Outlines of Universal History Part 1

Outline of Universal History.

by George Park Fisher.

PREFACE.

In writing this work I have endeavored to provide a text-book suited to more advanced pupils. My idea of such a work was, that it should present the essential facts of history in due order, and in conformity to the best and latest researches; that it should point out clearly the connection of events and of successive eras with one another; that through the interest awakened by the natural, unforced view gained of this unity of history, and by such ill.u.s.trative incidents as the brevity of the narrative would allow to be wrought into it, the dryness of a mere summary should be, as far as possible, relieved; and that, finally, being a book intended for pupils and readers of all cla.s.ses, it should be free from sectarian partiality, and should limit itself to well-established judgments and conclusions on all matters subject to party contention. Respecting one of the points just referred to, I can say that, in composing this work, I have myself been more than ever impressed with _the unity of history_, and affected by this great and deeply moving drama that is still advancing into a future that is hidden from view. I can not but hope that this feeling, spontaneous and vivid in my own mind, may communicate itself to the reader in his progress through these pages.

The most interesting object in the study of history is, to quote Dr.

Arnold's words, "that which most nearly touches the inner life of civilized man, namely, the vicissitudes of inst.i.tutions, social, political, and religious." But, as the same scholar adds, "a knowledge of the external is needed before we arrive at that which is within. We want to get a sort of frame for our picture....And thus we want to know clearly the geographical boundaries of different countries, and their external revolutions. This leads us in the first instance to geography and military history, even if our ultimate object lies beyond."

Something more is aimed at in the present work than the construction of this "frame," without which, to be sure, a student wanders about "vaguely, like an ignorant man in an ill-arranged museum." By the use of different sorts of type, it has been practicable to introduce a considerable amount of detail without breaking the main current of the narrative, or making it too long. By means of these additional pa.s.sages, and by appending lists of books at the close of the several periods, the attempt has been made to aid younger students in carrying forward the study of history beyond the usual requirements of the cla.s.s-room. I make no apology for the sketches presented of the history of science, literature, art, and of moral and material decline or improvement. Professor Seeley, in his interesting book on _The Expansion of England_, is disposed to confine history to the civil community, and to the part of human well-being which depends on that. "That a man in England," he tells us, "makes a scientific discovery or paints a picture, is not in itself an event in the history of England." But, of course, as this able writer himself remarks, "history may a.s.sume a larger or a narrower function;" and I am persuaded that to shut up history within so narrow bounds, is not expedient in a work designed in part to stimulate readers to wide and continued studies.

One who has long been engaged in historical study and teaching, if he undertakes to prepare such a work as the present, has occasion to traverse certain periods where previous investigations have made him feel more or less at home. Elsewhere at least his course must be to collate authorities, follow such as he deems best ent.i.tled to credit, and, on points of uncertainty, satisfy himself by recurrence to the original sources of evidence. Among the numerous works from which I have derived a.s.sistance, the largest debt is due, especially in the ancient and mediaeval periods, to Weber's _Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte_, which (in its nineteenth edition, 1883) contains 2328 large octavo pages of well-digested matter. Duruy's _Histoire du Moyen Age_ (eleventh edition, 1882), and also his _Histoire des Temps Modernes_ (ninth edition), have yielded to me important aid. From the writings of Mr. E. A. Freeman I have constantly derived instruction. In particular, I have made use of his _General Sketch of European History_ (which is published in this country, under the t.i.tle, _Outlines of History_), and of his lucid, compact, and thorough _History of European Geography_. The other writings, however, of this able and learned historian, have been very helpful. Mr. Tillinghast's edition of Ploetz's _Epitome_ I have found to be a highly valuable storehouse of historical facts, and have frequently consulted it with advantage. The superior accuracy of George's _Genealogical Tables_ is the reason why I have freely availed myself of the aid afforded by them. Professor (now President) C. K. Adams's excellent _Manual of Historical Literature_, to which reference is repeatedly made in the following pages, has been of service in preparing the lists of works to be read or consulted. Those lists, it hardly need be said, aim at nothing like a complete bibliography. No doubt to each of them other valuable works might easily be added. As a rule, no mention is made of more technical or abstruse writings, collections of doc.u.ments, and so forth. The t.i.tles of but few historical novels are given. Useful as the best of these are, works of this cla.s.s are often inaccurate and misleading; so that a living master in historical authorship has said even of Walter Scott, who is so strong when he stands on Scottish soil, that in his Ivanhoe "there is a mistake in every line." With regard, however, to historical fiction, including poems, as well as novels and tales, the student will find in Mr. Justin Winsor's very learned and elaborate monograph (forming a distinct section of the catalogue of the Boston Public Library), the most full information up to the date of its publication. Most of the historical maps, to ill.u.s.trate the text of the present work, have been engraved from drawings after Spruner, Putzger, Freeman, etc. Of the ancient maps, several have been adopted (in a revised form) from a General Atlas. That the maps contain more places than are referred to in the text, is not a disadvantage.

I wish to express my obligation to a number of friends who have kindly lent me aid in the revisal of particular portions of the proof-sheets of this volume. My special thanks are due, on account of this service, to Professor Francis Brown of the Union Theological School; to Professors W. D. Whitney, Tracy Peck, T. D. Seymour, W. H. Brewer, and T. R. Lounsbury, of Yale College; to Mr. A. Van Name, librarian of Yale College; and to Mr. W. L. Kingsley, to whose historical knowledge and unfailing kindness I have, on previous occasions, been indebted for like a.s.sistance. To other friends besides those just named, I am indebted for information on points made familiar to them by their special studies.

G. P. F.

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.

The characteristics of this work are stated in the Preface to the First Edition, which may be read on page v and the next following pages of the present volume.

The work has been subjected to a careful revision. The aim has been to make whatever amendments are called for by historical investigations in the interval since it was published. Besides corrections, brief statements have been woven here and there into the text. The revision has embraced the bibliography connected with the successive periods or chapters. t.i.tles of books which are no longer of service have been erased. t.i.tles of select recent publications, as well as of meritorious writings of a remoter past, have been inserted.

In preparing this edition for the press I have not been without the advantage of aid from friends versed in historical studies. Professor Henry E. Bourne, of Western Reserve University, besides particular annotations, has prolonged the history so far as to include in its compa.s.s, in Chapter VII, the last decade of the nineteenth century and events as recent as the close of the South African War and the accession of President Roosevelt. Professor Charles C. Torrey, Ph.D., of Yale University, has placed in my hands notes of his own on Oriental History, a portion of history with which, as well as with the Semitic languages, he is conversant. It will not be for lack of painstaking if any part of the new edition fails, within the limits of its plan, to correspond to the present state of historical knowledge.

G. P. F.

Yale University, January, 1904.

UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

INTRODUCTION.

DEFINITION OF HISTORY.--The subject of history is man. History has for its object to record his doings and experiences. It may then be concisely defined as a narrative of past events in which men have been concerned. To describe the earth, the abode of man, to delineate the different kingdoms of nature, and to inquire into the origin of them, or to explain the physical or mental const.i.tution of human beings, is no part of the office of history. All this belongs to the departments of natural and intellectual science.

But history, as we now understand the term, is more than a bare record of what men have done and suffered. It aims to point out the connection of events with one another. It seeks to explain the causes and the consequences of things that occur. It would trace the steps that mark the progress of the race, and of the different portions of it, through extended periods. It brings to light the thread which unites each particular stage in the career of a people, or of mankind as a whole, with what went before, and with what came after.

NATIONS.--History has been called "the biography of a society."

Biography has to do with the career of an individual. History is concerned with the successive actions and fortunes of a community; in its broadest extent, with the experiences of the human family. It is only when men are connected by the social bond, and remain so united for a greater or less period, that there is room for history. It is, therefore, with nations, in their internal progress and in their mutual relations, that history especially deals. Of mere clans, or loosely organized tribes, it can have little to say. History can go no farther than to explore their genealogy, and state what were their journeyings and habits. The nation is a form of society that rests on the same basis--a basis at once natural and part of a divine system--as the family. By a nation is meant a people dwelling in a definite territory, living under the same government, and bound together by such ties as a common language, a common religion, the same inst.i.tutions and customs. The elements that enter into that national spirit which is the bond of unity, are multiple. They vary to a degree in different peoples. As individuals are not alike, and as the history of any particular community is modified and molded by these individual differences, so the course of the history of mankind is shaped by the peculiar characteristics of the various nations, and by their interaction upon one another. In like manner, groups of nations, each characterized by distinctive traits derived from affinities of race or of religion, or from other sources, act on each other, and thus help to determine the course of the historic stream.

SCOPE OF HISTORY.--The rise and progress of _culture_ and _civilization_ in their various const.i.tuents is the theme of history. It does not limit its attention to a particular fraction of a people, to the exclusion of the rest. Governments and rulers, and the public doings of states,--such as foreign wars, and the struggles of rival dynasties,--naturally form a prominent topic in historical writings. But this is only one department in the records of the past. More and more history interests itself in the character of society at large, and in the phases through which it has pa.s.sed. How men lived from day to day, what their occupations were, their comforts and discomforts, their ideas, sentiments, and modes of intercourse, their state as regards art, letters, invention, religious enlightenment,--these are points on which history, as at present studied and written, undertakes to shed light.

POINTS OF VIEW.--An eminent German philosopher of our day, _Hermann Lotze_, intimates that there are five phases of human development, and hence five points of view from which the course of history is to be surveyed. These are the _intellectual_ (embracing the progress of truth and knowledge), the _industrial_, the _aesthetic_ (including art in all its higher ramifications), the _religious_, and the political. An able English scholar, _Goldwin Smith_, resolves the elements of human progress, and thus the most general topics of history, into three, "the moral, the intellectual, and the productive; or, _virtue_, _knowledge_, and _industry_."

"But these three elements," he adds, "though distinct, are not separate, but closely connected with each other."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.--That there is, in some sense, a "reign of law" in the succession of human events, is a conviction warranted by observed facts, as well as inspired by religion. Events do not spring into being, disjoined from antecedents leading to them. Even turning-points in history, which seem, at the first glance, abrupt, are found to be dependent on previous conditions. They are perceived to be the natural issue of the times that have gone before. Preceding events have foreshadowed them. There are laws of historical progress which have their root in the characteristics of human nature. Ends are wrought out, which bear on them evident marks of design. History, as a whole, is the carrying out of a plan:

"... through the ages one increasing purpose runs."

_Augustine_ long ago argued, that he who has not left "even the entrails of the smallest and most insignificant animal, or the feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without a harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts,--that G.o.d can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of his providence."

To discern the plan of history, and the causes or laws through which it is accomplished, as far as our limited capacity will allow, is the object of what is called the philosophy of history.

FREEDOM AND LAW.--It must not be forgotten, however, that man is a free agent. History, although it is not an aimless process, is, nevertheless, not subject to the forces and laws which govern in the realm of matter. Physical a.n.a.logies are not a literal image of what takes place in the sphere of intelligence and freedom. Moral evil, wherever it is a factor in history, has its origin in the will of man. In respect to it, the agency of G.o.d is permissive and overruling. Through his providence, order is made to emerge, a worthy goal is at last reached, despite the elements of disorder introduced by human perversity.

Nor is progress continuous and unbroken. It is often, as one has said, a spiral rather than a straight line. It is not an unceasing advance: there are backward movements, or what appear to be such. Of particular nations it is frequently evident, that, intellectually and morally, as well as in power and thrift, they have sunk below a level once attained.

Of the inscrutable blending of human freedom with a pre-ordained design, GUIZOT says: "Man advances in the execution of a plan which he has not conceived, and of which he is not even aware. He is the free and intelligent artificer of a work which is not his own."

"Conceive a great machine, the design of which is centered in a single mind, though its various parts are intrusted to different workmen, separated from, and strangers to, each other. No one of them understands the work as a whole, nor the general result which he concurs in producing; but every one executes with intelligence and freedom, by rational and voluntary acts, the particular task a.s.signed to him." (_Lectures on the History of Civilization_, Lect. xi.)

PERSONAL POWER.--The progress of society has been inseparably connected with the agency of eminent persons. Signal changes, whether wholesome or mischievous, are linked to the names of individuals who have specially contributed to bring them to pa.s.s. The achievements of heroes stand out in as bold relief in authentic history as in the obscure era of myth and fable. Fruitful inventions, after the earlier steps in civilization are taken, are traceable to particular authors, exalted by their genius above the common level. So it is with the literary works which have exerted the deepest and most lasting influence. Nations have their pilots in war and in peace. Epochs in the progress of the fine arts are ushered in by individuals of surpa.s.sing mental power. Reforms and revolutions, which alter the direction of the historic stream, emanate from individuals in whose minds they are conceived, and by whose energy they are effected. The force thus exerted by the leaders in history is not accounted for by reference to general laws. Great men are not puppets moved by the spirit of the time. To be sure, there must be a preparation for them, and a groundwork of sympathy among their contemporaries: otherwise their activity would call forth no response. Independently of the age that gives them birth, their power would lose its distinctive form and hue: they would be incapable of influence.

_Cromwell_ would not have been Cromwell had he been born in any other period of English history. Nor could he have played his part, being what he was, had not the religious and political struggles of England for generations framed a theater adapted to his talents and character. _Michael Angelo_ could not have arisen in a half-civilized tribe. His creative power would have found no field in a society rude, and blind to the attractions of art. Nevertheless, his power _was_ creative. Cromwell and Michael Angelo, and such as they, are not the pa.s.sive organs, the mere outcome, of the communities in which they appear. Without the original thought and personal energy of leaders, momentous changes in the life of nations could never have taken place. A great man may be obliged to wait long for the answering sympathy which is required to give effect to his thoughts and purposes. Such a mind is said to be in advance of the age. Another generation may have to appear before the harvest springs from the seed that he has sown. Moreover, it is not true that great men, efficient leaders, come forward whenever there is an exigency calling for them, or an urgent need. Rather is it true that terrible disasters sometimes occur, at critical points in history, just for the lack of leaders fit for the emergency.

THE MEANING OF HISTORY.--A thoughtful student can hardly fail to propose to himself the question, "What is the meaning of history?

Why is this long drama with all that is n.o.ble and joyous in it, and with its abysses of sin and misery, enacted at all?" It is only a partial answer that one can hope to give to this grave inquiry, for the designs of Providence can not be fully fathomed. But, among the ends in view, the moral training of mankind stands forth with a marked prominence. The deliverance of the race from moral evil and error, and the building-up of a purified society, enriched with all the good that belongs to the ideal of humanity, and exalted by fellowship with G.o.d, is not only an end worthy in itself, but it is the end towards which the onward movement of history is seen to be directed. Hence, a central place in the course of history belongs to the life and work of Jesus Christ.

No more satisfactory solution of this problem of the significance of history has ever been offered than that brought forward by the Apostle Paul in Acts xvii. 27, where he says that the nations of men were a.s.signed to their places on the earth, and their duration as well as boundaries determined, "that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him."

WORKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.-(Professor C. K. ADAMS'S _Manual of Historical Literature_ (1882) is an excellent guide in historical reading. Briefer lists of works in _Methods of Teaching and Studying History_, edited by G. Stanley Hall.) _Books on the Philosophy of History_: R. FLINT, _The Philosophy of History_, vol. i.,--Writers on the subject in France and Germany. Vol. ii. will treat of England and Italy. The work is a critical review of the literature on the subject. Schlegel, _The Philosophy of History_; Shedd's _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_; Bunsen's _G.o.d in History_ (3 vols., 1870); LOTZE, _Mikrokosmus_, vol. iii, book vii.; Montesquieu's _Spirit of the Laws_; Buckle, _History of Civilization in England_ (2 vols.). This work is based on the denial of free-will, and the doctrine that physical influences,--climate, soil, food, etc.,--are the main causes of intellectual progress. Draper's _History of the Intellectual Development of Europe_(2 vols., 2d edition, 1876) is in the same vein. Opposed to this philosophy are GOLDWIN SMITH'S _Lectures on the Study of History_; C. Kingsley, in his _Miscellanies, The Limits of Exact Science as applied to History_; Froude, in _Short Studies_, vol. i., _The Science of History_; Lotze, as above; also, Flint, and Droysen, _Grundriss der Historik_. Hegel's _Philosophy of History_ has profound observations, but connected with an _a priori_ theory.

HISTORICAL WRITING.--The beginning of historical writing was in the form of lists of kings, or bare records of battles, or the simple registration of other occurrences of remarkable interest. The Egyptians, Babylonians, a.s.syrians, Chinese, and other nations, furnish examples of this rudimental type of historical writing. More continuous annals followed; but these are meager in contents, and make no attempt to find links of connection between events. The ancient Hebrew historians are on a much higher plane, and, apart from their religious value, far surpa.s.s all other Asiatic histories. It was in _Greece_, the fountain-head of science, that history, as an art, first appeared. _Herodotus_, born early in the fifth century B.C., first undertook to satisfy curiosity respecting the past by a more elaborate and entertaining narrative. He begins his work thus: "These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarna.s.sus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and marvelous actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory, and withal to put on record what were the grounds of their hostility." In Herodotus, history, owing to the inquiry made into the causes of events, begins to rise above the level of a mere chronicle, its primitive type. _Thucydides_, who died about 400 B.C., followed. He is far more accurate in his investigations, having a deep insight into the origin of the events which he relates, and is a model of candor. He, too, writes to minister to the inquisitive spirit of his countrymen, and of the generations that were to follow. He began to write his history of the war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians while it was still going on, in the belief, he says, "that it would turn out great, and worthier of being recorded than any that had preceded it." The attention of historical writers was still confined to a particular country, or to insulated groups of events. Before there could spring up the idea of universal history, it was necessary that there should be a broader view of mankind as a whole. The ancient _Stoics_ had a glimpse of the race as a family, and of the nations as forming one complex unity. The conquests and extended dominion of Rome first suggested the idea of universal history. _Polybius_, a Greek in the second century B.C., had watched the progress of Rome, in its career of conquest, until "the affairs of Italy and Africa," as he says, "joined with those of Asia and Greece, and all moved together towards one fixed and single point." He tells us that particular histories can not give us a knowledge of the whole, more than the survey of the divided members of a body once endowed with life and beauty can yield a just conception of all the comeliness and vigor which it has received from Nature. To Polybius belongs the distinction of being the first to undertake a universal history. Christianity, with its doctrine of the unity of mankind, and with all the moral and religious teaching characteristic of the gospel, contributed effectively to the widening of the view of the office and scope of history. It is only in quite recent times that history has directed its attention predominantly to _social progress_, and to its causes and conditions.

History, in its etymological sense (from the Greek, historia), meant the ascertaining of facts by inquiry; then, the results of this inquiry, the knowledge thus obtained. The work of Herodotus was "history" in the strictest sense: he acquired his information by travel and personal interrogation.

The German philosopher, _Hegel_, has divided histories into three cla.s.ses: 1. _Original histories_; i.e., works written by contemporaries of the events described, who share in the spirit of the times, and may have personally taken part in the transactions. Such are the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon's Anabasis, Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion in England, Caesar's Commentaries. 2. _Reflective histories_, where the author writes at a later point of time, on the basis of materials which he gathers up, but is not himself a partaker in the spirit of the age of which he treats. 3. _Philosophical histories_, which set forth the rational development of history in its inmost idea.

Another cla.s.sification is the following: 1. _Genealogies_, like the records of Manetho, the Egyptian priest. 2. _The chronicle_, following the chronological order, and telling the story in a simple, popular way. 3. _The "pragmatic"_ form of writing, which aims to explain by reference to the past some particular characteristic or phase of the present, and uses history to point a special moral lesson. 4. The form of history which traces the rise and progress of "_ideas_," tendencies, or ruling forces,--such as the idea of civil equality in early Rome or in modern France, the religious ideas of Mohammedanism, the idea of representative government, the idea of German unity, etc.

A broad line of distinction has been drawn between "the old or _artistic_ type of history," and the new or _sociological_ type which belongs to the present century. The ancient historians represented the former type. They prized literary form. They aimed to interweave moral and political reflections. Polybius often interrupts his narrative to introduce remarks of this sort. But they were not, as a rule, diligent and accurate in their researches. And, above all, they had no just conception of society as a whole, and of the complex forces out of which the visible scene springs. The Greeks were the masters in this first or artistic form of history. The French Revolution was one stimulus to a profounder and more comprehensive method of studying history. The methods and investigations of natural science have had a decided influence in the same direction.

THE SOURCES OF HISTORY.--History must depend for credence on credible evidence. In order to justify belief, one must either himself have seen or heard the facts related, or have the testimony, direct or indirect, of witnesses or of well-informed contemporaries. The sources of historic knowledge are mainly comprised in _oral tradition_, or in some form of _written records_.

_Tradition_ is exposed to the infirmities of memory, and to the unconscious invention and distortion which grow out of imagination and feeling. Ordinarily, bare tradition, not verified by corroborative proofs, can not be trusted later than the second generation from the circ.u.mstances narrated. It ceases to be reliable when it has been transmitted through more than two hands. In the case of a great and startling event, like a destructive convulsion of nature or a protracted war, the authentic story, though unwritten, of the central facts, at least, is of much longer duration. There may be visible monuments that serve to perpetuate the recollection of the occurrences which they commemorate. _Inst.i.tutions_ may exist--popular festivals and the like--which keep alive the memory of past events, and, in certain circ.u.mstances, are sufficient to verify them to generations far removed in time. Events of a stirring character, when they are embodied in _songs_ of an early date, may be transmitted orally, though in a poetic dress. Songs and legends, it may be added, even when they do not suffice to verify the incidents to which they refer, are valuable as disclosing the sentiments and habits of the times when they originated, or were cherished. The central fact, the nucleus of the tradition, may be historical when all the details belonging with it have been effaced, or have been superseded by other details, the product of imagination. The historical student is to distinguish between traditionary tales which are _untrustworthy throughout_, and traditions which have _their roots in fact_. Apart from oral tradition, the sources of historical knowledge are the following:--

1. Contemporary registers, chronicles, and other doc.u.ments, either now, or known to have been originally, in a ma.n.u.script form.

2. Inscriptions on monuments and coins. Such, for example, are the inscriptions on the monuments of Egypt and on the buried ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Such are the ancient epitaphs, heathen and Christian, in the Roman catacombs. The study of ancient inscriptions of various sorts has thrown much light of late upon Grecian and Roman antiquity.

3. The entire literature of a people, in which its intellectual, moral, and social condition, at any particular era, is mirrored.

4. Material structures of every kind, as altars, tombs, private dwellings,--as those uncovered at Pompeii,--public edifices, civil and religious, paintings, weapons, household utensils. These all tell a story relative to the knowledge and taste, the occupations and domestic habits, and the religion, of a past generation or of an extinct people.