Part 1 (1/2)
The Unity of Civilization.
by Various.
Edited by F. S. Marvin.
PREFACE
The following essays are the substance of a course of lectures delivered at a Summer School at the Woodbrooke Settlement, near Birmingham, in August 1915. The general purpose of the course will be apparent from the essays themselves. No forced or mechanical uniformity of view was aimed at. The writers will be found, very naturally and properly, to differ in detail and in the stress they lay on different aspects of the case. But they agree in thinking that while our country's cause and the cause of our Allies is just and necessary and must be prosecuted with the utmost vigour, it is not inopportune to reflect on those common and ineradicable elements in the civilization of the West which tend to form a real commonwealth of nations and will survive even the most shattering of conflicts. That we on the Allied side stand fundamentally for this ideal is one of our most valuable a.s.sets.
The fact that the lectures were delivered at a settlement for training persons for social work in a religious spirit, suggested to more than one of those who took part in the course, how similar is the task which now lies before us in international affairs to that which Canon Barnett initiated thirty years ago for the treatment of the social question at home. We need in both cases to a.s.sociate ourselves mentally with others in order to realize the common elements which underlie the seeming diversity in the civilization of the West.
The method of the course was primarily historical, though certain essays have been added of a more idealist type. It is hoped that the point of view suggested, though prompted by current events, may be found to have some permanent value. It could obviously be applied to many other aspects of European life, e.g. morality and politics, to which conditions of s.p.a.ce have only permitted indirect reference to be made in this volume.
F.S.M.
a.n.a.lYSIS
CHAPTER I. THE GROUNDS OF UNITY
The appeal to history. Previous great schisms in Europe which have been surmounted give hope for the present. The Reformation. The Napoleonic Wars.
The two points of view, (1) Man's nature itself tending to unity through conflict. (2) The stages in the process developed in history.
In pre-history conflict and diversity are predominant, though the necessities of life prescribe certain uniformities. Consolidation comes in favoured physical conditions, especially great river-basins like the Nile and the Euphrates.
The possibility of a world-unity first consciously envisaged in the Greco-Roman world. Greece gives unity in thought, Rome in practice.
Order with a solid intellectual foundation established with the Roman Empire. In the mediaeval world a unity mainly spiritual is reached in the same framework. The position of Germany in this development. The break-up of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The enlargement of the known world and the growth of wealth and knowledge. This crisis still continues and has been recently accentuated by the birth-throes of nationalities. The supreme problem for international unity is now the reconciliation of national units with the interests of the whole.
Underneath the superficial turmoil the great unifying forces of science and of common sentiments continue to grow and will ultimately prevail.
CHAPTER II. UNITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES
Retrospect of the search for unity in man's affairs, in its political and scientific bearings.
The Unity of Man as an Animal Species. Ancient beliefs, doubts suggested by the practice of slavery, their solution, and the modern conception of a 'Human Family'.
The unity of man as a rational animal struggling against nature for subsistence. Archaeological evidence as to the reasonableness of primitive culture on its material side; doubts raised by man's irrational 'barbarities' on the social plane. Levy Bruhl's hypothesis of a 'savage logic' and the Greek a.n.a.lysis of wrongdoing as rooted in ignorance.
Man's struggle with Nature in the N.W. Quadrant of the Old World. Unity here not to be found in the Food Quest. Prehistoric Europe shows variety of regimens, hoe-agriculture, pastoral nomadism. The wheel and the plough and the composite bread and cheese culture.
Race, Language, and Culture as Factors of Unity. The spread of the European Bread Culture is earlier than that of Indo-European Speech and probably than that of the 'Alpine' type of man. Race in Europe has led not to unity but to discord, and linguistic affinity does not ensure mutual intelligibility.
CHAPTER III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF GREECE AND ROME
Contemporary history is the only genuine and important history, the present is the only object of historical knowledge; what the present is and how, properly conceived, it gives history its unity and justifies the study of what is past (ancient history); all history is _our_ history, and otherwise without meaning or value to us. The history of cla.s.sical antiquity is the history of the youth of the modern world, of the formation of the now latent but still potent hopes, fears, designs and thoughts which const.i.tute the substratum of the European mind; how this still unites a divided Europe and affords a ground of hope for a restored and deepened union. Our debt to the Greeks: (_a_) the very notion of civilization, (_b_) the idea of its realization through knowledge, (_c_) the ideal of freedom as the inner spirit of true civilization. How the Greeks failed to work all this out in both theory and practice, and how nevertheless they taught their lesson to the world; the services of Greece to the world in the creation of Art, the Sciences, and Philosophy; the Greek ideal of a life beyond 'civilized'
life, but rendered possible by it, and thus giving to civilized life a new and higher value; defects and merits of this ideal.