The opposite tendencies of unity and individuality, and their successive development have been somewhat vaguely apprehended by Professor Draper,—who has not, however, perceived them as principles,—and have furnished him with the periods into which he arbitrarily divides the progressive epochs of social growth. If we change these divisions into their proper order—an order singularly disarranged by this author—we shall have substantially the representative periods in the historical domain, of unity and individuality. The order in which these eras are placed in 'The Intellectual Development of Europe' is, 1, Age of Credulity; 2, Age of Inquiry; 3, Age of Faith; 4, Age of Reason; 5, Age of Decrepitude. It is evident, however, as partially shown by Mr. Buckle, that the age of inquiry is uniformly subsequent to the age of faith, and immediately precedes the age of reason. Comparing this distribution, moreover, with the one given by Dr. Draper of the five stages of human existence to which he makes it correspond, we find childhood given as the age of inquiry, youth of faith, and manhood of reason. The ages of inquiry and faith should, however, change places, in order to be congruous. In applying these periods to the history of Greece, the age of inquiry is made to extend from the rise of philosophy to the time of Socrates; and the age of faith to comprise the epochs of Socrates, Plato, and the Skeptics, up to about the time of Aristotle. But in any such division as Dr. Draper attempts, the age of faith should precede the rise of philosophical speculation, and the age of inquiry should include the era of ethical as well as of physical investigation. In the application to European history a similar error is made. The age of inquiry is given as the epoch of the rise of Christianity and the establishment of the papal power; then follow the thousand years of the age of faith, the age of reason beginning a little before the time of Galileo. The time given to the age of inquiry should have been included in the age of faith, while the real European age of inquiry is the era of the restoration of learning, the development of modern languages, the invention of printing, and the Reformation, an era which Dr. Draper discusses in a chapter entitled: 'Approach to the Age of Reason in Europe. It is preceded by the Rise of Criticism.' Certainly the epoch of the rise of criticism, of the Reformation, and of printing, is the age of inquiry, if any age is entitled to that name.
Changing then the places of the age of inquiry and that of faith, we shall have, so far as the grand or European division is concerned, the epochs of credulity and faith, both essentially stationary elements, included within the stage of the development of the principle of unity; and those of inquiry and reason, both mainly productive of change, within the period of the reign of the principle of individuality. Judging now solely from our knowledge of the nature of these opposite drifts, what should we expect to discover as the prevalent characteristics of their respective periods of supremacy? We should look, during the time in which the principle of unity was developing its powers, for the predominant manifestation of all those elements of progress which belong on the side of order, strength, stability, permanence, conservatism, community of interests, associative effort, uniformity in political and religious belief, moral activity; for all those elements, in fine, which tend toward the unification of social power and interest, and toward progress by coöperation; and we should expect a corresponding lack of tendencies of an opposite kind. On the other hand, during the era in which the principle of individuality predominated, we should be prepared to see a preponderating manifestation of all those elements which tend to freedom, change, disintegration of interests, antagonistic or competitive effort, diversity in political and religious belief, intellectual activity; of all those drifts, in short, which relate to the individualizing of social power and interests, and to progress by antagonism; with corresponding absence of the elements active in the preceding epoch.
Turning now to Dr. Draper's storehouse of historical facts, do we find our expectations realized or disappointed?
We discover that during the age in which the principle of unity was dominant, vast, magnificent, opulent empires existed, consolidated, stable, powerful, orderly; but whose subjects possessed comparatively no freedom, which resisted all effort at progression, denied to men political equality, and sought to prevent all desire of change. We see a religious organization which bound the people in a single faith by a common creed; which fostered a spirit of brotherly sympathy; kept alive the fire of holy zeal by pious ministrations; taught the universal brotherhood of the human race; cultured the emotional nature of its worshippers; sought to eradicate pauperism, to abolish slavery, and to inculcate practical humility, treating peasant and king as equals before God; endeavored to provide for the spiritual and material wants of mankind; to become the guardian of the weak, the educator of the ignorant, the rescuer of the vicious, the comforter of the sorrowing, and the strong hand of protection between selfish or brutal power and the lowly; which, however, resisted all efforts at intellectual freedom, shut its ears to the voice of science, strove to repress the rising desires of the soul and keep it in perpetual bondage and darkness. We behold, next, a social organization in which, as a general rule, though with many exceptions, each individual held his fitting place, the station for which he was best adapted by natural character and training; in which each rank recognized its obligations of deference toward superiors, and of guardianship toward inferiors, and fulfilled, in the main, as they were then understood, the practical duties which these obligations created; in which the rich and powerful were the social fathers of the poor and humble, securing them from physical want and from the snares of designing men; but in which the spirit of independence was not alive, the dignity of labor was denied, the development which results from competitive struggles unknown, and education uncared for.
But the achievements of this stage of individual and social growth, those which stand out as the illustrious and characteristic features of the time, were its moral or religious accomplishments. The pages of history which detail the events of this epoch, are crowded with relations of heroic devotion to the individual's highest ideal of truth, not as occasional acts of life, but as the dominating purpose of existence; of loyalty to men and women of superior powers; of self-sacrifice for the welfare of others. The sentiments of Christianity, which appeal mainly to the heart, took fast hold on the emotional and affectional natures of a simple people not yet developed in their intellectual faculties. A sense of responsibility for his every action rested heavily on every person. Men shut themselves in dungeons, scourged their flesh, lacerated their bodies, inflicted all manner of torture on their frames, that they might purge away every evil desire, every wrong propensity, and conquer their material elements into submission to the spiritual. Deeds of lofty self-abnegation, rarely if ever known to modern days, were then common. Stern virtue, as virtue was then understood, was largely prevalent. The habits of life were devout, reverential, careful of sanctities, solemn and austere. Individuals and community lived in the constant remembrance of being strictly accountable for the manner and actions of their lives. A moral and religious atmosphere pervaded society, such as our modern levity can little understand. An atmosphere which impregnated every living being who came within its scope, and hallowed their lives, so that the guiding and animating spirit of the day, among high and low, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, was the conscientious desire of thinking, acting, and living as God wished and as their better natures approved; of being pure in their purposes and holy in their deeds, as purity and holiness were then conceived; of subduing and controlling their passions, and in all ways being devoutly scrupulous that everything they did was dictated, not by a desire to gratify a selfish impulse nor an ebullition of feeling, but by a conviction of duty under a sense of eternal responsibility to God.
The moral and religious grandeur of the age could not avail, however, for the highest purposes of civilization, in the absence of intellectual vigor and mental growth. Devotion itself made men bigots. Their love of God, unaccompanied by right views of human liberty, induced cruel persecutions. Humanity had no hope in such developments alone, grand as they were, and a new principle began its career, gradually supplanting the first. What does our historian give as the facts of civilization since the century preceding the Reformation, from which time the tendency to individuality has been predominant?
The great kingdoms and empires of the earlier days melted away under its influence. The divine right of kings, and the theory that power sprang from the ruler, gradually yielded to the democratic principle of political equality and the origination of power in the people. Civil liberty became the touchstone of good government, instead of centralization of power and consolidation. General eligibility to office grew into vogue in the place of the ancient mode, which practically limited the selection of statesmen and officials to a privileged class, comprising the largest and most cultured minds of the nation. Freedom, and consequent diversity, in thought, in speech, and in action, became paramount considerations to coercion and resulting uniformity in these respects. The functions of rule were step by step curtailed until they dwindled theoretically, and, to a large extent, in the most advanced countries, practically, into two only—the protection of person and of property. That government is best which governs least, came to be an axiom of political progress; and the paramount purpose of civil organization is beginning to be regarded, not, as under the monarchical sway, the preservation of order, but the liberty of the people.
In ecclesiastical affairs, we see the integrality of the church destroyed under the influence of the Protestant principle of private judgment, one of the first fruits of individuality. We perceive sects gradually subdividing into sects, until, instead of a unity of religious sentiment and a sympathy of religious action under the impulse of a common creed, an innumerable variety of religious denominations came into existence, each embodying different beliefs in diverse articles of faith, and refusing Christian fellowship with the others. In this transition the gain has been great, and the loss has been great. The human soul has been liberated to the light of intellectual truth, and emancipated from the bands of ancient superstition. The blessings of education, culture, mental development, and social expansion, have been accorded to the people. Gloomy asceticism has yielded to more hopeful views of life. Dark and depressing theological dogmas have received more cheerful interpretations; and the design of creation, the nature of man, and the destiny of humanity are seen in more alluring colors. The expectations of the future are no longer made terrible by visions of a dreadful God; but beneficence and goodness smile through all the purposes of a loving Father.
All this is gain, is strength, is progress. But what shall we say of that fierce spirit of religious antagonism, which resulted from the disruption of the unity of the church? Of that decline in power which can only exist by consolidation of effort in sympathy of spirit? Of the loss of that capacity through powerful organization to influence men, to perform vast deeds of benevolence, superintend the spiritual and material conditions of the indigent, provide for the comfort of the poor, check the encroachment of the strong on the weak, and hold community in respectful awe by the force of its moral and religious sentiments? The cultivation of the intellectual faculties released the nations from the domination of a narrow-minded spiritual power; but it caused men to forget, to a great extent, while in the hot pursuit of knowledge, that moral culture is equally as essential as mental. To the intellectual gain, during this period of development, we must add a corresponding moral or religious loss. We miss, in modern life, the ever-present, all-pervading, conscious sense of high individual accountability which directed the thoughts, controlled the feelings, and overshadowed the lives of the children of the former stage of progress. The activities of intellectual and material existence absorb the energy of our era, and leave little inclination and less strength for the cultivation and expansion of the deeper faculties of man's nature. In all that side of religious progress which comes from the inculcation of true ideas concerning God, man, human destiny, and human duty; in all which belongs to the intellectual side of religion, the side which enhances our knowledge of what should be done, we have far surpassed the nations and the people of the past. But in all that pertains to the emotional, the devotional, and especially to the moral side of religion, we are far behind them. The animating spirit of life, under the predominating influence of the religious sentiment, was, as we have seen, a conscientious endeavor to live, in all ways, a life of purity, of virtue, and of implicit obedience to the highest dictates of truth, according to the understanding of truth which then prevailed. To do that which they deemed right, no sacrifice was too great, no labor too arduous, no suffering too severe. The deep, abiding, earnest, controlling spirit of the time, shone bright and glorious through all its ignorance, degradation, and superstition, a warning to our later and more cultured age, that the triumphs of the intellect are not all that is requisite for the final achievements of civilization.
The influence of the individualizing tendency is no more perceptible on the page of history, in political and religious affairs, than in the relations of social life. The gradual advance in political ideas, as relating to the liberty of the people, modified the oppressive trade-caste systems of the older nations, and wholly abolished them in the more advanced. Competitive industry introduced intelligence and self-reliance among the people. The doctrine of the equality of men elevated the spirit of the laborer, and dispersed, to a greater or less extent, as the doctrine made itself felt, that servile veneration which the lower classes paid to the higher; the essential dignity of labor is becoming acknowledged. To all these benefits, there have been, nevertheless, corresponding losses. Competitive industry has developed the mental faculties of the people; but has also left the ignorant and the weak still under the feet of the intelligent and the rich, while the recognition of the doctrine of social and political equality has eliminated from the community those distinctive classes who formerly constituted themselves the supervisors and patrons of the indigent, and the providers for their material wants. It is for this reason that the lowest orders of modern society exhibit relatively a condition of physical misery unknown to the poor of former times. So, while the inherent and native dignity of manhood has cropped out, under the impulse of this same idea of the equality of man, reverence for things to which reverence is due, respect for sanctities of whatever kind, deference to superior worth in any sphere—these and other virtues which belong on that side of truth which consists of the recognition of the inherent inequality of man in mental, moral, and spiritual characteristics, are rapidly disappearing, giving place to that spirit of dead-levelism so peculiarly illustrative of the prevalent sentiment in this country, and so aptly denominated 'Young America.'