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Outline of Universal History

G >> George Park Fisher >> Outline of Universal History




PERSONAL POWER.--The progress of society has been inseparably
connected with the agency of eminent persons. Signal changes, whether
wholesome or mischievous, are linked to the names of individuals who
have specially contributed to bring them to pass. The achievements of
heroes stand out in as bold relief in authentic history as in the
obscure era of myth and fable. Fruitful inventions, after the earlier
steps in civilization are taken, are traceable to particular authors,
exalted by their genius above the common level. So it is with the
literary works which have exerted the deepest and most lasting
influence. Nations have their pilots in war and in peace. Epochs in
the progress of the fine arts are ushered in by individuals of
surpassing mental power. Reforms and revolutions, which alter the
direction of the historic stream, emanate from individuals in whose
minds they are conceived, and by whose energy they are effected. The
force thus exerted by the leaders in history is not accounted for by
reference to general laws. Great men are not puppets moved by the
spirit of the time. To be sure, there must be a preparation for them,
and a groundwork of sympathy among their contemporaries: otherwise
their activity would call forth no response. Independently of the age
that gives them birth, their power would lose its distinctive form and
hue: they would be incapable of influence.

_Cromwell_ would not have been Cromwell had he been born in any
other period of English history. Nor could he have played his part,
being what he was, had not the religious and political struggles of
England for generations framed a theater adapted to his talents and
character. _Michael Angelo_ could not have arisen in a
half-civilized tribe. His creative power would have found no field in
a society rude, and blind to the attractions of art. Nevertheless, his
power _was_ creative. Cromwell and Michael Angelo, and such as
they, are not the passive organs, the mere outcome, of the communities
in which they appear. Without the original thought and personal energy
of leaders, momentous changes in the life of nations could never have
taken place. A great man may be obliged to wait long for the answering
sympathy which is required to give effect to his thoughts and
purposes. Such a mind is said to be in advance of the age. Another
generation may have to appear before the harvest springs from the seed
that he has sown. Moreover, it is not true that great men, efficient
leaders, come forward whenever there is an exigency calling for them,
or an urgent need. Rather is it true that terrible disasters sometimes
occur, at critical points in history, just for the lack of leaders fit
for the emergency.

THE MEANING OF HISTORY.--A thoughtful student can hardly fail to
propose to himself the question, "What is the meaning of history?
Why is this long drama with all that is noble and joyous in it, and
with its abysses of sin and misery, enacted at all?" It is only a
partial answer that one can hope to give to this grave inquiry, for
the designs of Providence can not be fully fathomed. But, among the
ends in view, the moral training of mankind stands forth with a
marked prominence. The deliverance of the race from moral evil and
error, and the building-up of a purified society, enriched with all
the good that belongs to the ideal of humanity, and exalted by
fellowship with God, is not only an end worthy in itself, but it is
the end towards which the onward movement of history is seen to be
directed. Hence, a central place in the course of history belongs to
the life and work of Jesus Christ.

No more satisfactory solution of this problem of the significance of
history has ever been offered than that brought forward by the
Apostle Paul in Acts xvii. 27, where he says that the nations of men
were assigned to their places on the earth, and their duration as
well as boundaries determined, "that they should seek the Lord, if
haply they might feel after him, and find him."

WORKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.-(Professor C. K. ADAMS'S
_Manual of Historical Literature_ (1882) is an excellent guide
in historical reading. Briefer lists of works in _Methods of
Teaching and Studying History_, edited by G. Stanley Hall.)
_Books on the Philosophy of History_: R. FLINT, _The
Philosophy of History_, vol. i.,--Writers on the subject in
France and Germany. Vol. ii. will treat of England and Italy. The
work is a critical review of the literature on the
subject. Schlegel, _The Philosophy of History_; Shedd's
_Lectures on the Philosophy of History_; Bunsen's _God in
History_ (3 vols., 1870); LOTZE, _Mikrokosmus_, vol. iii,
book vii.; Montesquieu's _Spirit of the Laws_; Buckle,
_History of Civilization in England_ (2 vols.). This work is
based on the denial of free-will, and the doctrine that physical
influences,--climate, soil, food, etc.,--are the main causes of
intellectual progress. Draper's _History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe_(2 vols., 2d edition, 1876) is in the same
vein. Opposed to this philosophy are GOLDWIN SMITH'S _Lectures on
the Study of History_; C. Kingsley, in his _Miscellanies, The
Limits of Exact Science as applied to History_; Froude, in
_Short Studies_, vol. i., _The Science of History_; Lotze,
as above; also, Flint, and Droysen, _Grundriss der
Historik_. Hegel's _Philosophy of History_ has profound
observations, but connected with an _a priori_ theory.

HISTORICAL WRITING.--The beginning of historical writing was in the
form of lists of kings, or bare records of battles, or the simple
registration of other occurrences of remarkable interest. The
Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chinese, and other nations,
furnish examples of this rudimental type of historical writing. More
continuous annals followed; but these are meager in contents, and
make no attempt to find links of connection between events. The
ancient Hebrew historians are on a much higher plane, and, apart
from their religious value, far surpass all other Asiatic
histories. It was in _Greece_, the fountain-head of science,
that history, as an art, first appeared. _Herodotus_, born
early in the fifth century B.C., first undertook to satisfy
curiosity respecting the past by a more elaborate and entertaining
narrative. He begins his work thus: "These are the researches of
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of
thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done,
and of preventing the great and marvelous actions of the Greeks and
the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory, and withal to
put on record what were the grounds of their hostility." In
Herodotus, history, owing to the inquiry made into the causes of
events, begins to rise above the level of a mere chronicle, its
primitive type. _Thucydides_, who died about 400 B.C.,
followed. He is far more accurate in his investigations, having a
deep insight into the origin of the events which he relates, and is
a model of candor. He, too, writes to minister to the inquisitive
spirit of his countrymen, and of the generations that were to
follow. He began to write his history of the war between the
Athenians and the Peloponnesians while it was still going on, in the
belief, he says, "that it would turn out great, and worthier of
being recorded than any that had preceded it." The attention of
historical writers was still confined to a particular country, or to
insulated groups of events. Before there could spring up the idea of
universal history, it was necessary that there should be a broader
view of mankind as a whole. The ancient _Stoics_ had a glimpse
of the race as a family, and of the nations as forming one complex
unity. The conquests and extended dominion of Rome first suggested
the idea of universal history. _Polybius_, a Greek in the
second century B.C., had watched the progress of Rome, in its career
of conquest, until "the affairs of Italy and Africa," as he says,
"joined with those of Asia and Greece, and all moved together
towards one fixed and single point." He tells us that particular
histories can not give us a knowledge of the whole, more than the
survey of the divided members of a body once endowed with life and
beauty can yield a just conception of all the comeliness and vigor
which it has received from Nature. To Polybius belongs the
distinction of being the first to undertake a universal
history. Christianity, with its doctrine of the unity of mankind,
and with all the moral and religious teaching characteristic of the
gospel, contributed effectively to the widening of the view of the
office and scope of history. It is only in quite recent times that
history has directed its attention predominantly to _social
progress_, and to its causes and conditions.

History, in its etymological sense (from the Greek, historia), meant
the ascertaining of facts by inquiry; then, the results of this
inquiry, the knowledge thus obtained. The work of Herodotus was
"history" in the strictest sense: he acquired his information by
travel and personal interrogation.

The German philosopher, _Hegel_, has divided histories into
three classes: 1. _Original histories_; i.e., works written by
contemporaries of the events described, who share in the spirit of
the times, and may have personally taken part in the
transactions. Such are the works of Herodotus, Thucydides,
Xenophon's Anabasis, Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion in
England, Caesar's Commentaries. 2. _Reflective histories_,
where the author writes at a later point of time, on the basis of
materials which he gathers up, but is not himself a partaker in the
spirit of the age of which he treats. 3. _Philosophical
histories_, which set forth the rational development of history
in its inmost idea.

Another classification is the following: 1. _Genealogies_, like
the records of Manetho, the Egyptian priest. 2. _The
chronicle_, following the chronological order, and telling the
story in a simple, popular way. 3. _The "pragmatic"_ form of
writing, which aims to explain by reference to the past some
particular characteristic or phase of the present, and uses history
to point a special moral lesson. 4. The form of history which traces
the rise and progress of "_ideas_," tendencies, or ruling
forces,--such as the idea of civil equality in early Rome or in
modern France, the religious ideas of Mohammedanism, the idea of
representative government, the idea of German unity, etc.

A broad line of distinction has been drawn between "the old or
_artistic_ type of history," and the new or _sociological_
type which belongs to the present century. The ancient historians
represented the former type. They prized literary form. They aimed
to interweave moral and political reflections. Polybius often
interrupts his narrative to introduce remarks of this sort. But they
were not, as a rule, diligent and accurate in their researches. And,
above all, they had no just conception of society as a whole, and of
the complex forces out of which the visible scene springs. The
Greeks were the masters in this first or artistic form of
history. The French Revolution was one stimulus to a profounder and
more comprehensive method of studying history. The methods and
investigations of natural science have had a decided influence in
the same direction.

THE SOURCES OF HISTORY.--History must depend for credence on credible
evidence. In order to justify belief, one must either himself have
seen or heard the facts related, or have the testimony, direct or
indirect, of witnesses or of well-informed contemporaries. The sources
of historic knowledge are mainly comprised in _oral tradition_,
or in some form of _written records_.

_Tradition_ is exposed to the infirmities of memory, and to the
unconscious invention and distortion which grow out of imagination and
feeling. Ordinarily, bare tradition, not verified by corroborative
proofs, can not be trusted later than the second generation from the
circumstances narrated. It ceases to be reliable when it has been
transmitted through more than two hands. In the case of a great and
startling event, like a destructive convulsion of nature or a
protracted war, the authentic story, though unwritten, of the central
facts, at least, is of much longer duration. There may be visible
monuments that serve to perpetuate the recollection of the occurrences
which they commemorate. _Institutions_ may exist--popular
festivals and the like--which keep alive the memory of past events,
and, in certain circumstances, are sufficient to verify them to
generations far removed in time. Events of a stirring character, when
they are embodied in _songs_ of an early date, may be transmitted
orally, though in a poetic dress. Songs and legends, it may be added,
even when they do not suffice to verify the incidents to which they
refer, are valuable as disclosing the sentiments and habits of the
times when they originated, or were cherished. The central fact, the
nucleus of the tradition, may be historical when all the details
belonging with it have been effaced, or have been superseded by other
details, the product of imagination. The historical student is to
distinguish between traditionary tales which are _untrustworthy
throughout_, and traditions which have _their roots in
fact_. Apart from oral tradition, the sources of historical
knowledge are the following:--

1. Contemporary registers, chronicles, and other documents, either
now, or known to have been originally, in a manuscript form.

2. Inscriptions on monuments and coins. Such, for example, are the
inscriptions on the monuments of Egypt and on the buried ruins of
Nineveh and Babylon. Such are the ancient epitaphs, heathen and
Christian, in the Roman catacombs. The study of ancient inscriptions
of various sorts has thrown much light of late upon Grecian and Roman
antiquity.

3. The entire literature of a people, in which its intellectual,
moral, and social condition, at any particular era, is mirrored.

4. Material structures of every kind, as altars, tombs, private
dwellings,--as those uncovered at Pompeii,--public edifices, civil and
religious, paintings, weapons, household utensils. These all tell a
story relative to the knowledge and taste, the occupations and
domestic habits, and the religion, of a past generation or of an
extinct people.

5 Language is a memorial of the past, of the more value since it is
not the product of deliberate contrivance. _Comparative
philology_, following languages back to their earlier stages and to
the parent stocks, unveils the condition of society at remote
epochs. It not only describes the origin of nations, but teaches
something respecting their primitive state.

6. Histories written at former periods, but subsequently to the events
described in them, are a secondary but valuable source of historical
knowledge. This is especially true when their authors had access to
traditions that were nearer their fountain, or to literary monuments
which have perished.

HISTORICAL CRITICISM.--Historical scholars are much more exacting as
regards evidence than was formerly the case. The criticism of what
purports to be proof is more searching. At the same time, what is
called "historical divination" can not be altogether
excluded. Learned and sagacious scholars have conjectured the
existence of facts, where a gap in recorded history--"the logic of
events"--seemed to presuppose them; and later discoveries have
verified the guess. This is analogous to the success of Leverrier
and Adams in inferring the existence of an unknown planet, which the
telescope afterwards discovered. An example of historical divination
on a large scale is furnished by the theories of the great German
historian, _Niebuhr_, in respect to early Roman history. He
propounded opinions, however, which in many particulars fail to
obtain general assent at present.

CREDIBILITY OF HISTORY.--At the opposite pole from credulity is an
unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter
Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged
in writing his _History of the World_, he heard the sounds of a
fracas in the prison-yard. On inquiry of those who were concerned in
it, and were on the spot, he found so many contradictions in their
statements that he could not get at the truth. Whereupon, it
occurred to him as a vain thing to undertake to describe what had
occurred on the vast theater of the world, when he could not
ascertain the truth about an event occurring within a bow-shot. The
anecdote simply illustrates, however, the difficulty of getting at
the exact truth respecting details,--a difficulty constantly
exemplified in courts of justice. The fact of the conflict in the
court of the Tower, the general cause, the parties engaged, the
consequences,--as, for example, what punishment was inflicted,--were
undisputed. The great facts which influence the course of history,
it is not difficult to ascertain. Moreover, as against an
extravagant skepticism, it may be said that history provides us with
a vast amount of authentic information which contemporaries, and
even individual actors, were not possessed of. This is through the
bringing to light of documents from a great variety of sources, many
of which were secret, or not open to the view of all the leaders in
the transactions to which they refer. The private correspondence of
the Protestant leaders,--Luther, Melanchthon, Cranmer, etc.,--the
letters of Erasmus, the official reports of the Venetian
ambassadors, the letters of William the Silent and of Philip II.,
put us in possession of much information, which at the time was a
secret to most of the prominent participants in the events of the
sixteenth century. The correspondence of Washington, Hamilton,
Jefferson, John Adams, Wolcott, Pickering, etc., introduces us into
the secret counsels of the American political leaders of that
day. Numerous facts conveyed from one to another under the seal of
privacy, and not known to the others, are thus revealed to us.

On the nature and value of tradition, a very valuable discussion is
that of EWALD, _History of Israel_, vol. i. pp. 13-38; Sir
G. C. LEWIS, _ Essays on the Credibility of Early Roman
History_, in which Niebuhr's conclusions are criticised;
A. Bisset, _Essays on Historical Truth_. On the sources of
history, Art. by GAIRDNER in _The Contemporary Review_,
vol. xxxviii.

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.--Political Geography, which describes the earth
as inhabited, and as parceled out among nations, has a close relation
to history. Without a distinct idea of the position of places and the
boundaries of countries, historical narrations are enveloped in a sort
of haze. _France_, for example, is a name with very different
meanings at different dates in the past. Unless the varying uses of
the word _Burgundy_ are understood, important parts of European
history are left in confusion.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.--Even more helpful is _Physical Geography_,
which surveys the earth in its three great divisions,--land, sea, and
air,--without reference to lines of political demarkation. The
configuration of the different portions of the globe, with the
varieties of climate, the relations of mountain and plain, of land and
water, have strongly affected the character of nations and the
currents of history. In regions extremely hot or extremely cold man
can not thrive, or build up a rich and enduring civilization. The
occupations of a people are largely dependent on its
situation,--whether it be maritime or away from the sea,--and on
peculiarities of soil and temperature. The character of the Nile
valley, and its periodical inundation, is a striking illustration of
the possible extent of geographical influences. The peninsular and
mountainous character of Greece went far to shape the form of Greek
political society. The high plateau which forms the greater portion of
Spain, with the fertile belts of valley on the Atlantic and
Mediterranean border, have helped to determine the employments and the
character of the Spanish people. Had the physical characteristics of
the Spanish peninsula been essentially different, the success of
Wellington in expelling the French, with the forces at his disposal,
would not have been possible. Were there a chain of mountains along
our Atlantic coast as near as are the Andes to the Pacific, what
different results would have arisen from the English settlements in
North America! The Alpine barrier in the north of Italy was
indispensable to the building-up and maintenance of the dominion of
ancient Rome. Of the great basin or plain between the Alps and the
Apennines, open to the sea only on the east, through which flows one
great river, fed by streams from the mountains on either side,
Dr. Arnold says: "Who can wonder that this large and richly watered
plain should be filled with flourishing cities, or that it should have
been contended for so often by successful invaders?" While the agency
of climate, soil, and other physical circumstances may easily be
exaggerated, that agency must be duly considered in accounting for
historical phenomena.

The best historical Atlas is the copious German work of VON
SPRUNER. FREEMAN'S _Historical Geography of Europe_ is a work
of great value. DROVSEN'S _Allg. Hist. Atlas._ Smaller atlases
are those of PUTZGER, Rhode, Appleton's _Hist. Atlas_, the
_International_, and the _Collegiate_. Smaller still,
Keith Johnston's Crown Atlases and Half-Crown Atlases. On Mediæval
History, Labberton's Atlas; also, Koeppen: in Ancient Geography,
SMITH'S work, KIEPERT'S, Long's. On Physical Geography, GUYOT'S
text-books; Vaughan's _Connection between History and Physical
Geography_, in _Contemp. Review_, vol. v.; Hall's _Methods
of Studying History_, etc., p. 201 _seq._,
_Encycl. Brit._, Art. _Geography_.

CHRONOLOGY.--An exact method of establishing dates was slowly reached.
The invention of eras was indispensable to this end. The earliest
definite time for the dating of events was established at
Babylon,--the era of Nabonassar, 747 B.C. The Greeks, from about 300
B.C., dated events from the first recorded victory at the Olympic
games, 776 B.C. These games occurred every fourth year. Each Olympiad
was thus a period of four years. The Romans, though not until some
centuries after the founding of Rome, dated from that event; i.e.,
from 753 B.C. The Mohammedan era begins at the Hegira, or flight of
Mohammed from Mecca, 622 A.D. The method of dating from the birth of
Jesus was introduced by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, about the
middle of the sixth century. This epoch was placed by him about four
years too late. This requires us to fix the date of the birth of
Christ at 4 B.C.

The day was the simplest and earliest division of time. The week has
been in use for this purpose in the East from time immemorial. It
was not introduced among the Romans until after the spread of
Christianity in the Empire. The month was the earlier unit for
periods of greater length. To make the lunar and the solar years
correspond, and to determine the exact length of the solar year, was
a work of difficulty, and was only gradually effected. _Julius_
_Cæsar_ reformed the calendar in 46 B.C., the date of the
Julian era. This made the year eleven minutes too long. _Pope
Gregory XIII_. corrected the reckoning, in 1582, by ordering
Oct. 5th to be called the 15th, and instituted the "Gregorian
calendar." The change, or the "New Style," was subsequently adopted
by Great Britain (in 1752), and by the other Protestant nations. The
difference for the present century between the Old and the New Style
is twelve days: during the last century it was eleven. The Julian
civil year began with Jan. 1. It was not until the eighteenth
century that this became the uniform date for the commencement of
the legal year among the Latin Christian nations.

On the general subjects of chronology: _Encycl. Britt_.,
Arts. _Chronology_ and _Calendar_. Manuals of Reference:
ROSSE'S _Index of Dates_ (1858); Haydn's _Dictionary of
Dates_ (Vincent's edition, 1866); BLAIR'S _Chronological
Tables_; Woodward and Cates, _Encycl. of Chronology_ (1872).


ETHNOLOGY.

Ethnology is a new science. Its function is to ascertain the origin
and filiation, the customs and institutions, of the various nations
and tribes which make up, or have made up in the past, the human
race. In tracing their relationship to one another, or their
genealogy, the sources of information are mainly three,--_physical
characteristics, language_, and _written memorials_ of every
sort.

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