Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

PROGRESS TOWARDS THE UNITY OF MANKIND.

UNITY AMID DIVERSITY.—The path of human progress has led in the direction of unity as the ultimate goal. It is, however, a unity in variety toward which the course of history has moved. The development and growth of distinct nations, each after its own type, and, not less, the freedom of the individual to realize the destiny intended for him by nature, are necessary to the full development of mankind,—necessary to the perfection of the race. The final unity that is sought is to be reached, not by stifling the capacities of human nature, but by the complete unfolding of them in all their diversity. The modern era has made an approach toward this higher unity that is to coexist with a rich and manifold development. An enlightened man, Prince Albert of England, remarked in a public address (1850): "Nobody who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which, indeed, all history points, the realization of the unity of mankind! Not a unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the result and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities."

In concluding this volume, it is proper to advert to some of the signs and means of this unification of mankind, which belong to the recent era.

1. INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITIONS.—The words quoted above from Prince Albert were spoken in anticipation of the Great International Exhibition in London, in 1854. The industrial exhibitions, in which the products of many nations are collected, and to which visitors are drawn from different parts of the earth, are one indication of the effect of manufactures and commerce in drawing mankind together. The first displays of this kind were for French manufactures alone, and were held in Paris in 1798, and, under the consulate of Napoleon, in 1801 and 1802. The first international exposition was in Paris in 1844; and it was followed by the "World's Fair" in London (1850), for which the vast edifice called "the Crystal Palace," made of iron and of glass, was constructed. Similar exhibitions were held in New York (1853), in Paris in 1855 and again in 1867, in Constantinople, Amsterdam, Vienna, (1873), in Philadelphia on the hundredth anniversary of American independence (1876), in Chicago in 1893, and in Paris in 1900. In these fairs, the products of the industry of the far East were shown by the side of the products of European and American manufacture.

2. ECONOMICAL ENLIGHTENMENT.—In connection with the wide extension of commerce, the better methods and ideas which have come into vogue in respect to commercial relations deserve notice. The system of credit, facilitating trade and forming a bond of confidence and of union between different nations, although it began in the Middle Ages, was not fairly established until the organization of the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609. This system, if it is "one of the most powerful engines of warfare," is likewise "one of the great pledges of peace." The stimulus given to manufactures by mechanical inventions has been an effective promoter of commercial intercourse. The teaching of Adam Smith, and of the political economists since his time, by which it is seen that the gain of one nation is not the loss of another, and that nations are mutually benefited by the interchange of the products of their labor, which is the true source of wealth, has operated as an antidote to discord. The ruin of a neighbor, or non-intercourse with him, has been discovered to be as contrary to the demands of a prudent self-interest as of a disinterested benevolence.

3. COMMUNITY IN SCIENCE AND LETTERS.—The community of literature and science has been growing more cosmopolitan. The barriers created by differences of language are overcome. The custom of learning foreign languages has become more diffused. The most important writings, in whatever country they appear, circulate through translations in all other civilized lands. All well-stored libraries are polyglot.

4. WIDENED POLITICAL SYSTEM.—In the political relations of countries, it is found necessary to comprehend all parts of the globe in the political system, in the right adjustment of which each country has a stake, and over which stretches an acknowledged code of international law. The establishment of an international tribunal of arbitration at The Hague is a long step toward making such a code effective and toward preventing war.

5. INTERNATION PHILANTHROPY.—The growth of humane feeling, of the interest felt in man as man, engendered a spirit of universal philanthropy. For example, the hostility to the slave-trade led to the treatment of it as piracy by the municipal laws and by the treaties of several nations, while it is prohibited and punished by nearly all of the countries of Europe. This is the direct result of a heightened respect for man and for the rights of human nature, however poor or degraded man may be. Instances have occurred in which help has been generously given to sufferers by fire or famine, by strangers in remote lands. A famine in Persia called out liberal contributions from America. Examples of the exercise of justice and kindness toward distant nations may remind the reader of opposite examples of wrong and cruelty. We are pointing out, however, only the drift of sentiment; and it must be remembered that the facts which have been referred to as illustrative of the growth of philanthropy, are such as never occurred in former ages.

6. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.—The spread of the Christian religion by missionary efforts is one of the means of unifying mankind. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, the two great achievements of the Church were the conversion of the Roman Empire, and then of the barbarian nations by whom it was subverted. But, in the Middle Ages, there was also missionary labor, here and there among the Saracens and in the lands of the East. Since the thirteenth century, missions in the Roman Catholic Church have been chiefly prosecuted by the monastic orders. In this work, the Jesuits, from the first establishment of their order, were conspicuously active in all quarters of the globe. Of their missionaries, none have been more eminent and zealous than Francis Xavier (1506?1552), who died just as he was about to undertake the conversion of China. Protestants, in the period after the Reformation, were too busy in the struggles going forward in their own lands, to undertake foreign missions on an extended scale. Yet they were not indifferent to the importance of the work. Under the protectorate of Cromwell, an ordinance established a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England (1649). In 1701 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was established in England. Later, the Moravians from the beginning evinced great interest in foreign missions, and planted missionary stations in several countries. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Congregation of the Propaganda was founded in 1622, for the general superintendence of missionary operations. Colleges for their training were established, the chief of which was the "Urban College" at Rome, where students from all nations have been educated for missionary service.

The nineteenth century was marked by an extraordinary outburst of missionary activity. In this sort of exertion the Roman Catholic body has kept up an unflagging zeal. Within the various Protestant denominations, a remarkable increase of fervor and of success in this department of Christian labor has been witnessed. In the room of seven societies for this purpose at the end of the eighteenth century, there were in 1880, in Europe and America, seventy organizations. At this last date, there were not less than twenty-four hundred ordained Europeans and Americans employed in this service, besides a great number of assistants, both foreign and native. The native converts numbered not less than 1,650,000. The yearly contributions for the support of the missions increased proportionately. In 1882 British contributions alone amounted to £1,090,000. It is not an exaggeration to say that the globe is now "covered with a network of Christian outposts."

The following passage, slightly abbreviated, from a German writer, presents a glowing sketch of the wide extension of recent missionary labors:—

"At the beginning of this century, the island world of the Pacific was shut against the gospel; but England and America have attacked those lands so vigorously in all directions, especially through native workers, that whole groups of islands, even the whole Malayan Polynesia, is to-day almost entirely Christianized, and in Melanesia and Micronesia the mission-field is extended every year. The gates of British East India have been thrown open wider and wider during this century; at first for English, then for all missionaries. This great kingdom, from Cape Comorin to the Punjaub and up to the Himalayas, where the gospel is knocking on the door of Thibet, has been covered with hundreds of mission-stations, closer than the mission-net which at the close of the first century surrounded the Roman empire; the largest and some of the smaller islands of the Indian Archipelago, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and now New Guinea also, are occupied, partly on the coast and partly in the interior. Burmah, and in part Siam, is open to the gospel; and China, the most powerful and most populous of heathen lands, forced continually to open her doors wider, has been traversed by individual pioneers of the gospel, to Thibet and Burmah, and half of her provinces occupied from Hong-Kong and Canton to Peking; and in Manchuria, if by only a thin chain, yet at many of the principal points, stations have been founded, while the population overflowing into Australia and America is being labored with by Protestant missionaries. Japan also, hungry for reform, by granting entrance to the gospel has been quickly occupied by American and English missionary societies, and already, after so little labor, has scores of evangelical congregations. Indeed, the aboriginal Australians have, in some places, been reached. In the lands of Islam, from the Balkans to Bagdad, from Egypt to Persia, there have been common central evangelization stations established in the chief places, for Christians and Mohammedans, by means of theological and Christian medical missions, conducted especially by Americans. Also in the primitive seat of Christianity, Palestine, from Bethlehem to Tripoli, and to the northern boundaries of Lebanon, the land is covered by a network of Protestant schools, with here and there an evangelical church. Africa, west, south, and east, has been vigorously attacked; in the west, from Senegal to Gaboon, yes, lately even to the Congo, by Great Britain, Basel, Bremen, and America, which have stations all along the coast. South Africa at the extremity was evangelized by German, Dutch, English, Scotch, French, and Scandinavian societies. Upon both sides, as in the center, Protestant missions, although at times checked by war, are continually pressing to the north; to the left, beyond the Walfisch Bay; to the right, into Zululand, up to Delagoa Bay; in the center, to the Bechuana and Basuto lands. In the east, the sun of the gospel, after a long storm, has burst forth over Madagascar in such brightness that it can never again disappear. Along the coasts from Zanzibar and the Nile, even to Abyssinia, out-stations have been established, and powerful assaults made by the Scotch, English, and recently also by the American mission and civilization, into the very heart of the Dark Continent, even to the great central and east African lakes. In America, the immense plains of the Hudson's Bay Territory, from Canada over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, have not only been visited by missionaries, but have been opened far and wide to the gospel through rapidly growing Indian missions. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of freedmen have been gathered into evangelical congregations; and, of the remnants of the numerous Indian tribes, some at least have been converted through the work of evangelization by various churches, and have awakened new hope for the future. In Central America and the West Indies, as far as the country is under Protestant home nations, the net of evangelical missions has been thrown from island to island, even to the mainland in Honduras, upon the Mosquito Coast; and in British and Dutch Guiana it has taken even firmer hold. Finally, the lands on and before the southern extremity of the continent, the Falkland Islands, Terra del Fuego, and Patagonia, received the first light through the South American Missionary Society (in London); and recently its messengers have pushed into the heart of the land, and are rapidly pressing on to the banks of the great Amazon, to the Indians of Brazil."

RESULTS OF MISSIONS.—In carrying forward missionary work during the nineteenth century, the Bible has been translated into numerous languages. Missionaries, as in the early days of the Church, have reduced the languages of uncultivated peoples to writing, and made the beginning of native literatures. Schools, colleges, and printing-presses follow in the path of the preachers. The contributions made to philology and to other branches of science by missionary preachers and explorers are of high value. As far as the number of converts is concerned, progress has been more rapid, as was the case in the first Christian centuries, among uncivilized tribes. The reception of Christianity is more slow in a country like China, and among the Aryan inhabitants of India. But the influence exerted by missions in such communities is not to be measured by the number of converts. Moreover, history has often shown, that, in the spread of the Christian religion, the first steps are the most slow and difficult: they are like the early operations in a siege. Sir Bartle Frere writes thus: "Statistical facts can in no way convey any adequate idea of the work done in any part of India. The effect is enormous where there has not been a single avowed conversion. The teaching of Christianity amongst a hundred and sixty millions of civilized, industrious Hindoos and Mohammedans in India, is effecting changes, moral, social, and political, which for extent and rapidity in effect are far more extraordinary than any that have been witnessed in modern Europe." Of the same tenor is an opinion expressed in strong terms by Sir Henry Lawrence, governor-general of India during the mutiny of 1857, and a most competent judge.

It is worthy of remark, as one characteristic of the Christian missions of the recent period, that the religions of the non-Christian nations have been studied more thoroughly, and the true and praiseworthy elements in them have been better appreciated.

The progress made in the past encourages the hope that the unity of mankind, a unity which shall be the crown of individual and national development, will one day be reached. That unity of mankind, in loyal fellowship with Him in whose image man was made, is the community of which the ancient Stoic vaguely dreamed, and which the apostles of Christ proclaimed and predicted,—the perfected kingdom of God.

LITERATURE. See lists on pp. Alison, Hist. of Europe, from 1815 to 1852 (8 vols.); Bulle, Gesch. d. neuesten Zeit, 1815-1871 (2 vols.); Flathe. Zeitalter der Restauration und der Revolution; Stern, Geschichte Europas (3 vols.); Debidpur, Hist. Diplomatique de l'Europe (2 vols.); Seignobus, Political History of Europe since 1814; Sears. Political Growth in the Nineteenth Century; Lavisse et Rambaud. Hist Gén., Vols. X., XI., XII.; Phillips, European History, 1815-1899; Müller, Political History of Recent Times (Peters's translation, 1882); Müller, Politische Gesch. d. Gegenwart (an annual, since 1867); Honegger, Grundsteine einer allgem. Culturgeschichte d. neuesten Zeit (5 vols.).

Works on the History of Italy. Thayer, Dawn of Italian Independence (2 vols.); Reuchlin, Geschichte Italiens (4 vols.); Stillman, Union of Italy; Probyn, Italy from 1815-1878; Lives of Cavour, by De la Rive (English translation), by E. Dicey, by Mazade (French); Life and Writings of Mazzini (9 vols.).

Works on the History of Germany. Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte; Von Sybel, Founding of the German Empire (6 vols,); Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War (2 vols.), Bismarck, The Man and the Statesman (2 vols.); Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs (2 vols.).

France. Hillebrand, Gesch. Frankreichs (1830-1870); Adams, Democracy and Monarchy in France; Stein, Gesch. der Sozialen Bewegung in Frankreich; Guizot, Memoirs of His Own Time (1807-1848) (4 vols.); Delord, Hist. du Second Empire (6 vols.); Zevort, Hist. de la 3'me Republique (4 vols.); Hanotaux, Contemporary France (Vol. I.); Bodley, France (2 vols.); Simon, The Government of M. Thiers (from 1871-1873) (2 vols.).

Works on the History of England. Harriet Martineau, The History of England (1800-1854); Walpole, A History of England, from 1815 (6 vols., 1878-1880); Molesworth, The History of England (1830-1874); Justin McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times (1878-1880); Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea (6 vols.); Seeley, The Expansion of England; Rutherford, The Fenian Conspiracy; Richey, The Irish Land Laws; King, The Irish Question; Morley, Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (1903) (an able historical review).

Works on History of the United States. Benton, Thirty Year's View [1820-1850]; Johnston, History of American Politics; DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America (2 vols.); Thorpe, Constitutional History of the American People (2 vols.); Roosevelt, Winning of the West (4 vols); Stanwood, A History of the Presidency; Bryce, The American Commonwealth (2 vols).; Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Origin of Political Parties (2 vols.); Henry Adams, History of the United States (1800-1817, 9 vols.); Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 (4 vols.); Wilson, Division and Reunion; Burgess, The Middle Period, The Civil War and the Constitution (2 vols.); Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction; Bolles, Financial History of the United States (3 vols.); Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress; Histories of the Civil War, by the Count of Paris (2 vols.), by Roper, by J. W. Draper, by H. Greeley, by A. H. Stephens, by E. A. Pollard (The Lost Cause); Swinton's Twelve Decisive Battles of the [Civil] War; Memoirs of Gen. W. T. Sherman, by himself; Grant, Personall Memoirs (2 vols.); John Sherman, Recollections (2 vols.); Moore, The Rebellion Record (1861-1871); Biography of Gallatin, by H. Adams; of Jackson, by Parton, by W. G. Sumner; of Madison, by Rives; of J. Q. Adams, by Morse; of Josiah Quincy, by Edmund Quincy; of Webster, by G. T. Curtis, by Lodge; of Clay, by Schurz; of Calhoun, by Crallé; of Sumner, by E. L. Pierce; of Lincoln, by Nicolay and Hay, by Morse; of Seward, by Fr. Brancroft; of W. L. Garrison, by O. Johnson, by W. P. Garrison; The American Commonwealths, a series of histories of the separate States (edited by H. E. Scudder); writings of J. Q. Adams, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, E. Everett, C. Sumner, W. H. Seward; John Fiske, American Political Ideas.

Literary Biographies. Life of Walter Scott, by Lockhart; of Jeffrey, by Cockburn; of Macaulay, by Trevelyan; of Arnold, by Stanley; of Dickens, by Forster; of Carlyle, by Froude; of George Eliot [Mrs. Lewes], by Cross. Life of Irving, by P. M. Irving; of Bryant, by Parke Godwin; Life and Letters of George Ticknor; Life of Ripley, by Frothingham; Series of "American Men of Letters," including Washington Irving, by Warner; Cooper, by T. R. Lounsbury; Emerson, by O. W. Holmes, etc.

Argyll, The Eastern Question, 1856 to 1858 and the Second Afghan War; Taylor, Russia before and after the War [of 1877] (1880); Daily News Correspondence of the War between Russia and Turkey [1877-78] (2 vols.); Baker Pasha, War in Bulgaria (2 vols.); Wallace, Egypt and the Egyptian Question; Malleson, History of Afghanistan; Labilliere, Early History of the Colony of Victoria (2 vols.); Grant and Knollys, The China War of 1860; Scott, France and Tongking [in 1884]; Vambéry, Central Asia; Stanley, Congo and the Founding of its Free State (2 vols.).

Rae, Contemporary Socialism; Woolsey, Communism and Socialism; Laveleye, Le Socialisme Contemporain (10th ed.); Schaeffle, Quintessens des Socialismus; A. Menger, Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag (2d ed.).

End of Project Gutenberg's Outline of Universal History, by George Park Fisher