Part 1 (1/2)
Recent Developments in European Thought.
by Various.
PREFACE
This volume, like its two predecessors, arises from a course of lectures delivered at a Summer School at Woodbrooke, near Birmingham, in August, 1919. The first, in 1915, dealt with 'The Unity of Western Civilization'
generally, the second, in 1916, with 'Progress'. In this book an attempt has been made to trace the same ideas in the last period of European history, broadly speaking since 1870.
It was felt at the conclusion of the course that the point of view was so enlightening and offered so many opportunities of useful further study that it should, if possible, be resumed in future years. A large number of subjects were suggested--'The Relations of East and West,'
'The Duty of Advanced to Backward Peoples,' 'The Role of Science in Civilization,' &c.--all containing the same elements of 'progress in unity' which have inspired the previous volumes. It was thought that possibly for the next session 'World Reconstructions Past and Present'
might be most appropriate.
If any reader feels moved by interest or sympathy with the general idea to send suggestions, either as to possible places of meeting, or topics for treatment or any other kindred matter, they would be welcomed either by the Editor or by Edwin Gilbert, Woodbrooke, Selly Oak, Birmingham.
F.S.M.
BERKHAMSTED, _December, 1919._
I
GENERAL SURVEY
F.S. MARVIN
We are trying in this book to give some impression of the princ.i.p.al changes and developments of Western thought in what might roughly be called 'the last generation', though this limit of time has been, as it must be, treated liberally. From the political point of view the two most impressive milestones, events which will always mark for the consciousness of the West the beginning and the end of a period, are no doubt the war of 1870 and the Great War which has just ended. From 1870 to 1914 would therefore be the most obvious delimitation of our study; and it is a striking ill.u.s.tration of human paradox, that a great stage in the growth of unity should be marked by two international tragedies and crowned by the most terrible of all.
Nearly coincident with the political divisions there are important landmarks in the history of thought. During the 'sixties, while the power of Prussia was rising to its culmination in the Franco-Prussian War, the Darwinian theory of development was gaining command in biology.
To many thinkers there has appeared a clear connexion between that biological doctrine and the 'imperialism', Teutonic and other, which was so marked a feature of the time. In any case 'post-Darwinian' might well describe the scientific thought of the age we have in view.
Industrially the epoch is as clearly defined as it is in politics and science. For in 1871, the year of the Treaty of Frankfort, an act was pa.s.sed after a long working-cla.s.s agitation, a.s.sisted by certain eminent members of the middle cla.s.s, legalizing strikes and Trade Unions. And now at the end of the war, all over the world, society is faced by the problem of reconciling the full rights, and in some cases the extreme demands, of 'labour', with democratic government and the prosperity and social union of the whole community. This is the situation discussed in our seventh and eighth chapters.
In philosophy and literature a similar dividing line appears. In the 'sixties Herbert Spencer was publis.h.i.+ng the capital works of his system.
The _Principles of Psychology_ was published in 1872. This 'Synthetic Philosophy' has proved up to the present the last attempt of its kind, and with the vast increase of knowledge since Spencer's day it might well prove the last of all such syntheses carried out by a single mind.
Specialism and criticism have gained the upper hand, and the fresh turn to harmony, which we shall notice later on, is rather a harmony of spirit than an encyclopaedic unity such as the great masters of system from Descartes to Comte and Spencer had attempted before.
In literature also the dates agree. d.i.c.kens, most typical of all early Victorians, died in 1870. George Eliot's last great novel, _Daniel Deronda_, was published in 1876. Victor Hugo's greatest poem, _La Legende des Siecles_, the imaginative synthesis of all the ages, appeared in the 'seventies. There have been many writers since, with Tolstoi perhaps at their head, in whom the fire of moral enthusiasm has burnt as keenly, nor have the borders of human sympathy been narrowed.
Yet one cannot fail to note a less pervading and ready confidence in human nature, a less fervent belief that the good must prevail if good men will only follow their better leading.
Here then is our period, marked in public affairs by a progress from one conflict, desperate and tragic, between two of the leading nations of the West, to another and still more terrible which swept the whole world into the maelstrom; and marked in thought by a certain dispersion and depression of mind, a falling in the barometer of temperament and imagination, but also by a grappling with realities at closer quarters.
No wonder that some have seen here a 'tragedy of hope' and the 'bankruptcy of science'.
But it must be noted at once that these obvious landmarks, though striking, are in themselves superficial. They require explanation rather than give it, and in some cases an explanation, much less tragic than the symptom, is suggested by the symptom itself. We may at least fairly treat them at starting simply as beacon-hills to mark out the country we are traversing. We have to go deeper to find out the nature of the soil, and travel to the end to study the vista beyond.
In making this fuller a.n.a.lysis of man's recent achievement, especially in the West, the first, and perhaps ultimately the weightiest, element we have to note is the continued and unexampled growth of science. Was there ever a more fertile period than the generation which succeeded Darwin's achievement in biology and Bunsen's and Kirchhoff's with the spectroscope? Both have created revolutions, one in our view of living things, the other in our view of matter. In physics the whole realm of radio-activity has come into our ken within these years, and during the same time chemistry, both organic and inorganic, has been equally enlarged. All branches of science in fact show a similar expansion, and a new school of mathematicians claim that they have recast the foundations of the fundamental science and a.s.similated it to the simplest laws of all thinking. Some discussion of this will be found in the chapter on philosophy.
It may serve as tonic--an antidote to that depression of spirits of which we have spoken--to consider that such an output of mental energy, rewarded by such a harvest of truth, is without precedent in man's evolution. No single generation before ever learnt so much not only of the world around it but also of the doings of previous generations. For since 1870 we have been living in an age as much distinguished for historical research as for natural science. If mankind is now to go down in a wrack of war, starvation, bankruptcy, and ruin, the sunset sky at least is glorious.
And there is tonic in another thought which rises from the very nature of this recent blossoming of knowledge. It marks the growing co-operative activity of mankind. The fact that science and research of every kind have advanced so rapidly is not only, or even primarily, a proof of the continued vigour of the human intellect, but of the stability of society, the coherence of social cla.s.ses and nations, the readiness of the bulk of men to allow their more immediately productive work to be used for the support of those whose labours are in a more remote and ideal sphere. Science did not begin until the ancient priesthoods were enabled to pursue disinterested inquiries without the need of earning their daily bread. Civilization, we may be a.s.sured, is not threatened in its most vital part so long as the general will permits the application of the general resources to the promotion of learning and research without a claim for immediate marketable results.