"It does not seem possible, if we go back to the earliest literature which survives to us from Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, to say that the creative powers of the human mind in such subjects as poetry, philosophy, and historical narrative or portraiture, have either improved or deteriorated. The poetry of the early Hebrews and of the early Greeks has never been surpassed and hardly ever equaled. Neither has the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, nor the speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero. Geniuses like Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare appear without our being able to account for them, and for aught we know another may appear at any moment. It is just as difficult, if we look back five centuries, to assert either progress or decline in painting. Sculpture has never again risen to so high a level as it touched in the fifth century, B. C, nor within the last three centuries, to so high a level as it reached at the end of the fifteenth. But we can found no generalizations upon that fact. Music is the most inscrutable of the arts, and whether there is any progress to be expected other [{465}] than that which may come from a further improvement in instruments constituting an orchestra, I will not attempt to conjecture, any more than I should dare to raise controversy by inquiring whether Beethoven represents progress from Mozart, Wagner progress from Beethoven."
Perhaps the most startling evidence on this subject of the absence of evolution in humanity is the opinion of Prof. Flinders Petrie, the distinguished English authority on Egyptology, who has added nearly a millennium to the history of Egypt. His studies have brought him in intimate contact with Egypt from 2,000 to 5,000 B. C. He has found no reason at all for thinking that our generation is farther advanced in any important qualities than men were during this period. In an article on "The Romance of Early Civilization" (The Independent, Jan. 7, 1909), he said:
"We have now before us a view of the powers of man at the earliest point to which we can trace written history, and what strikes us most is how very little his nature or abilities have changed in seven thousand years; what he admired we admire; what were his limits in fine handiwork also are ours. We may have a wider outlook, a greater understanding of things; our interests may have extended in this interval; but so far as human nature and tastes go, man is essentially unchanged in this interval." … "This is the practical outcome of extending our view of man three times as far back as we used to look, and it must teach us how little material civilization is likely in the future to change the nature, the weaknesses, or the abilities of our ancestors in ages yet to come."
Those who think that man has advanced in practical wisdom during the 6,000 years of history, forget entirely the lessons of literature. Whenever a great genius has written, he has displayed a knowledge of human nature as great as any to be found at any other time in the world's history. The wisdom of Homer and of Solomon are typical examples. Probably the most striking evidence in this matter is to be found in what is considered to be the oldest book ever written. This is the Instructions of Ptah Hotep to his son. Ptah Hotep was the vizier of King Itosi, of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (about 3650 B.C.). There is nothing that a father of the modern time would wish to tell his boy as the result of his own experience that is not to be found in this wise advice of a father, nearly 6,000 years ago. This was written longer before Solomon than Solomon is before us, yet no practical knowledge to be gained from intercourse with men has been added to what this careful father of the long ago has written out for his son.
THE CENTURY OF ORIGINS.
To many readers apparently, it has seemed that the main reason for writing of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries was the fact that the Church occupied so large a place in the life of that time, and that, therefore, most of what was accomplished must naturally revert [{466}] to her account. It is not only those who are interested in the old Church, however, who have written enthusiastically about the Thirteenth Century. Since writing this volume, I have found that Mr. Frederick Harrison is almost, if not quite, as ardent in his praise of it as I have been. There are many others, especially among the historians of art and of architecture, who apparently have not been able to say all that they would wish in admiration of this supreme century. Most of these have not been Catholics; and if we place beside Mr. Frederick Harrison, the great Positivist of our generation, Mr. John Morley, the great Rationalist, the chorus of agreement on the subject of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century ought to be considered about complete. Mr. Morley, in his address on Popular Culture, delivered as President of the Midland Institute, England, October, 1876 (Great Essays. Putnam, New York), said:
"It is the present that really interests us; it is the present that we seek to understand and to explain. I do not in the least want to know what happened in the past, except as it enables me to see my way more clearly through what is happening to-day. I want to know what men thought and did in the Thirteenth Century, not out of any dilettante or idle antiquarian's curiosity, but because the Thirteenth Century is at the root of what men think and do in the nineteenth."
EDUCATION.
Many even of the most benevolent readers of the book have been quite sure that it exaggerated the significance of medieval education and, above all, claimed too much for the breadth of culture given by the early universities. Prof. Huxley is perhaps the last man of recent times who would be suspected for a moment of exaggerating the import of medieval education. In his Inaugural Address on Universities Actual and Ideal, delivered as Rector of Aberdeen University, after discussing the subject very thoroughly, he said: