother, as we may well surmise, was the ruler of the home, had the care of the household, deliberated with the husband in the affairs of the tribe, and even took her place by his side in the field of battle when it seemed necessary. In truth, if we may believe the chroniclers, woman was supposed to be the equal of man.

But returning to the tribal life, we find that the houses were of the rudest kind, made of undressed lumber or logs, with a hole in the roof for the smoke to pass out, with but one door and sometimes no window. There were no cities among the Germans until they were taught by contact with Rome to build them. The villages were, as a rule, an irregular collection of houses, more or less scattered, as is customary where land is plentiful and of no particular value. There were no regularly laid out streets, the villagers being a group of kinsmen of the same tribe, grouped together for convenience. Around the village was constructed a ditch and a hedge as a rampart for protection. This was called a "tun" (German Zoun), from which word we derive our name "town." The house generally had but one room, which was used for all purposes.

There was another class of houses, belonging to the nobility and the chiefs, called halls. They consisted of one long room, which sometimes had transepts or alcoves for the women, partitioned off by curtains from the main hall. This large room was the place where the lord and his companions were accustomed to sit at the great feasts after their return from a successful expedition. This is the "beer hall" that we read so much about in song, epic, and legend. Here the beer and the mead were passed; here arose the songs and the mirth of the warriors. On the walls of the hall might be seen the rude arms of the warrior, the shield and the spear, or decorations composed of the heads and the skins of wild beasts—all of which bring us to the early type of the hall of the great baron of the feudal age.

Until the age of chivalry, women were not present at these rude feasts. The religious life of the early Germans was tribal rather than personal or of the simple family. There were certain times at which members of the same tribe were wont to assemble and sacrifice to the gods. There was a common meeting-place from year to year. As it has been related, this had a tendency to cement the tribe together and enhance political unity. This custom must have had its influence on social order and must have, in a measure, arrested the tendency of the people to an unsocial and selfish life.

Political Assemblies.—The political assemblies, where all of the freemen met to discuss the affairs of the community, must have been powerful factors in the establishment of social customs and usage. The kinsmen or fellow tribesmen were grouped in villages, and each village maintained its privilege of self-government, and consequently the freemen met in the village assembly to consider the affairs of the community. We find combined in the political representation the ideas of tribal unity and individuality, or at least family independence. As the tribes federated, there was a tendency to make the assemblies more general, and thus the family exclusiveness tended to give way in favor of the development of the individual as a member of the tribal state. It was a slow transition from an ethnic to a democratic type of society.

This association created a feeling of common interest akin to patriotism. Mr. Freeman has given us a graphic representation of the survival of the early assembly in the Swiss cantons.[1] In the forest cantons the freemen met in the open field on stated occasions to enact the laws and transact the duties of legislators and judges. But although there was a tendency to sectional and clannish relations in society, this became much improved by the communal associations for political and economic life. But society, as such, could not advance very far when the larger part of the occupation of the freemen was that of war. The youth were educated in the field, and the warriors spent much of their time fighting with neighboring tribes.

The entire social structure, resting as it did upon kinship, found its changes in developing economic, political, and religious life. Especially is this seen in the pursuit of the common industries. As soon as the tribes obtained permanent seats and had given themselves mostly to agriculture, the state of society became more settled, and new customs were gradually introduced. At the same time society became better organized, and each man had his proper place, not only in the social scale but also in the industrial and political life of the tribe.

General Social Customs.—In the summer-time the clothing was very light. The men came frequently to the Roman camp clad in a short jacket and a mantle; the more wealthy ones wore a woollen or linen undergarment. But in the cold weather sheepskins and the pelts of wild animals, as well as hose for the legs and shoes made of leather for the feet, were worn. The mantle was fastened with a buckle, or with a thorn and a belt. In the belt were carried shears and knives for daily use. The women were not as a general thing dressed differently from the men. After the contact with the Romans the methods of dress changed, and there was a greater difference in the garments worn by men and women.

Marriage was a prominent social institution among the tribes, as it always is where the monogamic family prevails. There were doubtless traces of the old custom, common to most races, of wife capture, a custom which long continued as a mere fiction to some extent among the peasantry of certain localities in Germany. In this survival the bride makes feint to escape, and is chased and captured by the bridegroom. Some modern authorities have tried to show that there is a survival of this old custom of courtship, whereby the advances are supposed to be made by the men. The engagement to be married meant a great deal more in those days than at present. It was more than half of the marriage ceremony. Just as among the Hebrews, the engagement was the real marriage contract, and the latter ceremony only a form, so among the Germans the same custom prevailed. After engagement, until marriage they were called the BrÄut and BrÄutigam, but when wedded they ceased to be thus entitled. The betrothal contained the essential bonds of matrimony, and was far more important before the law than the later ceremony. In modern usage the opposite custom prevails.

The woman was always under wardship; her father was her natural guardian and made the marriage contract or the engagement. When a woman married, she brought with her a dower, furnished by her parents. This consisted of all house furnishings, clothes, and jewelry, and a more substantial dower in lands, money, or live stock. On the morning of the day after marriage the husband gave to the wife the "Morgengabe," which thereafter was her own property. It was the wedding-present of the groom. This is but a survival of the time when marriage among the Germans meant a simple purchase of a wife. It is said that "ein Weib zu kaufen" (to buy a wife) was the common term for getting engaged, and that this phrase was so used as late as the eleventh century. The wardship was called the mundium, and when the maid left her father's house for another home, her mundium was transferred from her father to her husband. This dower began, indeed, with the engagement, and the price of the mundium was paid over to the guardian at the time of the contract. From this time suit for breach of promise could be brought. These are the primitive customs of the marriage ceremony, but they were changed from time to time. Through the influence of Christianity, the woman finally attained prominence in the matter of choosing a husband, and learned, much to her satisfaction, to make her own contracts in matrimony.

The Economic Life.—The economic life was of the most meagre kind in the earlier stages of society. We find that Tacitus, writing 150 years after Caesar, shows that there had been some changes in the people. In the time of Caesar, the tribes were just making their transition from the pastoral-nomadic to the pastoral-agricultural state, and by the time of Tacitus this transition was so general that most of the tribes had settled to a more or less permanent agricultural life. It must be observed that the development of the tribes was not symmetrical, and that which reads very pleasantly on paper represents a very confused state of society. However much the tribes practised agriculture, they had but little peace, for warfare continued to be one of their chief occupations. It was in the battle that a youth received his chief education, and in the chase that he occupied much of his spare time.

But the ground was tilled, and barley, wheat, oats, and rye were raised. Flax was cultivated, and the good housewife did the spinning and weaving—all that was done—for the household. Greens, or herbage, were also cultivated, but fruit-trees seldom were cultivated. With the products of the soil, of the chase, and of the herds, the Teutons lived well. They had bread and meat, milk, butter and cheese, beer and mead, as well as fish and wild game. The superintending of the fields frequently fell to the lot of the hausfrau, and the labor was done by serfs. The tending of the fields, the pursuit of wild animals or the catching of fish, the care of the cattle or herds, and the making of butter and cheese, the building of houses, the bringing of salt from the sea, the making of garments, and the construction of weapons of war and utensils of convenience—these represent the chief industries of the people. Later, the beginnings of commerce sprang up between the separate tribes, and gradually extended to other nationalities.

Contributions to Law.—The principle of the trial by jury, which was developed in the English common law, was undoubtedly of Teutonic origin. That a man should be tried by his peers for any misdemeanor was considered to be a natural right. The idea of personal liberty made a personal law, which gradually gave way to civil law, although the personal element was never entirely obliterated. The Teutonic tribes had no written law, yet they had a distinct legal system. The comparison of this legal system with the Roman or with our modern system brings to light the individual character of the early Germanic laws. The Teuton claimed rights on account of his own personality and his relation to a family, not because he was a member of a state.

When the Teutons came in contact with the Romans they mingled their principles of law with those of the latter, and thus made law more formal. Nearly all of the tribes, after this contact, had their laws codified and written in Latin, by Roman scholars, chiefly of the clergy, who incorporated not only many elements of Roman law but also more or less of the elements of Christian usage. Those tribes which had been the longer time in contact with the Romans had a greater body of laws, more systematized and of more Roman characteristics. Finally, as modern nationality arose, the laws were codified, combining the Roman and the Teutonic practice.

The forms of judicial procedure remained much the same on account of the character of Teutonic social organization. The personal element was so strong in the Teutonic system as to yield a wide influence in the development of judicial affairs. The trial by combat and the early ordeals, the latter having been instituted largely through the church discipline, and the idea of local courts based upon a trial of peers, had much to do with shaping the course of judicial practice. The time came, however, when nearly every barbarian judicial process was modified by the influence of the Roman law, until the predominance of the state, in judicial usage, was recognized in place of the personal element which so long prevailed in the early Teutonic customs.

But in the evolution of the judicial systems of the various countries the Teutonic element of individual liberty and individual offenses never lost its influences. These simple elements of life indicate the origin of popular government, individual and social liberty, and the foundation of local self-government. Wherever the generous barbarians have gone they have carried the torch of liberty. In Italy, Greece, England, Germany, Spain, and the northern nations, wherever the lurid flames of revolt against arbitrary and conventional government have burst forth, it can be traced to the Teutonic spirit of freedom. This was the greatest contribution of the Teutonic people to civilization.[2]

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The vital elements of modern civilization contributed by the Germans.

2. Teutonic influence on Roman civilization.

3. Compare the social order of the Teutons with that of the early Greeks.

4. Causes of the invasion of Rome by the Teutonic tribes.

5. What were the racial relations of Romans, Greeks, Germans, Celts, and English?

6. Modern contributions to civilization by Germany.

[1] See Chapter XXI.

[2] The modern Prussian military state was a departure from the main trend of Teutonic life. It represented a combination of later feudalism and the Roman imperialism. It was a perversion of normal development, a fungous growth upon institutions of freedom and justice.

CHAPTER XVIII

FEUDAL SOCIETY

Feudalism a Transition of Social Order.—Feudalism represents a change from the ancient form of imperialism to the newer forms of European government. It arose out of the ruins of the Roman system as an essential form of social order. It appears to be the only system fitted to bring order out of the chaotic conditions of society, but by the very nature of affairs it could not long continue as an established system. It is rather surprising, indeed, that it became so universal, for every territory in Europe was subjected to its control in a greater or less degree. Frequently those who were forced to adopt its form condemned its principle, and those who sought to maintain the doctrine of Roman imperialism were subjected to its sway. The church itself, seeking to maintain its autocracy, came into direct contact with feudal theory and opposed it bitterly. The people who submitted to the yoke of personal bondage which it entailed hated the system. Yet the whole European world passed under feudalism. But notwithstanding its universality, feudalism could offer nothing permanent, for in the development of social order it was forced to yield to monarchy, although it made a lasting influence on social life and political and economic usage.

There Are Two Elementary Sources of Feudalism.—The spirit of feudalism arises out of the early form of Teutonic social life. It sprang from the personal obligation of the comitatus, which was composed of a military leader and his followers or companions. The self-constituted assembly elected the leader who was most noted for courage and prowess in battle. To him was consigned the task of leading in battle the host, which was composed of all the freemen in arms. Usually these chiefs were chosen for a single campaign, but it not infrequently happened that their leadership was continuous, with all the force of hereditary selection.

Another phase of the comitatus is represented by the leader's setting forth in time of peace with his companions to engage in fighting, exploiting, and plunder on his own account. The courageous young men of the tribe, thirsting for adventure in arms, gathered about their leader, whom they sought to excel in valor. He who was bravest and strongest in battle was considered most honorable. The principal feature to be noted is the personal allegiance of the companions to their leader, for they were bound to him with the closest ties. For the service which they rendered, the leader gave them sustenance and also reward for personal valor. They sat at his table and became his companions, and thus continually increased his power in the community.

This custom represents the germ of the feudal system. The leader became the lord, the companions his vassals. When the lord became a tribal chief or king, the royal vassals became the king's thegns, or represented the nobility of the realm. The whole system was based upon service and personal allegiance. As conquest of territory was made, the land was parcelled out among the followers, who received it from the leader as allodial grants and, later, as feudal grants. The allodial grant resembled the title in fee simple, the feudal grant was made on condition of future service.

The Roman element of feudalism finds its representation in clientage. This was a well-known institution at the time of the contact of the Romans with their invaders. The client was attached to the lord, on whom he depended for support and for representation in the community. Two of the well-known feudal aids, namely, the ransom of the lord from captivity and the gift of dowry money on the marriage of his eldest daughter, are similar to the services rendered by the Roman client to his lord.

The personal tie of clientage resembled the personal allegiance in the comitatus, with the difference that the client stood at a great distance from the patron, while in the comitatus the companions were nearly equal to their chief. The Roman influence tended finally to make the wide difference which existed between the lord and vassal in feudal relations. Other forms of Roman usage, such as the institution of the coloni, or half-slaves of the soil, and the custom of granting land for use without actual ownership, seem to have influenced the development of feudalism. Without doubt the Roman institutions here gave form and system to feudalism, as they did in other forms of government.

The Feudal System in Its Developed State Based on Land-Holding.—In the early period in France, where feudalism received its most perfect development, several methods of granting land were in vogue. First, the lands in the immediate possession of the conquered were retained by them on condition that they pay tribute to the conquerors; the wealthy Romans were allowed to hold all or part of their large estates. Second, many lands were granted in fee simple to the followers of the chiefs. Third was the beneficiary grant, most common to feudal tenure in its developed state. By this method land was granted as a reward for services past or prospective. The last method to be named is that of commendation, by which the small holder of land needing protection gave his land to a powerful lord, who in turn regranted it to the original owner on condition that the latter became his vassal. Thus the lands conquered by a chief or lord were parcelled out to his principal supporters, who in turn regranted them to those under them, so that all society was formed in a gradation of classes based on the ownership of land. Each lord had his vassal, every vassal his lord. Each man swore allegiance to the one next above him, and this one to his superior, until the king was reached, who himself was but a powerful feudal lord.

As the other forms and functions of state life developed, feudalism became the ruling principle, from which many strove in vain to free themselves. There were in France, in the time of Hugh Capet, according to Kitchen, "about a million of souls living on and taking their names from about 70,000 separate fiefs or properties; of these about 3,000 carried titles with them. Of these again, no less than a hundred were sovereign states, greater or smaller, whose lords could coin money, levy taxes, make laws, and administer their own justice."[1] Thus the effect of feudal tenure was to arrange society into these small, compact social groups, each of which must really retain its power by force of arms. The method gave color to monarchy, which later became universal.

Other Elements of Feudalism.—Prominent among the characteristics of feudalism was the existence of a close personal bond between the grantor and the receiver of an estate. The receiver did homage to the grantor in the form of oath, and also took the oath of fealty. In the former he knelt before the lord and promised to become his man on account of the land which he held, and to be faithful to him in defense of life and limb against all people. The oath of fealty was only a stronger oath of the same tenor, in which the vassal, standing before the lord, appealed to God as a witness. These two oaths, at first entirely separate, became merged into one, which passed by the name of the oath of fealty. When the lord desired to raise an army he had only to call his leading vassals, and they in turn called those under them. When he needed help to harvest his grain the vassals were called upon for service.

Besides the service rendered, there were feudal aids to be paid on certain occasions. The chief of these were the ransom of the lord when captured, the amount paid when the eldest son was knighted, and the dowry on the marriage of the eldest daughter. There were lesser feudal taxes called reliefs. Of these the more important were the payment of a tax by the heir of a deceased vassal upon succession to property, one-half year's profit paid when a ward became of age, and the right to escheated lands of the vassal. The lord also had the right to land forfeited on account of certain heinous crimes. Wardship entitled the lord to the use of lands during the minority of the ward. The lord also had a right to choose a husband for the female ward at the age of fourteen; if she refused to accept the one chosen, the lord had the use of her services and property until she was twenty-one. Then he could dispose of her lands as he chose and refuse consent for her to marry. These aids and reliefs made a system of slavery for serfs and vassals.

The Rights of Sovereignty.—The feudal lord had the right of sovereignty over all of his own vassal domain. Not only did he have military sovereignty on account of allegiance of vassals, but political sovereignty also, as he ruled the assemblies in his own way. He had legal jurisdiction, for all the courts were conducted by him or else under his jurisdiction, and this brought his own territory completely under his control as proprietor, and subordinated everything to his will. In this is found the spirit of modern absolute monarchy.

The Classification of Feudal Society.—In France, according to Duruy, under the perfection of feudalism, the people were grouped in the following classes: First, there was a group of Gallic or Frankish freemen, who were obliged to give military service to the king and give aids when called upon. Second, the vassals, who rendered service to those from whom they held their lands. Third, the royal vassals, from whom the king usually chose his dukes and counts to lead the army or to rule over provinces and cities. Fourth, the liti, who, like the Roman coloni, were bound to the soil, which they cultivated as farmers, and for which they paid a small rent. Finally, there were the ordinary slaves. The character of the liti, or glebe, serfs varied according to the degree of liberty with which they were privileged. They might have emancipation by charter or by the grant of the king or the church, but they were never free. The feudal custom was binding on all, and no one escaped from its control. Even the clergy became feudal, there being lords and vassals within the church. Yet the ministry, in their preaching, recognized the opportunity of advancement, for they claimed that even a serf might become a bishop, although there was no great probability of this.

Progress of Feudalism.—The development of feudalism was slow in all countries, and it varied in character in accordance with the condition of the country. In England the Normans in the eleventh century found feudalism in an elementary state, and gave formality to the system. In Germany feudalism was less homogeneous than in France. It lacked the symmetrical finish of the Roman institutions, although it was introduced from French soil through overlordship and proceeded from the sovereign to the serf, rather than springing from the serf to the sovereign. It varied somewhat in characteristics from French feudalism, although the essentials of the system were not wanting. In the Scandinavian provinces the Teutonic element was too strong, and in Spain and Italy the Romanic, to develop in these countries perfect feudalism. But in France there was a regular, progressive development. The formative period began in Caesar's time and ended with the ninth century.

This was followed by the period of complete domination and full power, extending to the end of the thirteenth century, at the close of which offices and benefices were in the hands of the great vassals of Charles the Bald. Then followed a period of transformation of feudalism, which extended to the close of the sixteenth century. Finally came the period of the decay of feudalism, beginning with the seventeenth century and extending to the present time. There are found now, both in Europe and America, laws and usages which are vestiges of the ancient forms of feudalism, which the formal organization of the state has failed to eradicate.

The autocratic practice of the feudal lord survived in the new monarch, and, except in the few cases of constitutional limitation, became imperialistic. The Prussian state, built upon a military basis, exercised the rights of feudal conquest over neighboring states. After the war with Austria, Prussia exercised an overlordship over part of the smaller German states, with a show of constitutional liberty. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the German Empire was formed, still with a show of constitutional liberty, but with the feudal idea of overlordship dominant. Having feudalized the other states of Germany, Prussia sought to extend the feudal idea to the whole world, but was checked by the World War of 1914.

State of Society Under Feudalism.—In searching for the effects of feudalism on human progress, the family deserves our first consideration. The wife of the feudal lord and her equal associates were placed on a higher plane. The family in no wise represented the ancient patriarchal family nor the modern family. The head of the family stood alone, independent of every form of government. He was absolute proprietor of himself and of all positions under him. He was neither magistrate, priest, nor king, nor subordinate to any system except as he permitted. His position developed arbitrary power and made him proud and aristocratic. With a few members of his family, he lived in his castle, far removed from serfs and vassals. He spent his life alternately in feats of arms or in systematic idleness. Away from home much of the time, fighting to defend his castle or obtain new territory, or engaging in hunting, while the wife and mother cared for the home, he developed strength and power.

It was in the feudal family that woman obtained her position of honor and power in the home. It was this position that developed the chivalry of the Middle Ages. The improvement of domestic manners and the preponderance of home society among the few produced the moral qualities of the home. Coupled with this was the idea of nobility on one side, and the idea of inheritance on the other, which had a tendency to unify the family under one defender and to perpetuate the right and title to property of future generations. It was that benign spirit which comes from the household in more modern life, giving strength and permanence to character.

While there was a relation of common interest between the villagers clustered around the feudal castle, the union was not sufficient to make a compact organization. Their rights were not common, as there was a recognized superiority on one hand and a recognized inferiority on the other. This grew into a common hatred of the lower classes for the upper, which has been a thousand times detrimental to human progress. The little group of people had their own church, their own society. Those who had a fellow-feeling for them had much influence directly, but not in bridging over the chasm between them and the feudal lord. Feudalism gave every man a place, but developed the inequalities of humanity to such an extent that it could not be lasting as a system. Society became irregular, in which extreme aristocracy was divorced from extreme democracy. Relief came slowly, through the development of monarchy and the citizenship of the modern state. It was a rude attempt to find the secret of social organization. The spirit of revolt of the oppressed lived on suppressed by a galling tyranny.

To maintain his position as proprietor of the soil and ruler over a class of people treated as serfs required careful diplomacy on the part of the lord, or else intolerant despotism. He usually chose the latter, and sought to secure his power by force of arms. He cared little for the wants or needs of his people. He did not associate with them on terms of equality, and only came in contact with them as a master meets a servant. Consulting his own selfish interest, he made his rule despotic, and all opposition was suppressed with a high hand. The only check upon this despotism was the warlike attitude of other similar despotic lords, who always sought to advance their own interests by the force of arms. Feudalism in form of government was the antithesis of imperialism, yet in effect something the same. It substituted a horde of petty despots for one and it developed a petty local tyranny in the place of a general despotism.

Lack of Central Authority in Feudal Society.—So many feudal lords, each master of his own domain, contending with one another for the mastery, each resting his course on the hereditary gift of his ancestors, or, more probably, on his force of armed men and the strength of his castle, made it impossible that there should be any recognized authority in government, or any legal determination of the rights of the ruler and his subjects. Feudal law was the law of force; feudal justice the right of might. Among all of these feudal lords there was not one to force by will all others into submission, and thus create a central authority. There was no permanent legislative body, no permanent judicial machinery, no standing army, no uniform and regular system of taxation. There could be no guaranty to permanent political power under such circumstances.

There was little progress in social order under the rule of feudalism. Although we recognize that it was an essential form of government necessary to control the excesses of individualism; although we realize that a monarchy was impossible until it was created by an evolutionary process, that a republic could not exist under the irregularity of political forces, yet it must be maintained that social progress did not exist under the feudal rÉgime. There was no unity of social action, no co-operation of classes in government. The line between the governed and the governing, though clearly marked at times, was an irregular, wavering line. Outside of the family life—which was limited in scope—and of the power of the church—which failed to unify society—there was no vital social growth.

Individual Development in the Dominant Group.—Feudalism established a strong individualism among leaders, a strong personality based on sterling intellectual qualities. It is evident that this excessive individual development became very prominent in the later evolution of social order, and is recognized as a gain in social advancement. Individual culture is essential to social advancement. To develop strong, independent, self-reliant individuals might tend to produce anarchy rather than social order, yet it must eventually lead to the latter; and so it proved in the case of feudalism, for its very chaotic state brought about, as a necessity, social order. But it came about through survival of the fittest, in conquest and defense. Nor did the most worthy always succeed, but rather those who had the greatest power in ruthless conquest. Unity came about through the unbridled exercise of the predatory spirit, accompanied by power to take and to hold.

This chaotic state of individualistic people was the means of bringing about an improvement in intellectual development. The strong individual character with position and leisure becomes strong intellectually in planning defense and in meditating upon the philosophy of life. The notes of song and of literature came from the feudal times. The determination of the mind to intellectual pursuits appeared in the feudal rÉgime, and individual culture and independent intellectual life, though of the few and at the expense of the majority, were among the important contributions to civilization.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What was the basis of feudal society?

2. What elements of feudalism were Roman and what Teutonic?

3. What service did feudalism render civilization?

4. Show that feudalism was transition from empire to modern nationality.

5. How did feudal lords obtain titles to their land? Give examples.

6. What survivals of feudalism may be observed in modern governments?

7. When King John of England wrote after his signature "King of England," what was its significance?

8. How did feudalism determine the character of monarchy in modern nations?

[1] History of France.

CHAPTER XIX

ARABIAN CONQUEST AND CULTURE

The dissemination of knowledge, customs, habits, and laws from common centres of culture has been greatly augmented by population movements or migrations, by great empires established, by wars of conquest, and systems of intercommunication and transportation. The Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Alexandrian, and Roman empires are striking examples of the diffusion of knowledge and the spread of ideas over different geographical boundaries and through tribal and national organizations; and, indeed, the contact of the barbarian hordes with improved systems of culture was but a process of interchange and intermingling of qualities of strength and vigor with the conventionalized forms of human society.

One of the most remarkable movements was that of the rise and expansion of the Arabian Empire, which was centred about religious ideals of Mohammed and the Koran. Having accepted the idea of one God universal, which had been so strongly emphasized by the Hebrews, and having accepted in part the doctrine of the teachings of Jesus regarding the brotherhood of man, Mohammed was able through the mysticism of his teaching, in the Koran, to excite his followers to a wild fanaticism. Nor did his successors hesitate to use force, for most of their conquests were accomplished by the power of the sword. At any rate, nation after nation was forced to bow to Mohammedanism and the Koran, in a spectacular whirlwind of conquest such as the world had not previously known.

It is remarkable that after the decline of the old Semitic civilization, as exhibited in the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, the practical extinction of the Phoenicians, the conquest of Jerusalem, and the spread of the Jews over the whole world, there should have risen a new Semitic movement to disrupt and disorganize the world. It is interesting to note in this connection, also, that wherever the Arabs went they came in contact with learned Jews of high mentality, who co-operated with them in advancing learning.

The Rise and Expansion of the Arabian Empire.—Mohammedanism, which arose in the beginning of the seventh century, spread rapidly over the East and through northern Africa, and extended into Spain. All Arabia was converted to the Koran, and Persia and Egypt soon after came under its influence. In the period 623-640, Syria was conquered by the Mohammedans, upper Asia in 707, and Spain in 711. They established a great caliphate, extending from beyond the Euphrates through Egypt and northern Africa to the Pyrenees in Spain. They burned the great library at Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy, destroying the manuscripts and books in a relentless zeal to blot out all vestiges of Christian learning. In their passage westward they mingled with the Moors of northern Africa, whom they had subdued after various struggles, the last one ending in 709. In this year they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and encountered the barbarians of the north.

The Visigothic monarchy was in a ruined condition. Frequent internal quarrels had led to the dismemberment of the government and the decay of all fortifications, hence there was little organized resistance to the incoming of the Arabs. All Spain, except in the far north in the mountains of the Asturias, was quickly reduced to the sway of the Arabs. They crossed the Pyrenees, and the broad territory of Gaul opened before them, awaiting their conquest. But on the plains between Tours and Poitiers they met Charles Martel with a strong army, who turned the tide of invasion back upon itself and set the limits of Mohammedan dominion in Europe.

In the tenth century the great Arabian Empire began to disintegrate. One after another of the great caliphates declined. The caliphate of Bagdad, which had existed so long in Oriental splendor, was first dismembered by the loss of Africa. The fatimate caliphate of northern Africa next lost its power, and the caliphate of Cordova, in Spain, brilliant in its ascendancy, followed the course of the other two. The Arabian conquest of Spain left the country in a state of tolerable freedom, but Cordova, like the others, was doomed to be destroyed by anarchy and confusion. All the principal cities became in the early part of the eleventh century independent principalities.

Thus the Mohammedan conquest, which built an extensive Arabian Empire, ruling first in Asia, then Africa, and finally Europe, spreading abroad with sudden and irresistible expansion, suddenly declined through internal dissensions and decay, having lasted but a few centuries. The peculiar tribal nature of the Arabian social order had not developed a strong central organization, nor permitted the practice of organized political effort on a large scale, so that the sudden transition from the small tribe, with its peculiar government, to that of the organization and management of a great empire was sufficient to cause the disintegration and downfall of the empire. So far as political power was concerned, the passion for conquest was the great impelling motive of the Mohammedans.

The Religious Zeal of the Arab-Moors.—The central idea of the Mohammedan conquest seems to have been a sort of religious zeal or fanaticism. The whole history of their conquest shows a continual strife to propagate their religious doctrine. The Arabians were a sober people, of vivid imagination and excessive idealism, with religious natures of a lofty and peculiar character. Their religious life in itself was awe-inspiring. Originally dwelling on the plains of Arabia, where nature manifested itself in strong characteristics, living in one sense a narrow life, the imagination had its full play, and the mystery of life had centred in a sort of wisdom and lore, which had accumulated through long generations of reflection. There always dwelt in the minds of this branch of the Semitic people a conception of the unity of God, and when the revelation of God came to them through Mohammed, when they realized "Allah is Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet," they were swept entirely away by this religious conception. When once this idea took firm hold upon the Arabian mind, it remained there a permanent part of life. Under military organization the conquest was rapidly extended over surrounding disintegrated tribes, and the strong unity of government built on the basis of religious zeal.

So strong was this religious zeal that it dominated their entire life. It turned a reflective and imaginative people, who had sought out the hidden mysteries of life by the acuteness of their own perception, to base their entire operations upon faith. Faith dominated the reason to such an extent that the deep and permanent foundations of progress could not be laid, and the vast opportunities granted to them by position and conquest gradually declined for the lack of vital principles of social order.

Not only had the Arabians laid the foundations of culture and learning through their own evolution, but they had borrowed much from other Oriental countries. Their contact with learning of the Far East, of Palestine, of Egypt, of the Greeks, and of the Italians, had given them an opportunity to absorb most of the elements of ancient culture. Having borrowed these products, they were able to combine them and use them in building an empire of learning in Spain. If their own subtle genius was not wanting in the combination of the knowledge of the ancients, and in its use in building up a system, neither lacked they in original conception, and on the early foundation they built up a superstructure of original knowledge. They advanced learning in various forms, and furnished means for the advancement of civilization in the west.

The Foundations of Science and Art.—In the old caliphates of Bagdad and Damascus there had developed great interest in learning. The foundation of this knowledge, as has been related, was derived from the Greeks and the Orientals. It is true that the Koran, which had been accepted by them as gospel and law, had aroused and inspired the Arabian mind to greater desires for knowledge. Their knowledge, however, could not be set by the limitations of the Koran, and the desire for achievement in learning was so great that scarcely a century had passed after the burning of the libraries of Alexandria before all branches of knowledge were eagerly cultivated by the Arabians. They ran a rapid course from the predominance of physical strength and courage, through blind adherence to faith, to the position of superior learning. The time soon came when the scholar was as much revered as the warrior.

In every conquered country the first duty of the conquerors was to build a mosque in which Allah might be worshipped and his prophet honored. Attached to this mosque was a school, where people were first taught to read and write and study the Koran. From this initial point they enlarged the study of science, literature, and art, which they pursued with great eagerness. Through the appreciation of these things they collected the treasures of art and learning wherever they could be found, and, dwelling upon these, they obtained the results of the culture of other nations and other generations. From imitation they passed to the field of creation, and advances were made in the contributions to the sum of human knowledge. In Spain schools were founded, great universities established, and libraries built which laid the permanent foundation of knowledge and art and enabled the Arab-Moors to advance in science, art, invention, and discovery.

The Beginnings of Chemistry and Medicine.—In chemistry the careful study of the elements of substances and the agents in composition was pursued by the Arab-Moors in Spain, but it must be remembered that the chemistry of their day is now known as alchemy. Chemistry then was in its formative period and not a science as viewed in the modern sense. Yet when we consider that the science of modern chemistry is but a little over a century old, we find the achievements of the Arabians in their own time, as compared with the changes which took place in the following seven centuries, to be worthy of note.

In the eleventh century a philosopher named Geber knew the chemical affinities of quicksilver, tin, lead, copper, iron, gold, and silver, and to each one was given a name of the planet which was supposed to have special influence over it. Thus silver was named for the moon, gold for the sun, copper for Venus, tin for Jupiter, iron for Vulcan, quicksilver for Mercury, and lead for Saturn. The influences of the elements were supposed to be similar to the influence of the heavenly bodies over men. This same chemist was acquainted with oxidizing and calcining processes, and knew methods of obtaining soda and potash salts, and the properties of saltpetre. Also nitric acid was obtained from the nitrate of potassium. These and other similar examples represent something of the achievements of the Arabians in chemical knowledge. Still, their lack of knowledge is shown in their continued search for the philosopher's stone and the attempt to create the precious metals.

The art of medicine was practised to a large extent in the Orient, and this knowledge was transferred to Spain. The entire knowledge of these early physicians, however, was limited to the superficial diagnosis of cases and to a knowledge of medicinal plants. By the very law of their religion, anatomy was forbidden to them, and, indeed, the Arabians had a superstitious horror of dissection. By ignorance of anatomy their practice of surgery was very imperfect. But their physicians, nevertheless, became renowned throughout the world by their use of medicines and by their wonderful cures. They plainly led the world in the art of healing. It is true their superstition and their astrology constantly interfered with their better judgment in many things, but notwithstanding these drawbacks they were enabled to develop great interest in the study of medicine and to accomplish a great work in the advancement of the science. In Al Makkari it is stated "that disease could be more effectively checked by diet than by medicine, and that when medicine became necessary, simples were far preferable to compound medicaments, and when these latter were required, as few drugs as possible ought to enter into their composition." This exhibits the thoughtful reflection that was given to the administration of drugs in this early period, and might prove a lesson to many a modern physician.

Toward the close of their career, the Arabian doctors began the practice of dissecting and the closer study of anatomy and physiology, which added much to the power of the science. Yet they still believed in the "elixir of life," and tried to work miracle cures, which in many respects may have been successful. It is a question whether they went any farther into the practice of miracle cures than the quacks and charlatans and faith doctors of modern times have gone. The influence of their study of medicine was seen in the great universities, and especially in the foundation of the University at Salerno at a later time, which was largely under the Arabian influence.

Metaphysics and Exact Science.—It would seem that the Arab-Moors were well calculated to develop psychological science. Their minds seemed to be in a special measure metaphysical. They laid the foundation of their metaphysical speculations on the philosophy of the Greeks, particularly that of Aristotle, but later they attempted to develop originality, although they succeeded in doing little more, as a rule, than borrowing from others. In the early period of Arabian development the Koran stood in the way of any advancement in philosophy. It was only at intervals that philosophy could gain any advancement. Indeed, the philosophers were driven away from their homes, but they carried with them many followers into a larger field. The long list of philosophers who, after the manner of the Greeks, each attempted to develop his own separate system, might be mentioned, showing the zeal with which they carried on inquiry into metaphysical science. As may be supposed, they added little to the sum of human knowledge, but developed a degree of culture by their philosophical speculations.

But it is in the exact sciences that the Arabs seem to have met with the greatest success. The Arabic numerals, probably brought from India to Bagdad, led to a new and larger use of arithmetic. The decimal system and the art of figures were introduced into Spain in the ninth century, and gave great advancement in learning. But, strange to relate, these numerals, though used so early by the Arabs in Spain, were not common in Germany until the fifteenth century. The importance of their use cannot be overestimated, for by means of them the Arabians easily led the world in astronomy, mechanics, and mathematics.

The science of algebra is generally attributed to the Arabians. Its name is derived from gabara, to bind parts together, and yet the origin of this science is not certain. It is thought that the Arabs derived their knowledge from the Greeks, but in all probability algebra had its first origin among the philosophers of India.

The Arabians used geometry, although they added little to its advancement. Geometry had reached at this period an advanced stage of progress in the problems of Euclid. It was to the honor of the Arabians that they were the first of any of the Western peoples to translate Euclid and use it, for it was not until the sixteenth century that it was freely translated into the modern languages.

But in trigonometry the Arabians, by the introduction of the use of the sine, or half-chord, of the double arc in the place of the arc itself, made great advancement, especially in the calculations of surveying and astronomy. In the universities and colleges of Spain under Arabian dominion we find, then, that students had an opportunity of mastering nearly all of the useful elementary mathematics. Great attention was paid to the study of astronomy. Here, as before, they used the Greek knowledge, but they advanced the study of the science greatly by the introduction of instruments, such as those for measuring time by the movement of the pendulum and the measurement of the heavenly bodies by the astrolabe.

Likewise they employed the word "azimuth" and many other terms which show a more definite knowledge of the relation of the heavenly bodies. They were enabled, also, to measure approximately a degree of latitude. They knew that the earth was of spheroid form. But we find astrology accompanying all this knowledge of astronomy. While the exact knowledge of the heavenly bodies had been developed to a certain degree, the science of star influence, or astrology, was cultivated to a still greater extent. Thus they sought to show the control of mind forces on earth, and, indeed, of all natural forces by the heavenly bodies. This placed mystical lore in the front rank of their philosophical speculations.

Geography and History.—In the study of the earth the Arabians showed themselves to be practical and accurate geographers. They applied their mathematical and astronomical knowledge to the study of the earth, and thus gave an impulse to exploration. While their theories of the origin of the earth were crude and untenable, their practical writings on the subject derived from real knowledge, and the practical instruction in schools by the use of globes and maps, were of immense practical value.

Their history was made up chiefly of the histories of cities and the lives of prominent men. There was no national history of the rise and development of the Arabian kingdom, for historical writing and study were in an undeveloped state.

Discoveries, Inventions, and Achievements.—It cannot be successfully claimed that the Arabians exhibited very much originality in the advancement of the civilized arts, yet they had the ability to take what they found elsewhere developed by other scholars, improve upon it, and apply it to the practical affairs of life. Thus, although the Chinese discovered gunpowder over 3,000 years ago, it remained for the Arabs to bring it into use in the siege of Mecca in the year 690, and introduce it into Spain some years later. The Persians called it Chinese salt, the Arabians Indian snow, indicating that it might have originated in different countries. The Arab-Moors used it in their wars with the Christians as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. They excelled also in making paper from flax, or cotton, which was probably an imitation of the paper made by the Chinese from silk. We find also that the Arabs had learned to print from movable type, and the introduction of paper made the printing-press possible. Linen paper made from old clothes was said to be in use as early as 1106.

Without doubt the Arab-Moors introduced into Spain the use of the magnet in connection with the mariner's compass. But owing to the fact that it was not needed in the short voyages along the coast of the Mediterranean, it did not come into a large use until the great voyages on the ocean, in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Yet the invention of the mariner's compass, so frequently attributed to Flavio Giorgio, may be as well attributed to the Arab-Moors.

Knives and swords of superior make, leather, silk, and glass, as well as large collections of delicate jewelry, show marked advancement in Arabian industrial art and mechanical skill.

One of the achievements of the Arab-Moors in Spain was the introduction of agriculture, and its advancement to an important position among the industries by means of irrigation. The great, fertile valleys of Spain were thus, through agricultural skill, made "to blossom as the rose." Seeds were imported from different parts of the world, and much attention was given to the culture of all plants which could be readily raised in this country. Rice and cotton and sugar-cane were cultivated through the process of irrigation. Thus Spain was indebted to the Arab-Moors not only for the introduction of industrial arts and skilled mechanics, but the establishment of agriculture on a firm foundation.

Language and Literature.—The language of the Arabians is said to be peculiarly rich in synonyms. For instance, it is said there are 1,000 expressions for the word "camel," and the same number for the word "sword," while there are 4,000 for the word "misfortune." Very few remnants of the Arabic remain in the modern European languages. Quite a number of words in the Spanish language, fewer in English and in other modern languages, are the only remnants of the use of this highly developed Arabian speech. It represents the southern branch of the Semitic language, and is closely related to the Hebrew and the Aramaic. The unity and compactness of the language are very much in evidence. Coming little in contact with other languages, it remained somewhat exclusive, and retained its original form.

When it came into Spain the Arabic language reigned almost supreme, on account of the special domination of Arabic influences. Far in the north of Spain, however, among the Christians who had adopted the Low Latin, was the formation of the Spanish language. The hatred of the Spaniards for the Arabs led these people to refuse to use the language of the conquerors. Nevertheless, the Arabic had some influence in the formation of the Spanish language. The isolated geographic terms, and especial names of things, as well as idioms of speech, show still that the Arabian influence may be traced in the Spanish language.

In literature the Arabians had a marked development. The Arabian poetry, though light in its character, became prominent. There were among these Arabians in Spain ardent and ready writers, with fertile fancy and lively perception, who recited their songs to eager listeners. The poet became a universal teacher. He went about from place to place singing his songs, and the troubadours of the south of France received in later years much of their impulse indirectly from the Arabic poets. While the poetry was not of a high order, it was wide-reaching in its influence, and extended in later days to Italy, Sicily, and southern France, and had a quickening influence in the development of the light songs of the troubadours. The influence of this lighter literature through Italy, Sicily, and southern France on the literature of Europe and of England in later periods is well marked by the historians. In the great schools rhetoric and grammar were also taught to a considerable extent. In the universities these formed one of the great branches of special culture. We find, then, on the linguistic side that the Arabians accomplished a great deal in the advancement of the language and literature of Europe.

Art and Architecture.—Perhaps the Arabians in Spain are known more by their architecture than any other phase of their culture. Not that there was anything especially original in it, except in the combination which they made of the architecture of other nations. In the building of their great mosques, like that of Cordova and of the Alhambra, they perpetuated the magnificence and splendor of the East. Even the actual materials with which they constructed these magnificent buildings were obtained from Greece and the Orient, and placed in their positions in a new combination. The great original feature of the Mooresque architecture is found in the famous horseshoe arch, which was used so extensively in their mosques and palaces. It represented the Roman arch, slightly bent into the form of a horseshoe. Yet from architectural strength it must be considered that the real support resting on the pillar was merely the half-circle of the Roman arch, while the horseshoe was a continuation for ornamental purposes.

The Arab-Moors were forbidden the use of sculpture, which they never practised, and hence the artistic features were limited to architectural and art decorations. Many of the interior decorations of the walls of these great buildings show advanced skill. Upon the whole, their buildings are remarkable mainly in the perpetuation of Oriental architecture rather than in the development of any originality except in skill of decoration and combination.

The Government of the Arab-Moors Was Peculiarly Centralized.—The caliph was at the head as an absolute monarch. He appointed viceroys in the different provinces for their control. The only thing that limited the actual power of the caliph was the fact that he was a theocratic governor. Otherwise he was supreme in power. There was no constitutional government, and, indeed, but little precedent in law. The government depended somewhat upon the whims and caprices of a single individual. It was said that in the beginning the caliph was elected by the people, but in a later period the office became hereditary. It is true the caliph, who was called the "vicar of God," or "the shadow of God," had his various ministers appointed from the wise men to carry out his will. Yet, such was the power of the people what when in Spain they were displeased with the rulings of the judges, they would pelt the officers or storm the palace, thus in a way limiting the power of these absolute rulers.

The government, however, was in a precarious condition. There could be nothing permanent under such a rÉgime, for permanency of government is necessary to the advancement of civilization. The government was non-progressive. It allowed no freedom of the people and gave no incentive to advancement, and it was a detriment many times to the progressive spirit. Closely connected with a religion which in itself was non-progressive, we find limitations set upon the advancement of the civilization of the Arab-Moors in Spain.

Arabian Civilization Soon Reached Its Limits.—One views with wonder and astonishment the brilliant achievements of the Arabian civilization, extending from the Tagus to the Indus. But brilliant as it was, one is impressed at every turn with the instability of the civilization and with its peculiar limitations. It reached its culmination long before the Christian conquest. What the Arabians have given to the European world was formulated rapidly and given quickly, and the results were left to be used by a more slowly developing people, who rested their civilization upon a permanent basis. Much stress has been laid by Mr. Draper and others upon the great civilization of the Arabians, comparing it favorably with the civilization of Christian Europe. But it must be remembered that the Arab-Moors, especially in Spain, had come so directly in contact with Oriental nations that they were enabled to borrow and utilize for a time the elements of civilization advanced by these more mature peoples. However, built as it was upon borrowed materials, the structure once completed, there was no opportunity for growth or original development. It reached its culmination, and would have progressed no further in Spain, even had not the Christians under Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the Arab-Moors and eventually overcome and destroyed their civilization. In this conquest, in which the two leading faiths of the Western world were fighting for supremacy, doubtless the Christian world could not fully appreciate what the Arab-Moors accomplished, nor estimate their value to the economic system of Spain.

Subsequent facts of history show that, the Christian religion once having a dominant power in Spain, the church became less liberal in its views and its rule than that exhibited by the government of the Arab-Moors. Admitting that the spirit of liberty had burst forth in old Asturias, a seat of Nordic culture, it soon became obscure in the arbitrary domination of monarchy, and of the church through the instrumentality of Torquemada and the Inquisition. Nevertheless, the civilization of the Arab-Moors cannot be pictured as an ideal one, because it was lacking in the fundamentals of continuous progress. Knowledge had not yet become widely disseminated, nor truth free enough to arouse vigorous qualities of life which make for permanency in civilization. With all of its borrowed art and learning and its adaptation to new conditions, still the civilization was sufficiently non-progressive to be unsuited to carry the burden of the development of the human race. Nevertheless, in the contemplation of human progress, the Arab-Moors of Spain are deserving of attention because of their universities and their studies, which influenced other parts of mediaeval Europe at a time when they were breaking away from scholastic philosophy and assuming a scientific attitude of mind.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What contributions to art and architecture did the Arab-Moors make in Spain?

2. The nature of their government.

3. How did their religion differ from the Christian religion in principle and in practice?

4. The educational contribution of the universities of the Arab-Moors.

5. What contributions to science and learning came from the Arabian civilization?

6. Why and by whom were the Arab-Moors driven from Spain? What were the economic and political results?

7. What was the influence of the Arabs on European civilization?

CHAPTER XX

THE CRUSADES STIR THE EUROPEAN MIND

What Brought About the Crusades.—We have learned from the former chapters that the Arabs had spread their empire from the Euphrates to the Strait of Gibraltar, and that the Christian and Mohammedan religions had compassed and absorbed the entire religious life over this whole territory. As Christianity had become the great reforming religion of the western part of Europe, so Mohammedanism had become the reforming religion of Asia. The latter was more exacting in its demands and more absolute in its sway than the former, spreading its doctrines mainly by force, while the former sought more to extend its doctrine by a leavening process. Nevertheless, when the two came in contact, a fierce struggle for supremacy ensued. The meteorlike rise of Mohammedanism had created consternation and alarm in the Christian world as early as the eighth century. There sprang up not only fear of Islamism, but a hatred of its followers.

After the Arabian Empire had become fully established, there arose to the northeast of Bagdad, the Moslem capital, a number of Turkish tribes that were among the more recent converts to Mohammedanism. Apparently they took the Mohammedan religion as embodied in the Koran literally and fanatically, and, considering nothing beyond these, sought to propagate the doctrine through conquest by sword. They are frequently known as Seljuks. It is to the credit of the Arabs, whether in Mesopotamia, Africa, or Spain, that their minds reached beyond the Koran into the wider ranges of knowledge, a fact which tempered their fanatical zeal, but the Seljuk Turks swept forward with their armies until they conquered the Byzantine Empire of the East, the last branch of the great Roman Empire. They had also conquered Jerusalem and taken possession of the holy sepulchre, to which pilgrimages of Christians were made annually, and aroused the righteous indignation of the Christians of the Western world. The ostensible purpose of the crusades was to free Palestine, the oppressed Christians, and the holy sepulchre from the domination of the Turks.

It must be remembered that the period of the Middle Ages was represented by fancies and theories and an evanescent idealism which controlled the movements of the people to a large extent. Born of religious sentiment, there dwelt in the minds of Christian people a reverence for the land of the birth of Christ, to which pilgrims passed every year to show their adoration for the Saviour and patriotism for the land of his birth. These pilgrims were interfered with by the Mohammedans and especially by the Seljuk Turks.

The Turks in their blind zeal for Mohammedanism could see nothing in the Christian belief worthy of respect or even civil treatment. The persecution of Christians awakened the sympathy of all Europe and filled the minds of people with resentment against the occupation of Jerusalem by the Turks. This is one of the earliest indications of the development of religious toleration, which heralded the development of a feeling that people should worship whom they pleased unmolested, though it was like a voice crying in the wilderness, for many centuries passed before religious toleration could be acknowledged.

There were other considerations which made occasion for the crusades. Gregory VII preached a crusade to protect Constantinople and unify the church under one head. But trouble with Henry IV of Germany caused him to abandon the enterprise. There still dwelt in the minds of the people an ideal monarchy, as represented by the Roman Empire. It was considered the type of all good government, the one expression of the unity of all people. Many dreamed of the return of this empire to its full temporal sway. It was a species of idealism which lived on through the Middle Ages long after the Western Empire had passed into virtual decay. In connection with this idea of a universal empire controlling the whole world was the idea of a universal religion which should unite all religious bodies under one common organization. The centre of this organization was to be the papal authority at Rome.

There dwelt then in the minds of all ecclesiastics this common desire for the unity of all religious people in one body regardless of national boundaries. And it must be said that these two ideas had much to do with giving Europe unity of thought and sentiment. Disintegrated as it was, deflected and disturbed by a hundred forces, thoughts of a common religion and of universal empire nevertheless had much to do to harmonize and unify the people of Europe. Hence, it was when Urban II, who had inherited all of the great religious improvements instituted by Gregory VII, preached a crusade to protect Constantinople, on the one hand, and to deliver Jerusalem, on the other, and made enthusiastic inflammatory speeches, that Europe awoke like an electric flash. Peter the Hermit, on the occasion of the first crusade, was employed to travel throughout Europe to arouse enthusiasm in the minds of the people.

The crusades so suddenly inaugurated extended over a period of nearly two hundred years, in which all Europe was in a restless condition. The feudal life which had settled down and crystallized all forms of human society throughout Europe had failed to give that variety and excitement which it entertained in former days. Thousands of knights in every nation were longing for the battle-field. Many who thought life at home not worth living, and other thousands of people seeking opportunities for change, sought diversion abroad. All Europe was ready to exclaim "God wills it!" and "On to Jerusalem!" to defend the Holy City against the Turk.

Specific Causes of the Crusades.—If we examine more specifically into the real causes of the crusades we shall find, as Mr. Guizot has said, that there were two causes, the one moral, the other social. The moral cause is represented in the desire to relieve suffering humanity and fight against the injustice of the Turks. Both the Mohammedan and the Christian, the two most modern of all great religions, were placed upon a moral basis. Morality was one of the chief phases of both religions; yet they had different conceptions of morality, and no toleration for each other. Although prior to the Turkish invasion the Mohammedans, through policy, had tolerated the visitations of the Christians, the two classes of believers had never gained much respect for each other, and after the Turkish invasion the enmity between them became intense. It was the struggle of these two systems of moral order that was the great occasion and one of the causes of the crusades.

The social cause, however, was that already referred to—the desire of individuals for a change from the monotony which had settled down over Europe under the feudal rÉgime. It was the mind of man, the enthusiasm of the individual, over-leaping the narrow bounds of his surroundings, and looking for fields of exploitation and new opportunities for action. The social cause represents, then, the spontaneous outburst of long-pent-up desires, a return to the freedom of earlier years, when wandering and plundering were among the chief occupations of the Teutonic tribes. To state the causes more specifically, perhaps it may be said that the ambition of temporal and spiritual princes and the feudal aristocracy for power, the general poverty of the community on account of overpopulation leading the multitudes to seek relief through change, and a distinct passion for pilgrimages were influential in precipitating this movement.

Unification of Ideals and the Breaking of Feudalism.—It is to be observed that the herald of the crusades thrilled all Europe, and that, on the basis of ideals of empire and church, there were a common sentiment or feeling and a common ground for action. All Europe soon placed itself on a common plane in the interest of a common cause. At first it would seem that this universal movement would have tended to develop a unity of Western nations. To the extent of breaking down formal custom, destroying the sterner aspects of feudalism, and levelling the barriers of classes, it was a unifier of European thought and life.

But a more careful consideration reveals the fact that although all groups and classes of people ranged themselves on one side of the great and common cause, the effect was not merely to break down feudalism but, in addition, to build up nationality. There was a tendency toward national unity. The crusades in the latter part of the period became national affairs, rather than universal or European affairs, even though the old spirit of feudalism, whereby each individual followed by his own group of retainers sought his own power and prestige, still remained. The expansion of this spirit to larger groups invoked the national spirit and national life. While, in the beginning, the papacy and the church were all-powerful in their controlling influence on the crusades, in the later period we find different nationalities, especially England, France, and Germany, struggling for predominance, the French nation being more strongly represented than any other.

Among the important results of the crusades, then, were the breaking down of feudalism and the building up of national life. The causes of this result are evident. Many of the nobility were slain in battle or perished through famine and suffering, or else had taken up their abode under the new government that had been established at Jerusalem. This left a larger sway to those who were at home in the management of the affairs of the territory. Moreover, in the later period, the stronger national lines had been developed, which caused the subordination of the weaker feudal lords to the more powerful. Many, too, of the strong feudal lords had lost their wealth, as well as their position, in carrying on the expenses of the crusades. There was, consequently, the beginning of the remaking of all Europe upon a national basis. First, the enlarged ideas of life broke the bounds of feudalism; second, the failure to unite the nations in the common sentiment of a Western Empire had left the political forces to cluster around new nationalities which sprang up in different sections of Europe.

The Development of Monarchy.—The result of this centralization was to develop monarchy, an institution which became universal in the process of the development of government in Europe. It became the essential form of government and the type of national unity. Through no other known process of the time could the chaotic state of the feudal rÉgime be reduced to a system. Constitutional liberty could not have survived under these conditions. The monarchy was not only a permanent form of government, but it was possessed of great flexibility, and could adapt itself to almost any conditions of the social life. While it may, primarily, have rested on force and the predominance of power of certain individuals, in a secondary sense it represented not only the unity of the race from which it had gained great strength, but also the moral power of the tribe, as the expression of their will and sentiments of justice and righteousness. It is true that it drew a sharp line between the governing and the governed; it made the one all-powerful and the other all-subordinate; yet in many instances the one man represented the collective will of the people, and through him and his administration centred the wisdom of a nation.

Among the Teutonic peoples, too, there was something more than sentiment in this form of government. It was an old custom that the barbarian monarch was elected by the people and represented them; and whether he came through hereditary rank, from choice of nobles, or from the election of the people, this idea of monarchy was never lost sight of in Europe in the earliest stages of existence, and it was perverted to a great extent only by the Louis's of France and the Stuarts of England, in the modern era. Monarchy, then, as an institution, was advanced by the crusades; for a national life was developed and centralization took place, the king expressed the unity of it all, and so everywhere throughout Europe it became the universal type.

The Crusades Quickened Intellectual Development.—The intense activity of Europe in a common cause could not do otherwise than stimulate intellectual life. In a measure, it was an emancipation of mind, the establishment of large and liberal ideas. This freedom of the mind arose, not so much from any product of thought contributed by the Orientals to the Christians, although in truth the former were in many ways far more cultured than the latter, but rather from the development which comes from observation and travel. A habit of observing the manners and customs, the government, the laws, the life of different nations, and the action and reaction of the different elements of human life, tended to develop intellectual activity. Both Greek and Mohammedan had their influence on the minds of those with whom they came in contact, and Christians returned to their former homes possessed of new information and new ideas, and quickened with new impulses.

The crusades also furnished material for poetic imagination and for literary products. It was the development of the old saga hero under new conditions, those of Christianity and humanity, and this led to greater and more profound sentiments concerning life. The crusades also took men out from their narrow surroundings and the belief that the Christian religion, supported by the monasteries, or cloisters, embodied all that was worth living in this life and a preparation for a passage into a newer, happier future life beyond. Humanity, according to the doctrine of the church, had not been worth the attention of the thoughtful. Life, as life, was not worth living. But the mingling of humanity on a broader basis and under new circumstances quickened the thoughts and sentiments of man in favor of his fellows. It gave an enlarged view of the life of man as a human creature. There was a thought engendered, feeble though it was at first, that the life on earth was really important and that it could be enlarged and broadened in many ways, and hence it was worth saving here for its own sake. The culmination of this idea appeared in the period of the Renaissance, a century later.

The Commercial Effects of the Crusades.—A new opportunity for trade was offered, luxuries were imported from the East in exchange for money or for minerals and fish of the West. Cotton, wine, dyestuffs, glassware, grain, spice, fruits, silk, and jewelry, as well as weapons and horses, came pouring in from the Orient to enlarge and enrich the life of the Europeans. For, with all the noble spirit manifested in government and in social life, western Europe was semibarbaric in the meagreness of the articles of material wealth there represented. The Italian cities, seizing the opportunity of the contact of the West with the East, developed a surprising trade with the Oriental cities and with the northwest of Europe, and thus enhanced their power.[1] From this impulse of trade that carried on commerce with the Orient largely through the Italian cities, there sprang up a group of Hanse towns in the north of Europe. From a financial standpoint we find that money was brought into use and became from this time on a necessity. Money-lending became a business, and those who had treasure instead of keeping it lying idle and unfruitful were now able to develop wealth, not only for the borrower but also for the lender. This tended to increase the rapid movement of wealth and to stimulate productive industry and trade in every direction.

General Influence of the Crusades on Civilization.—We see, then, that it mattered little whether Jerusalem was taken by the Turks or the Christians, or whether thousands of Christians lost their lives in a great and holy cause, or whether the Mohammedans triumphed or were defeated at Jerusalem—the great result of the crusades was one of education of the people of Europe. The boundaries of life were enlarged, the power of thought increased, the opportunities for doing and living multiplied. It was the breaking away from the narrow shell of its own existence to the newly discovered life of the Orient that gave Europe its first impulse toward a larger life. And to this extent the crusades may be said to have been a great civilizer. Many regard them as merely accidental phenomena difficult to explain, and yet, by tracing the various unobserved influences at work in their preparation, we shall see it was merely one phase of a great transitional movement in the progress of human life, just as we have seen that the feudal system was transitional between one form of government and another. The influence of the crusades on civilization was immense in giving it an impulse forward.

Under the general intellectual awakening, commercial enterprise was quickened, industry developed, and new ideas of government and art obtained. The boundaries of Christian influences were extended and new nationalities were strengthened. Feudalism was undermined by means of the consolidation of fiefs, the association of lord and vassal, the introduction of a new military system, the transfer of estates, and the promotion of the study and use of Roman jurisprudence. Ecclesiasticism was greatly strengthened at Rome, through the power of the pope and the authority of his legates, the development of monastic orders, by the introduction of force and the use of the engine of excommunication. But something was gained for the common people, for serfs could be readily emancipated and there was a freer movement among all people. Ideas of equality began to be disseminated, which had their effect on the relation of affairs. Upon the whole it may be stated in conclusion that the emancipation of the mind had begun.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Show how the crusades helped to break down feudalism and prepare for monarchy.

2. What intellectual benefit were the crusades to Europe?

3. Were there humanitarian and democratic elements of progress in the crusades?

4. What was the effect of the crusades on the power of the church?

5. What was the general influence of the crusades on civilization?

6. How did the crusades stimulate commerce?

[1] See Chapter XXI.

CHAPTER XXI

ATTEMPTS AT POPULAR GOVERNMENT

The Cost of Popular Government.—The early forms of government were for the most part based upon hereditary authority or upon force. The theories of government first advanced seldom had reference to the rule of the popular will. The practice of civil affairs, enforcing theories of hereditary government or the rule of force, interfered with the rights of self-government of the people. Hence every attempt to assume popular government was a struggle against old systems and old ideas. Freedom has been purchased by money or blood. Men point with interest to the early assemblies of the Teutonic people to show the germs of democratic government, afterward to be overshadowed by imperialism, but a careful consideration would show that even this early stage of pure democracy was only a developed state from the earlier hereditary nobility. The Goddess of Liberty is ideally a creature of beautiful form, but really her face is scarred and worn, her figure gnarled and warped with time, and her garments besprinkled with blood. The selfishness of man, the struggle for survival, and the momentum of governmental machinery, have prevented the exercise of justice and of political equality.

The liberty that has been gained is an expensive luxury. It has cost those who have tried to gain it the treasures of accumulated wealth and the flower of youth. When it has once been gained, the social forces have rendered the popular will non-expressive of the best government. Popular government, although ideally correct, is difficult to approximate, and frequently when obtained in name is far from real attainment. After long oppression and subservience to monarchy or aristocracy, when the people, suddenly gaining power through great expense of treasure and blood, assume self-government, they find to their distress that they are incapable of it when struggling against unfavorable conditions. The result is a mismanaged government and an extra expense to the people. There has been through many centuries a continual struggle for popular government. The end of each conflict has seen something gained, yet the final solution of the problem has not been reached. Nevertheless, imperfect as government by the people may be, it is, in the long run, the safest and best, and it undoubtedly will triumph in the end. The democratic government of great nations is the most difficult of all forms to maintain, and it is only through the increased wisdom of the people that its final success may be achieved. The great problem now confronting it arises from purely economic considerations.

The Feudal Lord and the Towns.—Feudalism made its stronghold in country life. The baronial castle was built away from cities and towns—in a locality favorable for defense. This increased the importance of country life to a great extent, and placed the feudal lord in command of large tracts of territory. Many of the cities and towns were for a time accorded the municipal privileges that had been granted them under Roman rule; but in time these wore away, and the towns, with a few exceptions, became included in large feudal tracts, and were held, with other territory, as feudatories. In Italy, where feudalism was less powerful, the greater barons were obliged to build their castles in the towns, or, indeed, to unite with the towns in government. But in France and Germany, and even to a certain extent in England, the feudal lord kept aloof from the town.

There was, consequently, no sympathy existing between the feudal lord and the people of the cities. It was his privilege to collect feudal dues and aids from the cities, and beyond this he cared nothing for their welfare. It became his duty and privilege to hold the baronial court in the towns at intervals and to regulate their internal affairs, but he did this through a subordinate, and troubled himself little about any regulation or administration except to further his own ends.

The Rise of Free Cities.—Many of the towns were practically run by the surviving machinery of the old Roman municipal system, while many were practically without government except the overlordship of the feudal chief by his representative officer. The Romans had established a complete system of municipal government in all their provinces. Each town or city of any importance had a complete municipal machinery copied after the government of the imperial city. When the Roman system began to decay, the central government failed first, and the towns found themselves severed from any central imperial government, yet in possession of machinery for local self-government. When the barbarians invaded the Roman territory, and, avoiding the towns, settled in the country, the towns fell into the habit of managing their own affairs as far as feudal rÉgime would permit.

It appears, therefore, that the first attempts at local self-government were made in the cities and towns. In fact, liberty of government was preserved in the towns, through the old Roman municipal life, which lived on, and, being shorn of the imperial idea, took on the spirit of Roman republicanism. It was thus that the principles of Roman municipal government were kept through the Middle Ages and became useful in the modern period, not only in developing independent nationality but in perpetuating the rights of a people to govern themselves.

The people of the towns organized themselves into municipal guilds to withstand the encroachments of the barons on their rights and privileges. This gave a continued coherence to the city population, which it would not otherwise have had or perpetuated. In thus perpetuating the idea of self-government, this cohesive organization, infused with a common sentiment of defense, made it possible to wrest liberty from the feudal baron. When he desired to obtain money or supplies in order to carry on a war, or to meet other expenditures, he found it convenient to levy on the cities for this purpose. His exactions, coming frequently and irregularly, aroused the citizens to opposition. A bloody struggle ensued, which usually ended in compromise and the purchase of liberty by the citizens by the payment of an annual tax to the feudal lord for permission to govern themselves in regard to all internal affairs. It was thus that many of the cities gained their independence of feudal authority, and that some, in the rise of national life, gained their independence as separate states, such, for instance, as Hamburg, Venice, LÜbeck, and Bremen.

The Struggle for Independence.—In this struggle for independent life the cities first strove for just treatment. In many instances this was accorded the citizens, and their friendly relations with the feudal lord continued. When monarchy arose through the overpowering influence of some feudal lord, the city remained in subjection to the king, but in most instances the free burgesses of the towns were accorded due representation in the public assembly wherever one existed. Many cities, failing to get justice, struggled with more or less success for independence. The result of the whole contest was to develop the right of self-government and finally to preserve the principle of representation. It was under these conditions that the theory of "taxation without representation is tyranny" was developed. A practical outcome of this struggle for freedom has been the converse of this principle—namely, that representation without taxation is impossible. Taxation, therefore, is the badge of liberty—of a liberty obtained through blood and treasure.

The Affranchisement of Cities Developed Municipal Organization.—The effect of the affranchisement of cities was to develop an internal organization, usually on the representative plan. There was not, as a rule, a pure democracy, for the influences of the Roman system and the feudal surroundings, rapidly tending toward monarchy, rendered it impossible that the citizens of the so-called free cities should have the privileges of a pure democracy, hence the representative plan prevailed. There was not sufficient unity of purpose, nor common sentiment of the ideal government, sufficient to maintain permanently the principles and practice of popular government. Yet there was a popular assembly, in which the voice of the people was manifested in the election of magistrates, the voting of taxes, and the declaration of war. In the mediaeval period, however, the municipal government was, in its real character, a business corporation, and the business affairs of the town were uppermost after defense against external forces was secured, hence it occurred that the wealthy merchants and the nobles who dwelt within the town became the most influential citizens in the management of municipal affairs.

There sprang up, as an essential outcome of these conditions, an aristocracy within the city. In many instances this aristocracy was reduced to an oligarchy, and the town was controlled by a few men; and in extreme cases the control fell into the hands of a tyrant, who for a time dominated the affairs of the town. Whatever the form of the municipal government, the liberties of the people were little more than a mere name, recognized as a right not to be denied. Having obtained their independence of foreign powers, the towns fell victims to internal tyranny, yet they were the means of preserving to the world the principles of local self-government, even though they were not permitted to enjoy to a great extent the privileges of exercising them. It remained for more favorable circumstances to make this possible.

The Italian Cities.—The first cities to become prominent after the perpetuation of the Roman system by the introduction of barbarian blood were those of northern Italy. These cities were less influenced by the barbarian invasion than others, on account of, first, their substantial city organization; second, the comparatively small number of invaders that surrounded them; and, third, the opportunity for trade presented by the crusades, which they eagerly seized. Their power was increased because, as stated above, the feudal nobility, unable to maintain their position in the country, were forced to live in the cities. The Italian cities were, therefore, less interfered with by barbarian and feudal influences, and continued to develop strength. The opportunity for immense trade and commerce opened up through the crusades made them wealthy. Another potent cause of the rapid advancement of the Italian cities was their early contact with the Greeks and the Saracens, for they imbibed the culture of these peoples, which stimulated their own culture and learning. Also, the invasions of the Saracens on the south and of the Hungarians on the north caused them to strengthen their fortifications. They enclosed their towns with walls, and thus made opportunity for the formation of small, independent states within the walls.

Comparatively little is known of the practice of popular government, although most of these cities were in the beginning republican and had popular elections. In the twelfth century freedom was granted, in most instances, to the peasantry. There were a parliament, a republican constitution, and a secret council (credenza) that assisted the consuls. There was also a great council called a senate, consisting of about a hundred representatives of the people. The chief duty of the senate was to discuss important public measures and refer them to the parliament for their approval. In this respect it resembled the Greek senate (boule). The secret council superintended the public works and administered the public finance. These forms of government were not in universal use, but are as nearly typical as can be found, as the cities varied much in governmental practice. It is easy to see that the framework of the government is Roman, while the spirit of the institutions, especially in the earlier part of their history, is affected by Teutonic influence. There was a large number of these free towns in Italy from the close of the twelfth to the beginning of the fourteenth century. At the close of this period, the republican phase of their government declined, and each was ruled by a succession of tyrants, or despots (podestas).

In vain did the people attempt to regain their former privileges; they succeeded only in introducing a new kind of despotism in the captains of the people. The cities had fallen into the control of the wealthy families, and it mattered not what was the form of government, despotism prevailed. In many of the cities the excessive power of the despots made their reign a prolonged terror. As long as enlightened absolutism prevailed, government was administered by upright rulers and judges in the interests of the people; but when the power fell into the hands of unscrupulous men, the privileges and rights of the people were lost. It is said that absolutism, descending from father to son, never improves in the descent; in the case of some of the Italian cities it produced monsters. As the historian says: "The last Visconti, the last La Scalas, the last Sforzas, the last Farnesi, the last Medici—magnificent promoters of the humanities as their ancestors had been—were the worst specimens of the human race." The situation of government was partially relieved by the introduction at a later period of the trade guilds. All the industrial elements were organized into guilds, each one of which had its representation in the government. This was of service to the people, but nothing could erase the blot of despotism.

The despots were of different classes, according to the method by which they obtained power. First, there were nobles, who were representatives of the emperor, and governed parts of Lombardy while it was under the federated government, a position which enabled them to obtain power as captains of the people. Again, there were some who held feudal rights over towns and by this means became rulers or captains. There were others who, having been raised to office by the popular vote, had in turn used the office as a means to enslave the people and defeat the popular will. The popes, also, appointed their nephews and friends to office and by this means obtained supremacy. Merchant princes, who had become wealthy, used their money to obtain and hold power. Finally, there were the famous condottieri, who captured towns and made them principalities. Into the hands of such classes as these the rights and privileges of the people were continually falling, and the result was disastrous to free government.

Government of Venice.—Florence and Venice represent the two typical towns of the group of Italian cities. Wealthy, populous, and aggressive, they represent the greatest power, the highest intellectual development, becoming cities of culture and learning. In 1494 the inhabitants of Florence numbered 90,000, of whom only 3,200 were burghers, or full citizens, while Venice had 100,000 inhabitants and only 5,000 burghers. This shows what a low state popular government had reached—only one inhabitant in twenty was allowed the rights of citizens.

Venice was established on the islands and morasses of the Adriatic Coast by a few remnants of the Beneti, who sought refuge upon them from the ravages of the Huns. These people were early engaged in fishing, and later began a coast trade which, in time, enlarged into an extensive commerce. In early times it had a municipal constitution, and the little villages had their own assemblies, discussed their own affairs, and elected their own magistrates. Occasionally the representatives of the several tribal villages met to discuss the affairs of the whole city. This led to a central government, which, in 697 A.D., elected a doge for life. The doges possessed most of the attributes of kings, became despotic and arbitrary, and finally ruled with absolute sway, so that the destinies of the republic were subjected to the rule of one man. Aristocracy established itself, and the first families struggled for supremacy.

Venice was the oldest republic of modern times, and continued the longest. "It was older by 700 years than the Lombard republics, and it survived them for three centuries. It witnessed the fall of the Roman Empire; it saw Italy occupied by Odoacer, by Charlemagne, and by Napoleon." Its material prosperity was very great, and great buildings remain to this day as monuments of an art and architecture the foundations of which were mostly laid before the despots were at the height of their power.

Government of Florence.—There was a resemblance between Florence and Athens. Indeed, the former has been called the Athens of the West, for in it the old Greek idea was first revived; in it the love for the artistic survived. Both cities were devoted to the accumulating of wealth, and both were interested in the struggles over freedom and general politics. Situated in the valley of the Arno, under the shadow of the Apennines, Florence lacked the charm of Venice, situated on the sea. It was early conquered by Sulla and made into a military city of the Romans, and by a truce the Roman government and the Roman spirit prevailed in the city. It was destroyed by the Goths and rebuilt by the Franks, but still retained the Roman spirit. It was then a city of considerable importance, surrounded by a wall six miles in circumference, having seventy towers.

After it was rebuilt, the city was governed by a senate, but finally the first families predominated. Then there arose, in 1215, the great struggle between the papal and the imperial parties, the Ghibellines and the Guelphs—internal dissensions which were not quieted until these two opposing factions were driven out and a popular government established, with twelve seignors, or rulers, as the chief officers. Soon after this the art guilds obtained considerable power. They elected priors of trades every two months. At first there were seven guilds that held control in Florence; they were the lawyers, who were excluded from all offices, the physicians, the bankers, the mercers, the woollen-drapers, the dealers in foreign cloths, and the dealers in pelts from the north. Subsequently, men following the baser arts—butchers, retailers of cloth, blacksmiths, bakers, shoemakers, builders—were admitted to the circle of arts, until there were twenty-one.

After having a general representative council, it was finally (1266) determined that each of the seven greater arts should have a council of its own. The next step in government was the appointment of a gonfalconier of justice by the companies of arts that had especial command of citizens. But soon a struggle began between the commons and the nobility, in which for a long time the former were successful. Under the leadership of Giano della Bella they enacted ordinances of justice destroying the power of the nobles, making them ineligible to the office of prior, and fining each noble 13,000 pounds for any offense against the law. The testimony of two credible persons was sufficient to convict a person if their testimony agreed; hence it became easy to convict persons of noble blood. Yet the commons were in the end obliged to succumb to the power of the nobility and aristocracy, and the light of popular government went out.

The Lombard League.—The Lombard cities of the north of Italy were established subsequent to the invasion of the Lombards, chiefly through the peculiar settlement of the Lombard dukes over different territories in a loose confederation. But the Lombards found cities already existing, and became the feudal proprietors of these and the territory. There were many attempts to unite these cities into a strong confederation, but owing to the nature of the feudal system and the general independence and selfishness of each separate city, they proved futile. We find here the same desire for local self-government that existed in the Greek cities, the indulgence of which was highly detrimental to their interests in time of invasion or pressure from external power. There were selfishness and rivalry between all these cities, not only in the attempt to outdo each other in political power, but by reason of commercial jealousy. "Venice first, Christians next, and Italy afterward" was the celebrated maxim of Venice.

To the distressing causes which kept the towns apart, the strife between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines increased the trouble. Nor had the pope any desire to see a strong, unified government so near him. In those days popes were usually not honored in their own country, and, moreover, had enough to do to control their refractory subjects to the north of the Alps. Unity was impossible among cities so blindly and selfishly opposed to one another, and it was, besides, especially prevented by jealous sovereigns from without, who wished rather to see these cities acting independently and separately than effectively, in a strong, united government. Under these circumstances it was impossible there should be a strong and unified government; yet, could they have been properly utilized, all the materials were at hand for developing a national life which would have withstood the shock of opposing nationalities through centuries. The attempt to make a great confederation, a representative republic, failed, however, and with it failed the real hopes of republicanism in Italy.

The Rise of Popular Assemblies in France.—In the early history of France, while feudalism yet prevailed, it became customary for the provinces to have their popular assemblies. These assemblies usually were composed of all classes of the people, and probably had their origin in the calls made by feudal lords to unite all those persons within their feudatories who might have something to say respecting the administration of the government and the law. In them the three estates were assembled—the clergy, the nobility, and the commons. Many of these old provincial assemblies continued for a long time, for instance, in Brittany and Languedoc, where they remained until the period of the revolution.

It appears that every one of these provinces had its own provincial assembly, and a few of these assemblies survived until modern times, so that we know somewhat of their nature. Although their powers were very much curtailed on the rise of monarchy, especially in the time of the Louis's, yet the provinces in which they continued had advantages over those provinces which had lost the provincial assemblies. They had purchased of the crown the privilege of collecting all taxes demanded by the central government, and they retained the right to tax themselves for the expenses of their local administration and to carry on improvements, such as roads and water-courses, without any administration of the central government. Notwithstanding much restriction upon their power within their own domain, they moved with a certain freedom which other provinces did not possess.

Rural Communes Arose in France.—Although feudalism had prevailed over the entire country, there was a continual growth of local self-government at the time when feudalism was gradually passing into monarchial power. It was to the interest of the kings to favor somewhat the development of local self-government, especially the development of the cities while the struggle for dominion over feudalism was going on; but when the kings had once obtained power they found themselves confronted with the uprising spirit of local government. The struggle between king and people went on for some centuries, until the time when everything ran to monarchy and all the rights of the people were wrested from them; indeed, the perfection of the centralized government of the French monarch left no opportunity for the voice of the people to be heard.

The rural communes existed by rights obtained from feudal lords who had granted them charters and given them self-government over a certain territory. These charters allowed the inhabitants of a commune to regulate citizenship and the administration of property, and to define feudal rights and duties. Their organ of government was a general assembly of all the inhabitants, which either regulated the affairs of a commune directly or else delegated especial functions to communal officers who had power to execute laws already passed or to convoke the general assembly of the people on new affairs. The collection of taxes for both the central and the local government, the management of the property of the commune, and the direction of the police system represented the chief powers of the commune. The exercise of these privileges led into insistence upon the right of every man, whether peasant, freeman, or noble, to be tried by his peers.

The Municipalities of France.—As elsewhere related, the barbarians found the cities and towns of France well advanced in their own municipal system. This system they modified but little, only giving somewhat of the spirit of political freedom. In the struggle waged later against the feudal nobility these towns gradually obtained their rights, by purchase or agreement, and became self-governing. In this struggle we find the Christian church, represented by the bishop, always arraying itself on the side of the commons against the nobility, and thus establishing democracy. Among the municipal privileges which were wrested from the nobility was included the right to make all laws that might concern the people; to raise their own taxes, both local and for the central government; to administer justice in their own way, and to manage their own police system. The relations of the municipality to the central government or the feudal lord forced them to pay a certain tribute, which gave them a legal right to manage themselves.

Their pathway was not always smooth, however, but, on the contrary, full of contention and struggle against overbearing lords who sought to usurp authority. Their internal management generally consisted of two assemblies—one a general assembly of citizens, in which they were all well represented, the other an assembly of notables. The former elected the magistrates, and performed all legislative actions; the latter acted as a sort of advisory council to assist the magistrates. Sometimes the cities had but one assembly of citizens, which merely elected magistrates and exercised supervision over them. The magistracy generally consisted of aldermen, presided over by a mayor, and acted as a general executive council for the city.

Municipal freedom gradually declined through adverse circumstances. Within the city limits tyranny, aristocracy, or oligarchy sometimes prevailed, wresting from the people the rights which they had purchased or fought for. Without was the pressure of the feudal lord, which gradually passed into the general fight of the king for royal supremacy. The king, it is true, found the towns very strong allies in his struggle against the nobility. They too had commenced a struggle against the feudal lords, and there was a common bond of sympathy between them. But when the feudal lords were once mastered, the king must turn his attention to reducing the liberties of the people, and gradually, through the influence of monarchy and centralization of government, the rights and privileges of the people of the towns of France passed away.

The States-General Was the First Central Organization.—It ought to be mentioned here that after the monarchy was moderately well established, Philip the Fair (1285-1314) called the representatives of the nation together. He called in the burghers of the towns, the nobility, and the clergy and formed a parliament for the discussion of the affairs of the realm. It appeared that the constitutional development which began so early in England was about to obtain in France. But it was not to be realized, for in the three centuries that followed—namely, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth—the monarchs of France managed to keep this body barely in existence, without giving it any real power. When the king was secure upon his throne and imperialism had received its full power, the nobility, the clergy, and the commons were no longer needed to support the throne of France, and, consequently, the will of the people was not consulted. It is true that each estate of nobility, clergy, and commons met separately from time to time and made out its own particular grievances to the king, but the representative power of the people passed away and was not revived again until, on the eve of the revolution, Louis XVI, shaken with terror, once more called together the three estates in the last representative body held before the political deluge burst upon the French nation.

Failure of Attempts at Popular Government in Spain.—There are signs of popular representation in Spain at a very early date, through the independent towns. This representation was never universal or regular. Many of the early towns had charter rights which they claimed as ancient privileges granted by the Roman government. These cities were represented for a time in the popular assembly, or Cortes, but under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Cortes were seldom called, and when they were, it was for the advantage of the sovereign rather than of the people. Many attempts were made in Spain, from time to time, to fan into flame this enthusiasm for popular representation, but the predominance of monarchy and the dogmatic centralized power of the church tended to repress all real liberty. Even in these later days sudden bursts of enthusiasm for constitutional liberty and constitutional privilege are heard from the southern peninsula; but the transition into monarchy was so sudden that the rights of the people were forever curtailed. The frequent outbursts for liberty and popular government came from the centres where persisted the ideas of freedom planted by the northern barbarians.

Democracy in the Swiss Cantons.—It is the boast of some of the rural districts of Switzerland, that they never submitted to the feudal rÉgime, that they have never worn the yoke of bondage, and, indeed, that they were never conquered. It is probable that several of the rural communes of Switzerland have never known anything other than a free peasantry. They have continually practised the pure democracy exemplified by the entire body of citizens meeting in the open field to make the laws and to elect their officers. Although it is true that in these rural communities of Switzerland freedom has been a continuous quantity, yet during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Switzerland, as a whole, was dominated by feudalism. This feudalism differed somewhat from the French feudalism, for it represented a sort of overlordship of absentee feudal chiefs, which, leaving the people more to themselves, made vassalage less irksome.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, in the year 1309, the cantons, Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, lying near Lake Lucerne, gained, through the emperor, Henry VII, the recognition of their independence in all things except allegiance to the empire. Each of these small states had its own government, varying somewhat from that of its neighbors. Yet the rural cantons evinced a strong spirit of pure democracy, for they had already, about half a century previous, formed themselves into a league which proved the germ of confederacy, which perpetuated republican institutions in the Middle Ages. The spirit of freedom prevailing throughout diverse communities brought the remainder of the Swiss cantons into the confederation.

The first liberties possessed by the various cantons were indigenous to the soil. From time immemorial they had clung to the ancient right of self-government, and had developed in their midst a local system which feudalism never succeeded in eradicating. It mattered not how diverse their systems of local government, they had a common cause against feudal domination, and this brought them into a close union in the attempt to throw off such domination. It is one of the remarkable phenomena of political history, that proud, aristocratic cities with monarchial tendencies could be united with humble and rude communes which held expressly to pure democracy. It is but another illustration of the truth that a particular form of government is not necessary to the development of liberty, but it is the spirit, bravery, independence, and unity of the people that make democracy possible. Another important truth, also, is illustrated here—that Italian, German, and French people who respect each other's liberty and have a common cause may dwell together on a basis of unity and mutual support.

Switzerland stands, then, for the perpetuation of the early local liberties of the people. It has always been the synonym of freedom and the haven of refuge for the politically oppressed of all nations, and its freedom has always had a tendency to advance civilization, not only within the boundaries of the Swiss government, but throughout all Europe. Progressive ideas of religion and education have ever accompanied liberty in political affairs. The long struggle with the feudal lords and the monarchs of European governments, and with the Emperor of Germany, united the Swiss people on a basis of common interests and developed a spirit of independence. At the same time, it had a tendency to warp their judgments respecting the religious rights and liberties of a people, and more than once the Swiss have shown how narrow in conception of government a republic can be. Yet, upon the whole, it must be conceded that the watch-fires of liberty have never been extinguished in Switzerland, and that the light they have shed has illumined many dark places in Europe and America.

The Ascendancy of Monarchy.—Outside of Switzerland the faint beginning of popular representation was gradually overcome by the ascendancy of monarchy. Feudalism, after its decline, was rapidly followed by the development of monarchy throughout Europe. The centralization of power became a universal principle, uniting in one individual the government of an entire nation. It was an expression of unity, and was essential to the redemption of Europe from the chaotic state in which it had been left by declining feudalism.

Monarchy is not necessarily the rule of a single individual. It may be merely the proclamation of the will of the people through one man, the expression of the voice of the people from a single point. Of all forms of government a monarchy is best adapted to a nation or people needing a strong central government able to act with precision and power. As illustrative of this, it is a noteworthy fact that the old Lombard league of confederated states could get along very well until threatened with foreign invasion; then they needed a king. The Roman republic, with consuls and senate, moved on very well in times of peace, but in times of war it was necessary to have a dictator, whose voice should have the authority of law. The President of the United States is commander-in-chief of the army, which position in time of war gives him a power almost resembling imperialism. Could Greece have presented against her invaders a strong monarchy which could unite all her heroes in one common command, her enemies would not so easily have prevailed against her.

Monarchy, then, in the development of European life seemed merely a stage of progress not unlike that of feudalism itself—a stage of progressive government; and it was only when it was carried to a ridiculous extreme in France and in England—in France under the Louis's and in England under the Stuarts—that it finally appeared detrimental to the highest interests of the people. On the other hand, the weak republicanism of the Middle Ages had not sufficient unity or sufficient aggressiveness to maintain itself, and gave way to what was then a form of government better adapted to conditions and surroundings. But the fires of liberty, having been once lighted, were to burst forth again in a later period and burn with sufficient heat to purify the governments of the world.

Beginning of Constitutional Liberty in England.—When the Normans entered England, feudalism was in its infancy and wanted yet the form of the Roman system. The kings of the English people soon became the kings of England, and the feudal system spread over the entire island. But this feudalism was already in the grasp of monarchy which prevailed much more easily in England than in France. There came a time in England, as elsewhere, when the people, seeking their liberties, were to be united with the king to suppress the feudal nobility, and there sprang up at this time some elements of popular representative government, most plainly visible in the parliament of Simon de Montfort (1265) and the "perfect parliament" of 1295, the first under the reign of Henry III, and the second under Edward I. In one or two instances prior to this, county representation was summoned in parliament in order to facilitate the method of assessing and collecting taxes, but these two parliaments marked the real beginnings of constitutional liberty in England, so far as local representation is concerned.

Prior to this, in 1215, the nobles and the commons, working together, had wrested the concession of the great Magna Charta from King John, and thus had established a precedent of the right of each class of individuals to have its share in the government of the realm; under its declaration king, nobility, and commons, each a check upon the other, each struggling for power, and all developing through the succeeding generations the liberty of the people under the constitution. This long, slow process of development, reminding one somewhat of the struggle of the plebeians of Rome against the patricians, finally made the lower house of parliament, which represents the people of the realm, the most prominent factor in the government of the English people—and at last, without a cataclysm like the French Revolution, established liberty of speech, popular representation, and religious liberty.

We find, then, that in England and in other parts of Europe a liberalizing tendency set in after monarchy had been established and become predominant, which limited the actions of kings and declared for the liberties of the people. Imperialism in monarchy was limited by the constitution of the people. England laid the foundations of democracy in recognizing the rights of representation of all classes.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What phases of popular government are to be noted in the Italian cities?

2. What is the relation of "enlightened absolutism" to social progress?

3. The characteristics of mediaeval guilds.

4. Why were the guilds discontinued?

5. The rise and decline of popular assemblies and rural communes of France.

6. The nature of the government of the Swiss cantons.

7. The transition from feudalism to monarchy.

8. In what ways was the idea of popular government perpetuated in Europe?

CHAPTER XXII

THE INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING OF EUROPE

Social Evolution Is Dependent Upon Variation.—The process by which ideas are born and propagated in human society is strangely analogous to the methods of biological evolution. The laws of survival, of adaptation, of variation and mutation prevail, and the evidence of conspicuous waste is ever present. The grinding and shifting of human nature under social law is similar to the grinding and shifting of physical nature under organic law. When we consider the length of time it takes physical nature to accomplish the ultimate of fixed values, seventy millions of years or more to produce an oak-tree, millions of years to produce a horse or a man, we should not be impatient with the slow processes of human society nor the waste of energy in the process. For human society arises out of the confusion of ideas and progresses according to the law of survival.

New ideas must be accepted, diffused, used, and adapted to new conditions. It would seem that Europe had sufficient knowledge of life contributed by the Orient, by Greek, Roman, and barbarian to go forward; but first must come a period of readjustment of old truth to new environment and the discovery of new truth. For several centuries, in the Dark Ages, the intellectual life of man lay dormant. Then must come a quickening of the spirit before the world could advance. However, in considering human progress, the day of small things must "not be despised." For in the days of confusion and low tide of regression there are being established new modes of life and thought which through right adaptation will flow on into the full tide of progress. Revivals come which gather up and utilize the scattered and confused ideas of life, adapting and utilizing them by setting new standards and imparting new impulses of progress.

The Revival of Progress Throughout Europe.—Human society, as a world of ideas, is a continuous quantity, and therefore it is difficult to mark off any definite period of time to show social causation. Roughly speaking, the period from the beginning of the eighth century to the close of the fifteenth is a period of intellectual ferment, the climax of which extended from the eleventh to the close of the fifteenth century. It was in this period that the forces were gathering in preparation for the achievements of the modern era of progress. There was one general movement, an awakening along the whole line of human endeavor in the process of transition from the old world to the new. It was a revival of art, language, literature, philosophy, theology, politics, law, trade, commerce, and the additions of invention and discovery. It was the period of establishing schools and laying the foundation of universities. In this there was a more or less continuous progress of the freedom of the mind, which permitted reflective thought, which subsequently led on to the religious reformation that permitted freedom of belief, and the French Revolution, which permitted freedom of political action. It was the rediscovery of the human mind, a quickening of intellectual liberty, a desire of alert minds for something new. It was a call for humanity to move forward.

The Revival of Learning a Central Idea of Progress.—As previously stated, the church had taken to itself by force of circumstances the power in the Western world relinquished by the fallen Roman Empire. In fighting the battles against unbelief, ignorance, and political corruption, it had become a powerful hierarchy. As the conservator of learning, it eventually began to settle the limits of knowledge and belief on its own interpretation and to force this upon the world. It saved the elements of knowledge from the destruction of the barbarians, but in turn sought to lock up within its own precincts of belief the thoughts of the ages, presuming to do the thinking for the world. It became dogmatic, arbitrary, conservative, and conventional. Moreover, this had become the attitude of all inert Europe. The several movements that sought to overcome this stifling condition of the mind are called the "revival of learning."

A more specific use of the term renaissance, or revival of learning, refers especially to the restoration of the intellectual continuity of Europe, or the rebirth of the human mind. It is generally applied to what is known as humanism, or the revival of classical learning. Important as this phase of general progress is, it can be considered only as a part of the great revival of progress. Humanism, or the revival of classical learning, having its origin and first great impulse in Italy, it has become customary to use humanism and the Italian renaissance interchangeably, yet without careful consideration; for although the Italian renaissance is made up largely of humanism, it had such wide-reaching consequences on the progress of all Europe as not to be limited by the single influence of the revival of the classical learning.

Influence of Charlemagne.—Clovis founded the Frankish kingdom, which included the territory now occupied by France and the Netherlands. Subsequently this kingdom was enlarged under the rule of Charles Martel, who turned back the Moslem invasion at Poitiers in 732, and became ruler of Europe north of the Alps. His son Pepin enlarged and strengthened the kingdom, so that when his successor Charlemagne came into power in 768 he found himself in control of a vast inland empire. He conquered Rome and all north Italy and assumed the title of Roman emperor. The movement of Charlemagne was a slight and even a doubtful beginning of the revival. Possibly his reform was a faint flickering of the watch-fires of intellectual and civil activity, but they went out and darkness obscured the horizon until the breaking of the morn of liberty. Yet in the darkness of the ages that followed new forces were forming unobserved by the contemporary historian—forces which should give a new awakening to the mind of all Europe.

Charlemagne re-established the unity of government which had been lost in the decline of the old Roman government; he enlarged the boundary of the empire, established an extensive system of administration, and promoted law and order. He did more than this: he promoted religion by favoring the church in the advancement of its work throughout the realm. But unfortunately, in the attempt to break down feudalism, he increased it by giving large donations to the church, and so helped to develop ecclesiastical feudalism, and laid the foundation of subsequent evils. He was a strong warrior, a great king, and a master of civil government.

Charlemagne believed in education, and insisted that the clergy should be educated, and he established schools for the education of his subjects. He promoted learning among his civil officers by establishing a school all the graduates of which were to receive civil appointments. It was the beginning of the civil service method in Europe. Charlemagne was desirous, too, of promoting learning of all kinds, and gathered together the scattered fragments of the German language, and tried to advance the educational interests of his subjects in every direction. But the attempts to make learning possible, apparently, passed for naught in later days when the iron rule of Charlemagne had passed away, and the weaker monarchs who came after him were unable to sustain his system. Darkness again spread over Europe, to be dispelled finally by other agencies.

The Attitude of the Church Was Retrogressive.—The attitude of the Christian church toward learning in the Middle Ages was entirely arbitrary. It had become thoroughly institutionalized and was not in sympathy with the changes that were taking place outside of its own policy. It assumed an attitude of hostility to everything that tended toward the development of free and independent thought outside the dictates of the authorities of the church. It found itself, therefore, in an attitude of bitter opposition to the revival of learning which had spread through Europe. It was unfortunate that the church appeared so diametrically opposed to freedom of thought and independent activity of mind. Even in England, when the new learning was first introduced, although Henry VIII favored it, the church in its blind policy opposed it, and when the renaissance in Germany had passed continuously into the Reformation, Luther opposed the new learning with as much vigor as did the papalists themselves.

But from the fact of the church's assuming this attitude toward the new learning, it must not be inferred that there was no learning within the church, for there were scholars in theology, logic, and law, astute and learned. Yet the church assumed that it had a sort of proprietorship or monopoly of learning, and that only what it might see fit to designate was to receive attention, and then only in the church's own way; all other knowledge was to be opposed. The ecclesiastical discussions gave evidence of intense mental activity within the church, but, having little knowledge of the outside world to invigorate it or to give it something tangible upon which to operate, the mind passed into speculative fields that were productive of little permanent culture. Dwelling only upon a few fundamental conceptions at first, it soon tired itself out with its own weary round.

The church recognized in all secular advocates of literature and learning its own enemies, and consequently began to expunge from the literary world as far as possible the remains of the declining Roman and Greek culture. It became hostile to Greek and Latin literature and art and sought to repress them. In the rise of new languages and literature in new nationalities every attempt was made by the church to destroy the effects of the pagan life. The poems and sagas treating of the religion and mythologies of these young, rising nationalities were destroyed. The monuments of the first beginnings of literature, the products of a period so hard to compass by the historian, were served in the same way as were the Greek and Latin masterpieces.

The church said, if men will persist in study, let them ponder the precepts of the gospels as interpreted by the church. For those who inquired about the problems of life, the churchmen pointed to the creeds and the dogmas of the church, which had settled all things. If men were too persistent in inquiring about the nature of this world, they were told that it is of little importance, only a prelude to the world to come; that they should spend their time in preparation for the future. Even as great a man as Gregory of Tours said: "Let us shun the lying fables of the poets and forego the wisdom of the sages at enmity with God, lest we incur the condemnation of endless death by the sentence of our Lord." Saint Augustine deplored the waste of time spent in reading Virgil, while Alcuin regretted that in his boyhood he had preferred Virgil to the legends of the saints. With the monks such considerations gave excuse for laziness and disregard of rhetoric.

But in this movement of hostility to the new learning, the church went too far, and soon found the entire ecclesiastical system face to face with a gross ignorance, which must be eradicated or the superstructure would fall. As Latin was the only vehicle of thought in those days, it became a necessity that the priests should study Virgil and the other Latin authors, consequently the churches passed from their opposition to pagan authors to a careful utilization of them, until the whole papal court fell under the influence of the revival of learning, and popes and prelates became zealous in the promotion and, indeed, in the display of learning. When the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent became Pope Leo X, the splendor of the ducal court of Florence passed to the papal throne, and no one was more zealous in the patronage of learning than he. He encouraged learning and art of every kind, and built a magnificent library. It was merely the transferrence of the pomp of the secular court to the papacy.

Such was the attitude of the church toward the new learning—first, a bitter opposition; second, a forced toleration; and third, the absorption of its best products. Yet in all this the spirit of the church was not for the freedom of mind nor independence of thought. It could not recognize this freedom nor the freedom of religious belief until it had been humiliated by the spirit of the Reformation.

Scholastic Philosophy Marks a Step in Progress.—There arose in the ninth century a speculative philosophy which sought to harmonize the doctrine of the church with the philosophy of Neo-Platonism and the logic of Aristotle. The scholastic philosophy may be said to have had its origin with John Scotus Erigena, who has been called "the morning star of scholasticism." He was the first bold thinker to assert the supremacy of reason and openly to rebel against the dogma of the church. In laying the foundation of his doctrine, he starts with a philosophical explanation of the universe. His writings and translations were forerunners of mysticism and set forth a peculiar pantheistic conception. His doctrine appears to ignore the pretentious authority of the church of his time and to refer to the earlier church for authority. In so doing he incorporated the doctrine of emanation advanced by the Neo-Platonists, which held that out of God, the supreme unity, evolve the particular forms of goodness, and that eventually all things will return to God. In like manner, in the creation of the universe the species comes from the genera by a process of unfolding.

The complete development and extension of scholastic philosophy did not come until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The term "scholastics" was first applied to those who taught in the cloister schools founded by Charlemagne. It was at a later period applied to the teachers of the seven liberal arts—grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, in the Trivium, and arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, in the Quadrivium. Finally it was applied to all persons who occupied themselves with science or philosophy. Scholastic philosophy in its completed state represents an attempt to harmonize the doctrines of the church with Aristotelian philosophy.

There were three especial doctrines developed in the scholastic philosophy, called respectively nominalism, realism, and conceptualism. The first asserted that there are no generic types, and consequently no abstract concepts. The formula used to express the vital point in nominalism is "Universalia post rem." Its advocates asserted that universals are but names. Roscellinus was the most important advocate of this doctrine. In the fourteenth century William of Occam revived the subject of nominalism, and this had much to do with the downfall of scholasticism, for its inductive method suggested the acquiring of knowledge through observation.

Realism was a revival of the Platonic doctrine that ideas are the only real things. The formula for it was "Universalia ante rem." By it the general name preceded that of the species. Universal concepts represent the real; all else is merely illustrative of the real. The only real sphere is the one held in the mind, mathematically correct in every way. Balls and globes and other actual things are but the illustrations of the genus. Perhaps Anselm was the strongest advocate of this method of reasoning.

It remained for Abelard to unite these two theories of philosophical reasoning into one, called conceptualism. He held that universals are not ideals, but that they exist in the things themselves. The formula given was "Universalia in re." This was a step in advance, and laid something of a foundation for the philosophy of classification in modern science.

The scholastic philosophers did much to sharpen reason and to develop the mind, but they failed for want of data. Indeed, this has been the common failure of man, for in the height of civilization men speculate without sufficient knowledge. Even in the beginning of scientific thought, for lack of facts, men spent much of their time in speculation. The scholastic philosophers were led to consider many unimportant questions which could not be well settled. They asked the church authorities why the sacramental wine and bread turned into blood and flesh, and what was the necessity of the atonement? And in considering the nature of pure being they asked: "How many angels can dance at once on the point of a needle?" and "In moving from point to point, do angels pass through intervening space?" They asked seriously whether "angels had stomachs," and "if a starving ass were placed exactly midway between two stacks of hay would he ever move?" But it must not be inferred that these people were as ridiculous as they appear, for each question had its serious side. Having no assistance from science, they fell single-handed upon dogmatism; yet many times they busied themselves with unprofitable discussions, and some of them became the advocates of numerous doctrines and dogmas which had a tendency to confuse knowledge, although in defense of which wits were sharpened.

Lord Bacon, in a remarkable passage, has characterized the scholastic philosophers as follows:

"This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign among the schoolmen, who—having sharp and strong wits and abundance of leisure and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle, their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and having little history, either of nature or of time—did, out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh its web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit."[1]

Scholasticism, as the first phase of the revival of learning, though overshadowed by tradition and mediaeval dogmatism, showed great earnestness of purpose in ascertaining the truth by working "the wit and mind of man"; but it worked not "according to the stuff," and, having little to feed upon, it produced only speculations of truth and indications of future possibilities. There were many bright men among the scholastic philosophers, especially in the thirteenth century, who left their impress upon the age; yet scholasticism itself was affected by dogmatism and short-sightedness, and failed to utilize the means at its hand for the improvement of learning. It exercised a tyranny over all mental endeavor, for the reason that it was obliged in all of its efforts to carry through all of its reasoning the heavy weight of dogmatic theology. Whatever else it attempted, it could not shake itself free from this incubus of learning, through a great system of organized knowledge, which hung upon the thoughts and lives of men and attempted to explain all things in every conceivable way.

But to show that independent thinking was a crime one has only to refer to the results of the knowledge of Roger Bacon, who advanced his own methods of observation and criticism. Had the scholastics been able to accept what he clearly pointed out to them, namely, that reason can advance only by finding, through observation, new material upon which to work, science might have been active a full century in advance of what it was. He laid the foundation of experimental science, and pointed out the only way in which the revival of learning could be made permanent, but his voice was unheeded by those around him, and it remained for the philosophers of succeeding generations to estimate his real worth.

Cathedral and Monastic Schools.—There were two groups of schools under the management of the church, known as the cathedral and monastic schools. The first represented the schools that had developed in the cathedrals for the sons of lay members of the church; the second, those in the monasteries that were devoted largely to the education of the ministry. To understand fully the position of these schools it is necessary to go back a little and refer to the educational forces of Europe. For a long period after Alexandria had become established as a great centre of learning, Athens was really the centre of education in the East, and this city held her sway in educational affairs down to the second century. The influence of the traditions of great teachers and the encouragement and endowments given by emperors kept up a school at Athens, to which flocked the youth of the land who desired a superior education.

Finally, when the great Roman Empire joined to itself the Greek culture, there sprang up what was known as the Greek and Roman schools, or Graeco-Roman schools, although Rome was not without its centre of education at the famous Athenaeum. In these Graeco-Roman schools were taught grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The grammar of that day frequently included language, criticism, history, literature, metre; the dialectic considered logic, metaphysics, and ethics; while rhetoric contemplated the fitting of the youth for public life and for the law.

But these schools, though dealing in real knowledge for a time, gradually declined, chiefly on account of the declining moral powers of the empire and the relaxation of intellectual activity, people thinking more of ease and luxury and the power of wealth than of actual accomplishment. The internal disorganization, unjust taxation, and unjust rule of the empire had also a tendency to undermine education. The coming of the barbarians, with their honest, illiterate natures, had its influence, likewise, in overthrowing the few schools that remained.

The rise of Christianity, which supposed that all pagan literature and pagan knowledge were of the devil, and hence to be suppressed, opposed secular teaching, and tended to dethrone these schools. Constantine's effort to unite the church and state tended for a while to perpetuate secular institutions. But the pagan schools passed away; the philosophy of the age had run its course until it had become a hollow assumption, a desert of words, a weary round of speculation without vitality of expression; and the activity of the sophists in these later times narrowed all literary courses until they dwindled into mere matters of form. Perhaps, owing to its force, power, and dignity, the Roman law retained a vital position in the educational curriculum. The school at Athens was suppressed in 529 by Justinian, because, as it had been claimed, it was tainted with Oriental philosophy and allied with Egyptian magic, and hence could not develop ethical standards.

It is easy to observe how the ideas of Christian learning came into direct competition with the arrogant self-assumption and the hollowness of the selfish teachings of the old Graeco-Roman schools. The Christian doctrine, advocating the development of the individual life, intimate relations with God, the widening of social functions, with its teachings of humility, and humanity, could not tolerate the instruction given in these schools. Moreover, the Christian doctrine of education consisted, on the one hand, in preparing for the future life, and on the other, in the preparation of Christian ministers to teach this future life. As might be expected, when narrowed to this limit, Christian education had its dwarfing influence. If salvation were an important thing and salvation were to be obtained only by the denial of the life of this world, then there would be no object in perpetuating learning, no attempt to cultivate the mind, no tendency to develop the whole man on account of his moral and intellectual worth. The use of secular books was everywhere discouraged. As a result the instruction of the religious schools was of a very meagre nature.

Within the monasteries devotional exercises and the study of the Scriptures represented the chief intellectual development of the monks. The Western monks required a daily service and a systematic training, but the practice of the Eastern monks was not educational in its nature at all. After a while persons who were not studying for religious vows were admitted to the schools that they might understand the Bible and the services of the church. They were taught to write, that they might copy the manuscripts of the church fathers, the sacred books, and the psalter; they were taught arithmetic, that they might be able to calculate the return of Easter and the other festivals; they were taught music, that they might be able to chant well. But the education in any line was in itself superficial and narrow.

The Benedictine order was exceptional in the establishment of better schools and in promoting better educational influences. Their curriculum consisted of the Old and New Testaments, the exposition of the Scriptures by learned theologians, and the discourses, or conversations, of Cassianus; yet, as a rule, the monks cared little for knowledge as such, not even for theological knowledge. The monasteries, however, constituted the great clerical societies, where many prepared for secular pursuits. The monasteries of Ireland furnished many learned scholars to England, Scotland, and Germany, as well as to Ireland; yet it was only a monastic education which they exported.

Finally it became customary to found schools within the monasteries, and this was the beginning of the church schools of the Middle Ages. Formal and meagre as the instruction of these schools was, it represents a beginning in church education. But in the seventh and eighth centuries they again declined, and learning retrograded very much; literature was forgotten; the monks and friars boasted of their ignorance. The reforms of Charlemagne restored somewhat the educational status of the new empire, and not only developed the church schools and cathedral schools but also founded some secular schools. The cathedral schools became in many instances centres of learning apart from monasticism. The textbooks, however, of the Middle Ages were chiefly those of Boethius, Isidor, and Capella, and were of the most meagre content and character. That of Capella, as an illustration, was merely an allegory, which showed the seven liberal arts in a peculiar representation. The logic taught in the schools was that given by Alcuin; the arithmetic was limited to the reckoning of holidays and festivals; astronomy was limited to a knowledge of the names and courses of the stars; geometry was composed of the first four books of Euclid, and supplemented with a large amount of geography.

But all this learning was valued merely as a support to the church and the church authorities, and for little else. Yet there had been schools of importance founded at Paris, Bologna, and Padua, and at other places which, although they were not the historical foundations of the universities, no doubt became the means, the traditional means, of the establishment of universities at these places. Also, many of the scholars, such as Theodore of Tarsus, Adalbert, Bede, and Alcuin, who studied Latin and Greek and also became learned in other subjects, were not without their influence.

The Rise of Universities.[2]—An important phase of this period of mediaeval development was the rise of universities. Many causes led to their establishment. In the eleventh century the development of independent municipal power brought the noble and the burgher upon the same level, and developed a common sentiment for education. The activity of the crusades, already referred to, developed a thirst for knowledge. There was also a gradual growth of traditional learning, an accumulation of knowledge of a certain kind, which needed classification, arrangement, and development. By degrees the schools of Arabia, which had been prominent in their development, not only of Oriental learning but of original investigation, had given a quickening impulse to learning throughout southern Europe. The great division of the church between the governed and governing had led to the development of a strong lay feeling as opposed to monasticism or ecclesiasticism. Perhaps the growth of local representative government had something to do with this.

But the time came when great institutions were chartered at these centres of learning. Students flocked to Bologna, where law was taught; to Salerno, where medicine was the chief subject; and to Paris, where philosophy and theology predominated. At first these schools were open to all, without special rules. Subsequently they were organized, and finally were chartered. In those days students elected their own instructors and built up their own organization. The schools were usually called universitas magistrorum et scholarium. They were merely assemblages of students and instructors, a sort of scholastic guild or combination of teachers and scholars, formed first for the protection of their members, and later allowed by pope and emperor the privilege of teaching, and finally given the power by these same authorities to grant degrees. The result of these schools was the widening of the influence of education.

The universities proposed to teach what was found in a new and revived literature and to adopt a new method of presenting truth. Yet, with all these widening foundations, there was a tendency to be bound by traditional learning. The scholastic philosophy itself invaded the universities and had its influence in breaking down the scientific spirit. Not only was this true of the universities of the continent, but of those of England as well. The German universities, however, were less affected by this tendency of scholasticism. Founded at a later period, when the Renaissance was about to be merged into the Reformation, there was a wider foundation of knowledge, a more earnest zeal in its pursuit, and also a tendency for the freedom and activity of the mind which was not observed elsewhere.

The universities may be said to mark an era in the development of intellectual life. They became centres where scholars congregated, centres for the collection of knowledge; and when the humanistic idea fully prevailed, in many instances they encouraged the revival of classical literature and the study of those things pertaining to human life. The universities entertained and practised free discussion of all subjects, which made an important landmark of progress. They encouraged people to give a reason for philosophy and faith, and prepared the way for scientific investigation and experiment.

Failure to Grasp Scientific Methods.—Perhaps the greatest wonder in all this accumulation of knowledge, quickening of the mind, philosophy, and speculation, is that men of so much learning failed to grasp scientific methods. Could they but have turned their attention to systematic methods of investigation based upon facts logically stated, the vast intellectual energy of the Middle Ages might have been turned to more permanent account. It is idle, however, to deplore their ignorance of these conditions or to ridicule their want of learning. When we consider the ignorance that overshadowed the land, the breaking down of the old established systems of Greece and Rome, the struggle of the church, which grew naturally into its power and made conservatism an essential part of its life; indeed, when we consider that the whole medieval system was so impregnated with dogmatism and guided by tradition, it is a marvel that so many men of intellect and power raised their voices in the defense of truth, and that so much advancement was made in the earnest desire for truth.

Inventions and Discoveries.—The quickening influence of discovery was of great moment in giving enlarged views of life. The widening of the geographical horizon tended to take men out of their narrow boundaries and their limited conceptions of the world, into a larger sphere of mental activity, and to teach them that there was much beyond their narrow conceptions to be learned. The use of gunpowder changed the method of warfare and revolutionized the financial system of nations. The perfection of the mariner's compass reformed navigation and made great sea voyages possible; the introduction of printing increased the dissemination of knowledge; the building of great cathedrals had a tendency to develop architecture, and the contact with Oriental learning developed art. These phases tended to assist the mind in the attempt to free itself from bondage.

The Extension of Commerce Hastened Progress.—But more especially were men's ideas enlarged and their needs supplied by the widening reach of commerce. Through its exchanges it distributed the food-supply, and thus not only preserved thousands from want but furnished leisure for others to study. It had a tendency to distribute the luxuries of manufactured articles, and to quicken the activity of the mind by giving exchange of ideas. Little by little the mariners, plying their trade, pushed farther and farther into unknown seas, and at last brought the products of every clime in exchange for those of Europe.

The manner in which commerce developed the cities of Italy and of the north has already been referred to. Through this development the foundations of local government were laid. The manner in which it broke down the feudal system after receiving the quickening impulse of the crusades has also been dealt with. In addition to its influence in these changes, it brought about an increased circulation of money—which also struck at the root of feudalism, in destroying the mediaeval manor and serfdom, for men could buy their freedom from serfdom with money—which also made taxation possible; and the possibility of taxation had a vast deal to do with the building up of new nations and stimulating national life. Moreover, as a distributer of habits and customs, commerce developed uniformity of political and social life and made for national solidarity.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What is meant by Renaissance, Revival of Learning, Revival of Progress and Humanism, as applied to the mediaeval period?

2. The causes of the Revival of Progress.

3. The direct influence of humanism.

4. The attitude of the church toward freedom of thought.

5. The scholastic philosophy, its merits and its defects.

6. What did the following persons stand for in human progress: Dante, Savonarola, Charlemagne, John Scotus Erigena, Thomas Aquinas, Abelard, William of Occam, Roger Bacon?

7. Rise of universities. How did they differ from modern universities?

[1] Advancement of Learning, iv, 5.

[2] See Chapter XXIX.

CHAPTER XXIII

HUMANISM AND THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING

Perhaps the most important branch of the revival of learning is that which is called humanism, or the revival of the study of the masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. The promoters of this movement are called humanists, because they held that the study of the classics, or litterae humaniores, is the best humanizing agent. It has already been shown how scholasticism developed as one of the important phases of the renaissance, and how, close upon its track, the universities rose as powerful aids to the revival of learning, and that the cathedral and monastic schools were the traditional forerunners of the great universities.

Primarily, then, were taught in the universities scholastic philosophy, theology, the Roman and the canon law, with slight attention to Greek and Hebrew, the real value of the treasures of antiquity being unknown to the Western world. The Arabic or Saracen schools of Spain had taken high rank in learning, and through their efforts the scientific works of Aristotle were presented to the mediaeval world. There were many men of importance, such as Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, who were leaders in universities and who lent their influence to the development of learning in Europe. The translation of the scientific works of Aristotle into Latin at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas had its influence. But, after all, scholasticism had settled down to speculative ideas within the universities and without, and little attention was paid to the old classical authors.

The Discovery of Manuscripts.—The real return to the study of Greek literature and art finally came through the fortunate discoveries of ancient sculpture and ancient manuscripts on the occasion of the turning of the mind of Europe toward the Eastern learning. The fall of the Eastern Empire accelerated the transfer of learning and culture to the West. The discovery and use of old manuscripts brought a survival of classical literature and of the learning of antiquity. The bringing of this literature to light gave food for thought and means of study, and turned the mind from its weary round of speculative philosophy to a large body of literature containing the views of the ancients respecting the progress and development of man. As has been heretofore shown, the Greeks, seeking to explain things by the human reason, although not advanced far in experimental science, had accomplished much by way of logical thought based upon actual facts. They had turned from credulity to inquiry.

Who Were the Humanists?—Dante was not a humanist, but he may be said to have been the forerunner of the Italian humanists, for he furnished inspiration to Petrarch, the so-called founder of humanism. His magnificent creation of The Divine Comedy, his service in the foundation of the Italian language, and his presentation of the religious influence of the church in a liberal manner made him a great factor in the humanizing of Europe. Dante was neither modern nor ancient. He stood at the parting of the ways controlling the learning of the past and looking toward the open door of the future, and directed thought everywhere to the Latin. His masterpiece was well received through all Italy, and gave an impulse to learning in many ways.

Petrarch was the natural successor of Dante. The latter immortalized the past; the former invoked the spirit of the future. He showed great enthusiasm in the discovery of old manuscripts, and brought into power more fully the Latin language. He also attempted to introduce Greek into the Western world, but in this he was only partially successful. But in his wide search for manuscripts, monasteries and cathedrals were ransacked and the literary treasures which the monks had copied and preserved through centuries, the products of the classical writers of the early times, were brought to light. Petrarch was an enthusiast, even a sentimentalist. But he was bold in his expression of the full and free play of the intellect, in his denunciation of formalism and slavery to tradition. The whole outcome of his life, too, was a tendency toward moral and aesthetic aggrandizement. Inconsistent in many things, his life may be summed up as a bold remonstrance against the binding influences of tradition and an enthusiasm for something new.

"We are, therefore," says Symonds,[1] "justified in hailing Petrarch as the Columbus of a new spiritual hemisphere, the discoverer of modern culture. That he knew no Greek, that his Latin verse was lifeless and his prose style far from pure, that his contributions to history and ethics have been superseded, and that his epistles are now read only by antiquaries, cannot impair his claim to this title. From him the inspiration needed to quicken curiosity and stimulate zeal for knowledge proceeded. But for his intervention in the fourteenth century it is possible that the revival of learning, and all that it implies, might have been delayed until too late."

His influence was especially felt by those who followed him, and his enthusiasm made him a successful promoter of the new learning.

But it remained for Boccaccio, who was of a more practical turn of mind than Petrarch, to systematize the classical knowledge of antiquity. If Petrarch was an enthusiastic collector, Boccaccio was a practical worker. With the aid of Petrarch, he was the first to introduce a professor of Greek language and literature into Italy, and through this influence he secured a partial translation of Homer. Boccaccio began at an early age to read the classical authors and to repent the years he had spent in the study of law and in commercial pursuits. It was Petrarch's example, more than anything else, which caused Boccaccio to turn his attention to literature. By persistence and vigor in study, he was enabled to accomplish much by his own hand in the translation of the authors, and in middle life he began a persistent and successful study of Greek. His contributions to learning were great, and his turn toward naturalism was of immense value in the foundation of modern literature. He infused a new spirit in the common literature of the times. He turned away from asceticism, and frankly and openly sought to justify the pleasures of life. Although his teaching may not be of the most wholesome kind, it was far-reaching in its influence in turning the mind toward the importance and desirability of the things of this life. Stories of "beautiful gardens and sunny skies, fair women and luxurious lovers" may not have been the most healthful diet for universal consumption; they introduced a new element into the literature of the period and turned the thoughts of men from the speculative to the natural.

A long line of Italian writers followed these three great master spirits and continued to develop the desire for classical literature. For such power and force did these men have that they turned the whole tide of thought toward the masterpieces of the Greeks and Romans.

Relation of Humanism to Language and Literature.—When the zeal for the classical learning declined somewhat, there sprang up in Italy a group of Italian poets who were the founders of an Italian literature. They received their impulse from the classical learning, and, turning their attention to the affairs which surrounded them, developed a new literature. The inspiration which humanism had given to scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had a tendency to develop a literary spirit among all classes of students. The products of the Italian literature, however, brought out through the inspiration of humanistic studies, were not great masterpieces. While the number and variety were considerable, the quality was inferior when the intellectual power of the times is considered. The great force of Italian intellect had been directed toward classical manuscripts, and hence failed to develop a literature that had real originality.

Perhaps among the few great Italian writers of these times may be mentioned Guicciardini and Machiavelli. The former wrote a history of Italy, and the latter is rendered immortal by his Prince. Guicciardini was a native of Florence, who had an important position in the service of Leo X. As professor of jurisprudence, ambassador to Spain, and subsequently minister of Leo X, governor of Modena, lieutenant-general of the pope in the campaign against the French, president of the Romagna and governor of Bologna, he had abundant opportunity for the study of the political conditions of Italy. He is memorable for his admirable history of Italy, as a talented Florentine and as a member of the Medicean party.

Machiavelli, in his Prince, desired to picture the type of rulers needed to meet the demands of Italy at the time he wrote. It is a picture of imperialism and, indeed, of despotism. The prince or ruler was in no way obliged to consider the feelings and rights of individuals. Machiavelli said it was not necessary that a prince should be moral, humane, religious, or just; indeed, that if he had these qualities and displayed them they would harm him, but if he were new to his place in the principality he might seem to have them. It would be as useful to him to keep the path of rectitude when this was not too inconvenient as to know how to deviate from it when circumstances dictate. In other words, a prudent prince cannot and ought not really to keep his word except when he can do it without injury to himself.

Among other Italian writers may be mentioned Boiardo, on account of his Orlando Innamorato, and Ariosto, who wrote Orlando Furioso. Upon the whole, the writings of the period were not worthy of its intellectual development, although Torquato Tasso, in his Jerusalem Delivered, presents the first crusade as Homer presented the Trojan War. The small amount of really worthy literature of this age has been attributed to the lack of moral worth.

Art and Architecture.—Perhaps the renaissance art exceeded that which it replaced in beauty, variety, and naturalness, as well as in exuberance. There was an attempt to make all things beautiful, and no attempt to follow the spirit of asceticism in degrading the human body, but rather to try to delineate every feature as noble in itself. The movement, life, and grace of the human form, the beauty of landscape, all were enjoyed and presented by the artists of the renaissance. The beauty of this life is magnified, and the artists represented in joyous mood the best qualities that are important in the world. They turned the attention from asceticism to the importance of the present life.

Perhaps the Italians reached the highest point of development in painting, for the Madonnas of Italy have given her celebrity in art through all succeeding generations. Cimabue was the first to paint the Madonna as a beautiful woman. Giotto followed next, and a multitude of succeeding Madonnas have given Italy renown. Raphael excelled all others in the representation of the Madonna, and was not only the greatest painter of all Italy, but a master artist of all ages.

Architecture, however, appears to be the first branch of art that defied the arbitrary power of tradition. It could break away more readily than any other form of art, because of the great variety which existed in different parts of the Roman Empire—the Byzantine in the south of Italy, the Gothic in the north, and Romanesque in Rome and the provinces. There was no conventional law for architectural style, hence innovations could be made with very little opposition. In the search for classical remains, a large number of buildings had already become known, and many more were uncovered as the searching continued. These gave types of architecture which had great influence in building the renaissance art. The changes, beginning with Brunelleschi, were continued until nearly all buildings were completely Romanized. Then came Michael Angelo, who excelled in both architecture and sculpture at Rome, and Palladio, who worked at Venice and Verona. In the larger buildings the Basilica of Rome became the model, or at least the principles of its construction became the prevailing element in architectural design.

Florence became the centre of art and letters in the Italian renaissance.[2] Though resembling Athens in many respects, and bearing the same relations to surrounding cities that Athens did to cities in the classic times, her scholars were more modern than those of Greece or Rome, and, indeed, more modern than the scholars who followed after the Florentines, two centuries later. It was an important city, on the Arno, surrounded by hills, a city of flowers, interesting to-day to the modern scholar and student of history. Surrounded by walls, having magnificent gates, with all the modern improvements of paved streets, of sewers, gardens, and spacious parks, it represented in this early period the ideal city life. Even to-day the traveller finds the Palazzo Vecchio, or ancient official residence of the city fathers, and very near this the Loggia dei Lanzi, now filled with the works of precious art, and the Palazzo del Podesta, now used as a national museum, the great cathedral, planned in 1294 by Arnolfo, ready for consecration in 1498, and not yet completed, and many other remarkable relics of this wonderful era.

The typical idea in building the cathedral was to make it so beautiful that no other in the world could ever surpass it. Opposite the main door were the gates of Ghiberti, which Michael Angelo, for their great beauty, thought worthy to be the gates of paradise. They close the entrance of the temple of Saint John the Baptist, the city's patron saint. More than a hundred other churches, among them the Santa Croce and the Santa Maria Novella, the latter the resting-place of the Medici, were built in this magnificent city. The churches were not only used for religious worship, but were important for meeting-places of the Florentines. The Arno was crossed by four bridges, of which the Ponte Vecchio, built in the middle of the fourteenth century, alone remains in its original form. Upon it rest two rows of houses, each three stories high, and over this is the passageway from the Palazzo Pitti to the Palazzo Vecchio. In addition to the public buildings of Florence, there were many private residences and palaces of magnificence and splendor.

The Effect of Humanism on Social Manners.—By the intellectual development of Italy, fresh ideas of culture were infused into common society. To be a gentleman meant to be conversant with poetry, painting, and art, intelligent in conversation and refined in manners. The gentleman must be acquainted with antiquity sufficiently to admire the great men of the past and to reverence the saints of the church. He must understand archaeology in order to speak intelligently of the ancient achievements of the classical people. But this refinement was to a large extent conventional, for there was a lack of genuine moral culture throughout the entire renaissance.

These moral defects of Italy in this period have often been the occasion of dissertations by philosophers, and there is a question as to whether this moral condition was caused by the revival of classical learning or the decline of morality in the church. It ought to be considered, without doubt, as an excessive development of certain lines of intellectual supremacy without the accustomed moral guide. The church had for years assumed to be the only moral conservator, indeed the only one morally responsible for the conduct of the world. Yet its teachings at this time led to no self-developed morality; helped no one to walk alone, independent, in the dignity of manhood, for all of its instructions were superimposed and not vital. At last the church fell into flagrant discord under the rule of worldly popes, and this gave a great blow to Italy through the loss of the one great moral control.

But the renaissance had in its day a wide-spread influence throughout Europe, and gave us as its result a vitalizing influence to the whole world for centuries to come, although Italy suffered a decline largely on account of its lack of the stable moral character of society. The awakening of the mind from lethargy, the turning away from dogmatism to broader views of life, enlarged duties, and new surroundings causing the most Intense activity of thought, needed some moral stay to make the achievements permanent and enduring.

Relation of Humanism to Science and Philosophy.—The revival of the freedom of thought of the Greeks brought an antagonism to the logic and the materialistic views of the times. It set itself firmly against tradition of whatsoever sort. The body of man had not been considered with care until anatomy began to be studied in the period of the Italian renaissance. The visionary notions of the world which the people had accepted for a long time began gradually to give way to careful consideration of the exact facts. Patience and loving admiration in the study of man and nature yielded immense returns to the scholars of Italy. It changed the attitude of the thoughtful mind toward life, and prepared the way for new lines of thought and new accomplishments in the world of philosophy and science. Through the scientific discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus and exploration of Columbus, brought about largely by the influence of humanistic studies, were wrought far-reaching consequences in the thought of the age. And finally the scholars of Italy not only threw off scholasticism but also disengaged themselves from the domineering influence of the classical studies and laid the foundation of modern freedom of inquiry.

The Study of the Classics Became Fundamental in Education.—The modern classical education received its first impulse from the Italian renaissance. As before stated, it was customary for the universities to teach, with some vigor,[3] physics, medicine, law, and philosophy, largely after the manner of the medieval period, though somewhat modified and broadened in the process of thought. But in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, those who taught the ancient languages and literature were much celebrated. Under the title of rhetoric we find progress not only in the study of the Greek and Roman masterpieces, but in a large number of subjects which had a tendency to widen the views of students and to change the trend of the education in universities. It became customary for the towns and cities to have each a public place, an academy, a university, or a hall, for the means of studying the humanistic branches. The professors of the classics passed from town to town, giving instruction where the highest pay was offered. The direct influence of the renaissance on the Italian education, and, indeed, on the English classical education, introduced somewhat later, has continued until this day.

Closely connected with the educational influences of the renaissance was the introduction of literary criticism. There was a tendency among the early humanists to be uncritical, but as intelligence advanced and scholarship developed, we find the critical spirit introduced. Form, substance, and character of art and letters were carefully examined. This was the essential outcome of the previous sharp criticism of dogmatic theology and philosophy.

General Influence of Humanism.—The development of new intellectual ideals was the most important result of this phase of the renaissance. Nor did this extend in any particular direction. A better thought came to be held of God and man's relation to him. Instead of being an arbitrary, domineering creature, he had become in the minds of the people rational and law-loving; instead of being vindictive and fickle, as he was wont to be pictured, he had been endowed with benevolence toward his creatures. The result of all this was that religion itself became more spiritual and the conscience more operative. There was less of formality and conventionality in religion and more of real, devout feeling and consciousness of worthy motive in life, but the church must have more strenuous lessons before spiritual freedom could be fulfilled.

Life, too, came to be viewed as something more than merely a temporary expedient, a thing to be viewed as a necessary evil. It had come to be regarded as a noble expression worthy of the thought and the best attention of every individual. This world, too, was meant to be of use and to make people happy. It was to be enjoyed and used as best it might be. The old guild classes finally broke down, and where formerly men thought in groups, a strong individuality developed and man became an independent, thinking being in himself, bound by neither religion nor philosophy. He was larger than either philosophy or religion made him. He was a being of capacity and strength, and enabled to take the best of this life in order to enhance the delight of living. There came, also, with this a large belief in the law and order of the universe. Old beliefs had become obsolete because the people could no longer depend on them. And when these dogmatic formulas ceased to give satisfaction to the human mind, it sought for order in the universe and the laws which controlled it, and the intellectual world then entered the field of research for truth—the field of experiment.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. How did the Revival of Learning prepare the way for modern science?

2. What contributions to progress were made by Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michael Angelo, Justinian, Galileo, Copernicus, Columbus?

3. The nature of Machiavelli's political philosophy.

4. Compare Gothic, Romanesque, and Arabian architecture.

5. The status of morals during the period of the intellectual development of Europe.

6. The great weakness of the philosophy of this period.

7. What was the state of organized society and what was the "common man" doing?

[1] Revival of Learning.

[2] See Chapter XXI.

[3] See preceding chapter.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE REFORMATION

The Character of the Reformation.—The Reformation, or Protestant Revolution, as it is sometimes called, was a movement of such extended relations as to be difficult to define. In general, it was the liberalizing movement of the revival of learning applied to the church. As the church had attempted to be all things to all men, the movement was necessarily far-reaching in its results, affecting not only the religious but the social, educational, and political affairs of Europe. In its religious aspect it shows an attempt to reform the church. This failing, the revolution followed, resulting in the independence of certain parts of the church, which were then organized under separate constitutions and governments. Then followed a partial reform within the Catholic Church. The whole movement may be characterized as a revolt against papal authority and ecclesiastical usurpation of power. It was an assertion of independence of the mind respecting religious beliefs and a cry for a consistent life of righteousness and purity.

The church had assumed an attitude which made either a speedy reformation or else a revolution necessary. The "reforming councils" of Pisa, Constance, and Basel failed to adopt adequate reform measures. The result of these councils was merely to confirm the absolutism of papal authority. At the same time there were a very large number of adherents to the church who were anxiously seeking a reform in church government, as well as a reform in the conduct of the papacy, the clergy, and the lay membership. The papal party succeeded in suppressing all attempts of this nature, the voice of the people being silenced by a denial of constitutional government; nor was assurance given that the intrigues of the papacy, and of the church in general, would be removed.

The people had lost faith in the assumptions of infallibility of the papacy. The great schism in the church, in which three popes, each claiming to be the rightful successor of Saint Peter, each one having the "keys," each one calling the others impostors, and seeking by all possible means to dethrone them, was a great shock to the claims of infallible authority. For many years, to maintain their position as a ruling power, the popes had engaged in political squabbles with the princes of Europe. While the popes at times were victorious, the result of their course was to cause a feeling of contempt for their conduct, as well as of fear of their power.

The quarrel of Henry IV and Gregory VII, of Innocent III and John of England, of Boniface and Philip the Fair, the Babylonian captivity, and many lesser difficulties, had placed the papacy in a disreputable light. Distrust, fear, and contempt for the infallible assumptions were growing. The papacy had been turned into a political engine to maintain the temporal possessions of the church and to increase its temporal power. The selfishness of the ruling prince became uppermost in all papal affairs, which was so different from the teachings of the Christ who founded his kingdom on love that the contrast became observable, and even painful, to many devout people. Added to this, the corruption of the members of religious orders, who had departed from their vows of chastity, was so evident to the people with whom they came in daily contact as to bring shame and disgrace upon the cause of religion. Consequently, from these and other irregularities there developed a strong belief that the church needed reforming from the lowest to the highest offices.

Signs of the Rising Storm.—For several centuries before the religious revolution broke out there were signs of its coming. In the first place, the rise of the laical spirit was to be observed, especially after the establishment of local self-government in the free cities. The desire for representative government had extended to the lay members of the church. There was a growing feeling that the clergy, headed by the papacy, had no right to usurp all the governing power of the church. Many bold laymen asserted that the lay members of the church should have a voice in its government, but every such plea was silenced, every aspiration for democratic government suppressed, by a jealous papacy.

There arose a number of religious sects which opposed the subordination to dogma, and returned to the teachings of the Bible for authority. Prominent among these were the Albigenses, who became the victims of the cruel crusade instigated by the pope and led by Simon de Montfort. They were a peaceable, religious people who dwelt far and wide in the south of France, who refused to obey implicitly the harsh and arbitrary mandates of the pope.

The Waldenses were another society, composed of the followers of Peter Waldo, known at first as the "Poor Man of Lyons," believing in a return to the Scriptures, which they persistently read. Like the Albigenses, they were zealous for purity of life, and bitterly opposed to the usurpation and profligacy of the clergy. They, too, suffered bitter persecution, which indicated to many that a day of retribution was coming. There were also praying societies, formed in the church to read the Scriptures and to promote a holy life. All these had their influence in preparing for a general reformation.

The revival of learning had specific influences in bringing about the Reformation. The two movements were blended in one in several countries, but the revival of learning in Germany was overtaken by the Reformation. The former sought freedom of the mind respecting philosophy and learning, the latter sought liberty of conscience respecting religious belief. The revival of learning broke down scholasticism, and thus freed the mind from dogmatic philosophy. Seeking for the truth, the works of the church fathers were brought forth and read, and the texts of the Old and the New Testament were also used, as a criterion of authority. They showed to what extent the papacy had gone in its assumption of power, and making more prominent the fact that the church, particularly the clergy, had departed from a life of purity. The result of the quickening thought of the revival was to develop independent characteristics of mind, placing it in the attitude of revolt against ecclesiastical dogmatism.

Attempts at Reform Within the Church.—Many attempts were made, chiefly on the part of individuals, to work a reform of abuses within the church. Many devout men, scholars engaged in theological research and living lives of purity, sought by precept and example to bring about better spiritual and moral conditions. Others sought to bring about changes in ecclesiastical government, not only in the "reforming councils" but through efforts at the papal court and in the strong bishoprics. Had the church listened to these cries of the laity and zealously availed itself of the many opportunities presented, possibly the religious revolution would not have come. Although it is difficult to say what would have been the result had the church listened to the voice of reform, yet it is certain that the revolution would at least have taken a different course, and the position of the church before the world would have been greatly changed.

Powerful individual reformers exercised great influence in bringing on the religious revolution. The voices of John Wyclif, John Huss, John Tauler, and John Wessel, like the voice of John the Baptist, cried out for repentance and a return to God. These reformers desired among other things a change in the constitutional government of the church. They sought a representation of the laity and the re-establishment of the authority of the general councils. Through influence such as theirs the revolution was precipitated. Others in a different way, like Savonarola, hastened the coming of the revolution by preaching liberty of thought and attacking the abuses of the church and its methods of government.

Wyclif in England advocated a simple form of church worship, rebelled against the arbitrary power of popes and priests, preached against transubstantiation, and advocated the practice of morality. He was greatly influenced by William of Occam, who asserted that the pope, or even a general council, might err in declaring the truth, and that the hierarchy might be given up if the good of the church demanded it. Wyclif, in England, started a movement for freedom and purity which never died out. His translation of the Bible was the most valuable of all his work. Though he preceded the religious revolution by nearly two centuries, his influence was of such great importance that his enemies, who failed to burn him at the stake in life, ordered his grave to be desecrated.

At first Wyclif had the support of the king and of the university, as well as the protection of the Prince of Wales. But when, in 1381, he lectured at Oxford against transubstantiation, he lost the royal protection, and by a senate of twelve doctors was forbidden longer to lecture at the university, although he continued preaching until his death. As his opinions agreed very nearly with those of Calvin and Luther, he has been called "the morning star of the Reformation." The Council of Constance, before burning John Huss and Jerome of Prague at the stake, condemned the doctrines of Wyclif in forty-five articles, declared him a heretic, and ordered his body to be removed from consecrated ground and thrown upon a dunghill. Thirteen years later Clement VIII, hyena-like, ordered his bones to be burned and the ashes thrown into the Swift. Thus his short-sighted enemies thought to stay the tide of a great reformation.

John Huss, a Bohemian reformer, followed closely after the doctrine of Wyclif, although he disagreed with him in his opposition to transubstantiation. He preached for constitutional reform of the church, reformative administration, and morality. He urged a return to the Bible as a criterion for belief and a guide to action. Finally he was summoned to the Council of Constance to answer for his heresy, and guaranteed safe-conduct by the Emperor Sigismund, who presided; but, notwithstanding this promise, the council declared him a heretic and burned him at the stake with Jerome of Prague. This was one of the results of the so-called reforming Council of Constance—its reform consisted in silencing the opponents of papal authority and corruption.

John Tauler belonged to a group of people called mystic philosophers, who, though remaining within the church, opposed dogmatism and formalism and advocated spiritual religion. Their doctrine was to leave formality and return to God. Many other societies, calling themselves "Friends of God," sprang up in the Netherlands and in the south and west of Germany. John Tauler was the most prominent of all their preachers. He held that man is justified by faith alone, and Luther, who republished Tauler's book on German theology,[1] asserted that it had more influence over him than any other books, except the Bible and the works of Saint Augustine.

Savonarola, a most powerful orator and great scholar of Italy, lifted his voice in favor of reform in the church administration and in favor of the correction of abuses. He transcended the teachings of the schools of philosophy, departed from the dogma of the church, and preached in the name of God and His Son. He was shocked at the signs of immorality which he saw in common society. As a preacher of righteousness, he prophesied a judgment speedily to come unless men turned from the error of their ways. But in the ways of the world he paid for his boldness and his enthusiasm, for the pope excommunicated him, and his enemies created distrust of him in the hearts of the people. He was put in prison, afterward brought to trial and condemned to death, and finally hanged and burned and his ashes thrown into the Arno—all because the pope hoped to stay the tide of religious and social reform.

Immediate Causes of the Reformation.—Mr. Bryce, in his Holy Roman Empire,[2] says:

"There is perhaps no event in history which has been represented in so great a variety of lights as the Reformation. It has been called a revolt of the laity against the clergy, or of the Teutonic races against the Italians, or of the kingdoms of Europe against the universal monarchy of the popes. Some have seen in it only a burst of long-repressed anger at the luxury of the prelates and the manifold abuses of the ecclesiastical system; others a renewal of the youth of the church by a return to primitive forms of doctrine. All these, indeed, to some extent it was; but it was also something more profound, and fraught with mightier consequences than any of them. It was in its essence the assertion of the principle of individuality—that is to say, of true spiritual freedom."

The primary nature of the Reformation was, first, a return to primitive belief and purity of worship. This was accompanied by a protest against the vices and the abuses of the church and of formalism in practice. It was also an open revolt against the authority of the church, authority not only in constitution and administration but in spiritual affairs. According to Bryce, "true spiritual freedom" was the prime motive in the religious revolution. And Guizot, in his chapter on the Reformation, clusters all statements around a single idea, the idea that it was freedom of the mind in religious belief and practice which was the chief purpose of the Reformation.[3] But the immediate causes of the precipitation of the Reformation may be stated as follows:

First.—The great and continued attack on the unreasonableness of the Roman Catholic Church, caused by the great mental awakening which had taken place everywhere in Europe, the persistent and shameless profligacy of the clergy and the various monastic orders and sects, the dissolute and rapacious character of many of the popes, and the imperial attitude of the entire papacy.

Second.—We may consider as another cause the influence of the art of printing, which scattered the Bible over the land, so that it could be read by a large number of people, who were thus incited to independent belief.

Finally.—It may be said that the sale of indulgences, and particularly the pretensions of many of the agents of the pope as to their power to release from the bondage of sin, created intense disgust and hatred of the church, and caused the outbreak of the Reformation.[4]

Luther Was the Hero of the Reformation in Germany.—He was not the cause of the Reformation, only its most powerful and efficient agency, for the Reformation would have taken place in time had Luther never appeared. Somebody would have led the phalanx, and, indeed, Luther, led steadily on in his thought and researches, became a reformer and revolutionist almost before he was aware.

He began (1517) by preaching against the sale of indulgences. He claimed that works had been made a substitute for faith, while man is justified by faith alone. His attack on indulgences brought him in direct conflict with one Tetzel, who stirred up the jealousy of other monks, who reported Luther to Pope Leo X.[5] Luther, in a letter to the pope, proclaimed his innocence, saying that he is misrepresented and called heretic "and a thousand ignominious names; these things shock and amaze me; one thing only sustains me—the sense of my innocence." He had pinned his ninety-five theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg. In writing to the pope he claimed that these were set forth for their own local interest at the university, and that he knows not why they "should go forth into all the earth." Then he says: "But what shall I do? Recall them I cannot, and yet I see their notoriety bringeth upon me great odium."

But Luther, in spite of the censure of the pope and his friends, was still an ardent adherent to the papal power and the authority of the church. He says to the pope: "Save or slay, kill or recall, approve or disapprove, as it shall please you, I will acknowledge you even as the voice of Christ presiding and speaking in you." In writing to Spalatine, he says that he may err in disputation, but that he is never to be a heretic, that he wishes to decide no doctrine, "only I am not willing to be the slave of the opinions of men."

Luther persisted in his course of criticism. To Staupitz he wrote: "I see that attempts are made at Rome that the kingdom of truth, i.e., of Christ, be no longer the kingdom of truth." After the pope had issued his first brief condemning him, Luther exclaimed: "It is incredible that a thing so monstrous should come from the chief pontiff, especially Leo X. If in truth it be come forth from the Roman court, then I will show them their most licentious temerity and their ungodly ignorance." These were bold words from a man who did not wish to become a reformer, a revolutionist, or a heretic.

Now the pope regarded this whole affair as a quarrel of monks, and allowed Luther to give his side of the story. He was induced to send a certain cardinal legate, Cajetan, to Augsburg to bring this heretic into submission, but the legate failed to bring Luther into subjection. Luther then appealed to the pope, and when the pope issued a bull approving of the sale of indulgences, Luther appealed to the council.

Thus far Luther had only protested against the perversion of the rules of the church and of the papal doctrine, but there followed the public disputations with Doctor John Eck, the vice-chancellor of the University of Ingolstadt, in which the great subject under discussion was the primacy of the pope. Luther held that the pope was not infallible that he might err in matters of doctrine, and that the general council, which represented the universal church, should decide the case. Now Luther had already asserted that certain doctrines of Huss were true, but the Council of Constance had condemned these and burned Huss at the stake. Luther was compelled by his shrewd opponent to acknowledge that a council also might err, and he had then to maintain his position that the pope and the council both might err and to commit himself to the proposition that there is no absolute authority on the face of the earth to interpret the will of God. But now Luther was forced to go yet a step farther. When the papal bull condemning him and excommunicating him was issued, he took the bull and burned it in the presence of a concourse of people, and then wrote his address to the German nobles. He thus set at defiance the whole church government and authority. He had become an open revolutionist.

The Catholic Church, to defend itself from the position it had taken against Luther, reasoned in this way: "Where there is difference of opinion, there is doubt; where there is doubt, there is no certainty; where there is no certainty, there is no knowledge. Therefore, if Luther is right, that there is room for difference of opinion about divine revelation, then we have no knowledge of that revelation." In this way did the Roman Church attempt to suppress all freedom of religious belief.

For the opposition which Luther made, he was summoned to appear before the Diet of Augsburg, which condemned him as a heretic. Had it not been that Charles V, who presided, had promised him a safe-conduct to and from the diet, Luther would have suffered the same fate as John Huss. Indeed, it is said that Charles V, when near his death, regretted that he had not burned Luther at the stake. It shows how little the emperor knew of the real spiritual scope of the Reformation, that he hoped to stay its tide by the burning of one man.

The safe-conduct of Luther by Charles V was decided on account of the existing state of European politics. The policy followed by the emperor at the diet was not based upon the arguments which Luther so powerfully presented before the diet, but upon a preconceived policy. Had the Emperor of Germany been only King of Spain in seeking to keep the pretentious power of the pope within bounds he might have gained a great advantage by uniting with Luther in the Reformation. But as emperor he needed the support of the pope, on account of the danger of invasion of Italy by Francis I of France. He finally concluded it would be best to declare Luther a heretic, but he was impotent to enforce punishment by death. In this way he would set himself directly in opposition to the Reformation and save his crown. Apparently Charles cared less for the Reformation than he did for his own political preservation.[6]

From this time on the Reformation in Germany became wholly political. Its advantages and disadvantages hung largely upon the political intrigues and manipulations of the European powers. It furnished the means of an economic revolt, which Luther, having little sympathy with the common people in their political and social bondage, was called to suppress from the castle of Wartburg.

The Reformation spread rapidly over Germany until the time of the organization of the Jesuits, in 1542, when fully two-thirds of all Germany had revolted from papal authority and had become Protestant. After the organization of the Jesuits, the Reformation declined, on account of the zeal of that organization and the dissensions which arose among the Protestants.

Zwingli Was the Hero of the Reformation in Switzerland.—The Reformation which was begun by Zwingli at first took on a social and a political aspect and, being soon taken up by the state, resulted in a decision by the Council of Zurich that no preacher could advance any arguments not found in the Old or New Testament. This position, with some variations, was maintained through the entire Reformation. The moral and religious condition of the people of Switzerland was at a very low ebb, and the course of the Reformation was to preach against abuses. Zwingli drew his knowledge and faith from the Bible, holding that for authority one ought to return to it or to the primitive church. He advocated the abolition of image-worship, and, in addition, the abolition of enforced celibacy, nunneries, and the celebration of the mass. He held, too, that there ought to be a return to local church government, and that all of the cloisters should be converted into schools. He objected to so many days being devoted to the festivals of the saints, because it lessened the productive power of the people. The whole tenor of his preaching was that the Bible should be used as the basis of doctrine, and that there is no mediation except through Jesus Christ. As to the doctrine of the sacrament, he believed that the bread and wine are merely symbols, thus approximating the belief as established by the Protestants of the present day. On the other hand, Luther persistently held to the doctrine of transubstantiation, though the organized Protestant churches held to "consubstantiation."

The Reformation in Switzerland tended to develop more strongly an independent political existence, to make for freedom and righteousness, to work practical reforms in the abuses of both church and state, and to promote a deeper spiritual religion among the people.

Calvin Establishes the Genevan System.—John Calvin was driven out of France on account of his preaching. He went to Geneva and there perfected a unique system of religious organization. Perhaps it is the most complete system of applied theology developed by any of the reformers. While it did not strongly unite the church and the state on the same foundation of government, it placed them in such a close unity that the religious power would be felt in every department of state life. The Genevan system was well received in France, became the foundation of the reform party there, and subsequently extended its influence to Scotland, and, finally, to England. It became the foundation of Presbyterianism throughout the world. While Calvinism was severe and arbitrary in its doctrine, on account of its system of administration, it greatly advanced civil liberty and gave a strong impulse toward democracy. It was the central force in the Commonwealth of England, and upheld the representative system of government, which led to the establishment of constitutional liberty.

The Reformation in England Differed from the German.—The work of John Wyclif and his followers was so remote from the period of the Reformation as to have very little immediate influence. Yet, in a general way, the influence of the teachings of Wyclif continued throughout the Reformation. The religious change came about slowly in England and was modified by political affairs. People gradually became liberal on the subject of religion, and began to exercise independent thought as to church government. Yet, outwardly, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the followers of John Wyclif made no impression upon religious affairs. The new learning, advocated by such men as Erasmus, Colet, and More, was gaining ground rapidly in England. Its quickening influence was observed everywhere. It was confined to no particular field, but touched all departments, religious, social, political. It invaded the territory of art, of education, of literature. Henry VIII favored the new learning and gave it great impulse by his patronage. But the new learning in England was antagonistic to the Reformation of Luther. The circumstances were different, and Luther attacked the attitude of the English reformers, who desired a slow change in church administration and a gradual purification of the ecclesiastical atmosphere. The difference of opinion called out a fierce attack by Henry VIII on Luther, which gave the king the title of "Defender of the Faith."

The real beginning of the Reformation in England was a revolt from the papacy by the English king for political reasons. England established a national church, with the king at its head, and made changes in the church government and reformed abuses. The national, or Anglican, Church once formed, the struggle began, on the one hand, between it and the Catholic Church, and on the other, at a later date, against Puritanism. The Anglican Church was not fully established until the reign of Elizabeth.

The real spirit of the Reformation in England is best exhibited in the rise of Puritanism, which received its impulse largely from the Calvinistic branch of the Reformation. The whole course of the Reformation outside of the influence of the new learning, or humanism, was of a political nature. The revolt from Rome was prompted by political motives; the Puritan movement was accompanied with political democracy. The result was to give great impetus to constitutional liberty, stimulate intellectual activity, and to declare for freedom of conscience in religious matters. Yet it was a long way from complete religious toleration and the full establishment of the rights and liberties of the people.

Many Phases of Reformation in Other Countries.—The Reformation in Spain was crushed by the power of the church, which used the weapon of the Inquisition so effectively. In Italy the papal power prevailed almost exclusively. In the Netherlands we find almost complete conversion to Protestantism, and in the other northern countries we find Protestantism prevailing to a great extent. Indeed, we shall find between the north and the south an irregular line dividing Protestantism from Catholicism, in the north the former predominating, in the south the latter. In France a long, severe struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism took place. It was combined with the struggle of political factions, and led to bitter, hard oppression. In fact, the Reformation varied in different countries according to the political, social, and intellectual state of each. Interesting as the history of these countries is, it is not necessary to follow it to determine the spirit and results of the Reformation.

Results of the Reformation Were Far-Reaching.—The results of the Reformation interest us in this discussion far more than its historical progress. In the first place, we shall find, as the primary result, that the northern nations were separated from the power of Rome and the great ecclesiastical power that the papacy possessed was broken. It could no longer maintain its position of supremacy throughout the world. Although it still was powerful, especially in Italy and Austria, it could no longer rest its assumption on absolute authority, but must demonstrate that power by intrigue and political prowess in order to cope with the nations of Europe. In the second place, there was a development of political liberty. The nations had freed themselves from the domination and imperial power of the church, and were left alone to carry on their own affairs and develop their national freedom. But there was something more in the development of the Reformation than those things which made for religious liberty. To the desire of freedom of the mind in religious belief the desire for freedom in political life had joined itself, and we shall find that the Reformation everywhere stirred up a desire for political liberty. The fires of freedom, thus lighted, never went out, but slowly burned on until they burst out in the great conflagration of the French Revolution. Political liberty, then, was engendered and developed in the hearts of men and nations.

Again, the foundation of religious toleration was laid by the Reformation, although it was not yet secured, for it must be maintained that even Luther was as persistent and dogmatic in his own position, as intolerant of the beliefs of other people, as was the papal authority itself. Convinced that he was right, he recognized no one's right to differ from his opinion, even though he himself had revolted from the authority of the church. He showed his bigotry and lack of tolerance in his treatment of Zwingli, of Calvin, and of Erasmus. Most of the early reformers, indeed, were intolerant of the opinions of others; the development of religious toleration has been a very slow process, not only in Europe but in America. The many and various phases of the Reformation nevertheless made as a whole for religious toleration.

When in the Reformation in Germany it was decided at the religious peace of Augsburg that Catholics and Protestants should have the same privileges, only one division of Protestants was recognized, and that was the Lutheran division. Calvinists were entirely excluded. It was not until the peace of Westphalia in 1648, which closed the great struggle known as the Thirty Years' War, that all denominations were recognized upon the same basis. The struggle for religious toleration in England is a history in itself, and it was not until the last century that it might be said that toleration really existed in the United Kingdom, for during two centuries or more there was a state religion supported by revenues raised by taxing the people, although other churches were tolerated.

Another great result of the Reformation was the advancement of intellectual progress. All progress rests primarily upon freedom of the mind, and whatever enhances that freedom has a tendency to promote intellectual progress. The advancement of language and letters, of philosophy and science, and of all forms of knowledge, became rapid on account of this intense activity of the mind. The revival of learning received a new impulse in the development of man's spiritual nature—an impulse which was felt throughout the entire world. In this respect the Reformation was far-reaching in its consequences. The church no longer assumed the sole power to think for the people.

Again, it may be said that the Reformation improved man's material progress. The development of the independent individual life brought about strength of character, industry, and will force, which, in turn, built up material affairs and made great improvements in the economic conditions of man. Everywhere that Protestantism prevailed there was a rapid increase of wealth and better economic conditions. Trade and commerce improved rapidly, and the industrial life went through a process of revolution. Freedom upon a rational basis always brings about this vital prosperity, while despotism suppresses the desires of man for a better economic life. So we shall find that intellectual and material progress followed everywhere in the course of the Reformation, while those states and nations over which the papal authority retained its strongest hold began to decline in intellectual power and material welfare. Such was the force of the Reformation to renovate and rejuvenate all which it touched. It made possible the slow evolution of the independence of the common man and established the dignity of labor.

Finally, let it be said that the Reformation caused a counter-reformation within the Catholic Church. For many years there was an earnest reform going on within the Romanist Church. Abuses were corrected, vices eradicated, the religious tone of church administration improved, and the general character of church polity changed in very many ways. But once having reformed itself, the church became more arbitrary than before. In the Council of Trent, in clearly defining its position, it declared its infallibility and absolute authority, thus relapsing into the old imperial rÉgime. But the Reformation, after all, was the salvation of the Roman Church, for through it that church was enabled to correct a sufficient number of abuses to regain its power and re-establish confidence in itself among the people.

The Reformation, like the Renaissance, has been going on ever since it started, and we may say to-day that, so far as most of the results are concerned, we are yet in the midst of both.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Needed reforms in the church and why they failed.

2. Enumerate the causes that led to the Reformation prior to Luther.

3. Compare the main characteristics in the Reformation in the following countries: Germany, England, Switzerland, and France.

4. What were the characteristics of the Genevan system instituted by John Calvin?

5. The results of the Reformation on intellectual development, political freedom, scientific thought, and, in general, on human progress.

6. The effect of the Reformation on the character and policy of the Romanist Church (Catholic).

7. What was the nature of the quarrels of Henry IV and Gregory VII, of Innocent III and John of England, of Boniface and Philip the Fair?

[1] Theologia Germania, generally accredited to Tauler, but written by one of his followers.

[2] The Holy Roman Empire, p. 327.

[3] History of Civilization, vol. I, pp. 255-257.

[4] Recent writers emphasize the economic and national causes, which should be added to this list.

[5] Luther sent his ninety-five theses to Archbishop Albert of Mainz.

[6] Luther had many friends In the diet. Also he was in his own country before a German national assembly. Huss was in a foreign country before a church assembly.

CHAPTER XXV

CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Progress in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.—It is not easy to mark in brief space the steps of progress in the complex activities of the great movements of society of the first centuries of the period of modern history. It is not possible to relate the details of the great historical movements, with their many phases of life moving on toward great achievements. Only a few of the salient and vital features may be presented, but these will be sufficient to show the resultant general achievements coming from the interaction of a multitude of forces of an expanding civilization. The great determiners of this period are found in the national life of England, France, Germany, and America. Out of many complex movements and causes the dominant factor is the struggle of monarchy and democracy. The revival of learning, the Protestant revolution, and the attempts at popular government heralded the coming of political liberty and the recognition of the rights of man. The whole complex is a vivid example of the processes of social evolution through the interaction of groups, each moving about a central idea. Again and again when freedom of mind and liberty of action seem to be successful, they have been obscured by new social maladies or retarded by adverse environmental conditions.

The Struggle of Monarchy with Democracy.—In a previous chapter, in which were recounted the early attempts at popular representation, it was shown that in nearly every instance the rise of popular power was suppressed by the rapid and universal growth of monarchy. Having obtained power by combining with the people in their struggle against the nobility, monarchy finally denied the people the right to participate in the government. It was recognized nearly everywhere in Europe as the dominant type of government through which all nations must pass. Through it the will of the people was to find expression, or, to use a more exact statement, monarchy proposed to express the will of the people without asking their permission.

The intellectual revival which spread over Europe tended to free the mind from the binding power of tradition, prestige, and dogmatism, and to give it freedom in religious belief. But while these great movements were taking place, monarchy was being established in Europe, and wherever monarchy was established without proper checks of constitutional government, it became powerful and arbitrary to such a degree as to force the people into a mighty cry for political liberty. In France royalty ran rapidly into imperialism; in Spain it became oppressive; but in England there was a decided check upon its absolute assumptions by way of slowly developing constitutional liberty.

Struggle for Constitutional Liberty in England.—For a long period monarchy had to struggle fiercely with the feudal nobility of England, but finally came off conqueror, and then assumed such arbitrary powers as appeared necessary for the government of the realm of England. It was inevitable, however, that in a people whose minds had been emancipated from absolute spiritual power and given freedom of thought, a conflict would eventually occur with monarchy which had suppressed municipal liberty, feudal nobility, and popular representation. Pure monarchy sought at all times the suppression of political liberty. Hence, in England, there began a struggle against the assumptions of absolute monarchy and in favor of the liberty of the people.

There grew up in England under the Tudors an advocacy of the inherited rights of kings. There was a systematic development of arbitrary power until monarchy in England declared itself superior to all laws and to all constitutional rights and duties. In another place it has been told how the English Reformation was carried on by the kings as a political institution, how the authority of Rome was overthrown and the kings of England seized the opportunity to enhance their power and advance their own interests. When the people realized that they had exchanged an arbitrary power in Rome for an arbitrary power in England, centred in the king, they cried out again at this latter tyranny, and sought for religious reform against the authority of the church.

This movement was accompanied by a desire for political reform, also. Indeed, all civil and religious authority centred in one person, the king, and a reform of religious administration could not take place without a reform of the political. The activity of English commerce and the wide-spread influence of the revival of learning, which developed a new and independent literary culture, made life intense and progress rapid. When this spirit of political liberty sought expression in England, it found it in the ancient privileges and rights of the English people, to which they sought to return. It was unfortunate that the desires for political liberty on the continent found no such means to which they could attach their ideas of a liberal government. In England we find these old rights and privileges a ready support for the principles of constitutional liberty. There were many precedents and examples of liberty which might be recalled for the purpose of quickening the zeal of the people—many, indeed, had been continued in local communities.

Nor were the English government and law wanting in the principles of liberty which had been handed down from former generations. Moreover, it became necessary, as a practical measure, for the kings of England, if they desired to maintain their position, to call a parliament of the people for the sake of their co-operation and help in the support of the government. It is seen, therefore, that in England the spirit of constitutional liberty, though perhaps suppressed at times, never perished, though the assumption of royal power was very great, and when the party which was seeking to carry forward religious reform joined itself to the party seeking political liberty, there was aroused a force in England which would be sure to prove a check on royalty and insure the rights and privileges of a free people.

Though the sentiment for religious reform was general throughout England, this principle was viewed in many different ways by different parties. Thus the pure-monarchy party saw many evils in the laws of England and in the administration of affairs, and sought reform, but without yielding anything of the high conception of the absolute power of the king. They believed that the ancient laws and precedents of England were a check upon monarchy sufficient to reform all abuses of power that might arise. They acknowledged the divine right of kings and thought that royalty possessed a superior power, but they held that it was obliged, for its own preservation and the proper government of the realm, to confine its activity within certain limits. Two other parties, the one political and the other religious, went hand in hand, both for revolution. The former denied the absolute sovereignty of the king and sought a great change in the form, the spirit, and the structure of government. They held that the ultimate power of control should rest in the House of Commons as the representative of the people. The latter party sought the same process within the church. They held that it should be controlled by assemblages of the people, maintained that decentralization should take place and the constitution of the church be changed as well as its form of administration. It is easy to see that the leaders of either of these parties were also leaders of the other. A fourth party sought to repudiate the constitution, as radically wrong, and to build up an entirely new political system. It disregarded the past life of England and repudiated all precedents, desiring to build up a new government founded upon abstract theories of right and justice.

The course of history under these four parties is plain. Each one, struggling for power, tried to manage the government upon its particular theory, and signally failed. The struggle in the House of Commons, had it not finally brought about such great consequences, would be disgusting and discouraging in the extreme. The struggle in England for liberty of conscience and for government of the people through Parliament went on through turmoil and disgrace for two centuries. It was king against the people, Catholic against Protestant, and, within the latter group, Anglican, Presbyterian, and independent, each against one another. All sorts of unjust and inhuman practices were indulged in. It would seem that the spirit of Magna Charta and of the Christian religion was constantly outraged.

When Henry VIII, in 1521, wrote his attack on Luther embodied in the Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, Pope Leo X gave him the title of "Defender of the Faith." Subsequently, when he appealed to the pope to help him settle his marital difficulties, the pope refused to support him, and finally excommunicated him for divorcing his wife Catherine. This led to a break with Rome, and the Supremacy Act, which made the king protector and only supreme head of the church and clergy of England. This inaugurated the long struggle between Catholic and Protestant, with varying fortunes to each side. The Tudor period closed with the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, with a fairly well-established conformity to the Anglican Church; but Puritanism was growing slowly but surely, which meant a final disruption. From this time on there was confusion of political and religious affairs for another century.

In 1621 Parliament rebuked King James I for his high-handed proceedings with protestation: "That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England, and that the arduous and urgent affairs of the king, state, and defense of the realm ... are proper subjects and matters of council and debate in Parliament." The king tore the page containing the resolution from the journal of Parliament; but this did not retard the struggle for the recognition of ancient rights. The strife went on throughout the reign of the Stuarts, until Charles I lost his head and the nation was plunged into a great civil war.

There finally appeared on the scene of action a man of destiny. Cromwell, seizing the opportunity, turned everything toward democracy, and ruled republicans, Puritans, and royalists with such an iron hand that his painful democracy came to a sudden close through reaction under the rule of his successor. The Stuarts again came into power, and, believing in the divine right of kings—a principle which seems to have been imbibed from the imperialism of France—sought to bring everything into subordination to royalty. The people, weary of the irregular government caused by the attempts of the different parties to rule, and tired of the abuses and irregularities of the administration, welcomed the restoration of royalty as an advantage to the realm. But the Stuarts sought not only to rule with high hand, regardless of the wants, desires, and will of the people, but also to bring back the absolute authority of the papacy. By their arbitrary, high-handed proceedings, they brought the English government to a crisis which was ended only by the coming of William of Orange to rule upon the throne with constitutional right; for the people seized their opportunity to demand a guaranty of the rights of freemen which would thoroughly establish the principle of constitutional liberty in England.

But the declaration of Parliament at the accession of William and Mary, which subsequently was enacted as a famous Bill of Rights, showed a great permanent gain in constitutional liberty. It centred the power in Parliament, whose authority was in the Commons. It was true the arbitrary power of kings came to the front during the rule of the four Georges, but it was without avail, and reform measures followed their reign. Constitutional government had won. It is true that the revolution failed to establish religious toleration, but it led the way with rapid strides.

In the progress of civil liberty and freedom of conscience in England, the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had a powerful influence. In the world of ideas, freedom of thought found expression through the great writers. While few attacked the evils of government, they were not wanting in setting forth high ideals of life, liberty, and justice. Such men as John Milton, John Locke, John Bunyan, and Shakespeare turned the thinking world toward better things in government and life.

Thus England had a check on the growth of monarchy, while freedom of investigation led to an inquiry about the rights of the people; hence, the seeds of popular liberty were growing at the time monarchy was making its greatest assumption. The people never yielded, in theory at least, their ancient rights to the absolute control of royalty. Kingship in England was developed through service, and while the English were strong for monarchy because it expressed a unity of the nation, they expected the king to consider the rights of the people, which gave rise to a complex movement in England, making for religious and political liberty, in which all classes were engaged in some degree at different times.

In France, however, it was different. At first the feudal nobility ruled with absolute sway. It continued in power long enough to direct the thoughts of the people toward it and to establish itself as a complete system. It had little opposition in the height of its power. When monarchy arose it, too, had the field all to itself. People recognized this as the only legitimate form of government. Again, when monarchy failed, people rushed enthusiastically to democracy, and in their wild enthusiasm made of it a government of terror. How different were the results. In England there was a slow evolution of constitutional government in which the rights of the people, the king, the nobility, and the clergy were respected, and each class fell into its proper place in the government. In France, each separate power made its attempt to govern, and failed. Its history points to a truth, namely, that no kind of government is safe without a system of checks.

The Place of France in Modern Civilization.—Guizot tries to show that in the seventeenth century France led the civilization of the world; that while Louis XIV was carrying absolute government to its greatest height, philosophy, art, and letters flourished; that France, by furnishing unique and completed systems, has led the European world in civilization. To a great extent this is true, for France had better opportunities to develop an advanced civilization than any other European nation. It must be remembered that France, at an early period, was completely Romanized, and never lost the force and example of the Roman civilization; and, also, that in the invasion of the Norman, the northern spirit gave France vigor, while its crude forms were overcome by the more cultured forms of French life.

While other nations were still in turmoil France developed a distinct and separate nationality. At an early period she cast off the power of Rome and maintained a separate ecclesiastical system which tended to develop an independent spirit and further increase nationality. Her population was far greater than that of any other nation, and her wealth and national resources were vastly superior to those of others. These elements gave France great prestige and great power, and fitted her to lead in civil progress. They permitted her to develop a high state of civilization. If the genius of the French people gave them adaptability in communicating their culture to others, it certainly was of service to Europe. Yet the service of France must not be too highly estimated. If, working in the dark, other nations, not so far advanced as France on account of material causes, were laying a foundation of the elements of civilization, which were to be of vast importance in the development of the race, it would appear that as great credit should be given them as to the French manners, genius, and culture which gave so little permanent benefit to the world. Guizot wisely refrains from elaborating the vices of the French monarchy, and fails to point out the failure of the French system of government.

The Divine Right of Kings.—From the advent of the Capetian dynasty of French kings royalty continually increased its power until it culminated under Louis XIV. The court, the clergy, and, in fact, the greater number of the preachers of France, advocated the divine origin and right of kings. If God be above all and over all, his temporal rulers as well as his spiritual rulers receive their power from him; hence the king receives his right to rule from God. Who, then, has the right to oppose the king? Upon this theory the court preachers adored him and in some instances deified him. People sought to touch the hem of his garment, or receive from his divine majesty even a touch of the hand, that they might be healed of their infirmities. In literature Louis was praised and deified. The "Grand Monarch" was lauded and worshipped by the courtiers and nobles who circled around him. He maintained an extravagant court and an elaborate etiquette, so extravagant that it depleted the rural districts of money, and drew the most powerful families to revolve around the king.

The extravagant life paralyzed the energies of kings and ministers, who built a government for the advantage of the governing and not the governed. "I am the state!" said the Grand Monarch. Although showing in many ways an enlightened absolutism, his rule plunged French royalty into despotism. Louis XV held strongly to absolutism, but lacked the power to render it attractive and magnificent. Louis XVI attempted to stem the rising tide, but it was too late. The evils were too deeply seated; they could not be changed by any temporary expedient. French royalty reached a logical outcome from all power to no power. Louis XIV had built a strong, compact administration under the direction of able men, but it was wanting in liberty, it was wanting in justice, and it is only a matter of time when these deficiencies in a nation lead to destruction.

The Power of the Nobility.—The French nobility had been mastered by the king, but to keep them subservient, to make them circle around royalty and chant its praises, they were given a large extension of rights and privileges. They were exempt from the responsibilities for crime; they occupied all of the important places in church and state; they were exempt from taxation; many who dwelt at the court with the king lived off the government; many were pensioned by the government, their chief recommendation apparently being idleness and worthlessness. There was a great gulf between the peasantry and the nobility. The latter had control of all the game of the forests and the fish in the rivers; one-sixth of all the grain grown in the realm went to the nobility, as did also one-sixth of all the land sold, and all confiscated property fell to them. The peasants had no rights which the nobility were bound to respect. The nobility, with all of the emoluments of office, owned, with the clergy, two-thirds of all the land. Yet this unproductive class numbered only about 83,000 families.

The Misery of the People.—If the nobility despised the lower classes and ignored their rights, they in turn were hated intensely by those whom they sought to degrade. The third estate in France was divided into the bourgeoisie and the peasantry and small artisans. The former gradually deteriorated in character and tended toward the condition of the lowest classes. By the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a large number of the bourgeoisie, or middle class, was driven from France. This deprived France of the class that would have stood by the nation when it needed support, and would have stood for moderate constitutional government against the radical democrats like Robespierre and Marat.

The lowest class, composed of small peasant farmers, laborers, and artisans, were improved a little under the reign of Louis XIV, but this made them feel more keenly the degradation in succeeding years, from which there was no relief. The condition of the people indicated that a revolution was on its way. In the evolution of European society the common man was crowded down toward the condition of serfdom. The extravagances and luxuries of life, the power of kings, bishops, and nobles bore like a burden of heavy weight upon his shoulders. He was the common fodder that fed civilization, and because of this more than anything else, artificial systems of society were always running for a fall, for the time must come when the burdens destroy the foundation and the superstructure comes tumbling down.

The Church.—The church earned an important position in France soon after the conquest by the Romans; seizing opportunities, it came into power by right of service. It brought the softening influences of religion; it established government where there was no government; it furnished a home for the vanquished and the oppressed; it preserved learning from the barbarians; it conquered and controlled the warlike spirit of the Germans; it provided the hungry with food, and by teaching agriculture added to the economic wealth of the community; and finally, it became learned, and thus brought order out of chaos. Surely the church earned its great position, and reaped its reward. Taine says:

"Its popes for two hundred years were the dictators of Europe. It organized crusades, dethroned monarchs, and distributed kingdoms. Its bishops and abbots became here sovereign princes and there veritable founders of dynasties. It held in its grasp a third of the territory, one-half the revenue, and two-thirds of the capital of Europe."

The church was especially strong in France. It was closely allied to the state, and opposed everything that opposed the state. When the king became the state, the church upheld the king. The church of France, prior to the revolution, was rich and aristocratic. In 1789 its property was valued at 4,000,000,000 francs, and its income at 200,000,000 francs; to obtain a correct estimate according to our modern measure of value, these amounts should be doubled. In some territories the clergy owned one-half the soil, in others three-fourths, and in one, at least, fourteen-seventeenths of the land. The Abbey of St.-Germain-des-PrÉs possessed 900,000 acres. Yet within the church were found both the wealthy and the poverty-stricken. In one community was a bishop rolling in luxury and ease, in another a wretched, half-starved country curate trying to carry the gospel to half-starved people. Such extremes were shocking commentaries upon a church founded on democracy.

The church persecuted the literary men who expressed freedom of thought and opinion. It ignored facts and the people distrusted it. The religious reformation in France became identified with political factions, which brought the church into a prominent place in the government and made it take an important place in the revolution. It had succeeded in suppressing all who sought liberty, either political or religious, and because of its prominence in affairs, it was the first institution to feel the storm of the revolution. The church in France was attacked fully forty years before the king and the nobility were arraigned by the enraged populace.

Influence of the Philosophers.—There appeared in France in the reign of Louis XV what was known as "the new literature," in contrast with the classic literature of the previous reign. The king and the church combined fought this new literature, because it had a tendency to endanger absolutism. It was made by such brilliant men as Helvetius, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Condillac, and Rousseau. Perhaps the writings of these men had more to do with the precipitation of the revolution than the arbitrary assumptions of royalty, the wretchedness of the people, the supercilious abuses of the nobility, and the corruption of the church.

Without presenting the various philosophies of these writers, it may be said that they attacked the systems of government, religion, and philosophy prevailing in France, and each succeeding writer more boldly proclaimed the evils of the day. Condillac finally convinced the people that they owed their evil conditions to the institutions of church and state under which they lived, and showed that, if they desired a change, all it was necessary to do was to sweep those institutions away. Other philosophers speculated on the best means of improving the government. Presenting ideal forms of government and advocating principles not altogether certain in practice, they made it seem, through these speculative theories, that a perfect government is possible.

Of the great writers of France prior to the revolution who had a tremendous power in hastening the downfall of the royal rÉgime, three stand out more prominently than others, namely, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Voltaire, keen critic and satirist, attacked the evils of society, the maladministration of courts and government, the dogmatism of the church, and aided and defended the victims of the system. He was a student of Shakespeare, Locke, and Newton, and of English government. He was highly critical but not constructive. Montesquieu, more philosophical, in his Spirit of the Laws pointed out the cause of evils, expounded the nature of governments, and upheld English liberty as worthy the consideration of France. Rousseau, although he attacked civilization, depicting its miseries and inconsistencies, was more constructive, for in his Social Contract he advocated universal suffrage and government by the people through the principles of natural rights and mutual aid. These writers aroused a spirit of liberty among the thoughtful which could not do otherwise than prove destructive to existing institutions.

The Failure of Government.—It soon became evident to all that a failure of the government from a practical standpoint was certain. The burdens of unequal taxation could no longer be borne; the treasury was empty; there was no means of raising revenue to support the government as it was run; there was no one who could manage the finances of the nation; the administration of justice had fallen into disrepute; even if there had been an earnest desire to help the various classes of people in distress, there were no opportunities to do so. Louis XVI, in his weakness, called the States-General for counsel and advice. It was the first time the people had been called in council for more than 200 years; monarchy had said it could run the government without the people, and now, on the verge of destruction, called upon the people to save it from the wreck. The well-intended king invoked a storm; his predecessors had sown the wind, he reaped the whirlwind.

France on the Eve of the Revolution.—The causes of the revolution were dependent, in part, upon the peculiarity of the character of the French people, for in no other way can the sudden outburst or the course of the revolution be accounted for. Yet a glimpse at the condition of France before the storm burst will cause one to wonder, not that it came, but that it was so long delayed.

A careful examination of the facts removes all mystery respecting the greatest political phenomenon of all history, and makes of it an essential outcome of previous conditions. The French people were grossly ignorant of government. The long period of misrule had distorted every form of legitimate government. One school of political philosophers gave their attention to pointing out the evils of the system; another to presenting bright pictures of ideal systems of government which had never been put in practice. The people found no difficulty in realizing the abuses of government, for they were intense sufferers from them, and, having no expression in the management of affairs, they readily adopted ideal theories for the improvement of social conditions. Moreover, there was no national unity, no coherence of classes such as in former days brought strength to the government. Monarchy was divided against itself; the lay nobility had no loyalty, but were disintegrated by internal feuds; the people were divided into opposing classes; the clergy were rent asunder.

Monarchy, though harsh, arbitrary, and unjust, did not have sufficient coercive force to give a strong rule. The church had lost its moral influence—indeed, morality was lacking within its organization. It could persecute heretics and burn books which it declared to be obnoxious to its doctrines, but it could not work a moral reform, much less stem the tide that was carrying away its ancient prerogatives. The nobility had no power in the government, and the dissension between the crown, the nobility, and the church was continuous and destructive of all authority. Continuous and disreputable quarrels, profligacy, extravagance, and idleness characterized each group.

Worst of all was the condition of the peasantry. The commons of France, numbering twenty-five millions of people, had, let it be said in their favor, no part in the iniquitous and oppressive government. They were never given a thought by the rulers except as a means of revenue. There had grown up another, a middle class, especially in towns, who had grown wealthy by honest toil, and were living in ease and luxury, possessed of some degree of culture. They disliked the nobles, on the one hand, and the peasants, on the other; hated and opposed the nobility and ignored the common people. This class did not represent the sterling middle class of England or of modern life, but were the product of feudalism.

The condition of the rural peasantry is almost beyond description. Suffering from rack-rents, excessive taxation, and the abuses of the nobility, they presented a squalor and wretchedness worse than that of the lowest vassals of the feudal regime. In the large cities collected the dangerous classes who hated the rich. Ignorant, superstitious, half-starved, they were ready at a moment's notice to attack the wealthy and to destroy property.

The economic and financial conditions of the nation were deplorable, for the yield of wealth decreased under the poorly organized state. The laborers received such wages as left them at the verge of starvation and prepared them for open revolution. The revenues reserved for the support of the government were insufficient for the common needs, and an empty treasury was the result. The extravagance of king, court, and nobility had led to excessive expenditures and gross waste. There were no able ministers to manage the affairs of the realm on an economic basis. Add to these evils lack of faith, raillery at decency and virtue, and the poisonous effects of a weak and irresponsible philosophy, and there are represented sufficient evils to make a revolution whenever there is sufficient vigor to start it.

The Revolution.—The revolution comes with all of its horrors. The church is humbled and crushed, the government razed to the ground, monarchy is beheaded, and the flower of nobility cut off. The wild mob at first seeks only to destroy; later it seeks to build a new structure on the ruins. The weak monarch, attempting to stem the tide, is swept away by its force. He summons the States-General, and the commons declare themselves the national assembly. Stupendous events follow in rapid succession—the revolt in Paris, the insubordination of the army, the commune of Paris, and the storming of the Bastile. The legislative assembly brings about the constitutional assembly, and laws are enacted for the relief of the people.

Intoxicated with increasing liberty, the populace goes mad, and the legislators pass weak and harmful laws. The law-making and constitutional bodies cannot make laws fast enough to regulate the affairs of the state. Lawlessness and violence increase until the "reign of terror" appears with all its indescribable horrors. The rest is plain. Having levelled all government to the ground, having destroyed all authority, having shown themselves incapable of self-government, the French people are ready for Napoleon. Under his command and pretense they march forth to liberate humanity from oppression in other nations, but in reality to a world conquest.

Results of the Revolution.—The French Revolution was by far the most stupendous event of modern history. It settled forever in the Western world the relation of man to government. It taught that absolutism of any class, if unchecked, must lead sooner or later to the destruction of all authority. It taught that men, to be capable of self-government, must be educated in its principles through a long period, yet proclaimed to the Western world the freedom of man, and asserted his right to participate in government. While France temporarily failed to bring about this participation, it awoke the cry for independence, equality, and fraternity around the world.

The results of the revolution became the common property of all nations, and a universal sentiment arising from it pervaded every country, shaping its destiny. The severe blow given to absolutism and exclusive privilege in church and state settled forever the theory of the divine right of kings and prelates to govern. The revolution asserted that the precedent in religious and political affairs must yield to the necessities of the people; that there is no fixed principle in government except the right of man to govern himself.

The establishment of the theory of the natural right of man to participate in government had great influence on succeeding legislation and modified the policy of surrounding nations. The social-contract theory was little understood and gave an incorrect notion of the nature of government. In its historical creation, government was a growth, continually suiting itself to the changing needs of a people. Its practice rested upon convenience and precedent, but the real test for participation in government was capability. But the French Revolution startled the monarchs of Europe with the assumption of the natural right of people to self-government. Possibly it is incorrect when carried to extremes, for the doctrine of natural right must be merged into the practice of social rights, duties, and privileges. But it was a check on despotism.

The revolution had an influence on economic life also. It was only a step from freedom of intellectual opinion to freedom of religious belief, and only a step from religious freedom to political liberty. Carried to its legitimate outcome, the growing sentiment of freedom asserted industrial liberty and economic equality. Its influence in the emancipation of labor was far-reaching. Many of the theories advanced in the French Revolution were impracticable; sentiments engendered were untrue, which in the long run would lead to injustice. Many of its promises remain unfulfilled, yet its lessons are still before us, its influence for good or evil continues unabated.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The progress in constitutional government was made in England during the Commonwealth.

2. Changes in the social and economic condition of England from 1603 to 1760.

3. When did the Industrial Revolution begin? What were its causes? What its results?

4. The rise of British commerce.

5. Effect of commerce on English economic and social life.

6. Of what use to England were her American colonies?

7. The effect of the American Revolution on the French Revolution.

8. The effect of the French Revolution on American liberty.