Man, in his origin and history, was surrounded with fable; nor was there any correct idea of the principles determining the succession of events. Revolutions of states were referred sometimes to chance, sometimes to certain innate elements of decay. Plutarch did not hesitate to ascribe the triumphs of Rome, not to the operation of immutable law, but to the fortune of the Republic. And Polybius, whom Gibbon extols for wisdom and philosophical spirit, said that Carthage, being so much older than Rome, felt her decay so much the sooner; and the survivor, he announced, carried in her bosom the seeds of mortality. The image of youth, manhood, and age was applied to nations. Like mortals on earth, they were supposed to have a period of life, and a length of thread spun by the Fates, strong at first, but thinner and weaker with advancing time, till at last it was cut, and another nation, with newly twisted thread, commenced its career.
In likening the life of a nation to the life of an individual man, there was error, commended by seeming truth, not yet entirely banished. It prevails still with many, who have not received the Law of Human Progress, teaching that all revolutions and changes are but links in the chain of development, or, it may be, turns in the grand spiral, by which the unknown infinite Future is connected with the Past. Nations have decayed, but never with the imbecility of age.
The ancients saw that there were changes, but did not detect the principles governing them, while a favorite fable and popular superstition conspired to turn attention back upon the Past, rather than forward to the Future. In the dawn of Greece, Hesiod, standing near the Father of Poetry, sang the descending mutations through which Mankind had seemed to travel. First came the Golden Age, so he fabled, when men lived secure and happy in pleasant association, without discord, without care, without toil, without weariness, while good of all kinds abounded, like the plentiful fruits which the earth spontaneously supplied. This was followed by the Silver Age, with a race inferior in form and disposition. Next was the Brazen Age, still descending in the scale, when men became vehement and robust, strong in body and stern in soul, building brazen houses, wielding brazen weapons, prompt to war, but not yet entirely wicked. Last, and unhappily his own, according to the poet, was the Iron Age, when straightway all evil raged forth; neither by day nor yet by night, did men rest from labor and sorrow; discord took the place of concord; the pious, the just, and the good were without favor; the man of force and the evil-doer were cherished; modesty and justice yielded to insolence and wrong. War now prevailed, and men lived in wretchedness.[244]
Such, according to the Greek poet, was the succession of changes through which mankind had passed. This fable found a response. It was repeated by philosophy and history. Plato adorned and illustrated it. Strabo and Diodorus imparted to it their grave sanction. It was carried to Rome, with the other spoils of Greece. It was reproduced by Ovid, in flowing verses that have become a commonplace of literature. It was recognized by the tender muse of Virgil, the sportive fancy of Horace, and the stern genius of Juvenal. Songs and fables have ever exerted a powerful control over human opinion; nor is it possible to estimate the influence of this story in shaping unconsciously the thoughts of mankind. It is easy to understand that the youth of Antiquity,—let me say, too, the youth of later ages,—nay, of our own day, in our own schools and colleges,—nurtured by this literature, should learn to neglect the Future, and rather regard the Past. The words of Horace have afforded a polished expression to this prejudice of education:—
"Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?
Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem."[245]
Barren as is classical literature in any just recognition of the continuity of events, any true appreciation of the movement of history, or any well-defined confidence in the Future, it were wrong to say that it never found a voice which seemed, in harmony with the Prophets and the Evangelists, to proclaim the advent of a better age. Virgil, in his Eclogue to Pollio,—the exact meaning of which is still a riddle,—breaks forth in words of vague aspiration, which have been sometimes supposed to herald the coming of the Saviour. The blessings of Peace are here foreshadowed, while the Golden Age seems to be not only behind, but also before. Thus, notwithstanding the prejudice of superstition and the constraint of ignorance, has the human heart, in longings for a better condition on earth, gone forward as the pioneer of Humanity.
To the superstition of Heathenism succeeded that of the Christian Church. The popular doctrine of an immediate millennium, inculcated by a succession of early fathers, took the place of ancient fable; and a Golden Age was placed in advance to animate the hope and perseverance of the faithful. It was believed that the anxieties and strifes filling the lives of men were all to be lost in a blissful Sabbath of a thousand years, when Christ with the triumphant band of saints would return to reign upon earth until the last and general resurrection. Vain and irrational as was the early form of this anticipation, it was not without advantage. It filled the souls of all who received it with aspirations for the Future, while it rudely prefigured that promised period—then, alas! how distant!—when the whole world will glow in the illumination of Christian truth. Among the means by which the Law of Human Progress has found acceptance, it is only just to mention this prophetic vision of the ancient Church.