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THE
INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
All rights reserved
THE
INTERPRETATION
OF HISTORY
BY
L. CECIL JANE
Author of " The Nations at War," etc.
MCMXV • LONDON AND TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON tf CO.
4,5
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GO
SIBYL
PREFACE
As its title may indicate, this book is an attempt to dis
cover some underlying factor, in accordance with which
History may be interpreted and the occurrence of all
events explained. Of the ambitious nature of this
attempt I am fully conscious, but it appears to be well
worth making, and any apology for having made it would
savour of insincerity.
Chapters I to V contain a statement of the theory that
the factor is to be found in the existence of a mental con
flict as to the means by which happiness is to be attained,
between the idea that content is to be found in complete
submission, " Universalism," or in complete self-asser
tion, " Individualism." It is argued that this conflict
determines the conduct both of individuals and of those
associations of individuals which form nations.
Chapters VI to XI endeavour to show how far this
theory is justified by the past history of Europe and of
England, and in Chapter XII an attempt is made to
interpret the tendencies of the present day.
A detailed narrative of events hardly enters into the
scope of the book, and I have in general confined myself
to discussing the broad current of events, only entering
into detail when to do so seemed to be necessary. For
a certain inevitable allusiveness, I must therefore
apologise.
Since the completion of this book in the spring of 1914,
events of paramount importance have occurred. I have
not altered the body of the book, but have added an
appendix, "The Conflict in the Future," in which an
vii
viii THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
attempt is made to indicate what may be expected to
be the ultimate influence of the present European War
upon the future of mankind.
I am unwilling to omit this opportunity of expressing
my thanks to my friend, Mr. Maurice C. Blake, for his
valuable criticisms and suggestions, and to my late
secretary, Mrs. H. W. Rhodes, for patient and unweary
ing help.
L. CECIL JANE.
71 HIGH STREET, OXFORD,
February 1915.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE MEANING OF HISTORY i
II. THEORIES OF HISTORY ..... 6
III. THE CONFLICT IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL . 15
IV. THE CONFLICT IN THE NATION . . . .31
V. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE CONFLICT . . 39
VI. THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE: i. To THE CORONATION
OF CHARLES THE GREAT ..... 58
VII. THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE: 2. FROM THE CORONA
TION OF CHARLES TO THE FALL OF THE HOHEN-
STAUFEN ....... 74
VIII. THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE: 3. FROM THE FALL OF
THE HOHENSTAUFEN TO THE PEACE OF WEST
PHALIA ........ 91
IX. THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE: 4. FROM THE PEACE OF
WESTPHALIA TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . .150
X. THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE: 5. FROM THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION TO THE PRESENT DAY . . . 209
XI. THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND .... 267
XII. TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY . . . 273
APPENDIX: THE CONFLICT IN THE FUTURE: THE
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE . . . 284
INDEX . . . . . . . .321
IX
THE INTERPRETATION
OF HISTORY
i
THE MEANING OF HISTORY
THE necessary preface to the study of History must be
a correct idea of the nature of the subject to be studied.
History may be described broadly as a record of the
past actions of mankind and of the working of human
institutions. It deals with all the activities of man;
it is concerned not only with the material but also with
the intellectual and moral development of the world.
History, however, if it has any value, is something
more than a mere record of that which has occurred.
It is of little profit to know that Napoleon was defeated
at Waterloo, or that in 1832 the Reform Bill became
law. A chronicler who narrates the bare events of a
series of years does little to advance human knowledge ;
he contributes still less to the profit of the human race.
But a chronicler is not an historian. The latter must
give something more than a record of events. He
must discover the connection between one event and
another, and not only between two events more or less
closely united in point of time, but also between events
separated, it may be, by centuries. It is a truism to say
that every event which occurs has a direct bearing upon
the whole future of the human race ; that there must be
some definite connection between the battles of Salamis
A
2 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
and Trafalgar, between the careers of Julius Caesar and
Gladstone. We often speak of events which have
changed the world's history. But it is certain that
had any given event not occurred, the whole subsequent
history of mankind would have been different. Nothing
is more certain than that if Aristides had not been
ostracised, the history of France in the eighteenth
century would not have been that which it was. How
it would have been modified, whether more or less, no
man can say, since Aristides was ostracised. It may
even appear that to connect two such events is fanciful
and that their relation is non-existent. Certainly the
bearing of the one upon the other is not easily traced.
Yet a little thought will often reveal a clear connection
between two apparently unconnected events. To take
but one example. The victory gained by Don John at
Lepanto was directly responsible for the defeat of the
Spanish Armada, and less obviously but quite as cer
tainly for the victories of Nelson. Lepanto was the last
great triumph of the oared galley. It so impressed the
Spanish naval constructors with the excellence of that
type of vessel that they ignored the fact that it was
unsuited for oceanic war. Thus while England produced
a new species of ship, the frigate, Spain stiU constructed
galleys, and in 1588 she paid the penalty. The fleet of
Philip II was unsuited for warfare beyond the Straits;
for the attack on England he had to employ converted
merchantmen, and they were easily out-manoeuvred
and crushed by the superior English ships. And the
start which England had secured in the art of naval
construction profited her in all the wars which followed;
from the fighting point of view, she had become and,
remained the foremost shipbuilding nation in the world.
If it had not been for the victory of Lepanto, Spain
might have built ships suited for the new warfare. As
THE MEANING OF HISTORY 3
it was, England first began to build the right type of
vessel; when other nations imitated her, she had the
advantage which years of practice were bound to give her.
In such a case as this, the connection between the two
events is clear. But even when it is not clear, even
when it cannot be discovered, it must none the less exist.
To assert that it does exist is only to assert that the
continuity of History is a real thing, that the history of
modern England cannot be fully understood without a
knowledge of the history of those empires which passed
out of existence while England was yet in a state of
profound barbarism.
This continuity of History is to-day an admitted
fact. No one contends that the history of eighteenth-
century England can be understood without a knowledge
of the Anglo-Saxon period. It is just as clear that the
Anglo-Saxon period cannot be understood without an
appreciation of the peculiar character of the English
conquest of Britain, without some knowledge of the
history of the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire
itself was influenced by contact with Greek civilisa
tion; Greek civilisation was in its turn modified by
contact with Persia and the East. Hence from the
study of English history in the eighteenth century we
are led back by insensible degrees to the study of
the remotest ages of antiquity; History becomes one
continuous whole.
It is almost useless to study the history of one nation
to .the exclusion of that of other nations. It is still more
useless to study the history of one century without
reference to the centuries which precede and follow it.
As the ultimate causes of any event may be traced back
through the centuries, so the ultimate effects of any
event may be traced onwards. The results of the
sixteenth-century Reformation are felt to-day; they
4 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
will be felt in A.D. 3000, as long as the world endures.
History has no end. We who are now alive are watch
ing the working out of events which occurred a thousand
years ago. We are, as it were, actors in a drama, im
perfectly acquainted with the scenes which have been
already acted, knowing less of the purpose of the scenes
which are in progress, and almost wholly ignorant of the
final development of the plot.
And if History possesses any value, it lies in this, that
it may supply some clue as to what the future will bring
forth. It is commonly said that from History states
men may derive guidance, be warned of those things
which they should avoid, saved from error and pointed
to the right path. It is the function of the historian
to make known the lessons of the past, and in doing so
to reveal so much as he can of the future.
The imperfection of human nature, the real paucity
of human knowledge, makes it impossible that the
future should be wholly known. But the signs and
warnings are there, waiting to be read. By careful
consideration of the past many errors may be avoided.
If, however, the historian is to fulfil his function, if
• he is to wrest from the future some of its secrets, he must
be more than a mere chronicler. It is not enough that
he should bring to his task diligence and accuracy, that
he should record truly the events of the past. That
he should, as far as possible, do all this is no doubt
necessary, but he must do more. He must be competent
to analyse causes and results, to estimate characters
and motives. And as History is a drama, he must also
be gifted with something of the dramatic instinct. That
instinct will aid him to discover the connection between
events divided by centuries of time, to take a wide view
of the past, to grasp that which is really essential, to
discard that which is really trivial.
THE MEANING OF HISTORY 5
But though possessed of all these qualities, the
historian will yet fail, if he has no principle of interpreta
tion, if he discovers no explanatory factor enabling him
to reveal the plot of the drama. He must find the true
cause which has determined human conduct in the past,
which will determine human conduct in the future, which
has led and which will lead nations to pursue a particular
course. If this explanatory factor can be discovered,
the historian may hope to gain some clear idea of that
fate which the future has in store for us. Without such
an explanatory factor, his quest will of necessity be vain.
6 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
II
THEORIES OF HISTORY
THE need for some such explanatory factor has been
generally recognised. Optimists have sought for it in a
theory of consistent progress; pessimists in a theory of
consistent retrogression. To one theorist every age is
better than that which preceded it ; mankind advances
out of darkness into light; there is hope that perfect
happiness will be ultimately attained. To another, the
condition of the world grows constantly more evil as
the race falls ever further away from an original golden
age; the increase of wickedness promises that the
wholesale destruction, foretold by some, will be richly
deserved.
The optimist draws attention to the wider diffusion
of political power, the increase in the material well-
being of mankind, the spread of civilisation. But if it
may be readily admitted that self-government is in
general preferable to despotism, it must also be admitted
that self-government is liable to degenerate into bureau
cracy, and that the tyranny of a corrupt and selfish
clique is at least as deadening and oppressive as the
tyranny of a single man. Again, material prosperity
has been bought at a price. Men tend more and more
to herd together in great towns, there to live in an
atmosphere so unnatural and so unhealthy that the
physique of the nation deteriorates and only by means
of improved sanitation and increased medical skill are
appalling plagues prevented. The exodus from the
country has aroused the gravest fears in the minds of
THEORIES OF HISTORY 7
statesmen. Improved means of communication have
largely destroyed the original simplicity and quiet of
rural life. The growth of civilisation has produced new
economic wants; it has produced also new forms of
disease more insidious, if less deadly, than the older
plagues with which medical science has successfully
contended. One of the characteristics of the present
day is the prevalence of nervous diseases; that pre
valence is justly attributed to the strain of modern life.
If progress has been made, it has not been without its
accompanying evils. He would be a bold man who
should assert that the world is really happier to-day than
it was a century ago.
And any consideration of History makes it clear that
there has been nothing in the nature of consistent
progress. It is assuredly untrue to say that one century
has been even generally superior to that which preceded
it. The golden age of Greece was certainly a period of
greater intellectual and material well-being, of greater
happiness, than the vicious period of the successors of
Alexander. The age of the Antonines was a happier
time than that of Diocletian and Constantine; in the
Dark Ages men looked back with legitimate regret even
to the period of the declining Roman Empire. If it be
asserted that since the world emerged from the Dark
Ages, progress has been consistent, it is easy to quote
instances to the contrary. In England, there was
certainly a marked deterioration in the Lancastrian
period from the period of the Plantagenets. It may be
contended that in most things which go to make for the
good of the nation, the Stuart period was inferior to the
Tudor. In France, the progress of the country was
retarded by the Wars of Religion ; the age of Louis XV
shows a marked decline from that of Louis XIV. Two
centuries hardly sufficed to enable Germany to recover
8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
from the miseries inflicted by the Thirty Years' War.
In Italy, the degradation of the seventeenth and eigh
teenth centuries compares unfavourably with the age
of Lorenzo de Medici. Russia had half emerged from
barbarism when she was hurled back into misery by the
Time of the Troubles. In no country has there been any
semblance of consistent progress. The rule has rather
been that progress up to a certain point has been followed
by deterioration, even if that deterioration has culmin
ated in renewed progress. And only a shallow observer
would argue that because progress has been more or less
consistent for a century or so, therefore the days of
deterioration have passed, that there is to be no further
interruption in the peaceful development of mankind.
The obvious flaws in the theory of consistent progress
perhaps served to produce the theory of consistent
deterioration. But this theory is even more obviously
false. It is absurd to deny that advance has been made
and is being made in all the arts of civilisation, that
material progress has occurred and is occurring. And
if more regard is to be paid to moral than to material
considerations, it is certain that human sympathy has
deepened, that the present age is at worst less openly
cruel than that which preceded it. The tortures of the
Middle Ages, the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, are
an impossibility at the present day. Even the pessi
mists themselves admit that some progress has been
made. They are inclined to fix the period at which the
supposed deterioration set in at some fifty, one hundred
or two hundred years ago. They refer generally to their
childhood or to the days of their fathers as the golden
age, and each successive generation advances the date
at which the " good old times " ended.
And if the theory of progress is not justified by His
tory, still less is the theory of deterioration. A trivial
THEORIES OF HISTORY 9
instance will serve to show that the " good old times "
existed largely in the imagination. At the present day
nothing is more common than the assertion that domestic
servants have become familiar, lazy and improvident,
whereas some fifty years ago they were models of all
that could be desired. But writing in the early eigh
teenth century, Defoe complains of exactly those evils
which are lamented by the modern mistress. He also
found that domestic servants were too elaborately
dressed, were impertinent, and were ready rather to
lose their situations than to submit to any correction.
He too longed for servants such as he had known in his
childhood. And no doubt Defoe's father and grand
father made precisely the same complaints.
It would be absurd to deny that the world has lost
something of its original simplicity and honesty. Advanc
ing civilisation does tend to destroy certain virtues which
are found among the savage races. But those virtues, ex
aggerated in themselves, were counterbalanced by vices
now equally extinct; and at the same time there has
been a distinct increase in the comforts and amenities
of life. Indeed, the " good old times " are not improb
ably all the better because they exist only in memory.
The most convinced pessimist would perhaps regret
his fate if he found himself suddenly compelled to live
in those conditions, the disappearance of which he so
much deplores.
Nor is there any ground for supposing that the limit
of advance has been reached or is about to be reached.
Whatever evils may be discovered in the existing
political system of any country, there is no doubt that
open tyranny is becoming yearly less possible. In
almost every state the government is forced to submit
its policy to the criticism of its subjects, and though
it is true that those subjects may be deceived, the dictum
io THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
of Abraham Lincoln is also true, " You can fool all the
people some of the time, and some of the people all of
the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the
time." Justice is also more widely diffused; it is on
the whole less possible for the guilty to escape or for
the innocent to be condemned. Probably at no period
of the world's history have the weak been so efficiently
protected against the aggression of the strong. Every
day some new advance in material prosperity has to be
recorded; some new invention serves to increase man's
power over the forces of nature. It may be admitted
that the present is no golden age, that it has in it evils
unknown in the past. But it must also be admitted
that it certainly approximates quite as nearly to the
golden age as has any other period ; that there are many
evils which were rampant a hundred years ago which
have to-day ceased to exist.
To both the optimistic and the pessimistic theory,
however, the most serious objection is that they are
alike untrue to human nature. Any view of History
which disregards human nature must be unjust. A
state cannot be considered apart from its members.
Its very existence depends upon their consent, its laws
and institutions are expressions of their will, and if the
policy of the state varies, that variation must be the
result of a variation in the ideas of the citizens. It is
true that the opinions of the citizens do not always, or
even normally, find immediate expression ; but it is also
true that no government, no law, no institution can
endure, no line of policy be long pursued, save with the
consent of the members of the state. No theory of
History which ignores the individual can supply the
true explanatory factor.
And the life of the individual is no record of persistent
progress or persistent deterioration. We escape from
THEORIES OF HISTORY u
the ignorance of childhood by sacrificing its innocence;
moral loss is the price paid for intellectual gain; " he
that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." Abso
lute progress and absolute deterioration are alike un
known. In any given course of action there is alike
good and evil; we have to balance the good and evil,
making our choice with such skill as we may. Our life
thus becomes a conflict; we are perpetually weighing
pros and cons, striving to choose the lesser of two evils,
often failing. This conflict is the determining factor
in the life of man. And since nations are but aggrega
tions of individuals, united in a certain special manner,
the determining factor in the life of nations also is
this same conflict. If the nature of that conflict can
be accurately determined, the factor explanatory of
History will be discovered.
There is nothing new in the conception of the life of
man, and of History, as a conflict. Those who have
recognised the falsity of the optimistic and pessimistic
theories have sometimes suggested that History is a
record of a struggle between the forces of progress and
those of reaction. But a question at once arises as to
the meaning of " progress " and " reaction," and this
question is often too arbitrarily answered. It is, for
example, frequently taken for granted that progress
has been made when political power is more widely
diffused, the argument being that greater liberty is thus
secured to the individual, and with greater liberty,
greater justice and greater happiness.
But the rule of the many may be as tyrannical as that
of a single man or as that of a section of the community.
Legislation which penalises the rich is not uncommon
where political power has been secured by a majority,
and such legislation is as unfair and as pernicious as any
legislation penalising the poor. In a debased democracy,
12 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
corruption and jobbery are at least as rife as in an
oligarchy or a tyranny. It may be doubted whether a
system under which legislation depends upon bribery,
open or concealed, is an advance upon a system under
which legislation depends upon the caprice of a despot
or the interest of a governing class. Yet in every case
where the legislative power is in the hands of men
dependent on the will of an electoral majority, bribery
is almost inevitable. In England to-day no sane man
believes the professions of disinterestedness put forward
by political candidates. No sane man believes that the
would-be M.P. kisses babies from love of those babies,
or subscribes his guinea to the funds of a local cricket
club from genuine interest in that club's welfare. The
kisses and the guinea, and the golden promises in the
election address, are all a form of bribery. The candi
date is concerned to persuade the electorate that they
will profit individually if they elect him. They know
that he wants something from them, and they hope to
be paid in some manner for giving him that something.
And as for the measures which he so vigorously supports
and condemns, it would be the height of absurdity to
imagine that the candidates, put forward by any political
party, sincerely believe their own assertions, or that they
hold all measures advocated by their side to be good,
all those advocated by their opponents to be bad.
In the days prior to the Reform Bill, votes were
bought openly, constituencies sold themselves to the
highest bidder. To-day the electorate is larger; open
bribery is forbidden by law, and is in any case too
expensive to be practised. Candidates are forced to
resort to indirect bribery. They pay the debts of
chapels in the constituency which they hope to re
present; they promise to patronise local tradesmen;
they entertain largely, not as candidates, but as holders
THEORIES OF HISTORY 13
of some municipal office. There is here a system of
indirect bribery, coupled with a large measure of hypo
crisy; and it is not easy to see that the new method
is any great advance upon the older and more direct.
Nor does the House of Commons at the present day
contain a better type of member than it did in the early
years of the nineteenth century. It is at least arguable
that it does not represent the true opinion of the country
any more thoroughly than it did prior to the Reform Act.
And a wider diffusion of political power may result,
and often has resulted, in anarchy. In such a case,
it is difficult to contend that progress has been made
from earlier conditions when, if power was in the hands
of a few, a settled government at least guaranteed
security of life and property. It is equally difficult to
contend that there has been any retrogression when
the anarchy is ended by the concentration of power
in the hands of one man or of a small minority. In
England during the Lancastrian period there is no doubt
that parliament had a far greater share in the govern
ment than it had possessed under Edward I or Edward
III. But if progress had therefore been made, it had
been made at the cost of good order; it had certainly
not increased either the happiness or the prosperity
of the people. Under the Tudors, the executive was
strengthened ; the powers which parliament had secured
under Henry IV were taken from it. Yet few will be
found to assert that the age of Henry VIII and Elizabeth
shows a deterioration from that of the Lancastrians.
In short, though a greater diffusion of political power
may be and often is a sign of progress, it is not so
invariably. On occasion the most real progress may
consist in a limitation of the share of the people in their
own government. The progress of one age may be the
reaction of the next; that which one man regards as
14 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
reaction may to another appear to be progress. It is,
perhaps, not too much to say that this must be so, that
progress and reaction are merely relative terms.
To describe History, therefore, as a record of a conflict
between the forces of progress and those of reaction
is in effect to say nothing. In every age there is both
advance and decline; there is also a constant conflict.
But the nature of that conflict has yet to be determined,
and it can be determined only by consideration of the
individual man. It is in the conflict which makes up
the life of the individual, which determines his conduct,
that the explanatory factor in History must be found.
For the life of the nation is in reality a replica of the life
of the individual, and that conflict which is found in the
life of each man will be found also in the life of each
state.
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 15
III
THE CONFLICT IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL
THOSE who have regarded the life of man as a conflict
would seem to have been led into error as to the nature
of that conflict. There is an apparent contrast between
the animal and spiritual sides of human nature, between
what are described as the higher and lower instincts.
And it has therefore been concluded that the conflict
is between these two sides of man's nature, between
instincts which are practically those of the brute beasts
and instincts which belong to a somewhat higher plane.
Theologians especially have insisted upon this conflict.
They have argued that in so far as man gives rein to his
physical passions, he sinks to the level of the brute;
that in so far as he restrains and masters those passions,
he raises himself towards the divine level. The re
straining motive is divine. If man does curb his natural
passions, his success is attributable to the grace of God
working in him. From this it follows that what may
be described as animal instincts are evil, what may be
described as truly human instincts are good. And the
conflict in each man is between the good and evil
instincts which alternately sway him.
Up to a certain point, all this is admittedly true. Man
assuredly should exercise some measure of restraint over
himself. If he does not do so, he certainly sinks below
the human level. But it is not in a struggle between
these two instincts that the true conflict which makes
up man's life is to be found.
16 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
In the first place, the so-called animal instincts are
not wholly evil. A man who had so curbed them that
they had become extinct would be only an imperfect
man; as Gibbon says, " The virtues of the clergy are
sometimes more dangerous than their vices." The end
to be desired is not extinction but reasonable restraint.
Nor are the animal and spiritual sides of man necessarily
in conflict with each other. It is frequently the case
that a man's intellect, all his alleged higher qualities,
are utilised to gratify his animal passions. And there
are many men in whom the animal instincts are so weak
that no real conflict can be said to exist.
But the most fundamental objection to this view of
the life of man is that it ignores the fact that man's
distinguishing characteristic is his possession of reason.
An individual may cease to use his reason, but at the
moment when this occurs, he practically ceases to be a
man ; he becomes a mere brute. And it is only on very
rare occasions that a man does allow his reasoning
faculties to become dormant. It is, therefore, in a
mental conflict that the struggle which makes up man's
life is really to be found. The conflict between reason
and passion is not a mental conflict. It is a contest
between the mind, that is, between the humanity of a
man, and instincts which are only quasi-human. Such
contests do not make up a man's life ; they occur only
when he has almost ceased for a while to be a man. The
real conflict is to be found in the mind, in those forms
of mental activity by which man is most profoundly
moved.
And of all the activities of the mind, religion and love
are certainly those by which a man is most profoundly
influenced. It has always been for religion and for
love that men have been most ready to die, to make
the most supreme sacrifices. If, therefore, it is possible
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 17
to discover the motives which determine a man's
attitude towards religion, which induce him to give
his love, it is possible also to discover the true nature
of that conflict which makes up his life.
It has been said that if God did not exist, it would be
necessary to create Him; in other words, mankind has
always experienced the need for guidance by some
higher power. Men shiink from the responsibility of
facing the problems of life unaided ; they would almost
rather submit to a despotism than assume the burden
of absolute private judgment. And there are many
who, feeling the littleness of man in comparison with
the immensity of the Universe, the brevity of human
life in face of eternity, are driven to seek consolation
in the belief that some deity orders their life and shapes
them for some greater destiny than existence for a few
short years on one small planet, whirling, they know
not whither, in the boundless realms of space.
Dogmatic religion owes its existence and its vitality
to man's realisation of his true insignificance. " What
is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man
that Thou so regardest him? " This is the keynote of
all religion. It cannot be that the Universe, that all
the wonders of nature, exist by some chance ; that man,
whose intellect even if developed to its highest capacity
still cannot comprehend a billion years, is the most
highly developed being. Rather it seems inevitable
that above and beyond all else there is a supreme Being,
a God, to Whom men must yield complete and unques
tioning obedience. And the peculiar gift of man is
that he can realise his limitations, realise that there is
One far above him, in Whom he " lives and moves and
has his being." Man does not lose, but gains by admit
ting his inferiority to God, by recognising the obligation
of obedience. He finds the perfection of his own nature
B
i8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
in the realisation of its limitations ; he is most truly man
when he accepts the guidance of that Being to Whom he
owes his very existence. God the Creator is worshipped
before God the Saviour ; the Deity Who guides us in this
life is more real and vital than the Deity Who is to give
us an existence when this world has passed away.
The reality of this desire for guidance, for control, is
seen especially in the vitality of the Roman Church.
The creed of that Church denies explicitly the right of
the individual to judge for himself, and in that very
denial lies its strength. Men feel that they cannot face
the problems of everyday life unaided, that they are
still less able to face the problems of eternity. And to
such the Catholic Church brings a message of great
comfort. " Only believe " has been that Church's
motto; " all things are possible to him that believeth."
Here is the solution of every difficulty which might
trouble the mind of man ; all can cast themselves on the
Church, and the Church will guard and guide them. The
desire to be controlled, to submit, is gratified to the
fullest extent.
And only in so far as a Church gratifies this desire
can it have vitality. In the sixteenth century, the right
of private judgment was asserted; men were bidden to
cast away the shackles of authority, to choose for them
selves. New Churches arose, and in them the law of
liberty was to prevail. Yet it was not long before the
very opponents of authority themselves asserted the
right to guide. Calvin was hardly less dictatorial than
the Pope whom he attacked; Protestants have coerced
the heretical as readily as have Catholics. Such was
the necessity of the case. Those who became Lutherans
or Calvinists were not less desirous of guidance than
those who held to Rome. If denied that guidance, they
would have drifted back to the Church from which they
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 19
had parted. Dogmatic religion must gratify the desire
to be ruled.
At the same time, there have always been some who
have prized the right of private judgment above all
things, who have resented even divine interference
with their absolute liberty of thought and action. The
mythology of all nations bears witness to the permanence
of this desire for freedom. It led Eve to eat of the Tree
of Knowledge; it led Prometheus to snatch fire from
the sun. And when we pass from the age of myth to
that of History, the basic force in all resistance to an
organised Church, the origin of all heresy, has been the
reluctance of the individual to surrender his freedom
of thought. He desires to be equal to his spiritual
guides, to be equal even to the Deity; he seeks to be
master of his own fate. It is for this reason that the
doctrine of transubstantiation has always been selected
for attack by the enemies of the Catholic Church.
That doctrine places the priest in a position far superior
to that of any of his flock; they may be powerful in
this world, but Tie alone can perform the daily miracle
of the Mass. Those who would assert their freedom,
who would refuse obedience, are forced to deny first of
all the exceptional position of the priesthood. Only so
can they justify their demand to be allowed to judge
for themselves; only so can they satisfy their desire
to rule.
Irreligion is no more than the expression of that
desire. Those men are irreligious who do not feel the
need for guidance from without. They prefer rathei
to rely upon themselves and to fall into error, than to
surrender their intellectual liberty and be led along the
right path. To them it seems better to die in a state
of mental freedom than to live in a state of mental
servitude. They aspire to be as God; they find a
20 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
certain inspiration in the thought that if they fall they
fall in battle against an almighty power ; that if they die,
they at least die free.
When, therefore, man approaches the consideration
of religion, he is faced with two logical alternatives.
He may render that complete submission which Catholi
cism demands, or he may assert that complete indepen
dence which Agnosticism claims. Anything short of
complete submission or complete independence is a
compromise, and as such lacks both combative force
and vitality. Protestantism has succeeded just in so
far as it has partaken of Catholicism. The negations
of Luther would not have secured the permanence of
his protest; it was the dogmatism of Calvin which in
reality prevented the complete triumph of the Counter-
Reformation.
And it is indeed clear that no Church can accept the
logical outcome of the right of private judgment. If
it did so, it would fall forthwith into a state of anarchy
and its extinction would be inevitable. Lutherans,
Zwinglians, Calvinists were alike forced to become
illogical. Denying on the one hand the authority of the
Catholic Church, they on the other hand asserted the
authority of the Bible, of the Bible as interpreted at
Wittenberg, Zurich or Geneva. And only by gratifying
in this way the desire to be ruled, did Protestantism
maintain its existence ; only, that is, by ceasing to admit
that right of private judgment which had been the
watchword of the original resistance to Catholicism.
The fact is that Catholicism is one logical position;
the only logical alternative to it is Agnosticism. The
one position gratifies the desire to be ruled to the fullest
extent; the other gratifies the desire to rule. There
never has been, and, unless human nature changes
entirely, there never can be a time when the whole race
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 21
either accepts or rejects dogmatic religion. There must
always be revolt against mental servitude; the right
of private judgment must always find its champions.
And yet it is, perhaps, those who assert this right most
emphatically who are also most prone to seek relief
from the responsibility which they have assumed. In
other words, men waver between their desire for external
guidance and their desire for freedom from all control,
and because they so waver Catholicism and Agnosticism
must always exist, gratifying as they do two deep and
enduring desires.
It is probable also that between these two there will
always lie a body of uncertain opinion. Those who are
passing from one extreme to the other rest for a time
in an illogical via media ; the success of the Anglican
Church is evidence of the large number of men who
are passing through the transitional stage. Yet the
tendency in members of such Churches will be to move
in either one direction or the other; some will approxi
mate more and more to Catholicism, others to Agnosti
cism. And it may be noted that Anglican ecclesiastics
themselves readily admit that a very large percentage
of the professed adherents of their Church are in fact
" indifferent," that is, are in reality Agnostics. This
is exactly what might be expected. A middle course
satisfies neither the desire to be ruled nor the desire to
rule; it is, therefore, less able to command devoted
support than Catholicism or Agnosticism. It is hardly
too much to say that in reality the world is divided
between the two logical opinions; that many are un
conscious Catholics or unconscious Agnostics, while
professing allegiance to some middle Church.
A consideration of religion, therefore, brings to light
a definite mental conflict in the mind of mankind. That
conflict is between the desire to rule and the desire to
22 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
be ruled, and the attitude which any individual adopts
is determined by the degree to which he seeks or rejects
external guidance. And whenever one desire has been
fully gratified, almost before it has been so gratified, a
natural reaction sets in. It is well known that the
convinced Agnostic is not unreadily converted to Catholi
cism ; the most sturdy rebel is liable to become the most
devoted subject. Recent converts have always tended
to become the most violent of persecutors. And it is
equally true that the convinced Catholic tends to revert
to Agnosticism. Those revolts against Catholicism,
which have attained the largest measure of success,
have in general been led by men once devoted adherents
of the Church which they afterwards laboured to destroy.
The reaction when it occurs is violent. Men turn from
one extreme to the other, the human intellect failing
to grasp and hold fast the golden mean of moderation.
As religion is one of the great mental activities of man,
so love is certainly another. By that emotion, whether
existing between the sexes or between members of the
same sex, the mind is profoundly moved. And if the
determining factor in human life is to be discovered,
the means by which man is influenced to give or to with
hold love must be discovered first.
Yet this quest may well appear to be hopeless. The
sentiment of love seems to be too elusive, too un
reasoning, to be brought under any rules. It arises
without adequate cause, endures when every argument
opposes its endurance, ceases as inexplicably as it
begins. It resembles a disease; it defies all attempts at
analysis. And in a measure it is physical rather than
mental; the product not of the brain but of that vague
something which, for want of a better word, men call
" heart." Only those who have never loved, it may
seem, would attempt anything so impossible as to ex-
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 23
plain what love is, how it comes into being, by what
means it is either maintained or destroyed.
But it will also be admitted that there is a certain
kinship between love and religion. In early times, love
was constantly deified; Christianity itself asserts that
" God is love." A man's devotion to his mistress may
be unreasoning, unquestioning, blind. Yet it is little
more unreasonable than the pietist's devotion to his
Deity. Indeed, the popularity of the worship of god
desses, the introduction of sex into the religion of most,
if not all, races, almost suggests that men and women
have often found in their religion the satisfaction of
their natural craving for love. And the existence of
this community between the two emotions makes it
possible, if not probable, that the motives which govern
a man's attitude towards religion govern also his
attitude towards love. In other words, there may be
in love the same conflict between the desire to be ruled
and the desire to rule.
On the one hand, a man desires to submit his will
to some external guidance. He may find that guidance
in some conception of a Deity. But there are some
who need more obvious, more palpable guidance than
that afforded by an unseen being. Their faith is weak;
they long to touch and handle the being to whom they
will submit. In such cases, a man inclines to deliver
himself over to the control of another human being,
whether of his own or of the opposite sex. He finds
that peace and happiness, which is the goal of his
desires, in obeying the lightest wish of some other
mortal. For him love takes the place of religion, and his
devotion to his deity is possibly the more real because
he feels that his god is a being of like passions with
himself.
Or again, the assertion of the right of private judg-
*4 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
ment towards the Deity is not enough to gratify man's
desire to rule. Even if the very existence of God be
denied the longing is still unsatisfied, since men wish
to have authority over some being that they can see.
They long to feel that their assertion of independence
is against some one who would control them; they long
to compel obedience from some other mortal. And in
love they find the desired subject; they find scope for
the exercise of their power, whether positively, that is,
by compelling obedience, or negatively, that is, by re
fusing to obey.
It is well known that love between husband and wife
has greater strength than love between brother and
sister. This may be attributed to the fact that in the
former instance the sense of possession is more fully
gratified. There is a feeling of certainty which cannot
exist so long as it is realised that at any time possession
may cease. In other words, the more fully an object
is possessed, the more fully will the desire to be ruled
and to rule be gratified. And even in the case of physical
love, the determining factor is the sentiment of posses
sion, except perhaps in the case of merely transient
passion which cannot justly be regarded as love at all.
A man desires to possess, to control some beautiful
object; or he desires to be enslaved by that object.
There is still the same root motive, the desire to be ruled
or to rule. And the only difference between the more
physical and the more mental forms of love is that the
exciting cause of the emotion is in one case the body and
in the other the mind. It matters little whether it is
the contemplation of a beautiful form or of a beautiful
nature which serves to arouse the desire to be controlled,
or the desire to control.
The origin of love, then, is to be found in the contact
of two natures, which happen for the time being to
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 25
•satisfy the dominant desire in each other. One seeks
to be ruled, the other seeks to rule : the would-be ruler
finds a suitable subject, the would-be subject a suitable
ruler; and love results. The emotion is also naturally
fickle. The gratification of any desire leads to satiety.
Men weary of being ruled or of ruling; they turn from
the person who has fully gratified the one desire to find
a person who will fully gratify the contrary desire. It
has been generally recognised that complete identity
of tastes and of opinions is as unsatisfactory a basis
for love as is complete dissimilarity. Constant friction
will certainly destroy affection; a complete absence of
friction will destroy it almost as readily. Love, indeed,
is only enduring in those rare instances where two
natures are so attuned to each other that satiety occurs
simultaneously in each case, when the one who has been
ruling wearies of rule at precisely the moment when the
one who has been ruled wearies of subjection.
Alike in religion and in love, then, there is a perpetual
conflict between the desire to be ruled and the desire
to rule. This conflict makes up the life of man; his
conduct is determined by the predominance of one or
other of these two desires. Men are met by the necessity
of making a choice. They may seek that peace which
is born of submission to external guidance, or they may
seek the satisfaction to be derived from consciousness
of mental independence. But the peace secured by
submission tends to become irksome; the stress in
volved in the constant exercise of private judgment
grows wearisome. Upon the gratification of either
desire, a natural reaction ensues. Those who have
given implicit obedience turn hastily to the other
extreme and refuse to give any obedience at all. Those
who have ordered their lives without external aid are
eventually oppressed by the weight of responsibility
26 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
which they have assumed, and seek relief in complete
subjection.
The reaction from one course to the other is often
startlingly rapid. A man who has surrendered his will
to the guidance of a Church or of an individual suddenly
finds that the degree of submissiveness demanded is
more than he can give. At once, he begins to question
the perfection of his guide; no sooner is that question
asked than faith in the guide is weakened, and the revolt
which thus begins will be the more violent in proportion
as the submission was the more complete. Or again,
a man who has prided himself on his independence, who
has scorned even divine guidance, is often moved by
some great calamity to abandon entirely the right which
he once so zealously asserted. Faced by some insoluble
problem, a man naturally seeks advice; brought into
conflict with the untamed forces of nature, he finds his
only hope of safety in an appeal to the Deity, Whose
very existence he has perhaps denied. And if it be,
as it so often is, that he secures real or apparent relief
from his appeal for help, he is led to surrender entirely
that independence in which he formerly found satisfac
tion if not content.
But the reaction may also be gradual. Many a man
has fallen little by little under the control of some
external power, hardly realising that he has surrendered
anything of his original independence, until he has
already fallen into a position of servitude. The process
of conversion to belief in a particular creed is constantly
extremely slow; the habit of reliance upon the judgment
of others develops insensibly. And the converse is
equally true. Those who have been devoted members
of the Church come gradually to neglect that Church's
commands, until at last they find that what was once
all-important has sunk into a mere form. Children
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 27
slowly learn to free themselves from the control of their
parents. Those, who are no longer children, insensibly
emancipate themselves from the guidance of some once
trusted friend.
Whether, however, the reaction be rapid or gradual,
it is not the less inevitable. Men seek happiness per
petually; they never attain it. To the generality of
mankind, perfect happiness appears to lie in the mean
between the two extremes, in a judicious combina
tion of submission and liberty. The submission should
not become servitude; the liberty should not become
anarchy. To accept direction is in some cases mani
festly wise ; to assert independence of thought and action
is in some cases also wise. But human nature is im
perfect, nor do men succeed in maintaining so exact
a balance between the gratification of the two desires.
A man who has suffered from submission tends to refuse
all submission. A man who has unwisely rejected
direction tends to distrust his own judgment in all
things. We hasten from one extreme to the other;
our life remains a never-ending conflict.
And that conflict is intensified by the fact that there
are never wanting some who advocate extreme courses.
Believing that while human nature remains what it is,
its imperfection renders the search for happiness vain,
they seek to modify human nature. They look for
such modification through the medium of the complete
gratification of one or other of the two desires. Some
trust that the most complete assertion of independence
will produce the wished-for result; they attribute all
unhappiness to men's lack of confidence in their own
judgment. Others believe that happiness is to be found
in complete resignation of their own will to that of the
Deity, that the extreme of self-abnegation will root
out the seeds of misery, misery being no more than the
a8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
result of man's failure to accept the all- wise guidance
of his Father in Heaven. And thus every man, who has
experienced sorrow as the result of submission or of
assertion of independence, finds at least some among
his fellow-men ready to encourage him to pursue that
extreme reaction to which his very nature inclines him.
But whether or no an eventual change in human
nature may be effected, while it remains as it is, neither
desire can ever secure a complete victory. The extreme
of submission and the extreme of independence alike
weary men. A passionate courtship rarely, if ever,
culminates in a happy marriage. A convinced Agnostic
is never unlikely to be converted to Catholicism. There
is nothing stable in the life of man ; the search for happi
ness never ceases because it is never successful; death
overtakes each one of us still vainly struggling to find
perfect content.
Special stress has been laid upon the existence of this
conflict in religion and in love, since they are the two
great mental activities of man, since by them man is
most profoundly moved. But the same conflict of
desire appears in every relation of life. Men offer a
more or less instinctive opposition to whatever hampers
their freedom of action; even the most sober-minded
feel occasionally that " stolen waters are sweet, and
bread eaten in secret is pleasant." To forbid trespass is
often to induce it; the defrauding of a public body is
almost universally regarded as venial. There is probably
no one who has never felt a desire to free himself from
the cramping fetters in which society holds him, who
has not, that is, desired complete independence.
Nor isthe longing to live in a state of anarchy restrained
solely by acquired habits of submission or by a fear of
pains and penalties. Obedience is often the outcome
not of compulsion, but of inclination. There is no
CONFLICT IN LIFE OF INDIVIDUAL 29
reason for supposing that immunity from punishment
would in all cases produce crime. It is rather true that
men at times delight in the surrender of their self-will.
And since the conflict of desire is perpetual, since man
is, as it were, in a constant state of reaction from one
extreme to the other, his attitude is frequently incon
sistent. A man who loyally obeys a Church is not
necessarily also controlled by his wife; one whose
public life is marked by independence of attitude may
well be most subservient in his private life. But though
this is the case, it is also true that at any given moment
a man is tending either towards a more complete sur
render of his will to the guidance of others, or towards
a more complete assertion of his independence. He is
constantly moving towards one extreme or the other,
and the inconsistency which appears is due mainly to
divergence between his public and his private life. His
attitude towards each tends to become the same. If he
is an advocate of complete submission to a Church, he
will probably tend also to be guided more readily by his
friends. But though the tendency is towards assimila
tion, it is also true that at any given moment the
divergence may be great.
To each desire, indeed, there is a dual aspect. Many,
who are content to submit to external authority in all
their relations with others, insist upon their independence
of thought. Others, believing that content of mind
can be attained only by submitting their very thoughts
to direction, are reluctant to exercise their private
judgment in any relation of life. And the dual character
of the two emotions is seen even more clearly in the
desire to rule. Men wish to determine their opinions
without regard for others. But action is the expression
of opinion; without action, opinion seems hardly to
exist. And since the life of an individual can never
30 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
be entirely isolated from the lives of other individuals,
no sooner does action begin to correspond with opinion
than men are brought into contact or into conflict with
their fellows. A man's desire to rule himself develops
into a desire to rule others; to the internal aspect of the
desire, an external aspect is added.
Finally, the conflict of desire is largely sub-conscious.
It is not to be supposed that men are always, or even
generally, aware of the real motives for their conduct.
That conduct seems to be irrational, determined by
trivial causes, as often as not traceable to no particular
cause. But the true motive is always the conflict of
desire. Men are able to detect this fact in others ; they
are often inclined to ignore or to deny its existence in
their own case. A Catholic will easily attribute the
attitude of the Agnostic to his wish to be even as God;
he will with more difficulty appreciate the fact that his
own conduct is determined by his longing for guidance.
The Agnostic will be equally alive to the fact that the
Catholic is prone to submission; it will not be so clear
to him that he himself glories in his sense of revolt.
But it is only in accord with human nature that men
should be more able to detect the motives and the
faults of others than to analyse correctly their own con
duct. They are not the less swayed by the conflict of
these two desires because they are unconscious of the
fact.
THE CONFLICT IN THE NATION 31
IV
THE CONFLICT IN THE NATION
WHATEVER view may be taken of the origin of society,
whatever character may be assigned to the state, it is
certainly true that all states are aggregations of indi
viduals. And since this is so, the conduct of states is
ultimately regulated by that factor which regulates the
conduct of individuals. History, the record of a nation's
life, is, then, also the record of a conflict between the
desire to be ruled and the desire to rule. Every state,
like every individual, enters upon the search for happi
ness, and in that search is driven to make its choice
between the alternatives of submission and inde
pendence.
That choice has to be made both in the settlement of
the internal organisations of the state and that of its
external relations. At home, the alternatives are self-
government and despotism; abroad, splendid isolation
and inclusion in a commonwealth of nations. There is
certainly the mean between the two extremes, but that
mean is the ideal, and as the individual fails to secure
the ideal, so the aggregation of individuals fails. All
states search vainly for the perfection of happiness;
no state has achieved that perfection. They are fore
doomed to failure by reason of the very fact that they
are aggregations of human beings, because human nature
is in its essence imperfect.
For this reason, the internal history of any state is
32 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
characterised by a constant rearrangement of the balance
of political power. That rearrangement may be almost
insensible, as it has been in England; it may be rapid,
the outcome of violent revolution, as it has been in
France. But whether it be gradual or sudden, it is none
the less always occurring. If at any given time a state
is a despotism, there is present in it a tendency towards
a wider diffusion of political power. The executive will
be gradually weakened, until at last it has become so
weak that it can no longer perform its original function
of maintaining order, and anarchy supervenes. From
this state of anarchy, there will be a necessary reversion
towards despotism, and so the life of nations proceeds
in a never-ending cycle. Like individuals, states pass
from extreme to extreme. Convinced of the evils of
despotism, they seek refuge in anarchy; weary of
anarchy, they look for relief in despotism. The convic
tion that one system of government is bad produces a
more or less violent reaction towards its antithesis. And
though perhaps aware that happiness lies in the mean,
nations are as unable as individuals to secure that
mean.
History abounds with obvious illustrations of the
working of this law. Under the ancien regime, France
experienced all the calamities attendant upon the
possession of unfettered power by a single individual.
The Revolution occurred, and jealousy of the executive
served to produce anarch}'. From that anarchy, from
the evils attendant on the lack of all settled government,
the country was rescued by Napoleon. But he estab
lished an absolutism probably more real and more
complete than that which had been destroyed by the
men of 1789. In the period which elapsed between the
meeting of the States-General and the establishment of
the Empire, France passed rapidly from one extreme
THE CONFLICT IN THE NATION 33
to the other and back again to the starting-point. There
are possibly few examples of equally rapid changes,
but in reality France merely crowded into a few years
the inevitable experience of many.
In the external relations of states, the same process
is observed. Choice has to be made between the
acceptance or refusal of inclusion in a corporation of
nations. On the one hand, a state may recognise its
obligations to consider not merely its own interest, but
also that of the world at large. On the other hand, it
may deny this obligation. When the disadvantages
of international entanglements are experienced, an
isolated attitude is adopted ; when the peril of isolation
is realised, safety is sought in some alliance, and the
advantages of inclusion in a corporation of states are
once more appreciated. Here, as in internal policy,
the problem is to choose between two ideals, between
that submission which will give peace and that inde
pendence which will prevent the action of the state from
being hampered by considerations alien to it.
It is this persistent conflict which makes up History.
Nations seek happiness and in doing so fly to extremes;
experiencing the evil of one extreme, they turn to the
other. The apparent triumph of one desire is rather
anticipated than followed by a reaction in favour of the
gratification of the contrary desire. History is a record
of oscillation, of a vain and unending search for political
happiness. The explanatory factor in History, the
factor which reveals the true motive for the conduct
of nations, is to be found in the recognition of this
conflict between the desire to be ruled and the desire
to rule.
If a term be sought to describe this desire to be
ruled, it may at first sight appear to be found either in
" Cosmopolitanism " or " Socialism." But there are
c
34 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
objections to the employment of either of these two
terms, objections which become apparent when the im
plications of the two terms are considered and compared
with the implications of the phrase " the desire to be
ruled."
Cosmopolitanism is the term applied to a certain
attitude adopted by the members of one state towards
the members of other states. It suggests a breaking
down of the barriers between nations. The interest of
any given state is subordinated to that of the world at
large. Questions even of national honour are to be
submitted to some arbiter, since the sacrifice of the
individual community is preferable to the infliction of
distress upon many peoples.
All this will be the outcome also of the gratification
of the desire to be ruled, since the corporate nature of
human society is regarded as axiomatic. But the term
" Cosmopolitanism " suggests no special relationship
between the government of a particular state and the
citizens of that state. It is concerned only with external
relations. On the other hand, the gratification of the
desire to be ruled does involve a very definite relation
ship between ruler and subject; it implies the complete
subordination of the individual.
To the use of the term " Socialism " there are even
more serious objections. Above all, Socialism has
become a word used in current political controversy,
and suffering the fate of all such words has acquired a
sinister meaning to some, a specialised meaning to others.
As used generally to-day, it contains the idea not only
of the subordination of the individual to the community,
but also that of resistance to the arbitrary government
of a single man. It suggests a particular economic
policy; it upholds the superior political right of one
section of the productive community.
THE CONFLICT IN THE NATION 35
But the desire to be ruled, though it may be gratified
under an oligarchy or under a democracy, may be and
has been equally gratified under a despotism. And
though the desire to be ruled does not preclude the
organisation of society upon a collectivist basis, neither
does it preclude the organisation of society upon a
capitalistic basis.
There is no doubt that a state, in which the desire to
be ruled holds sway, will tend to be cosmopolitan in its
attitude towards external affairs, and socialistic in its
attitude towards internal affairs. But much is implied
by " Socialism " which does not necessarily result from
the desire to be ruled; much results from the desire to
be ruled which is not implied by " Cosmopolitanism."
No term in general use, indeed, exactly connotes the
desire to be ruled, and for this reason a term, " Uni-
versalism," may be used in an arbitrary sense to cover
all that is implied by the desire to be ruled.
Universalism has an external and in internal aspect.
Externally, it implies the subordination of the interest
of any particular state to that of the world at large. All
nations are regarded as members of one corporation;
they recognise some common superior. That superior
may be definite or indefinite. In the Middle Ages, it
was found in the Holy Roman Emperor or in the Pope;
more recently, it has been found in international law
or in the Hague Tribunal. The degree of intimacy in the
relationship of state with state will vary directly with
the authority of the recognised superior. But to that
superior some ultimate obedience must be paid, even if
it be at the cost of some limitation of national indepen
dence. And since nations are at least united in a species
of loose confederation, the arbitrament of war will tend
to be replaced by the arbitrament of some individual
or of some tribunal, war being nothing more than the
36 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
result of the pursuit by a state of its own interests with
out regard to the interests of humanity in general.
Internally, Universalism implies the subordination
of the individual to the community. The province of
government will be extended. Education and the con
ditions of labour will be the care of the state. Pushed
to its logical extreme, Universalism will entrust the
ruler with the direction of the most private activities of
his subjects. Government will tend towards despotism;
liberty will be valued less highly than the complete
organisation of civic life.
The despotism, however, will not necessarily be that
of a single man. Universalism really implies the
possession of absolute power by the state, which may
find its embodiment in one man, or in the few, or in the
many. The truly necessary implication in the theory
is the wide extension of the province of government;
there is no necessary implication as to the form of that
government. The universalist has no preconceived ideas
as to the organisation of the executive or legislative
power; he demands only that the individual should be
controlled by the community, and that the interest of
all should be considered as in every case of paramount
importance.
As a term has been created to cover all that is implied
by the desire to be ruled, so a term must be created to
cover all that is implied by the desire to rule. Those
who would gratify this desire insist upon the importance
of the individual state as against the whole human race,
of the individual citizen as against the whole community.
And the desire to rule may therefore be described as
" Individualism." But it must be observed that the
term is used in an arbitrary sense to connote ideas which
it does not normally connote. It covers not only the
relations of citizens with the community, but also the
THE CONFLICT IN THE NATION 37
relations of communities with one another. Like Uni-
versalism, Individualism has an external and an internal
aspect.
Viewed in its external aspect, Individualism implies
the adoption by a state of an entirely independent
attitude towards other states. Nations are " in a state
of nature." They deny, or at least disregard, the cor
porate character of human society; they assert their
own sovereign power; they recognise no common
superior. They will make peace and war as seems best
in their own eyes. International law will be observed
only in so far as it seems to accord with the private
interests of a particular state. If alliances are made at
all, they will be as between equals, involving no sacrifice
of ultimate liberty of action. Even the idea of such an
alliance is perhaps antipathetic to the truly individualist
state, since any alliance imposes some external obligation
upon the contracting parties.
Internally, Individualism implies the restriction of the
province of government within the narrowest possible
limits. The citizens will be left free to order their own
lives. Logically, education and the conditions of labour
should not be regulated by the state. If a man desires
to live in complete ignorance, if he wishes to sell himself
into slavery, the state should not interpose its veto.
Only if the liberty of the individual threatens the
dissolution of the commonwealth, will the interference
of government be justifiable.
There are, indeed, some individualists who hold that
in no circumstances should the citizen be coerced. They
preach a creed of anarchy. But inasmuch as anarchy
clearly destroys all state-organisation, it may be dis
regarded. The vast majority of mankind, differing
widely as to the true limits of the province of govern
ment, are yet agreed in believing that some government
38 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
is necessary, and therefore that there must be some
coercion of the individual. The real dispute is as to
whether that coercion should be applied only when it is
absolutely unavoidable, or should be the rule rather than
the exception. The individualist practically holds that
coercion by the state is a necessary evil, justifiable only
in the last resort.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 39
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE CONFLICT
HISTORY would be a far simpler subject, far more
readily understood, if nations adopted at any given
time a consistently universalist or consistently indi
vidualist attitude. But in actual fact, nations are as
inconsistent as individuals; their conduct is as wavering.
Such, indeed, must be the case, since they are aggrega
tions of human beings. And so it is frequently, almost
always, the case that a state which is universalist in
one aspect is individualist in the other. An extension
of governmental authority at home is normally coupled
with the adoption of an independent foreign policy;
the admission of obligations towards foreign states is
normally accompanied by an assertion of the rights of
the individual citizen as against the community.
The most perfect example of internal Universalism
is possibly afforded by a complete despotism, but it is
abundantly proved that such a despotism is very far
from generally admitting any external control of its
policy. During the Middle Ages, when the theory of
the universal sovereignty of the Emperor or of the Pope
was most widely admitted, the internal organisation of
states was generally individualist in character. The
central government was too weak to meddle with the
course of life in the districts under its nominal control,
and the citizen was left very largely to provide for his
own safety. And when resistance to the claims of
Emperor or Pope began, it came first from those states
which at home had become universalist. As the power
40 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
of the central government in any country was increased,
as the sphere of that government was extended, so
obedience was more and more reluctantly accorded to
the external power, the corporate character of human
society was more and more disregarded. The last
traces of the old mediseval conception of the unity of
Christendom were destroyed in England by Henry VIII
and Elizabeth, by the very sovereigns who most widely
extended the limits of state interference at home. The
Act of Supremacy was followed by the Poor Law and
the Act of Apprentices.
It is also often the case that the party in a state which
most zealously champions the rights of the individual is
also most eager to submit all external disputes to some
arbiter. The members of the Peace Society in the
Victorian age were recruited mainly from sturdy indi
vidualists who objected even to such apparently neces
sary interference as was seen in the Factory Acts. And
in the past, the churchmen who preached the doctrine
of the universal supremacy of the Pope asserted with
equal vigour their own individual rights ; Becket stood
quite as much for his own liberty of action as for the
abstract principle of the freedom of the Church from all
secular control.
At the same time, there is always in every state a body
of opinion favouring the acceptance of Universalism or
of Individualism to the fullest extent. The gratifica
tion of the desire to be ruled in one aspect produces a
general spirit of submissiveness ; the gratification of the
desire to rule produces a general spirit of independence.
Peoples who have cast off a foreign yoke tend to organise
their government upon a popular basis. Switzerland,
the Dutch Republic, and the United States are instances
of the internal result of a war of liberation. When an
internal despotism has been destroyed, there is an
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 41
immediate tendency towards self-assertion as against
foreign states; a struggle for mere independence is not
infrequently followed by a war of aggression abroad.
The history of France after 1789 supplies the most
remarkable instance of this fact; other examples may
be discovered in the case of Sweden under the Vasas
or in that of the Dutch Republic after the final deliver
ance from Spain.
It seems to be equally true that a despotism is on the
whole ultimately less able to resist foreign aggression.
The despotism exists only by reason of the prevalence
of the desire to be ruled. Where that desire has attained
ascendancy, though the government may pursue an
independent policy, the people tend to be indifferent,
careless whether or no they fall under the foreign yoke.
The cities of Greece which had successfully resisted
the Persian invaders accepted the Peace of Antalcidas
after their spirit had been crushed by Lacedaemonian
harmosts. The Italian republics which had defeated
Frederic Barbarossa at Legnano offered little opposition
to the Valois and the Habsburgs after they had fallen
under princely government. The opposition to French
aggression, whether under the Bourbons or after the
Revolution, came generally from those states which
had rejected internal Universalism.
Every state, therefore, tends to become wholly
universalist or wholly individualist. But it never
actually reaches the logical conclusion. The extreme
of Universalism is despotism at home and subjection
abroad; the extreme of individualism is anarchy at
home and unceasing war abroad. The evils of these
extremes are obvious ; they are in general soon realised,
so that no sooner does the state approach the complete
gratification of one desire than a reaction begins in
favour of the gratification of the contrary desire. The
42 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
nearer a nation has approached to complete Universalism
the more violent will be the reaction towards complete
Individualism; the nearer a state has approached to
anarchy the more thorough will be that despotism by
which the anarchy will eventually be subdued.
The history of France strikingly exemplifies this truth.
Louis XIV could declare with considerable justification,
" L'etat, c'est moi"; he aspired to acquire an ascend
ancy over Europe, and France seemed to be wedded to
the idea of internal Universalism. The reaction, which
set in during the reigri of Louis XV, culminated in the
Revolution. The absolute monarchy was replaced by
an executive so weak as to be unable to curb the most
exaggerated licence. The policy of armed aggression
was for a moment abandoned; instead, an altruistic
crusade was undertaken to deliver all nations striving
to be free. The violence of the French Revolution was,
in short, proportionate to the completeness of the
despotism which it shattered. And an interesting
contrast is afforded by the English Revolution of 1688.
Then it was not necessary to overthrow an established
system ; it was merely necessary to prevent the modifica
tion of that system into an absolutism. Consequently
the Revolution of 1688 was orderly and calm, unattended
by any of those excesses which a century later heralded
the birth of the new France.
In all countries and at all times two tendencies are at
work ; the gratification of one desire inevitably produces
a reaction towards the gratification of the contrary desire.
At any given moment one desire is more powerful than
the other. But as one attains the mastery, that mastery
is undermined by the appearance of the other. In the
interplay of these two desires the conflict which consti
tutes History is found, the secular conflict between
Universalism and Individualism.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 43
As individuals seem to oppose instinctively whatever
hampers their entire freedom of action, so states are
moved to seek complete liberty. They chafe at the
limitation of that liberty by treaties, regarding any
advantages which may be derived from the acceptance
of some obligation as being more than counterbalanced
by the evil of a certain measure of external control.
They are restless under the curb of international law.
They are reluctant to subordinate their own interest
to that of the generality of mankind. They desire to
rule. And those sacrifices which are commonly de
scribed as having been made in the cause of national
prestige or of national self-sufficiency have in reality
been made at the call of Individualism.
The conduct of nations, however, is often actuated by
the desire to be ruled. One of the most remarkable
phenomena in the internal history of all countries is the
fact that no strong government has yet had to face
a revolution. The Stuart and Bourbon monarchies
had become weak before they were seriously attacked;
Metternich was successful until he lost his grip of
affairs; the strength of the Empress Dowager long post
poned a probably inevitable outbreak in China; Abdul
Hamid was secure on his throne till premature old age
crept upon him. Even tyranny secures voluntary and
disinterested support, if that tyranny is not merely
the capricious assertion of authority by a power con
scious of its real weakness. An absolutism begins to
tremble on that day on which it learns to pardon; the
worst crime in a despot is a readiness to make amends.
Amiability has frequently been the salient characteristic
of rulers who have met their death at the hands of
a revolutionary mob, or who have experienced the
destruction of their absolute power. Louis XVI was
essentially virtuous and essentially weak; he paid the
44 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
penalty of weakness. At the present day, Nicholas II
is certainly inspired by a sincere zeal for reform ; during
his reign the autocracy of the Tsar has been impaired
and the very existence of Tsardom has been imperilled.
Nor can the ready obedience given to strong government
be explained by Rousseau's dictum that " a slave loses
everything in his bonds, even the wish to escape from
them " ; it is too widespread, too permanent.
This inclination to obey is not confined to the sphere
of internal politics. In the Middle Ages, nations sub
mitted to many inconveniences rather than sacrifice
their ideal of a united Christendom. Even in the
midst of the Becket controversy, Henry II shrank from
joining Frederic Barbarossa in the recognition of an
anti-pope. The ending of the Great Schism was wel
comed throughout Europe, even though it was clear
enough that a pope with an undisputed title would be
better able to check the growing liberty of national
Churches than a pope with a rival at Avignon. After
1815, even England only broke with reluctance from the
Quadruple Alliance, and Alexander I was ready to risk
his throne and life rather than disturb the concert of
Europe by independent action in the Eastern Question.
More recently, the strength of the wish for that concert
of Europe has been illustrated in the policy adopted by
the great powers towards the Balkan problem. It is,
indeed, a fact that the desire to be ruled is a sentiment
ingrained in mankind, and therefore ever-present in
nations, no less than the desire to rule.
Whether the relations of state with state, or of the
state with its members, be considered, it will be found
that Universalism and Individualism always have their
advocates. There will always be some eager to limit,
some eager to extend the province of government.
While some will always be ready to sacrifice everything
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 45
in the cause of national independence, some will always
find that independence too dearly purchased at the
cost of even the most moderate defensive precautions.
Liberty and subjection each gratify one side of human
nature. If men glory in freedom, they glory also in
self-abnegation. The conflict of desire is secular.
And the intensity of that conflict is increased because
the gratification of either desire can be readily justified.
Some subordination of private interest to the public
good is essential ; only an extreme anarchist will contend
that murder and theft should go unpunished. If the
state is to exist at all, it must exist to perform certain
functions, and even if those functions are restricted
to the mere safeguarding of life, limb and property,
their performance will yet destroy the absolute liberty
of the individual. But if it be once admitted that some
state interference is not only legitimate but actually
necessary, it can be claimed that the limits of such
interference are indefinable. The universalist can
accuse his critics of attempting to draw an arbitrary
distinction between liberty and licence.
And the same accusation can be brought against
the universalist himself. There is probably no one
who believes that the state is able to deal with every
conceivable circumstance, who denies that something
must be left to private effort. If citizenship is not to
degenerate into servitude, a certain liberty must be
allowed to the individual; even Hobbes left him the
right of self-preservation. But the term " self-preserva
tion " is susceptible of widely different interpretations.
To some it may connote the bare right to exist; to
others, the right to an existence in which the highest
faculties can be developed. The universalist, therefore,
may be charged with drawing an arbitrary distinction
when he attempts to define the degree to which the
46 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
state is bound to respect the passions and prejudices
of its members.
The gratification of either desire can thus be defended
on the ground of necessity. It can be defended also
on the ground of intrinsic excellence. Universalism
regards all nations as members of one corporation ; they
must unite to promote the general well-being of mankind.
Altruism becomes the guiding principle in international
politics. And from the citizens of each state a like
altruism is demanded. The individual must so order
his life as to cause no injury to his fellows; he must
even do more, and seek their welfare rather than his own.
The interest of the community is preferred to that of
any of its members; the function of government is to
make the good of all the care of each.
Such a conception could hardly fail to win support.
The imagination is almost necessarily fired by the thought
of a world united in pursuit of one lofty ideal, of nations
forgetting their mutual jealousies at the call of a high
mission, of the citizens of every state abandoning the
pursuit of their petty interests to adopt an enlightened
patriotism. To many, the conception makes an especi
ally strong appeal. Those who recoil from the horrors
or who deplore the economic waste of war see a vision
of mankind delivered from so great and so unnecessary
a scourge. Those who lament the prevalence of misery
and want, or who are disgusted by the spectacle of
advance retarded by selfish opposition or misdirected
effort, find hope of rapid progress through the agency
of state control. A dream of universal altruism will
delight the enthusiast. Self-sacrifice is admittedly
meritorious in private life; it seems unreasonable to
suppose that in public life it is altogether evil. Uni
versalism, the apotheosis of political unselfishness,
should rather be regarded with respect and admiration,
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 47
as benefiting the world at large and ennobling the
individual.
But the gratification of the desire to rule appears to
be equally ennobling ; Individualism also makes a strong
appeal to the imagination. There is something magnifi
cent in the thought of a single state, standing alone,
defying all the world. And while the corporate con
ception must tend to destroy patriotism, in the accepted
sense of that word, Individualism fosters patriotism,
since it regards nothing as more important than the
prestige and prosperity of a particular state. Internally,
a spirit of self-reliance is encouraged in the people;
they are saved from the danger of becoming " a spoon
fed generation."
Nor are there wanting those who feel that a victory
gained by external aid is almost as harmful as a defeat,
who believe that the best interests of a nation are served
by complete release from all foreign entanglements.
And at home, the obvious evils of grandmotherly legisla
tion supply an argument against all state interference.
It is suggested that the evils which it has sought to
remedy are the result of human nature, and that human
nature cannot be changed by Act of Parliament. It is
contended that true progress has always been the out
come of private initiative, that every limitation on the
right of the individual to stand alone reduces his power
of doing so. Initiative may well be cramped or even
destroyed by state interference. And the loss thus
sustained will tend to be absolute rather than relative,
since the action of government is often blind and only
too frequently vitiated by care for the interest of a
particular section of the community or by attention
to the immediate needs of some political party.
Universalism and Individualism are thus equally
capable of defence, equally open to attack. Since only
48 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
a minority of mankind believes either in a complete
despotism or in a state of complete anarchy, the logical
application of either theory produces an impossible
situation; no state could ever exist permanently upon
a wholly universalist or wholly individualist basis. So
it is that the conflict between the two desires, in any
case inevitable and eternal, is rendered more vigorous
and more intense.
The permanent factors in the conflict between
Universalism and Individualism are found in human
nature. But in the conflict there are also occasional
or historical factors, predisposing circumstances which
at any given time incline men towards the gratification
of one or other of their two primary desires. While
these circumstances are produced by the prevailing
tendency in the human mind, there is still a certain
interaction. Men are inclined to give rein to a particular
desire; they establish institutions which favour the
accomplishment of their wishes. Those institutions
fulfil their purpose and by so doing increase the desire,
since up to a certain point appetite is whetted by gratifi
cation. But presently that point is reached at which
gratification produces satiety, and then reaction follows.
The order of life is conflict; cessation of conflict would
be death. Whenever, therefore, the complete triumph
of one desire appears to be imminent, a reaction in
favour of its antithesis begins. The conflict is renewed
with increased vigour, that renewal being, as it were,
compelled by the very instinct of self-preservation.
Thus there are factors which normally assist the growth
of Universalism ; there are factors which normally assist
the growth of Individualism. But there are not, and
there cannot be, factors which invariably assist the
growth of either the one or the other. The very institu
tions which men create to gratify a particular desire
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 49
tend at the last to quell that desire; they accomplish
their purpose too effectually, they gratify the desire
too completely. The desire to be ruled produces a
despotism arid by that despotism is fostered, until the
exaggeration of despotism leads to a reaction towards
anarchy, and the desire to rule gains ground at the
expense of the desire to be ruled.
Among those factors which normally assist Univer-
salism, the first place must be assigned to simplicity of
mind, which naturally favours the desire to be ruled.
Those who possess this simplicity seek guidance and are
eager to obey. Averse from debate, they tend to sup
port despotism, the absolute rule of one man being the
least complex form of government, since under it no
question as to the rights of subjects or the ultimate
seat of authority can arise. It is not without reason
that political education has been discouraged in despotic
monarchies. Nothing can be more valuable to a despot
than that his subjects should be unable to discover any
ground for resisting his unfettered rule.
Simplicity of mind favoured the establishment of
despotism in the earliest times and the eventual domina
tion of the world by the Roman Empire. That Empire
itself was the second great historical factor making
for Universalism. The whole civilised world was, or
appeared to be, under one government; that govern
ment repeatedly defeated attempts to destroy it. It
therefore made a deep impression on the human mind,
such an impression that even when the work of destruc
tion had been accomplished, men were very slow to
realise what had occurred. The barbarians could not
imagine an order of things in which universal dominion
had no place ; they conquered provinces and established
kingdoms, but they were overwhelmed by their very
success. It was incredible to them that an institution,
50 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
for centuries victorious over all its enemies, the very
mirror of ordered stability, should have passed away
like a dream of the night. The Roman Empire, in fact,
survived its own death.
But the opinion that the Roman Empire was eternal
did not owe its prevalence solely to the depth of the
impression which that Empire had made on the minds
of the barbarians. The same opinion was also zealously
propagated by the Christian Church. From the moment
when St. Paul declared that the creed which he preached
knew no distinction between Jew and Gentile, Chris
tianity had become essentially cosmopolitan in character ;
it could not be identified with any one tribe or nation.
And while dogmatic religion necessarily inculcated
habits of obedience, since it owed its very existence to
willingness to obey, the doctrine of the Church demanded
that converts should recognise their unity as children
of one Father in Heaven. The Teutonic races were
turned from the worship of gods, peculiar to particular
tribes, to the worship of one God, common to all man
kind. And in the process of conversion, they learnt
also to disregard the barriers between states, to believe
that all Christians were ultimately subject to the rule
of the Roman Emperor, the vicegerent of the Almighty.
Presently, it is true, the West found it hard to recognise
in the ruler of Constantinople the lord of the world.
But the Church devised a way of escape from this
difficulty; the creation of the Holy Roman Empire
and later the gradual elaboration of the doctrine of
papal supremacy served to maintain the ascendancy
of Universalism.
Without, however, an entire modification of human
nature, it was impossible that continued gratification
of the desire to be ruled should not produce a reaction.
As time passed, doubts arose as to the actual excellence
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 51
of a system which had once seemed to be ideal. And
these doubts were increased by every error which the
Emperors or their representatives committed. Among
the causes which contributed to weaken the hold of
Universalism on the human mind, a prominent place
must be assigned to the faulty system of taxation
under the later Empire. The curials, tax-collectors,
were reduced to starvation ; they inclined to hope that
the imperial government was not eternal, to question
whether a government which inflicted such misery on
them was indeed necessary to the world. And though
they failed to put their new ideas into practice, though
they still bowed to authority, they were not the less
ready to give rein to their desire to rule, to discover
hitherto unsuspected virtues in a condition of anarchy.
Even the barbarians themselves showed traces of this
spirit of resistance. If the majority humbly accepted
the political theory of the Church, some regretted that
freedom of action which they had enjoyed as pagans amid
the forests of Germany. They were moved to regret the
loss of gods whose care it had been to promote the welfare
of a particular tribe. They were reluctant to believe that
all those ancestors, whose deeds they had been taught
to admire and emulate, were burning for ever in Hell.
Some at least felt that they would rather suffer torments
with the heroes of old times than share in the joys of a
Heaven which seemed to be suited only to weaklings
and women. They were disinclined to subordinate their
interests to those of the Emperor; martial spirit led
them to despise a monarch who cowered behind im
pregnable fortifications, whose mercenary armies they
could invariably defeat. Individualist ideas were not
wholly destroyed even by the combined influence of
imperial prestige and ecclesiastical authority. Among
the barbarians, the Vandals never accepted Universalism ;
52 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
all tended occasionally to render mere lip-service to it;
the spirit of nationality survived; the conflict did not
cease.
And when, after the establishment of the Holy Roman
Empire, Individualism seemed to be well-nigh extinct,
it was revived by the force of necessity. Threatened
by the raids of the Northmen, districts were compelled
to provide for their own defence. There was no hope
that an appeal to the Emperor would bring effectual
help; there was no time to seek imperial sanction for
such measures as had to be taken. Left to their own
resources, the provinces tended more and more to forget
everything except their own immediate interests, and
this growth of local sentiment was encouraged by the
increasing difficulty of communication between the
different parts of the Empire.
Nor did the Church entirely oppose the resultant de
centralisation. When the Papacy had been degraded
by the vices of the Popes and by the undue influence
of notorious women, those bishops who sincerely desired
the advancement of religion could hardly turn to Rome
for encouragement or guidance. The princes of the
Church began to pursue an independent policy. But
by doing so, they necessarily assisted the progress
of Individualism, of that " political heresy " which
officially they condemned.
Nothing indeed is clearer than the fact that the
operation of those agencies, which tend normally to
favour the gratification of one desire, is frequently
confused. Simplicity of mind generally fosters Uni-
versalism, increased intellectual activity generally
fosters Individualism. But it would be entirely in
correct to assert that the individualist is necessarily
either more intelligent or better educated than the
universalist. Rather is it true that, when once a certain
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 53
point has been reached, the same result is produced by
education and lack of education. A man simple in mind
readily submits to guidance; a people simple in mind
is peculiarly susceptible to external influence and so
inclined to obedience. But it is equally true that a man
whose mind is highly developed is painfully conscious
of his own limitations and therefore also ready to seek
direction; that a nation which has attained a high
degree of civilisation will often sacrifice something of
its independence in order to avoid war, which it feels
to be a crude and extravagant method for attaining a
given end. Though increasing civilisation, any intellec
tual development, tends at first to favour Individualism,
it tends ultimately to produce a reaction towards
Universalism, which had made a potent appeal in the
original period of ignorance and barbarism.
Again, the conception of the Roman Empire, on the
whole, promoted the desire to be ruled and was opposed
to the spirit of nationality. But the Universalism which
prevailed under the Empire was external rather than
internal; local independence was rather strengthened
than crushed. On the other hand, when the spirit of
nationality developed, royal power developed simul
taneously; that is, the growth of external Individualism
was accompanied by an equal growth of internal
Universalism.
Even the influence of the Church was not wholly on
the side of the desire to be ruled. Among the causes
which led to the definition of Individualism, a foremost
place must be assigned to the quarrel between the
Empire and the Papacy. There are not wanting
instances of the clergy resisting external Universalism;
in every dispute with the Popes, kings found some
ecclesiastics enlisted on their side. And the Popes
themselves, by supporting suffragans against their
54 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
metropolitans, did something to sap the strength of
internal Universalism. That very development of free
thought, which was so opposed to the political theory
of the Church, in one aspect assisted the desire to be
ruled. Only with the help of a strong monarchy could
local clergy hope to assert their independence against
the might of the Papacy, and accordingly those who
most vigorously opposed Universalism abroad were
often driven to preach that theory at home.
The complexity of the conflict is extreme; the action
of the different factors is frequently most obscure.
One illustration of this may be given. Commerce
normally favours the growth of Universalism, externally
because it tends to break down the barriers between
nations, internally because its prosperity so largely
depends upon strong and efficient government. But
war is an expression of Individualism, and the most
frequent cause of war has been commercial rivalry;
the assertion of national independence has often been
principally due to the economic evils resulting from
alien rule. And since nothing affects commerce more
disastrously than that irregularity of taxation, which is
constantly the outcome of arbitrary government, the
commercial class has frequently been the first to
advocate resistance to that strong central authority
which at an earlier date it had most assisted to
create.
This complexity is natural. Human nature is ad
mittedly complex, and the conflict between the desire
to be ruled and the desire to rule is the outcome and
expression of human nature. Men are swayed by feelings
over which they have little control, the meaning of
which they hardly understand. Those aggregations of
men, which we call states, are swayed by similar feelings
and understand them no better. History, the life-story
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 55
of nations, can never be simpler than the life-story of
each individual man.
As might be anticipated from its very complexity, the
conflict between Universalism and Individualism follows
no immutable course. It would be idle to assert that
the gratification of the desire to be ruled abroad is
invariably accompanied by the gratification of the desire
to rule at home; it would be equally idle to assert that
the converse is invariably true. It is altogether im
possible to define absolutely the lines along which the
reaction against the dominant theory will proceed; all
that can be said is that the reaction will infallibly occur.
But at the same time, if every allowance be made for
numerous exceptions, it is perhaps possible to indicate
what may be described as the normal course of the
conflict. That course the conflict generally follows,
though by no means invariably. For as there is infinite
variety in the nature of the individual man, so there is
infinite variety in the history of that conflict which
makes up man's life. And there is the same variety
in the history of aggregations of men; the conflict no
more pursues an invariable course in the case of states
than it does in the case of an individual.
Certain probabilities may, however, be suggested. A
state which is as nearly as possible entirely universalist
will generally adopt external before internal Individu
alism. For the assumption of an independent attitude
towards foreign powers, a strong government at home
is almost essential, so that the existence of such a
government often encourages the inauguration of an
isolated foreign policy. The premature gratification
of the desire to rule at home, before independence has
been asserted abroad, will not infrequently either per
petuate or produce a state of subjection to some external
power.
56 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
On the other hand, in a state which is as nearly as
possible entirely individualist, the reaction also tends
to begin externally. The ultimate evil produced by
the exaggeration of Individualism is anarchy, and the
ultimate consequence of anarchy is normally foreign
conquest. But foreign conquest supplies a complete
gratification of the desire to be ruled, so that ex
ternal Universalism follows upon that inability, whether
material or mental, to resist foreign aggression, which is
produced by too extreme gratification of the desire to
rule. The history of Poland supplies a striking illustra
tion of this fact.
Such may be described as the normal course of the
conflict. But there are certainly numerous instances
of the conflict pursuing a different course. Internal
Individualism has often fostered a love of independence
so intense as to render a nation proof against all attack;
internal Universalism has sometimes so deadened the
spirit and cramped the energies of a people as to render
that people an easy prey to foreign aggression. The
slightest comparison of the history of the Swiss Con
federation with that of the ecclesiastical states on the
Rhine will suffice to supply evidence of this truth. A
state which has become entirely individualist has often
begun the reaction by ending a condition of anarchy pro
ductive of every evil short of foreign conquest ; such was
the work of Gustavus III in Sweden. A country which
has become wholly universalist has often first destroyed
the despotism which hindered ah1 free development.
After the Congress of Vienna, the overthrow of the
Metternich system was accomplished rather by the
revolt of peoples than by any reversal of the foreign
policy of governments.
The utmost, therefore, that can be said is that there
appears to be a normal course which the conflict in
GENERAL CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 57
nations follows, though deviation from that course is
frequent. And it must always be remembered that the
process of reaction from one extreme to the other may
proceed so evenly in external and internal relations as
to make it morally impossible to decide where the
reaction first began or where it first attained completion.
58 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
VI
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE : I. TO THE CORONATION
OF CHARLES THE GREAT
THE struggle between Universalism and Individualism
dates from the moment at which man became man, and
will continue until human nature is changed out of
all recognition. But in its earlier stages the conflict
was hardly apparent; it existed but was not defined.
Desire is always felt long before it is expressed, such
expression demanding a relatively high level of intelli
gence. Particularly is this true of anything in the nature
of political desire, and it would have been indeed sur
prising if primitive man had possessed the intellectual
capacity necessary for the enunciation of a theory.
And when political ideas began to find verbal expres
sion, at first Universalism alone was clearly defined. It
is a theory easily stated and positive in character,
whereas Individualism is essentially negative and ren
dered more difficult of exposition by its very insistence
upon the right of private judgment. The theory of
subjection had thus an initial advantage as against the
theory of independence.
That advantage was increased by the character of
primitive man. His mind was receptive rather than
active. He was prone to superstitious reverence, re
luctant to assume the burden of personal responsibility;
he was inclined by nature to obey those upon whom
ability or good fortune had conferred a real or apparent
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 59
superiority. Absolute monarchy was therefore the
earliest form of settled government ; in the first ages of
mankind, the desire to be ruled was far stronger than
the desire to rule. And this fact is almost sufficient
in itself to account for the apparent absence of conflict
in the remotest period of History.
Even Universalism itself long remained undefined.
The subjects of the ancient monarchies of the East were
as devoid of all initiative as are their modern representa
tives, the inhabitants of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt.
Their half-developed minds could evolve nothing in the
nature of a political theory. Oriental despotism was
the only form of government which they could under
stand; they obeyed their rulers because they could
hardly realise the possibility of disobedience. If some
objected to the practical slavery in which they lived,
their objections took the form of somewhat purposeless
revolt; a victory for the malcontents merely resulted
in the substitution of one despot for another. Political
debate remained unknown to the peoples of the East,
until long after they had fallen under the influence of
western civilisation ; such traces of political institutions
and theories as are found among them to-day have been
recently imported from Europe.
The Greeks were cast in a different mould. Their
virile genius early prompted them to discuss the science
of politics, and they formulated the universalist theory
as the true solution of the problem of the relationship
between the state and the individual. They carried
that theory, indeed, to an unusual extreme. Nowhere
is the province of government so widely extended as
in the ideal polities of the Greek philosophers. Plato
and Aristotle, differing in many respects, agree in com
mitting to the care of the state the regulation of the
whole life of the citizen ; the government is to them the
60 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
agency by which men are to be guided to that higher
life, for the attainment of which political society
exists.
On the other hand, there are comparatively few
traces of a conception of external Universalism ; the
policy of the Greek republics was individualist in spirit.
Certainly the Hellenes did regard themselves as one
people; non- Greeks were rigorously excluded from
participation in the Olympic or Isthmian games. They
even professedly recognised a species of common
superior in the Amphictyonic Council. But the auth
ority of that body was only nominal, and though signs
of a corporate spirit may be detected in the centuries
which elapsed between the semi-mythical days of the
siege of Troy and the period of the expedition of Alex
ander, yet Individualism was certainly in the ascendant
so far as external relations were concerned. A widely
extended empire was generally identified with bar
barism. Almost compelled by the physical geography
of their country to live in small and isolated communities,
the Greeks found in the city-state the only possible
existence for civilised man. Internal Universalism
alone really attained definition in ancient Greece.
A new situation was created by the victories of Rome.
For all practical purposes, the whole civilised world was
brought under a common government. Roman citizen
ship was gradually extended until Caracalla granted it to
all his subjects. And since the advantages of law could
be enjoyed only within the Empire, it was not unreason
ably held that beyond the imperial frontiers men were
little better than brutes. If the large measure of local
self-government granted to the provinces and cities
somewhat impaired the ascendancy of internal Uni
versalism, that of external Universalism was established.
The deification of the Emperor was no more than the
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 61
emphatic expression of man's reverence for the embodied
majesty of world- wide dominion.
But the continuance of that reverence was speedily
imperilled. The deified Emperor was, after all, only
one among a crowd of gods and goddesses, and a form
of worship which the virtues of the Antonines rendered
popular and almost legitimate became absurd in the
age of their successors. The imperial office suffered
in reputation when it became the prize of successful
intrigue, when it was disputed or shared by rival claim
ants. The vices of some Emperors, and the incapacity
of others, seemed to destroy their claim to be the embodi
ment of the imperial idea. And an almost fatal blow
was struck at the whole system when Elagabalus
attempted to make personal an apotheosis which had
in reality been the apotheosis of an office. Diocletian
laboured to restore the prestige, which had been lost,
by shrouding the person of the Emperor in mystery.
But the elaborate ceremonial of his court caused as
much offence as it did admiration; his colleague Maxi-
minian failed to work cordially with him, and the failure
was completed by the civil wars which followed his
abdication.
At this critical moment, however, Christianity inter
vened to complete the work which the armies of the
Roman Republic had begun. The Church laid down the
proposition that God rules the world through a human
vicegerent, and found that vicegerent in the Emperor.
His authority was held to have received the explicit
sanction of Christ and of the apostles. The former had
issued the command, " Render unto Caesar the things
which be Caesar's." St. Peter had coupled obedience
to earthly rule with the service of God. St. Paul had
condemned resistance to constituted authority, and had
not hesitated to appeal to the judgment of Nero. The
62 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Empire, too, was almost co-extensive with civilisation
and with Christendom. If some converts dwelt beyond
its frontiers, their numbers and importance were slight,
nor would they have seriously disputed the assertion
that all Christians were subjects of Rome; rather they
regarded themselves as exiles in a barbarous land.
From the very first, the Church taught the duty of
obedience even to a persecuting Emperor, so long as
that obedience did not involve the denial of Christ.
And when the conversion of Constantine had removed
this obvious danger, Christian theologians hastened to
develop their political theory on essentially imperialist
and therefore universalist lines. The Emperor was
degraded that he might be exalted. He was deprived
of an unconvincing divinity to be endowed with a new
supremacy as the chosen representative of the Almighty,
and the imperial office gained all, or more than all, that
its immediate holder lost. Those who might have been
revolted by the idea of an imperfect god accepted their
subjection to a veiled theocracy, the sanctity of which
could not be impaired by any deficiencies in a human
lieutenant. And into a veiled theocracy Christianity
converted the Roman Empire. It was regarded as a
divine institution, co-eternal with the world. The end
of imperial rule would be the end of all human govern
ment, the prelude to the Second Advent and the personal
reign of Christ.
During the period of the Greek republics and of the
Roman Empire, Universalism thus appeared to have
secured not only definition, but also an unquestioned
supremacy. That supremacy, however, was in reality
incomplete; the inevitable conflict existed, and its
existence was only concealed because Individualism
was undefined. It would be manifestly absurd to sup
pose that at any time all men preferred subjection to
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 63
independence, and, as might be expected, examples of
individualist tendencies are not lacking in this period.
It has been already suggested that the Universalism
of ancient Greece was almost entirely confined to the
relations of the community with its members; the
external policy of the Greek republics was conceived
in the contrary spirit. Even during the crisis of the
Persian wars, Thebes and other states were found to be
ready to support the invader. This willingness to submit
can hardly be regarded as an example of universalist
ideas, since there was no community of sentiment, nor
corporate feeling, between the civilised Greeks and their
barbarous neighbours. It was rather an assertion of
Individualism. The Medising cities rejected the idea
of subordination to the leadership of Lacedaemon and
Athens, and hoped for greater freedom of action when
those aspiring states had been crushed by Darius or
Xerxes. The same individualist spirit found expression
in the constant resistance offered to any state which
attempted to control or to unify the Hellenic race.
Athens, Lacedaemon and Thebes alike failed to establish
a permanent supremacy in face of the persistent opposi
tion of the majority of the other cities. And other
illustrations of the prevalence of external Individualism
in Greece are supplied by the almost perpetual isolation
of Argos, by the refusal of the Lacedaemonians to share
in the expedition of Alexander, and by their later
resistance to Philopoemen and the Achaean League.
Nor was internal Individualism wholly unknown.
With the doubtful exception of Lacedaemon, there is
no trace of a " constitutional " opposition in Greece,
and the extant political writers unanimously preach
Universalism. But the frequency of seditions in the
majority of the Greek cities shows that the spirit of
resistance to government was by no means dead; it
64 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
may well be that the stability of the Lacedaemonian
constitution was in some measure due to the fact that
in Lacedsemon alone was the necessary safety-valve
supplied. The individualist theory, too, appears to have
found support even from political thinkers. The con
tempt poured by Plato upon extreme democracy,
" where horses and asses have learned a wonderfully
free and magnificent way of walking," suggests the
existence of a school of individualists so extreme as to
be practically anarchists. And Aristotle's eagerness to
prove that the state is natural, the defence which he
offers for slavery and ostracism, indicate that internal
Universalism had been assailed and that the contrary
theory had obtained at least verbal expression.
Individualism, however, made little progress in the
period following the age of Plato and Aristotle. At
first the authority of those philosophers justified
sufficiently the control of the citizen by the state;
presently, a certain mental weariness seemed to over
come the world. Patriotic zeal was lessened by the
very magnitude of the Roman Empire ; the character of
the imperial government hindered or prevented political
discussion. The edict of Caracalla vulgarised, and hence
reduced the value of, Roman citizenship; the chief
privilege of the citizen became the obligation to pay
taxes.
At the same time, men ceased to find the expression
of their highest development in political association.
The Stoics and the Epicureans agreed in recommending
men not to turn aside from the pursuit of their private
interest. To one school, society was hardly worthy of
a philosopher's attention; to the other, the cares of
citizenship were little more than a hindrance in the
pursuit of happiness. Aristotle had found the highest
form of existence in membership of a state, the truest
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 65
joy in the activities of political life. Marcus Aurelius
admits that those who are called upon to share in the
task of government must labour to do their duty; he
seems to regret that any one should be so called, to envy
those who are freed from the cares of public life. And
this political melancholy is characteristic of the age in
which he lived. A tendency to distinguish between the
citizen and the individual appeared, and if deliberate
criticism of the universalist theory was still practically
unknown, the ground was yet being subtly prepared
for the assertion of Individualism.
Nor was this work of preparation altogether hindered
by the Church. While the Empire was pagan, full
citizenship was almost impossible for the sincere Chris
tian; he could not perform those sacrifices on the altar
of the Emperor which were the recognised test of
allegiance. Even after the conversion of Constantine
the difficulty did not entirely disappear. Idolatry was
no longer demanded, but the favour shown to Arianism
by the imperial government served to alienate the
orthodox from their rulers. Indeed, during the reigns
of Constantius II and Valens, the hostility of a large part
of the clergy towards the government produced a situa
tion not far removed from civil war; the persecution
of Athanasius severely taxed the loyalty of the Church.
Ecclesiastics, too, not unreasonably dreaded a conflict
between religion and patriotism. They laboured to
fix the thoughts of their disciples upon the world to
come, and by so doing they tended unwittingly to under
mine an institution to which they both professed and
felt loyalty. Under their guidance, men learnt to care
more for the salvation of their own souls than for the
preservation of the Empire. Monasticism and asceticism
became popular; they were alike inimical to true
citizenship, since those who turned aside from the
E
66 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
pleasures of an active life could hardly be expected to
perform its duties. Despite the arguments put forward
by Augustine in the De Civitate Dei, there is no reasonable
doubt that the triumph of Christianity did accelerate
the collapse of imperial power in the West. Had as
many Roman citizens embraced the military as embraced
the monastic profession, a far more serious opposition
might have been offered to the barbarian invasions.
Had the soldiers of the Empire displayed that degree
of self-sacrifice and enthusiastic devotion which was
exhibited by the hermits of Egypt or the pillar saints
of Asia Minor, it is more than probable that the invaders
would have been hurled back into the forests from which
they emerged.
Yet even the cataclysm of the fifth century did not
destroy the ascendancy of external Universalism. The
barbarian invaders had come into contact with Rome
before they passed the Rhine and Danube. They had
been profoundly impressed by the law and order of the
Empire, by its recuperative power and by its apparent
perpetuity. Accustomed to the social and political
vicissitudes of a migratory life, they were astonished at
the spectacle of organised government and enduring
institutions ; their desire for plunder and their contempt
for the imperial army were sensibly modified by a feel
ing of respectful wonder. Service under the Emperor
became almost more honourable than victories gained
over him; titles granted by the Emperor were prized
as highly as trophies won on the field of battle.
This inclination towards respect and obedience was
intensified by the conversion of the barbarians to
Christianity. Though the missionaries who laboured
among them were for the most part Arians, they none
the less instilled into the minds of those whom they
converted to doctrinal heresy the orthodox political
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 67
theory of the Church. The influence of superstition
increased the existing reverence for the Empire. The
barbarians felt their inability to destroy an institution,
in which they found the perfection of human wisdom
and in which their spiritual masters taught them to
recognise the working of the mighty hand of God. There
is an oft-quoted saying of Athaulf, king of the Visigoths,
to the effect that he aspired to be the foremost defender
of that Empire which he had once hoped to destroy.
Athaulf did no more than express the sincere longing of
the majority of his fellow Teutons. The invaders eagerly
adopted external Universalism ; with the inevitable zeal
of recent conversion, they became its most passionate
supporters.
Thus, while the provinces actually became the seat
of new monarchies, they remained theoretically part of
the Empire. With the exception of Gaiseric the Vandal,
each king secured imperial recognition and based his
claim to the obedience of the provincials upon some
commission granted by the Emperor. It was held
that the deposition of Romulus Augustus by Odovacar
meant nothing more important than the recognition in
the West of the sole rule of the Emperor Zeno. Even
Theodoric the Ostrogoth accepted the position of an
imperial lieutenant in Italy, as Wallia the Visigoth had
done in Aquitainc and as Gunthar the Burgundian did
in the Rhone valley. If Chlodovech ruled the Franks
as a national king, he would himself have been the first
to admit that he ruled the Gallo-Romans by virtue of
the vague gift of " the ornaments of the consulship,"
which he had received from the Emperor Anastasius.
Accomplished facts were indeed ignored; it was held
that nothing had changed. By some strange political
alchemy, barbarian tribes were converted into Roman
armies, barbarian kings into Roman proconsuls. It
68 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
was universally believed that the extent of the Empire
was undiminished, the power and authority of the
Emperor unimpaired.
And however harassed that" Emperor might be, he
never even mentally abdicated his lordship of the world.
No sooner did an opportunity arise for the practical
reassertion of dormant rights, than every effort was made
to bring facts into accordance with theory. During the
last agony of the Empire in the West, Marjorian, in place
of consolidating his position in Italy, preferred to attempt
the restoration of his authority in Gaul and Spain, and
the recovery of Africa. Anthemius allied with Leo I
in order to overthrow the Vandals. And after the
abdication of Romulus Augustus, the resources of the
Empire in the East, which even the careful government
of Anastasius had hardly rendered adequate for the
defence of such lands as remained to the ruler of Con
stantinople, were expended lavishly in an attempt to
regain the provinces of the West. Justinian, rather
compelled by a sense of duty than actuated by mere lust
of glory, despatched Belisarius to Africa and Italy. His
efforts were crowned with partial success ; the kingdoms
of the Vandals and Ostrogoths were overthrown, that
of the Visigoths was shaken. Imperial prestige was
revived; external Universalism acquired additional
strength.
And since the supremacy of the Emperor seemed to be
hardly inconvenient and unlikely to be more definitely
asserted, there was little inducement to formulate a
theory in which that supremacy should have no place.
So accustomed had mankind become to the universalist
idea that, though the conflict continued, the assertion
of external Individualism was fitful and inconclusive.
Of those barbarian kingdoms which inclined to deny
imperial claims, the Vandal and Ostrogothic were
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 69
destroyed, the Visigothic weakened and a prey to con
stant civil war. The Franks remained. But though
they at first both attacked the imperialists in Italy and
set an example of independence by coining money not
bearing the Emperor's head, their kingdom in a manner
owed its eventual permanence to a denial of its own
existence.
While, however, external Universalism thus main
tained the ascendancy which it had acquired, internal
Individualism made rapid progress. The Roman Empire
had never been a highly centralised state; its decline
and fall served to increase that local independence
which the imperial government had rather fostered than
attempted to crush. Districts were driven to provide
for their own defence. The Venetian and " Armorican "
republics, the curious autonomous state which seems to
have existed in Auvergne, and the short-lived" kingdom "
of Syagrius are examples of the new organisation of
states upon individualist principles, since in every one
of these instances membership of the Roman Empire
was not only admitted but also prized.
The barbarian states, too, had this characteristic in
common, that they allowed a large measure of self-
government to their subjects. The Roman provin
cials were accorded their own law and, when once the
conquerors had settled in their midst, suffered little
interference beyond the obligation of paying taxes.
Over their Teutonic subjects the kings had but a
limited authority. A ruler of marked personality was
perhaps sometimes absolute, but a ruler of less capacity
was hardly more than president of a council of turbulent
warriors. Even the ablest monarchs were often driven
to conciliate rather than to command ; the story of the
vase of Soissons is typical of the relationship between
the barbarian kings and their subjects. In some other
70 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
cases, royal authority was far more restricted than it
was among the Franks. At least after the conversion
of Reccared, the government of the Visigoths rested
practically with the synods of the Church; the great
ecclesiastics in Spain were all-powerful. The period
was, in short, a period of external Universalism and
internal Individualism.
This ascendancy of external Universalism was assisted
by the rise of a new power. It was only natural that
the Popes, as bishops of the imperial city, should enjoy
a pre-eminent position in the Christian hierarchy, and
from an early date they claimed spiritual supremacy
over the provinces of the West. It was asserted that
St. Peter had been specially entrusted with the care of
his Master's disciples, that the Popes had inherited the
plenitude of the Apostle's power, and that they were
therefore Vicars of Christ, the ecclesiastical counter
part of the Emperor. These claims had been already
admitted to a great extent when circumstances almost
compelled the entrance of the Pope into the domain
of secular politics. The recovery of Italy by Justinian
was soon followed by a new invasion; the greater part
of the peninsula was occupied by the Lombards, and
their control of the passes of the Apennines practically
cut off Rome from such other districts as still acknow
ledged the authority of Constantinople. Neither the
Emperor nor his immediate representative, the Exarch
of Ravenna, was able to afford much assistance to the
ancient capital of the Empire. The city was forced
to provide for its own defence, and the Popes to supply
the place of an imperial governor, adding the character
of diplomatist, and even of general, to that of bishop.
Rome, threatened by the Lombards, was probably
saved from capture by the peace which Gregory the
Great concluded with Agilulf. The service thus ren-
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 71
dered was gratefully acknowledged by the Italians, who
thenceforward looked rather to the Papacy than to the
Exarchate for help and guidance. Had the Popes so
inclined, they might almost have destroyed the last
traces of imperial authority in their city. But they
possibly feared to attack the accepted political theory
of the Church, and they were in any case wedded to
external Universalism by the very nature of their office.
Christianity is a cosmopolitan religion; the head of
western Christendom could have no part in national
life, and any open assertion of independence towards
the Emperor would at that date have involved the
creation of a national, externally individualist state in
Italy.
Hence, even when the Lombards abandoned Arianism
and accepted orthodoxy, thus removing one possible
objection to union between themselves and the Papacy,
the Popes still continued to maintain a hostile attitude
towards them. They continued to profess their alle
giance to Constantinople, despite the fact that they
were alienated from the Emperor by the Iconoclastic
Controversy. Even when they called upon Pippin to
deliver them from the increasing power of the Lombards
under Aistulf, the request for help was so ambiguously
worded as to leave room for the opinion that the Prankish
king was only invited to act as an imperial lieutenant.
The Popes, in fact, remained consistent champions of
external Universalism.
That theory soon came to need powerful advocacy.
Irene blinded her son, Constantine VI, and usurped the
throne of Constantinople, assuming the title of Empress
and by implication claiming to be as much the vice
gerent of the Almighty as any of her predecessors had
been. The idea of feminine rule was unfamiliar; such
women as Pulcheria and Martina, who had practically
72 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
governed the Empire, had cloaked their authority under
the name of some male relative. Consequently, even
the East was disturbed by the conduct of Irene, and
though she was for a while recognised, that recognition
was hardly given with enthusiasm. The political con
science of the West was still more profoundly shocked.
The imperial throne was considered to be vacant, and
the duty of supplying that vacancy was held to devolve
upon those subjects of the Empire who were not so dead
to shame as to accept a woman's rule.
This opinion, however, would probably have failed
to secure definite expression, and still more probably
have failed to effect definite results, if it had not been
adopted by the Pope. As it was, that ingenuity which
had recently produced an autograph letter from St.
Peter to Pippin was now employed to profit from the
usurpation of Irene. Already attracted towards the
Carolingians by benefits received and the hope of further
advantage, the Pope proceeded to deny the capacity
of a woman to rule. The crimes and sex of Irene were
declared to have created a vacancy in the Empire ; by a
convenient fiction, the right to fill that vacancy was
conferred upon the mongrel population of the papal
city, who were announced to be the senate and people
of Rome. The one candidate upon whom the choice
could reasonably fall was opportunely present; he ap
peared before a mob excited by the progress of a great
religious festival. On a memorable Christmas Day,
Charles, king of the Franks, already Patrician of the
Romans, was hailed as Emperor by the intoxicated
congregation at St. Peter's, and the Pope at once
recognised the voice of the people as the voice of God.
Leo III placed the imperial crown upon the head of his
friend and benefactor; the Holy Roman Empire came
into being.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 73
The coronation of Charles might well have destroyed
the supremacy of external Universalism. In the West,
many who had yielded obedience to an Emperor whose
wishes could be ignored with impunity, were moved to
resist an Emperor whose commands were reinforced by
overwhelming military strength. Already the power of
Charles had excited revolt in Aquitaine and in Bavaria;
now Venice and Beneventum alike attempted to assert
their independence. In the East, the deposition of
Irene and the accession of Nicephorus weakened the
constitutional ground upon which the theory of a vacancy
had been based. Two rival claimants to the lordship
of the world appeared, each declaring himself to be the
legitimate successor of Augustus and Constantine VI,
each stigmatising the other as an usurper. Mankind
received an embarrassing invitation to make its choice
between them, and the rejection of both would not have
been surprising. But the desire to be ruled was still
stronger than the desire to rule. The arguments and
influence of the Church prevailed; external Universalism
rather gained than lost by the accession of Charles, since
the theory was once more brought into closer accordance
with fact.
74 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
VII
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE : 2. FROM THE CORONATION
OF CHARLES TO THE FALL OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN
NOT only did external Universalism survive the corona
tion of Charles, but for a time after that event even
internal Universalism made some progress. Already
the displacement of the Merovingians by Pippin had
been accompanied by an increase of royal power in
the Prankish kingdom. Charles the Great directed his
energies towards a further strengthening of the central
government. Though the very extent of his dominions
compelled the delegation of authority over the provinces
to dukes and counts, he attempted to secure the sub
ordination of these lieutenants. Hunold in Aquitaine,
Tassilo in Bavaria, were reduced to obedience. The
missi dominici were instituted, officials of the court sent
at intervals through the Empire to supervise the local
administration and to check any tendency towards
independence in the provincial governors. But the
system was short-lived. During the reign of Lewis the
Pious, the missi received or usurped the position of
counts; life officers were made hereditary, occasional
appointments became permanent posts, and in the more
distant districts of the Empire practically independent
principalities were gradually established. This decen
tralising process was hastened by the civil wars between
Lewis and his sons, and by the incapacity of successive
Emperors. The day of internal Universalism had not
yet dawned.
On the other hand, external Individualism did not at
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 75
once develop even as a result of that political maelstrom
into which the western world was plunged by the weak
ness of the Carolingian dynasty and the attacks of
Saracens and Northmen. The Treaty of Verdun has
often been regarded as one of the epoch-making events
of History. In reality, the recognition of the titular
supremacy of Lothar is more remarkable than the
acquisition of actual independence by Lewis the German
and Charles the Bald. The document marks not so
much the birth of Germany and France as the postpone
ment of the death of the imperial conception in those
two countries. The position of Emperor remained the
highest reward of successful ambition, the vain prize for
the sake of which every king was ready to neglect his
immediate duties and his true interest. The reunion
of all the Frankish states under Charles the Fat shows
how slight was the belief in national monarchies, nor
is it too much to say that if the Emperors of the ninth
century had possessed the ability of an Otto the Great,
the Treaty of Verdun would have remained entirely
unexecuted. External Universalism gratified the world
despite the destruction of imperial prestige; external
Individualism struggled very slowly towards recognition.
For this continued ascendancy of the desire to be
ruled, the Church was in great measure responsible.
Kings, unable to protect their own immediate dominions
from Northmen and Saracens, secured and degraded the
imperial office; their utter weakness emphasised the
unreality of the Empire, and the provinces, driven
by that weakness to provide for their own defence,
might well have forgotten the conception of the unity
of Christendom. But at the moment when society
appeared to be fast tottering to dissolution, the Popes
effected new spiritual conquests. Britain was reunited
with Europe; the rudest barbarians were softened by
76 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the gentle influence of the Christian faith; the untamed
fierceness of the Northmen was subdued by the devoted
zeal of unarmed priests. The Church produced a unity
more real than that which had been forced upon re
luctant tribes by the military prowess of Charles the
Great; in the West, the Popes reigned without a rival.
But they were inevitably cosmopolitan, forbidden to
sympathise with national aspirations by the very nature
of their office. Denying the right of private judgment
in religion, they were prohibited from favouring it in
politics. They were compelled to champion external
Universalism, of the merits of which they had become
the only exponents.
Nevertheless, the Popes were ultimately instrumental
in securing the definition of external Individualism.
As their prestige increased, they remembered that Leo
had placed the imperial crown on the head of Charles,
and they claimed the right to dispose of that prize for
which earthly monarchs so eagerly contended. In the
garden of Gethsemane, St. Peter had produced two
swords; these swords were now declared to symbolise
the temporal and spiritual powers, to indicate the dual
headship of the Christian world. If the Emperor were
supreme in secular affairs, the Pope was supreme in
ecclesiastical; there was at least equality between the
two vicegerents of God.
This hypothesis at first presented no difficulty. The
Emperors were too weak to interfere with the interests
of the Papacy ; the city of Rome was in reality indepen
dent. On the other hand, despite such cases as the
intervention of Nicholas I in the matter of Waldrada
and the consequent excommunication of Lothar II, the
Popes in general could not yet aspire to dictate even
to, a feeble monarch. They lacked material force;
their strength depended upon moral prestige. And at
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 77
this period the Papacy became not less degraded than
the Empire. The tiara was a gift with which dis
reputable women gratified their lovers, and in such
circumstances there was no likelihood of a conflict
arising between the two heads of Christendom. Each
was too weak to attempt any effective assertion of
authority over the other. It seemed infinitely more
probable that both Emperor and Pope would disappear ;
that mankind would revolt against a theory which
exalted into the position of vicegerents of the Almighty
an Italian princeling and an immoral bishop.
External Individualism, in fact, began to develop
from the moment when Charles the Fat proved his utter
unworthiness to be the successor of his great namesake.
His deposition was followed by the foundation of several
independent monarchies, and in the vacancy of the
imperial throne only a dubious homage was rendered
to Arnulf of Germany, as the possible heir to the dormant
title. But the desire to be ruled, the sense that the
Christian world should have some determinate head,
produced a remarkable reaction in favour of external
Universalism. For a while, the Emperors were obscure
nonentities, and the abler rulers found their energies
sufficiently employed in combating the attacks of the
Northmen. Yet when Henry the Fowler had restored
a measure of order to Germany, when Otto had crushed
his rebellious nobles and given at least transient stability
to his kingdom, the first use made of the new power
thus acquired was to attempt the revival of the Holy
Roman Empire. In place of completing the consolida
tion of a national state, Otto followed the example of
Justinian. He entered Italy and received the imperial
crown at Rome. His action is evidence of the continued
influence of the universalist theory ; his personal capa
city and the military strength of Germany made the
78 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Emperor once more a real factor in the affairs of all the
states of western Europe.
And the first use which was made of the revived
imperial power by Otto and his successors was to effect
the reform of the Papacy. A series of Popes, nominated
or practically nominated by the Emperor, restored
that reputation which the vices of the lovers and son of
Marozia had well-nigh destroyed. But the reformed
Papacy forgot its obligations to the Empire. Realising
their strength and the potentialities of their position,
the Popes resented the idea that they had any earthly
superior; they became unwilling to admit even that
they had an equal in the person of the Emperor. They
insisted on the superiority of spiritual over temporal
power. They argued that since the imperial crown
could be received only at Rome and from their hands,
they created Emperors and that the created must be
controlled by the creator. Such claims naturally
roused opposition; a contest which fills the history of
the Middle Ages began between the secular and ecclesias
tical heads of Christendom. And this contest was
nothing more than the inevitable reaction against the
long-continued ascendancy of external Universalism.
For though the two principals were alike universalists,
their allies and helpers were in a measure conscious or
unconscious exponents of Individualism.
In the struggle the Papacy possessed certain con
spicuous advantages. Though the Empire was in
conception extra-territorial, its power rested ultimately
upon the German people; it could hope for little or no
support from France or England or Spain. The Church,
on the other hand, extra-territorial and cosmopolitan in
its very essence, was able to draw strength from every
nation in the West, and in the first stages of the quarrel
the advantage thus possessed was increased by the piety
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 79
or policy of Hildebrand. Celibacy was enforced upon
all the clergy, who were thus converted into a species of
papal army. Divided from the mass of mankind, freed as
far as possible from those cares which served to distract
the generality of the human race, the clergy were the
more devoted to the cause of that institution to which
they had given themselves so completely. And though
hope of earthly honour, or a sincere conviction of the
superiority of the imperial cause, gained some ecclesias
tical support for the Emperor, the Popes had on the
whole a remarkably loyal and single-minded body of
adherents to carry on the struggle.
And the Popes of this period were themselves equally
single-minded. Though both the imperial crown and
the papal tiara were elective, there was a fundamental
difference between the two cases. The Emperors
laboured constantly to found a dynasty; family am
bition distracted their policy; their partial success
produced all the weakness and disorder practically
inseparable from minorities in an age of personal rule.
The Popes, on the other hand, succeeded as full-grown
men, often well trained in the art of statesmanship prior
to their accession. They had no natural heirs for whom
they might labour to provide; they could found no
dynasty. Consequently, each successive occupant of
the papal chair was devoted only to the promotion of
the interest of the Papacy; each was actuated by an
unselfish and impersonal zeal for the cause of which he
was the official champion.
A marked advantage also was derived by the Popes
from the character of the age in which the struggle
occurred. The Emperor was compelled to rely mainly
on material strength. Only by gathering a powerful
army could he win his way to Rome and to the imperial
crown. His election at Aachen was but the first step
8o THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
towards the final goal of his ambition, and the reluctance
of German princes to accord him their support was a less
formidable obstacle than the mosquito-ridden Campagna.
An army, laboriously collected in Germany after months
of mingled cajolery and threats, as often as not dwindled
to nothingness after a few weeks in the fever-stricken
environs of Rome, and the Emperor, deprived of all
compelling power, was driven to abandon the fruits of
his arduous toil and to escape as best he might across
the Alps.
The Popes, on the other hand, possessed no material
strength. But the character of the age made the fact
that they were driven to rely upon moral weapons
almost a source of positive advantage to them. Spiritual
censures, to which an earlier or a later generation would
perhaps have been indifferent, constituted a very real
menace to the superstitious mediaeval mind; fear of
excommunication constantly proved a far more effective
means of persuasion or compulsion than the most
formidable host. And whereas the Emperor had to rely
on his ability to overawe or to persuade his vassals in
order to gather together an army, the thunderbolts of
the Lateran were at the free and absolute disposal of
the Vicar of Christ.
All these factors contributed to secure the eventual
success of the Papacy in its struggle with the Empire,
but the greatest asset of the Popes was the fact that
the Emperors were brought into more direct conflict
with the growing spirit of Individualism. It has been
already pointed out that the dominant characteristic
of the internal organisation of states was at this period
individualist. After the death of Charles the Great,
his universalist ideas were abandoned so far as internal
government was concerned, owing to the weakness of
his successors. The missi dominici became counts;
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 81
they and the dukes of the more outlying districts
asserted their local independence; offices which had
been temporary became hereditary, and the authority
of the central government was reduced to a mere
shadow. And this decentralising process, of which the
origin may be traced to the incapacity of Lewis the
Pious, was accelerated by the peculiar conditions of
the age.
Charles the Great was hardly dead before that system
which he had so laboriously endeavoured to construct
was shattered, and ample proof was afforded, if proof
were needed, of how much his dominions had owed
to his personal capacity and prestige. Issuing, as it
were, from the Cimmerian darkness of Scandinavia, the
Northmen swept, a devastating flood, over the lands of
western Europe. Distracted by their private quarrels,
the successors of Charles were rendered doubly incapable
of combating a danger which their lack of ability utterly
unfitted them to meet. From the Emperor the pro
vinces had nothing to hope ; as had been the case in the
age of the barbarian invasions, they were driven to
defend themselves or perish. The calamities of the
period forced the individual man to care for himself
rather than for the community; forced local districts
to care for themselves rather than for the whole Empire.
The distant central authority was forgotten or ignored;
society, under compulsion, reorganised itself upon a
feudal basis.
Feudalism was not a system. It originated rather
from necessity than from choice ; it expresses rather an
attitude of mind than the calculated working of human
wisdom. In its earliest form, it was the outcome
of the spirit of internal Individualism. Men almost
dissociated themselves from the state, which could do so
little for them, to gather themselves into semi-isolated
F
8a THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
groups under the protection and leadership of some lord,
who might at least save them from death. But the
development of these small groups undermined the
ascendancy of external Universalism. The theory of
imperial or papal supremacy was not indeed denied;
at no period, perhaps, was the conception of the common
headship of the Christian world more lucidly or emphatic
ally expressed; the ideal of a united Christendom
received much lip-service. When, however, the crisis
had passed and the Emperor attempted to reassert his
universal lordship, it was remembered that in the time
of trouble he had not come to the help of his people.
The conduct of an Odo compared only too favourably
with that of a Charles the Fat. The numerous cases in
which some local magnate had driven off the invaders,
or had at least died fighting for his men, were remem
bered to the prejudice of the imperial idea. And these
local magnates themselves, having enjoyed a generous
measure of independence when external help even if
coupled with external control would have been most
welcome, were more than reluctant to sacrifice anything
of that independence at the very moment when they
seemed likely to derive some profit from their liberty.
They questioned, and were supported by their people
in questioning, the validity of any claim made to their
obedience by an external power ; admitting the corporate
character of human society in theory, in practice they
denied it. They became external individualists.
It is clear that this new spirit must come into conflict
with both Emperor and Pope. But at first it was
against the former only that it struggled. The human
mind, long accustomed to accept as axiomatic the
existence of a divine vicegerent, could not immediately
rid itself of the habit of obedience. Nor, indeed, were
men altogether eager to be free; naturally they were
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 83
less eager to deny moral than material obligations.
Hence, the Emperor first suffered from the growth of
Individualism. He was more obviously in opposition
to it, since he demanded material sacrifices on the altar
of external Universalism, whereas the Papacy demanded
little more than a formal recognition of its authority.
The Emperor required men and money; the Pope
required only those men who would by inclination
devote themselves to the service of the Church, and only
those comparatively moderate contributions which in
so pious an age seemed to be but the legitimate due of
spiritual guides. In the quarrel between the Empire
and the Papacy, therefore, the latter received for a
while the support of the individualists. The newly
developed kingdoms rejected the imperial claim to
universal dominion ; the princes of Germany unwillingly
supplied the support which the Emperor demanded for
the prosecution of the struggle to maintain that claim.
The history of the Middle Ages is in a great degree the
history of this decline of external Universalism. Even
at the height of the Holy Roman Empire, its authority
had not been recognised in England, and after the death
of Charles the Great it was equally disregarded in the
rising Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.
Charles the Fat was the last Emperor to secure even
nominal recognition in Gaul; Otto II was the last Emperor
even to attempt to secure such recognition. The Capetian
dynasty organised the French monarchy on a basis of
external Individualism, and the explicit acceptance of
imperial authority was early confined to the German
and Italian lands.
Even in those countries, though explicit recognition
was for some centuries longer accorded, the actual
authority of the Emperor suffered constant diminution.
As long as they were threatened by the aggression of
84 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the nobles in their districts, the Italian cities welcomed
the presence of an imperial army in their midst. But
when their growing wealth and importance had delivered
them from this danger, they began to regard the passage
of the Alps by their overlord with mingled anger and
alarm; they became less and less ready to render
obedience to him, less and less ready to assist him with
either men or money. Frederic Barbarossa attempted
to re-establish his authority over the republics of the
Lombard plain; his attempt was finally defeated at
Legnano. From that moment, if the Emperor could
still count on some support from the Italian cities, he
owed that support rather to the mutual jealousies of
those cities than to any affection borne by them towards
himself. If he gained the adherence of some former
enemy, it was generally at the cost of the hostility of
some old ally. Allies, not subjects, indeed, had the
Italian cities become. Where Frederic Barbarossa had
commanded, Frederic II entreated and cajoled. The
spirit of external Universalism lingered still in Italy,
but it was too weak to give effectual support to the
Emperor in his quarrel with the Papacy.
Nor was the imperial position in Germany much more
satisfactory. Otto the Great had crushed the rebellions
of the dukes and had effected the temporary establish
ment of a strong monarchy. But his successors were
speedily involved in difficulties more serious than those
which had embarrassed the first Saxon Emperor. The
existing spirit of internal Individualism was enhanced
by the occurrence of minorities and by the quasi-
elective character of the monarchy. The first resulted
in feebleness of the executive. The second led each
king to bid for the support of the nobles, the more so
because he was concerned in an attempt to secure the
establishment of his own dynasty. The permanent
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 85
strength of the monarchy was sacrificed to the immediate
interest of the monarch. And further concessions to
local independence were occasioned by the fact that the
German king was also Emperor; they were the price
which he paid for the support of his vassals in those
Italian expeditions which were essential for the actual
attainment of the imperial crown, or which were under
taken in the hope of preserving imperial rights in the
Peninsula.
Soon the princes of the Empire discovered a plausible
justification for their turbulence. Theoretically, the
Emperor was lord of the world; all kings were his
vassals. The German magnates therefore claimed that
the rights of their king had been extinguished by his
accession to a higher office; that they, no less than the
various rulers of western Europe, were tenants-in-chief
of the Empire, and that it would diminish imperial
dignity if they were degraded to any position lower than
that occupied by, for example, a king of France. Such
obedience as the Capetians rendered, they would render;
and since the Capetians were entirely independent,
the German princes claimed entire independence also.
They laboured to exalt the Emperor into impotence.
It is true that the strength of the Salian and Hohen-
staufen dynasties prevented the magnates from realising
their ambition, but they none the less possessed an
argument which served to justify practical rebellion
and which the universalists themselves found it hard to
refute.
The Popes hastened to avail themselves of the advan
tages thus offered. As exponents of external Uni-
versalism, they could readily accept the theory put
forward by the German princes of their relation to
the Emperor. They encouraged the growth of local
independence, supported insurrections, and urged the
86 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
nobles to insist upon the alienation of crown lands.
It gradually became habitual for the electors to demand
such alienation as the price of their recognition ; it was
the design of the princes to secure that the king should
not have demesnes sufficiently extensive to supply him
with power to refuse their demands. If a Henry III
or a Frederic Barbarossa proved equal to the task of
curbing the turbulence of his vassals, it was still only
at the cost of civil war; such civil war became the
normal state of affairs in Germany. In short, the
attempt to combine the Roman Empire and the
German kingdom failed to give strength to the former
and strangled the latter in its birth.
The Popes enjoyed a special advantage in their
interference in the affairs of Germany. The archbishops
of Mainz, Koln, and Trier were great territorial mag
nates ; their influence, both as churchmen and as nobles,
was considerable. But being ecclesiastics, though they
might at times adopt an attitude of hostility towards
the Papacy, they were ultimately its natural allies.
The fact that the imperial crown was elective made their
support doubly important, and assisted the Pope in the
exaltation of rival Emperors. Claiming that it was part
of the papal prerogative to supervise the conduct of the
man upon whom the imperial crown had been conferred,
the Papacy, from the time of Henry IV, frequently
decreed the deposition of an Emperor hostile to it and
the transference of his title to another. Nor did the
German princes hesitate to transfer their allegiance to a
papal nominee ; from his weakness or from the consequent
embarrassment of the legitimate Emperor, they might
always win some new concessions, some fresh immunities.
The spirit of internal Individualism ranged a large party
in Germany on the side of the Pope.
At the same time, the Emperors were unable to
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 87
retaliate successfully by the creation of anti- popes.
Originally, there had been an imperial veto on papal
elections, but that veto was lost after the reign of Henry
III, and soon even imperial recognition was no longer
admitted to be essential. Whereas an imperial corona
tion could take place only at Rome, and the Popes were
thus in a measure acknowledged to have at least some
share in the choice of an Emperor, that Emperor had
no similar share in the choice of a Pope. An anti-
emperor was assured of a following among the princes
of Germany; their Individualism impelled them to
seize any opportunity for weakening the imperial
position. But universalists and individualists alike
tended to refuse recognition to an anti-pope. The
clergy dreaded the possible disruption of the Church;
those laity who were not actuated by the same dread
feared the effects of an increase of imperial power, which
threatened that liberty so dear to them as individualists.
It is small wonder, then, that the Papacy triumphed;
its triumph was the first great victory gained by the
forces of Individualism, little as that appeared at the
time. With the death of Frederic II and the fall of the
Hohenstaufen, the struggle came to an end. The Great
Interregnum followed; the world learnt that it could
dispense with an Emperor. On the other hand, papal
supremacy was admitted by all ; its recognition, indeed,
seemed to be more complete than ever, since there
was now no rival claimant to universal dominion. In
reality, however, the ascendancy of external Univer-
salism was impaired. During the contest between
Empire and Papacy, mankind had been perplexed by
the necessity of choosing between the two parties.
If the verdict had been given for the Pope, this was the
result largely of the fact that for the time the forces of
Individualism were enlisted on his side. This did not
88 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
prevent the casting of doubts upon that theory which
had hitherto been almost unquestioningly accepted.
And now when the Empire was practically suspended,
further doubts arose; men began to ask whether there
was indeed any human vicegerent of Christ. Serious
resistance to papal claims followed immediately upon
the too complete victory of the Papacy.
Once more, that victory was but the expression of the
reaction which was occurring in the human mind. The
theory of external Universalism had for centuries been
generally accepted; now the contrary theory began to
gain ground, and the closing stages of the quarrel between
the Empire and the Papacy are marked by a growing
disregard for the unity of Christendom. It is not a
mere coincidence that the fall of the Hohenstaufen
occurred at the very moment when the Crusades came
to an end. There has never been a more remarkable
expression of the corporate conception of human society
than that which was supplied by the expeditions sent
out for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. Western
Europe poured out its blood and treasure for the attain
ment of an ideal; the early crusaders were inspired to
forget all national and racial distinction, that they
might combine to rescue Jerusalem from the infidel.
Such was the spirit of the First Crusade ; such was the
chord in the human heart which responded to the appeal
of Urban II at Clermont. Men forgot all, save the fact
that they were Christians and brothers, that they must
unite to avenge the wrongs of their Saviour.
But to the enthusiastic altruism of the First Crusade
there presently succeeded a far different spirit. Philip
Augustus, in the Third Crusade, pursued his own in
terest rather than that of Christendom ; even Richard I
was not above suspicion of selfishness. The Fourth
Crusade was little more than a mercantile adventure;
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 89
it turned aside from Palestine, since there seemed to be
greater profit to be gained from an attack on Constanti
nople. The expeditions, which still proceeded to the
Holy Land, were principally dictated by a wish to keep
open the eastern markets for the maritime republics of
Italy; they resemble the expeditions of London mer
chants to the Iberian Peninsula rather than that which
Godfrey of Bouillon had led to Jerusalem. The spirit
of Universalism was gradually giving place to that of
Individualism.
And it was both significant and appropriate that the
last Crusade should have been led by Frederic II. In
him the spirit of external Universalism found its true
embodiment. Brilliant, cultured, brave, he was not
unworthy to occupy the throne of the Csesars. A law
giver and a poet, the founder of a university, he pos
sessed almost all the qualities which might fit a man to
be the representative of the human race. By birth a
German, by education an Italian, by policy almost a
Saracen, he was essentially cosmopolitan ; he would have
been hampered by the possession of mere territorial
sovereignty. He was veritably " the Wonder of the
World," the last true mediseval Emperor. And it is
equally significant that his Crusade should have been
carried out despite a papal decree of excommunication
against its leader; the Papacy, pursuing its apparent
interest, had become almost individualist in spirit.
Henceforward a Crusade was an impossibility. Ex
ternal Individualism had gained too great a hold on
mankind for them so to forget their private cares as to
adventure their lives and money for the sake of establish
ing Christian rule over the grave of the Founder of the
faith. The Papacy had shattered its rival, but it had
done so only at the cost of shaking men's belief in that
theory on which the papal, no less than the imperial,
go THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
position rested. The world, so long desirous to be
ruled, now conceived the desire to rule; excess, as
always, brought its own retribution. And the effects
of the reaction which they had encouraged were soon
felt by the Popes; Frederic II was avenged by Philip
the Fair, by Hus, and by Luther.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 91
VIII
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE: 3. FROM THE FALL OF THE
HOHENSTAUFEN TO THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA
THE fall of the Hohenstaufen marks an important epoch
in the history of the world. To all seeming, a decisive
victory had been secured by the Papacy, the supremacy
of which appeared to be established beyond all dispute,
since the Empire for a while practically ceased to exist.
In reality, however, the victory was rather a defeat; it
had been gained at the cost of weakening that sentiment
upon which the power of the Papacy ultimately rested.
For papal, no less than imperial, supremacy was only
the expression of the corporate conception of human
society; it depended for its vitality upon the strength
of the desire to be ruled, upon the ascendancy of external
Universalism. But in the course of the struggle the
Popes had consciously or unconsciously availed them
selves of the existence of the contrary sentiment. They
had urged men to refuse obedience to the Emperor, had
denied his claim to universal dominion, had reviled
and degraded the imperial office. They failed to
realise that by adopting this policy, though they might
accomplish the defeat of their rivals, they were bound
at the same time to inflict irreparable damage on them
selves, to weaken permanently their own position.
Once taught to gratify their desire to rule, men naturally
proceeded to the rejection of all external authority, to
the fullest satisfaction of that desire.
For a time, the spirit of external Individualism found
a useful ally in the Pope; the Emperor was more
92 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
obviously and immediately in a position of hostility to
that spirit, since he demanded material and not merely
moral obedience. But the alliance could only be
temporary. When the Emperor had ceased to be a
danger, Individualism found its enemy in the Pope, and
the very completeness of the papal triumph made an
attack upon papal supremacy both more inevitable
and more vigorous. After the fall of the Hohenstaufen,
not only did the intoxication of victory lead to the
putting forward of exaggerated claims by the Papacy,
but, further, the utter humiliation of their rivals led
the Popes to appear clearly as the only barrier against
the complete realisation of the ideal of external In
dividualism.
Even before the conclusion of the struggle between
the Empire and the Papacy, the theory of papal supre
macy had been at least tentatively called in question.
The Roman populace never submitted readily to the
rule of their bishops; seditions were frequent, and the
authority of the Pope was constantly threatened.
Among these seditions, that organised by Arnold of
Brescia possesses a special significance. Not content
with advocating the restoration of the Republic, he went
further and denied the right of the Pope to intermeddle
with secular affairs. This amounted to an assault on
the doctrine of papal supremacy, since, though the Vicar
of Christ was primarily the spiritual head of Christendom,
he claimed also a definite superiority over all temporal
rulers. On the authority of the alleged Donation of
Constantine and of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, it
had been asserted that at the time of the foundation of
Constantinople the government of the western provinces
of the Roman Empire had been committed to the Pope,
and if that grant had been a tribute to his ecclesiastical
pre-eminence, it none the less conveyed with it some
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 93
secular power. Arnold of Brescia, on the contrary,
contended that a bishop should confine himself to the
services of the Church, nor did he urge the maintenance
of imperial government. Admitting that a formal
recognition of the Emperor was either expedient or
necessary, he supported the practical assertion of local
independence; he denied in effect the existence of any
human vicegerent of Christ.
Arnold had contented himself with attacking the
secular side of papal supremacy. The Albigenses assailed
the whole papal position. Politically, they denied the
right of the Pope to interfere with the government
and conduct of the count of Toulouse. Doctrinally,
they asserted the right of private judgment, questioned
the exceptional position of the priesthood, and even
denied the vital dogma of transubstantiation. All the
factors which eventually produced the Reformation
may here be discerned, if only in embryo ; the Albigenses
resisted all the implications of that theory of the divine
government of the world upon which papal authority
depended. They failed in their revolt against external
Universalism, but their importance cannot well be
overestimated. That it was recognised at the time is
sufficiently indicated by the fact that the expedition
against them was described as a " crusade," a term
hitherto applied only to the holy wars against the
professed enemies of the Christian religion.
And the Friar movement itself, the most emphatic
expression of the religious spirit during this period,
contributed eventually to the decline of papal influence.
At first, the devotion of the disciples of Dominic and
Francis revived the waning reputation of the Church
and riveted afresh its hold upon the human intellect.
But this was only the immediate result of the work of the
Friars. Themselves professing and preaching apostolic
94 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
poverty, they rebuked by implication, and even ex
plicitly, the wealth and luxury of the monks and of
the episcopate. They crystallised a certain vague dis
approval of ecclesiastical riches, and supplied arguments
against abuses, the existence of which had long been
deplored. In this way, they discredited all sections of
the clergy except themselves. For the moment, their
own popularity counterbalanced the unpopularity of
the bishops and monks, and the Church as a whole
gained rather than lost.
But the Friars themselves soon became guilty of the
very vices which they had so eloquently denounced, and
ecclesiastical credit was forthwith seriously impaired.
Mankind had learnt to express its hatred of clerical
abuses; open expression consolidated opinion, and a
demand for reform was heard. The Pope, as head of
western Christendom, was invited to satisfy this demand ;
he refused, and revealed plainly that apostolic poverty
was an ideal unwelcome to the successor of the Prince
of the Apostles. The Friars Observant, who held
strictly to the original constitution of their Orders,
were silenced, since they had insisted too strongly upon
the original status of the founders of their Faith. But
when once criticism had found expression, it could not
be subdued by a papal non possumus ; so far from
ceasing, it turned to the theory of the supremacy of the
Pope, which it had at first left unassailed. The abuses
resultant from gratification of the desire to be ruled
fostered the desire to rule. In existing circumstances,
reform was impossible without papal sanction and
support; since that sanction and support were not
forthcoming, it appeared to be questionable whether a
complete change in the whole scheme of ecclesiastical
polity was not desirable.
The Friars, moreover, in face of the natural opposition
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 95
which their coming had aroused in the monastic orders,
had been obliged to rely upon papal support against
the clergy of those countries in which they laboured.
They became an essentially international body, the
very exemplar of external Universalism. So long as
they retained their popularity, the Papacy benefited
from this fact ; it appeared as the champion of the only
body of clergy which merited and received the respect
and affection of mankind. But as soon as they had
become corrupt, their very cosmopolitanism increased
the dislike with which they came to be regarded. They
found themselves in direct opposition to the spirit of
external Individualism, and by their faults they fostered
the growth of that spirit. They were considered as
alien intruders; only by papal influence could they
maintain themselves in any country. Consequently,
a large measure of their unpopularity was transferred
to their patron; the power of the Pope was held to be
a bar to the accomplishment of salutary reforms, and
the advantage of papal supremacy seemed more than
ever dubious.
That doctrine of apostolic poverty which the Friars
preached also reflected upon the Pope. Successive occu
pants of the papal chair found it necessary to rebuke
the exuberant zeal of the Observants. The rigid
asceticism of the early Dominicans and Franciscans, in
deed, did no small disservice to the papal cause, since the
Papacy had accumulated wealth from the piety and
superstition of western Europe, and the continued
possession of that wealth was threatened by the doctrine
that true Christianity disdained or shunned all earthly
things. The external individualists had already lamented
the transference of so much wealth into alien hands.
Now they seized eagerly on the arguments against
ecclesiastical riches with which the Friars presented
96 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
them, and their original regret was intensified or con
verted into anger when they had been taught that the
holding of temporal property was incompatible with the
sincere following of Christ.
The ultimate cause of the decline of papal ascendancy
is to be found in the growth of individualist ideas, and
in this period more especially in the development of
external Individualism. Yet nothing more forcibly
illustrates the complexity of the conflict of desire than
the interaction of the two contrary emotions during the
later Middle Ages. While external Individualism made
progress, internal Universalism made progress also;
the growth of the one assisted that of the other, nor is
it too much to say that by the growth of the one that
of the other was made possible. The western world
tended towards internal Universalism because it was
tending towards external Individualism also ; the increase
of internal Universalism in turn made that of external
Individualism more rapid.
It has been pointed out already that in the period
following the barbarian invasions the internal organisa
tion of states was individualist. For this fact, the
contemporary prevalence of external Universalism was
largely responsible. Rulers were turned from the task
of consolidating their immediate dominions by the hope
of seizing the phantom of the imperial crown. Actuated
by the same desire, they aspired to increase the area of
their nominal possessions that they might thus appear
more worthy of that higher dignity at which they aimed.
And as the Emperor was content with bare recognition
in a large part of the Empire, so kings tended to be
satisfied with a similar position. Their states were
large and loosely knit together; the exercise of control
by the central government was negligible or spasmodic,
and anarchy was the rule rather than the exception.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 97
But this anarchy made resistance to external in
fluences less possible, and if the Emperor failed to
maintain his authority, that was due not so much to
the strength of local resistance as to his own extreme
weakness.
Presently, however, the ineffective character of the
central government in each state produced an intolerable
situation. Western Europe was exposed to and suffered
from the attacks of Saracens and Northmen, and the
reaction in favour of external Individualism was en
couraged by experience of the practical evils resulting
from the contrary system. But the individualists
themselves, perhaps unconsciously, recognised that the
most pressing necessity was a strengthening of the
government to which they yielded immediate obedience ;
without such strengthening, there could be neither
deliverance from anarchy nor salvation from foreign
enemies. Society, therefore, was gradually reorganised
in smaller units, internally universalist in character.
Nobles who had undertaken the defence of their neigh
bours developed into kings of the districts in which they
lived and which they protected; even if they did not
assume the royal title, they at least enjoyed practically
royal power. Cities, which had been compelled to work
out their own political salvation, asserted their right to
a measure of local self-government which amounted
to independence; if they admitted the nominal over-
lordship of some external ruler, they became in reality
free republics. Western Europe presented the spectacle
of large states over which the authority of the ruler was
almost non-existent, and smaller communities, often
without definite legal status, in which the government
was all-powerful.
This result was in a measure the outcome of the growth
of feudal ideas, though those ideas were encouraged by
G
98 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the existing condition of society. Feudalism regarded
the individual rather than the community; each man
must have his lord, and to that lord the obedience of
each man was due. A community might owe some
service to its overlord, but that service was performed
by a duke or count or bishop, the representative, as it
were, of the people. It was not performed by all the
members of the community. It was to a mediate, not
to the ultimate, lord that the mass of the population
rendered obedience; the vassals of a king of France
admitted no direct obligations towards the Emperor,
the vassals of a duke of Normandy admitted no direct
obligation towards the king of France. All kingdoms
were practically subdivided into extremely small units.
This state of affairs was certainly the outcome of
external Universalism ; the organisation of the theoreti
cal provinces of the Empire was modelled upon that of
the whole. But it also gratified the external Individu
alism of the age. The central government was more
powerful in the new small units than it had ever been
in the old larger units, and with the strengthening of the
central government, resistance to external interference
was more possible. The growth of individualist ideas
produced, as its initial result, a growth of internal
Universalism.
That growth was, however, very slow. The concep
tion of the unity of Christendom was too powerful to be
destroyed readily, and that conception stood perpetually
in the path of a national state, hampering its develop
ment at every turn. Abstinence from territorial
aggrandisement has rarely been a characteristic of
absolute rule; a despot will generally wage wars of
aggression; what may be called political self-denial is
the rarest virtue of a crowned head who not only reigns
but also rules. And in the Middle Ages, this particular
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 99
virtue was especially rare, especially difficult of attain
ment. The dream of the Empire hovered always before
the fevered eyes of kings, the conception of world-wide
dominion inflamed the coldest minds, and rulers and
subjects alike were stirred to abandon the arduous toil
of internal consolidation to pursue the dazzling pros
pect of extended dominion and an imperial crown. It
seemed almost shameful to devote much attention to a
mere national state, when the lordship of the world was
the reward of successful ambition. So Otto the Great
turned aside to visit Rome ; so even the statesmanlike
Henry II and the calculating Philip Augustus, both of
whom listened unmoved to the story of the fall of Jeru
salem, were credited with no slight longing to wear the
crown of Constantine and of Charles.
And the result was that the natural development of
mankind was impeded. External Universalism had
enjoyed a long ascendancy; from that ascendancy the
world had benefited. But the order of human life is con
flict; the hour for a salutary reaction had now sounded;
external Individualism was bound to displace the
contrary theory. Men, however, would not or could
not so easily forget their old ideals; they hesitated to
enter that wilderness of doubt into which the casting
away of the dominant theory seemed bound to lead them.
Nations strive always to attain happiness; they grope
for ever towards the Promised Land. They may be
counted happy if they attain some Pisgah from which
a glimpse of the distant plains may be secured; such
glimpses, but no more, are at times vouchsafed to them.
In the Middle Ages, at the very moment when the summit
had been attained and the weary eyes of the traveller
were refreshed by a sight of the Promised Land, a dark
cloud ever arose to obscure the view; some force, the
mighty influence of external Universalism, hurled man-
zoo THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
kind back into the Valley of Shadow from which they
had so painfully emerged.
The history of the centuries following the death of
Charles the Great is largely a history of lost opportunities,
of a weary sacrifice of the real upon the altar of a vain
ideal. Incalculable evils resulted from the fatal journey
of Otto, since by it hope was revived that the Roman
Empire might once more dominate and unify western
Europe. Germany and Italy were condemned to cen
turies of disunion; endless wars were waged, countless
lives sacrificed. The prestige of the Church was re
duced, her reputation damaged, and the conception of
Christian brotherhood degraded by use as a political
asset by the Emperor or the Pope.
The history of France possibly affords even clearer
evidence of the disasters resultant from the attempt to
maintain external Universalism ; there, if anywhere,
may be seen the dreary cycle of misery to which mankind
was condemned. The heirs of Chlodovech had enlarged
their borders only to become r ois faineants, only to be
driven to delegate all power to their Mayors of the Palace.
Those Mayors had ascended the Prankish throne with
Pippin, had attained the imperial crown with Charles.
But forthwith delegation of power once more became
necessary ; the Carolingian Empire fell by its own weight.
The Capetian dukes of France developed into " Mayors
of the Palace," while their kings shrank trembling in
the palace at Laon; Hugh Capet avenged the last
Merovingian and accepted the dictum of Pope Zachary
that " he who holds the power should possess the title
of king." And at once Hugh's successors repeated the
errors by which the Carolingians had been destroyed.
The temptation of mere territorial increase overpowered
them ; the measure of their nominal authority grew, and
they paid the price when they cowered before their
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 101
overmighty subjects. William, duke of Normandy,
might admit the legal suzerainty of the French king;
he could afford to smile at the angry threats of his
overlord, the harassed ruler of the Capetians' narrow
patrimony.
And as good fortune or capacity united the great fiefs
to the demesne, those fiefs were almost immediately
granted away to cadets of the royal house; each king
seemed to labour to undo the work of his predecessor.
But this apparent anomaly is readily explained; it was
the natural result of external Individualism. Such
delegation of power as territorial expansion made in
evitable would not have been incompatible with strong
government if the sentiment of national identity had
been widespread. But that sentiment was localised
by difficulty of communication. An inhabitant of
Blois regarded an inhabitant of Paris as a foreigner;
the rule of a distant king was foreign rule, and by
force of the spirit of external Individualism, it was
therefore reduced to the merest shadow. A strong
central government was really impossible except in
small units; the permanent increase of those units
could result only from a breaking down of the intense
localism of the age. In short, just as in one period
external Universalism had retarded the development
of national states by keeping alive the conception of
a world Empire, so in the next period external Indi
vidualism produced a similar result by hindering the
recognition of real geographical and ethnical unity in
large areas.
Nevertheless, the age was one of increasing internal
Universalism, of the gradual formation of national
states. Everywhere the power of government tended
to grow, and the area accepting the real control of that
government to grow also. The royal demesnes were
102 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
slowly extended, though districts laboriously welded
together seemed to separate almost before they had been
united; the gathering of districts, geographically one,
under a single ruler is a feature of the period. In
France, the alien government of English kings was
gradually extinguished; in Italy, the republics secured
control of the districts lying round them. Even in
Germany, the Hanseatic towns, the free imperial cities,
practically escaped from the anarchical rule of the
decaying Empire. But most significant of all, the
Emperor and the Pope adopted a territorial policy;
they cared less for their theoretical lordship of the world
than for such measure of practical authority as they
could gain over the territories more immediately under
their control. Even Frederic II gave more attention
to his Sicilian kingdom than to his imperial position;
his quarrel with the Papacy partakes of the nature of a
private war for the possession of southern Italy. After
the Great Interregnum his successors became more
and more unlike the earlier Holy Roman Emperors;
they approximate more and more to the princes of
Germany in their ambitions and policy. Henry VII
was little moved by the eloquent appeal of Dante ; the
De Monarchia proved to be a vain attempt to revive
in the Emperor a sense of his position as temporal head
of Christendom and of the duties attaching to that
position. Nor did the contemporary Popes escape the
suspicion of caring more for their Italian interests than
for the good of the Church. The bitterness of Gregory
VII against Henry IV might be at least colourably
attributed to zeal for the cause of spiritual power; the
bitterness of Gregory IX against Frederic II was almost
too obviously the result of fear of Sicilian aggression
upon the temporal power of the Papacy.
It is clear that when an individualist policy was
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 103
pursued by those whose position made them the pro
fessed exponents of external Universalism, the ascend
ancy of that theory was necessarily imperilled. And the
events which followed the death of Frederic II were at
once an indication of the growth of external Individu
alism and an agency promoting that growth. Boniface
VIII attempted to profit from the defeat of the Hohen-
staufen to reassert and to advance to an extravagant
point all the claims of the Papacy. He aspired to humble
kings more effectually than even an Innocent III had
done; to free the Church from all obligations to the
state, to bring it under his own absolute and unfettered
rule. But he had mistaken the temper of the age in
which he lived. At all points the spirit of external
Individualism rebuffed him; he failed in England and
in France; he could not even dominate that creation
of papal policy, the Angevin kingdom in Naples. It is
an interesting commentary on his claim to be the lord
of emperors and kings that he fell a victim to the in
veterate hostility of a single Roman family, the Colonna.
His death in a frenzy of impotent rage and cursing marks
the fall of the universal dominion of the Papacy ; hence
forth no fictions of apostolic or imperial donations
served to prevent states from pursuing a policy of
external Individualism. It was no longer a question of
complete papal domination; it had become a question
whether any such domination should exist. The re
action had occurred ; the history of the succeeding period
was to determine the extent of that reaction.
At first it seemed probable that this reaction would be
complete. The failure of Boniface VIII was something
more than a mere defeat; it amounted to a positive
disaster. For its direct consequence was the humiliation
of the Papacy before Philip the Fair, the transference
of the papal court to Avignon and the " Babylonish
io4 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Captivity." While one claimant to the lordship of the
world had sunk almost to the level of his nominal
vassals, the other now became little better than a servant
of the French king. Nothing illustrates more graphically
the result of the residence at Avignon than the attitude
of England towards the Papacy during the Hundred
Years' War. Hitherto in all disputes the Pope, as
spiritual head of Christendom, was assured of a respect
ful hearing if he offered his mediation ; now the English
rejected such an offer with contempt, roundly declaring
that they would not entrust the decision of their cause
to the puppet of their enemies.
A severe blow, therefore, had been struck at external
Universalism ; presently that theory sustained a second
and even more serious shock. Gregory XI had returned
to Rome, to the great discontent of many of the cardinals
who not unnaturally preferred the health and tran
quillity of the Rhone valley to the malaria and tur
bulence of the Romagna. As a result, a double election
occurred at the next papal vacancy ; Urban VI at Rome,
Clement VII at Avignon, alike claimed to be apostolic
Pope. So weakened was the sentiment of external
Universalism that neither party would give way; the
Great Schism began, and the world was scandalised or
amused by the vigorous anathemas of two Vicars of
Christ. Attempts to heal the quarrel merely served to
embitter it ; the abortive Council of Pisa is more impor
tant as illustrating the callous disregard of the clergy
for Christian unity than as a proof of any genuine
desire to end the period of disunion.
Nor could it be expected that the growth of external
Individualism should not have been encouraged by the
troubles of the Papacy. It has been already pointed
out that heresy is one of the most obvious expressions
of individualist ideas, and the period of the Babylonish
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 105
Captivity and of the Great Schism is marked by heretical
or quasi-heretical movements. The unity of Christendom
became an ideal of ever-decreasing potency; in place
of it, there is found the newer ideal of the liberty of
national Churches. And this ideal secured the larger
following because it gave expression to another phase of
external Individualism, that conception of nationalism
which had been slowly struggling to life through the
ages.
Between heresy and nationalism there is an inti
mate, if not an inevitable, connection. To the ideal of
authority, the heretic opposes the right of private judg
ment ; to the Universalism of the orthodox, he opposes
his individualist ideals. But inasmuch as the conception
of the unity of Christendom implies some breaking down
of the barriers between nations, it follows that this
conception must make less appeal to those who regard
such barriers as both necessary and admirable. The
nationalist will tend in the direction of heresy, at least
in so far as orthodoxy implies the admission of some
measure of external control. And so it appears that
in all the heretical movements of the Middle Ages the
opponents of the orthodox faith were also champions of
the political distinction of that district in which they
lived. The schism between the Eastern and Western
Churches owed its origin and permanence less to any
enthusiasm for the Filioque Clause than to the antipathy
existing between the Greeks and Latins. The Albigen-
sian movement was less the result of sincere belief in
and admiration for Paulician doctrines than of the racial
and linguistic divergence between northern and southern
France. Many, like the younger Bertrand de Born,
whose religious views were at least obscure, showed
bitter anger at the attack of the alien king of France
upon the local independence of the country of Toulouse.
io6 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Nowhere, however, does this association of heresy
with nationalism appear more clearly than in the
Hussite movement. Before Hus began to preach, the
University of Prague had been the scene of a violent
controversy between the Slav and German students ; the
former objected vigorously and successfully to the
academic domination of the latter. And when Prague
had been converted from a centre of Germanising
influence to a Slav stronghold, the teaching of the
reformer won the more ready acceptance because it
gratified the national spirit of Bohemia. The clergy
of that land were largely aliens and considered to be
representatives of the authority of an Italian prelate.
They were placed in a position of admitted superiority
by the doctrine of communion in one kind, which gave
to the foreign priest a privilege denied to the native
layman. It was this very doctrine that Hus most
definitely assailed, and his attack upon it received the
eager support of all who felt within them the stirring of
Slav national spirit. It was less that the Bohemians
were afflicted by the spiritual injustice of the denial
of the wine, than that they deplored the temporal
injustice of the stigma placed upon their race.
Nor was the resistance to papal supremacy confined
entirely to heretics or nationalists, or even to advocates
of external Individualism. Many universalists realised
the abuses resultant from the uncontrolled authority
of the Pope. They saw that the unity of Christendom
was threatened by something far more serious than the
mere occurrence of a temporary schism, and they
imagined that they had found an effective solution of
the crisis which they recognised. In the early days of
Christianity the perils by which the infant creed was
threatened had been successfully encountered by means
of General Councils of the Church ; the decisions of these
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 107
Councils had been accepted and had been regarded as
of equal validity with the most definite pronouncements
of the Fathers and even of the Apostles. Some of the
most important dogmas had in this way secured their
final recognition ; to the Council of Nicsea was due the
definite assertion of Christ's divinity; to that of Chalce-
don the settlement of the momentous question of the
two natures.
And when the Church, owing to the vices or incompe
tence of its temporal head, was once more threatened
with imminent danger, it seemed to many ecclesiastics
of indubitable doctrinal orthodoxy that the time had
come to effect a constitutional revolution. The Pope
appeared to them to have failed in his task, to require
assistance in the spiritual government of mankind.
And as in the past General Councils had successfully
combated the assaults of heretics, so now a similar body
might carry through certain necessary changes and defeat
the attacks of those who were so vigorously assailing
the position of the Church. The leaders of the so-called
Conciliar Movement proposed to substitute for the
absolute monarchy of the Pope a species of episcopal
oligarchy. At regular intervals a General Council
should meet; its decrees should have the force of law,
and its power should extend, if necessary, to the deposi
tion of its president, the Pope.
But this suggestion, though originating with those
who believed in external Universalism and in the
existence of a single authority over the whole Christian
world, was in effect not only revolutionary but also
evidently calculated to promote external Individualism.
The basis of universalist ascendancy was the acceptance
of the theory that Christ had committed the government
of the world to some human vicegerent. The Pope
might claim that position as the canonical successor of
io8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
St. Peter; it was difficult to contend that Christ had
instituted a numerous council to be the inspired re
pository of His will. The Conciliar Movement could not
fail to encourage the growth of external Individualism
when it admitted in effect the falsity of the whole
theory upon which the contrary doctrine was so largely
based.
Throughout western Europe, then, the period of the
Great Schism was marked by a tendency towards the
complete rejection of external Universalism. But that
theory, inevitably eternal because the expression of one
of man's permanent impulses, was still powerful enough
to make headway against the growing Individualism
of the age. The meeting of the Council of Constance
was greeted with unfeigned enthusiasm ; its success in
closing the Great Schism was heartily applauded. Even
the probability that the reunited Papacy would in some
measure recover an authority which had become un
welcome and distrusted did not greatly qualify the
sense of relief and delight that the unity of Christendom
had been restored. The election of Martin V was rather
considered to be the dawn of a new golden age for the
Church.
It did not herald any such dawn, but none the less
the Council of Constance, like the death of Frederic II,
marks an epoch in the history of mankind. Over its
deliberations the Emperor Sigismund had presided. He
had secured the rejection of John XXII and the accept
ance of the Council's nominee, Martin V; he had ap
peared, if only for a moment, as the temporal head of
Christendom. And the unexampled opportunity, which
the Great Schism and the Council appeared to afford
him, had moved Sigismund to attempt to recover some
thing of the lost imperial power. He hoped that the
revival of universalist ideas, resultant from the restora-
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 109
tion of unity to the Church, might profit the Empire
and lead to an equivalent restoration of prestige and
authority to the Emperor.
But no sooner did he attempt to realise these hopes
than he met with strenuous opposition. Any extension
of secular power over the Church was anathema to the
papal party; one section of the external universalists
became his enemies. The external individualists were
equally hostile. They would not admit the assertion
of imperial authority within the borders of states which
had gained independence since the days of Otto the
Great. At Paris, Sigismund roused alarm and hostility
by knighting a bastard on French soil. When he
visited England, heralds rode into the sea and refused
him permission to land, until he had disclaimed any
intention of exercising jurisdiction in the island. Nor
was Sigismund himself a single-minded universalist.
Much of his attention was devoted to the creation of a
territorial monarchy for the House of Luxemburg, and
this design amounted to a tacit contradiction of his
schemes for the revival of the Empire. His significance,
indeed, lies really in his failure. He was the last Emperor
to attempt the restoration of the old mediaeval system,
to attempt to base his power upon external Universalism.
And he was the first Emperor to conceive the idea that
his imperial position might be utilised to assist the lor-
mation of a territorial monarchy, of a dominion founded
upon individualist principles. Sigismund emphasised
the failure of the Hohenstaufen ; he suggested the
success of the Habsburgs.
At the same time, a decided modification appears in
the policy of the Popes. Boniface VIII had deliberately
attempted to make good his claim to universal dominion ;
he had proudly declared that he was Caesar and Emperor.
His successors, after the return from Avignon and still
no THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
more after the Council of Constance, were content to
pursue far humbler schemes. Martin V would perhaps
have been well pleased if he could have imposed his
authority upon the Romagna ; to reduce the Patrimony
to obedience became the primary object of every Pope.
Papal policy assumed an increasingly Italian character;
local territorial aggrandisement was its goal. But such
territorialism was peculiarly injurious to the cause of
papal supremacy. The field of action was limited, the
interests at stake somewhat petty; success and failure
appeared to be alike contemptible. An Innocent III,
struggling for the mastery of Europe, the humiliator of
Emperors and kings, extorted the admiration of those
who most bitterly opposed him. There was a certain
pathos even in the picture of Boniface VIII dashing
his head against the narrow walls of his cell, bemoaning
a fate which had made the rival of kings the victim of
his own turbulent subjects. The spectacle of Martin V
triumphant over an insignificant noble of the Romagna,
the thought of the intrigues and plots in which he
engaged to win some few acres of malarial desert, could
arouse neither admiration nor sympathy. If some might
be found to regret that a power which had humbled
the mighty Hohenstaufen was so reduced, had fallen so
low, more could be found to marvel that the world had
so long trembled before the menaces of one who now
seemed to be but an impotent Italian bishop.
And if the sentiment of external Universalism suffered
from the mere territorialism of the Papacy, it suffered
still more from a feature of that territorialism which
excited anger as well as contempt. After the time of
Martin V, nepotism became the keynote of papal policy.
The exaltation of penurious relatives became the darling
ambition of almost every Pope, and to that ambition
were sacrificed the interest of the Church and the
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE in
reputation of its temporal head. A cynical generation
viewed sceptically the paternal affection with which
Popes regarded their nephews; even before the days
of Alexander VI, the sons of celibate bishops afforded
a source of scandalous amusement to the profane. If
the pursuit of purely Italian interests had weakened the
hold of the Papacy upon the imagination of mankind,
the nepotism of successive Popes almost destroyed such
respect for the papal office as had survived the degrada
tion of the Babylonish Captivity and the calamitous
disunion of the Great Schism.
It is clear that in such circumstances even the spiritual
authority of Rome could hardly fail to suffer a certain
diminution. As a matter of fact, the Popes themselves
displayed a certain carelessness for the maintenance of
that authority; the pressing need of defeating the
Conciliar Movement led them to deviate still further
from the universalist path. That movement owed such
strength as it possessed to the growth of nationalism
and to the desire for independence on the part of local
Churches. English, French and German ecclesiastics
hoped that the transference of nominal authority to an
international General Council would secure to them
practical liberty. They cared less for the projected
reform of abuses, or for the theoretical limitation of
papal power, than for the special and private advantages
which they trusted would accrue to themselves from the
permanent establishment of a Council as the ultimate
sovereign of the Church.
At the same time, the Popes recognised that the
creation of such a body would infallibly reduce them
from an autocratic position to one of servitude to a
probably hostile and certainly jealous tribunal; the
conduct of the Council of Basle indicated what would be
the outcome of a victory for the conciliar party. Huge-
ii2 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
nius IV therefore decided that at all costs a statutory
limitation of papal supremacy must be avoided, and he
adopted the obvious course of sowing dissensions among
his enemies. While the Fathers of Basle pressed for
the fulfilment of the pledges given, or alleged to have
been given, by Martin V at Constance, Eugenius con
cluded separate agreements with the clergy of various
countries. National Churches were induced to accept
as a papal gift all that they had hoped to secure from
the General Council. Immediate success crowned the
efforts of the Pope. In a short while, the Conciliar
Movement was not merely dead but damned, and no
fear remained that unwelcome reforms would be imposed
upon the Papacy, the absolute ultimate authority of
which was definitely admitted.
But the policy of Eugenius was fraught with serious
peril for the future. Practically it amounted to a
partial abdication of that spiritual headship which had
been so toilsomely created by the great Popes of the
Middle Ages. The vast pretensions of a Boniface VIII
could no more be asserted; it had been implicitly con
fessed that such pretensions were exaggerated. And
ultimately the victory of Eugenius was still more
disastrous to the Papacy. It was upon the desire to be
ruled that papal power really rested; that desire had
been weakened in mankind by the abuses attendant
upon its gratification, and with the failure of external
Universalism to produce a Utopia, external Individu
alism gained ground. This reaction in favour of the
desire to rule could be checked only by proving that the
abuses, to which objection was taken, could be remedied
under a universalist system; that they were, in fact,
not the necessary concomitants of gratification of the
desire to be ruled. But the leaders of the Conciliar
Movement were pledged to attempt reform, their
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 113
opponents had denied the need for reform. When,
therefore, the Pope had triumphed, he was unable or
afraid to admit the justice of the complaints against the
Church. All reform from within was prevented; the
abuses continued, and the individualist reaction was
proportionately hastened. The Reformation was an
event bound to occur; the particular form which the
Reformation assumed was due largely to the conduct
and apparent success of Eugenius IV.
And even in the period which saw the supposed vic
tory of Eugenius, the weakness of the Papacy was
made apparent. Concessions to national Churches of
unblemished doctrinal orthodoxy were followed by
concessions to declared heretics. During the initial
enthusiasm aroused by the Council of Constance, John
Hus had been condemned and burned; the assertor of
individualist ideas had paid the penalty of his daring;
the accepted theory had been vindicated. But so far
from being quelled by the death of its originator, the
Hussite movement increased in vigour and its sup
porters became the more determined to resist coercion.
The people of Bohemia rose in arms against the two
custodians of external Universalism. They rejected
alike the political claims of Sigismund and the spiri
tual claims of Martin; Ziska and Prokop, in a series
of campaigns, successfully repelled the attacks of their
orthodox and Teutonic enemies. So victorious were
the Hussites that the Papacy was eventually reduced
to the necessity of compromise; the demands of the
Utraquists were conceded, and alone of all western
Christians the Czechs were permitted to receive the cup.
Nor was the grant of communion in both kinds to the
laity of Bohemia a trivial event. It struck at the
exceptional position of the priesthood ; it declared that
the right to rule did not rest with the clergy alone.
ii4 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
A further diminution of the influence of external Uni-
versalism thus characterised the epoch of the Council
of Constance. Though reunited, the Papacy failed to
regain the prestige and moral force lost during the
Babylonish Captivity and the Great Schism; papal
power was for ever reduced by the fact that the theory
upon which it was ultimately based had sustained
irreparable damage. Pius II, able and brilliant though
he was, could not undo the work of the years previous
to his accession. His solitary vigil at Ancona, as he
waited for the crusaders to receive his blessing and set
forth on their great mission, illustrates graphically the
decline of the old conception of Christian unity.
Nor did the Empire profit from the efforts of Sigis-
mund. If imperial leadership had for a moment been
accepted, this was due to the accidental circumstance
that the healing of schism was advantageous to the
individualist cause. Churches which desired conces
sions to their local prejudices and interests naturally
preferred that those concessions should be made by a
universally acknowledged Pope rather than by a Pope
of dubious catholicity. And the successors of Sigis-
mund recognised the true explanation of that Emperor's
brief triumph. They quietly abandoned all attempts
to assert their imperial authority ; they ceased even to
believe in that external Universalism to which the Holy
Roman Empire owed its being. With Frederic III,
the last traces of mediaeval imperialism disappear. It
is true that he journeyed to Italy and was crowned at
Rome. But his journey was hasty and apologetic; he
seemed only too eager to renounce any possible claims,
to abdicate any possible authority which he might still
possess in the Peninsula. During his reign of half a
century, his whole attention was absorbed in laying or
strengthening the foundations of Habsburg power; he
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 115
was, in fact, a typical statesman of the period, and by
no means the least able.
It is significant that the most dangerous enemies
of Frederic were neither Popes nor German princes,
but national leaders. George Podiebrad and Matthias
Corvinus almost succeeded in creating a powerful Slav
state in Hungary and Bohemia ; the Emperor was even
driven from Vienna. But though Vladislav of Poland
for a time asserted the cause of his race, he eventually
made peace with Frederic, on terms which really
sacrificed the Slavs to Teutonic supremacy. The aim
of these leaders was national ; they alike failed. Yet in
their failure Europe still learned perhaps what was to be
the basis of the new order of society. Mankind was slow
to recognise the coming change; the human mind was
reluctant to free itself from the domination of the desire
to be ruled. The mediaeval Empire died with Frederic
II, the mediaeval Papacy with Boniface VIII. Yet
it was not until the Peace of Westphalia that either
fact received explicit recognition; the victory of ex
ternal Individualism at Constance was real rather than
apparent.
The reluctance with which men permitted individualist
ideas to gain control over them is abundantly illustrated
in the career of Charles the Bold. Perhaps the most
typical man of the age, his life reflects clearly the vigour
of the mental conflict which absorbed mankind. Nothing
could have been more entirely individualist than his
conduct towards Louis XI ; in his quarrel with the
Valois he was disturbed by no scruples of duty. Yet,
at the same time, Charles was largely universalist. He
disregarded geographical and ethnical obstacles in his
attempt to, weld into a kingdom lands divided by race
and language, historical associations and economic
interest. It almost seemed as if he believed that
u6 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
because Lotharingia had once existed, it could exist
again. And eagerly as he desired the kingly title, he
was too much obsessed by universalist ideas to assume
it without imperial sanction. He sought it at the hands
of Frederic III, recognising that the lord of the world
alone could create a legitimate king, and when the
Habsburg cheated or deceived him, he still refrained
from denying the rights of the Emperor. It is curious
that Charles the Bold should have shown less indepen
dence of action than did Boso of Provence or Rudolf of
Burgundy in the days of Charles the Fat; the fact may
perhaps be explained as due to the stereotyping of
human ideas during the long ascendancy of external
Universalism.
Meanwhile, internal Individualism almost held its own.
Difficulty of communication and the lack of compelling
power in the central government still combined to
maintain the strength of local feeling. Nor did the
external individualists at first appreciate the necessity
of making some concessions to internal Universalism
if they were to preserve their liberty against foreign
aggression. The two agencies from which such aggres
sion might be expected were obviously powerless to
coerce. The Emperor could no longer control even
Germany and Italy, and if the Pope were still able to
exercise spiritual authority, he had ceased to be a
political danger. Those opposed to foreign influence
therefore failed to realise that for the success of their
opposition a measure of submission to authority was
essential, while their intense localism led them to
regard as foreigners all who were not inhabitants of their
own immediate districts. The evils of invasion and
conquest had to be experienced before the limitations
upon gratification of the desire to rule could be under
stood. In no other way could men learn to adopt a
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 117
wider view of national identity; in no other way could
they learn that real independence was impossible in
units too small to withstand foreign aggression.
The force of necessity, however, produced a gradual
change of opinion. In every country the extreme of
internal Individualism produced a condition of in
stability akin to anarchy; in many cases this semi-
anarchy led to disastrous foreign wars. From the
calamities which thus befell them, men learned to seek
political salvation by entrusting greater power to the
central government; their very external Individualism
led them to become in a sense internal universalists.
Hence it is that this period witnessed the establishment
of despotism, open or veiled, in the Italian cities; the
Visconti secured control of Milan, the Medici of Florence;
Venice fell under the rule of the Council of Ten. In
Spain, Castile and Aragon were united; Ferdinand and
Isabella, having rescued their land from civil war and
having conquered Granada, began the formation of a
centralised monarchy. The Burgundian dukes laboured
to destroy the liberties of the Flemish cities, repressing
sedition with a firm hand. Even in Germany there
were signs of consolidation; it was in this period that
the various German states, such as Brandenburg, began
to attain a measure of definition.
But the stages by which internal Universalism secured
acceptance are nowhere so clearly discernible as in the
history of France. That country had been handed over
to the ravages of the English by the rivalry of the great
feudatories; the Burgundians and Armagnacs forgot
everything except their mutual hatred, and each felt
that no price was too heavy to pay for the destruction
of the other. The masses were as unwise as the nobles.
Aiming at the removal of certain abuses, they failed to
realise that the initial step must be a strengthening of
u8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the central government against external attack; the
Jacquerie and the Cabochins, in effect, strove to remedy
anarchy by increasing it.
The disasters of the Hundred Years' War, however,
taught France the needed lesson. It was at length
recognised that governance was necessary, and the
French, with characteristic volatility, abandoned their
excessive Individualism to fly to the contrary extreme.
Not content with giving the king sufficient power to
ensure the defeat of the foreign invader, the States
General deliberately granted Charles VII a permanent
revenue and army; they supplied him with the pre
requisites of despotism instead of the mere essentials
for national defence. The English were expelled, and
the king turned to the taming of those nobles whose
turbulence had caused the disasters of their country;
the defeat of the Praguerie may be regarded as the first
step towards the accomplishment of that work which
was eventually completed by Richelieu. Louis XI
continued his father's policy, and though the end of his
reign found his task unfinished, yet France by that
date almost supplied Europe with an example of a
unified state.
A series of notable victories had thus been gained
by internal Universalism, though those victories were
partially the result of the Individualism of the age.
Submission to government had been recognised as
necessary in every state, not so much because the desire
to be ruled was predominant, as because such submission
appeared to be the lesser of two evils to those who were
filled with the desire to rule ; the despotism of a f ellow-
countryman was preferable to that of an alien. While
external Individualism constantly gained ground, internal
Individualism was in reality only checked for a moment.
Its power was great, and in the next age it contended
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 119
vigorously with the universalist system which it had
accepted from necessity.
And the Individualism of the period was soon forcibly
illustrated in the Renaissance. At the time when the
Papacy was sapping the foundations of its own power by
destroying that of the Empire, there had been a revival
of learning in Europe. By its very occurrence, the
quarrel between Pope and Emperor imperilled the
dominion of external Universalism. And as the two
parties deliberately or accidentally encouraged the
development of criticism, the resultant increase of mental
activity produced political heresy. Growing indepen
dence of thought necessarily favoured the growth of
Individualism. The exercise of the critical faculty was
bound to lead some men to abandon the gratification
of the desire to be ruled and to cause them to fall under
the influence of the desire to rule.
But the so-called " First Renaissance " was not
openly or entirely individualist in spirit. Dante, its
most noted representative, was largely a universalist.
He looked for the salvation of society in a revival of
imperial power, and the De Monarchia is no more than
an eloquent appeal to the Emperor to perform the higher
duties of his office. Yet, if only subconsciously, Dante
himself protested against the dominant theory, and aided
the development of Individualism. Among the obstacles
to any complete establishment of external Universalism,
the lack of a common language is not the least important.
During the golden age of mediaeval Universalism, Latin
was in a measure the general language of mankind; it
was the medium of worship and of diplomacy. Any
disuse of Latin was bound to emphasise the divergence
between states, and thus to encourage men to regard
their immediate or local interest rather than the general
welfare of the human race. Hence the most noteworthy
120 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
protests against papal supremacy came naturally from
districts in which there was a vigorous and national
language. The Albigensian movement flourished in the
Provencal-speaking districts of France; the language
of the Hussites was Czech.
Dante seems almost to have appreciated the importance
of Latin as an agency for the maintenance of external
Universalism. His De Monarchia was written in that
language, the true medium in which to express convic
tion of the blessings of imperial rule. Nevertheless, he
assisted to weaken still further the system for which he
pleaded. The fragment De Vulgari Eloquentia praised
the writings of the Provengal poets; it discussed and
at least by implication advocated the creation of an
Italian language from the dialects commonly spoken
in the Peninsula. And the Divina Commedia was
composed in the " vulgar tongue," thereby proving
that the disuse of Latin would not render impossible
the attainment of a high degree of literary excellence.
But the attack of the First Renaissance upon Univer
salism was negative rather than positive ; the movement
was not primarily individualist. The fifteenth-century
Renaissance, however, was essentially individualist,
alike in spirit and influence. The movement was not
the result of the transference of manuscripts from
Constantinople to the West, or of a wider diffusion of
classical learning, or of the labours of a few scholars;
even the invention of printing was an effect rather than
a cause. The Renaissance was produced by the satiation
following upon extreme gratification of the desire to be
ruled ; it was the first explicit declaration of a sentiment
always existent in mankind, the expression of the desire
to rule. It was the natural outcome of the palpable
failure of external Universalism ; it was a revolt against
authority, literary, artistic, musical, religious and
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 121
political. When Laurentius Valla doubted the authen
ticity of Livy, when Martin Luther denied the validity
of papal indulgences, they alike expressed man's im
patience of dogma, his resolve to test and to criticise.
In a sense, a new epoch opened in the intellectual
history of the world, and yet the Renaissance did no more
than call into vigorous activity an emotion inherent
in the human mind.
The movement necessarily threatened both external
and internal Universalism. It was directed to free men
from all submission not grounded upon conviction
reached after the exercise of private judgment, and it
could only be that from many no submission would be
received. In some, the desire to be ruled would doubt
less retain its ascendancy; in others, the desire to rule
would destroy all inclination to accept any form of
guidance. And since the tendency was in favour of
a reaction against a hitherto dominant theory, the
probability was that the majority of mankind would
refuse obedience, would be profoundly influenced by
the ideas of the Renaissance. Such was indeed the
case, though the actual influence of the movement was
limited by the divisions among its adherents.
For the Renaissance had two distinct sides. It was
largely a literary and artistic movement, not concerned
with the principles either of politics or of religion. So
far as it did touch politics, it was conservative rather
than revolutionary, universalist rather than individualist.
Writers and painters profited from the munificence of
princes ; they inclined to accept and to praise the abso
lute rule of their patrons, from which such obvious
benefits accrued to them. And the attitude of the
Renaissance towards religion was, so far as its literary
and artistic side was concerned, one of practical in
difference. The Church had consistently condemned,
132 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
or at least discouraged, the study of classical literature;
it had attempted to divert art into purely religious
channels. Moreover, the early Fathers, headed by
Augustine, had declared that the divinities of Greece
and Rome were real beings, daemons employed by Satan
to tempt and to perplex the elect. And if, in the course
of ages, saints had found cause to regret the declining
activity of their tempters, and if the belief in their
existence had markedly declined, it was still existent.
The result was that the literary and artistic side of
the Renaissance tended almost to produce a revival of
paganism. Polytheism has always attracted a section
of mankind; the invocation of saints appeared to have
given a polytheistic character to Christianity itself.
When the discovery of classical manuscripts spread
the knowledge of classical mythology, there were not
wanting those who, in their admiration for Greece and
Rome, inclined to revive the belief in the reality of the
ancient divinities, to substitute Venus for the Virgin, the
gods of Olympus for the apostles and saints. Their
enthusiasm, however, was slight, and the chief result
of this side of the Renaissance was not hostility, but
indifference to the Church. Even so, a further spread
of external Individualism resulted. Men who had
become cold in their devotion to Christianity were not
likely to be ardent in their support of the ideal of
Christian unity; to them the continued existence of
Christendom tended to appear as a matter of trivial
importance. Few regrets were caused by the fall of
Constantinople. The extinction of a Christian empire
seemed to be a less momentous event than the recovery
of some lost author or the printing of some classical
work; the reverse sustained by religion was almost
neutralised by the advantage to learning resultant from
a still wider dispersion of classical manuscripts.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 123
It is, however, perhaps true to say that the permanent
importance of the Renaissance lies in the politico-
religious revolution which, to a certain extent, it
inaugurated. While many of the leaders of the move
ment were practically indifferent to religion, some were
eager to utilise their increased knowledge in the service
of Christianity. A fuller acquaintance with the original
of the New Testament appeared to them to be the
greatest and almost the sole benefit derivable from the
new learning; Greek was the language of Paul rather
than of Plato. And these men, though indubitably
Christian, were yet out of sympathy with the Church
as it then was. Their knowledge of the New Testament
supplied them with grounds for an attack upon current
abuses and with arguments in favour of the reforms
which they' :" suggested ; they urged the adoption of
measures similar to those which the leaders of the Con-
ciliar Movement had advocated. And like the Friars
of an earlier date, they gave expression to the general
discontent felt towards the existing system. The
criticism of Erasmus reflected the feelings of most lay
men, and were far more dangerous to the Church as
constituted than was the almost frankly avowed paganism
of Laurentius Valla. It soon became clear to all who
had eyes to see, that a religious revolution could only
be avoided by the immediate removal of the more
flagrant abuses.
To papal supremacy, this agitation for reform was
fraught with grave peril. It was hardly consistent with
the theory of the Papacy that guidance should be ac
cepted from the general body of Christians, and that
theory would therefore have been endangered, even if
the Popes had been ready to reform, if they had
been men of obvious sincerity and unblemished virtue.
The danger was substantially increased by the actual
124 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
character of the occupants of the papal chair. Since
the time of Martin V, nepotism had steadily increased;
each Pope seemed to make the exaltation of his family
the keystone of his policy. And to this political error,
grave faults of character had been added. Alexander
VI has attained notoriety in the annals of vice; Julius II
was greater as a general than as a bishop; Leo X was
almost a typical product of the pagan Renaissance.
From such men it was idle to expect the inauguration
of reforms, and since the Holy Father would not hear
the prayers of his children, those children were gradually
driven to revolt. Criticism which had been friendly
became hostile; a tendency to question dogmas ap
peared; a readiness to accept external Universalism in
spiritual matters was replaced by advocacy of external
Individualism. In short, the Christian Renaissance
developed into a movement almost identical with the
Reformation.
That identity, however, was by no means complete.
Abuses of practice had been attacked by the leaders of
the Christian Renaissance, but those same leaders had
preserved the strictest doctrinal orthodoxy. Erasmus
was disliked and possibly feared by the hierarchy whose
errors he exposed, but he was in no sense a heretic ; he
has been regarded as the precursor of Luther, but he
was more truly the original apostle of the Counter-
Reformation. More pleaded for greater simplicity of
worship and for the abandonment of ignorant supersti
tion ; but he died rather than deny the doctrine of papal
supremacy. The leaders of the Reformation were more
logical or less scrupulous. Luther was not content with
denouncing the abuse of indulgences; he denied the
doctrine upon which the issue of indulgences was based.
Calvin was not content with indicating the vices and
supporting the reform of episcopal government; he
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 125
demanded the abolition of the institution. The religious
sides of the Renaissance and the Reformation were
indeed rather expressions of a particular sentiment than
identical movements, nor did the one develop from the
other, despite the interaction between them.
During the Middle Ages, authority had been generally
admitted. It was not usual to doubt the written word;
the dicta of Aristotle, of the Fathers, of St. Thomas
Aquinas, were accepted almost without question. In
art, literature and music, in politics and in religion,
certain canons were held to be inviolable. As a result,
though restriction and guidance at first made deve
lopment possible, eventually that development was
hampered; the desire to be ruled had been too fully
gratified, and extreme gratification produced the evils
inseparable from excess. Hence, the inevitable reaction
occurred. Upon a readiness to submit to authority
in all things, a refusal to submit at all followed; and
of this reaction the Renaissance is one expression, the
Reformation is another. The two movements are
allied, but the occurrence of each was independent of
the other. Between them there was even a certain
hostility; the culture and moderation of the Renais
sance were antipathetic to the relative crudity and
violence of the Reformers.
To the Reformation there was a religious and a political
side, both of which were essentially individualist. On
its religious side, the movement consisted primarily in
the assertion of the right of private judgment. Men
had, during the Middle Ages, subordinated their judg
ment to that of the Church, which they regarded as
infallible, upon which they relied to guide them and to
determine their conduct. The doctrine of justification
by works arose; the Church ordained what should be
done to acquire eternal salvation. At first, this doctrine
126 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
was readily accepted. But the Church lost the con
fidence of manldnd, and implicit reverence turned to
deep mistrust. Men no longer felt that the clergy
could inform them with certainty what to believe and
what to do. They regarded the Church as fallible in
many respects ; they suspected that the works ordained
to be done might be either wholly inacceptable to God
or at least insufficient to preserve from damnation.
Another doctrine of justification became necessary;
the right of private judgment, already applied to the
practice of the Church, was still further exercised.
And as there was no longer any body the guidance of
which could be implicitly accepted, as the Bible itself
could not be put forward, owing to its need of interpreta
tion on some points and its silence upon others, the
doctrine of justification by works was abandoned, and
the doctrine of justification by faith introduced. The
religious Reformation was thus wholly individualist. The
individual was to judge for himself ; he was to enter into
direct, personal relationship with God. A freedom of
opinion bordering upon anarchy was to be permitted;
the desire to rule was to be gratified to the fullest extent.
Nor was the political side of the Reformation less
individualist than the religious, of which it was partially
the outcome. It was directed in the first instance
towards the destruction of papal supremacy. The
Popes had always insisted upon the infallibility of
the Church. They had demanded complete submission,
and were therefore altogether opposed to the exercise
of private judgment and to the doctrine of justification
by faith. The Papacy, moreover, appeared to have
produced and to maintain ecclesiastical abuses. Its
supremacy was essentially universalist, alien in con
ception and in spirit from that Individualism of which
the Reformation was an expression.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 127
But though the political side of the movement was at
first directed against papal supremacy, its scope was
soon extended. The rulers of many states were them
selves ecclesiastics ; they realised that their own author
ity was intimately associated with that of the Pope.
Nor were secular princes without alarm as to the con
sequences of the rejection of papal supremacy. An
individualist movement was not unlikely to lead to a
revival of those centrifugal tendencies which had been
suppressed in the previous age; it was noticeable that
in France Protestantism secured most adherents in those
districts which had displayed the greatest reluctance to
submit to rule from Paris. Religious heresy was felt
to be liable to produce political heresy. As unity of
religion was a factor favouring unity of government, so
religious disunion might be the prelude to political
disunion. Rulers, therefore, came into conflict with
the Reformation less on account of the orthodoxy of
their own beliefs than from motives of policy; the re
sultant persecutions were in a majority of instances less
religious than political. Francis I was hostile to the
Huguenots; yet his dubious Catholicism was indicated
by his alliance with the Turks, at a moment when the
aggression of Suleiman threatened still further to limit
the domain of Christianity in south-eastern Europe.
Henry II inaugurated the era of persecution in France;
he also allied with the German Protestants against the
Catholic Habsburgs.
And the answer made by the Protestants to persecu
tion was also political. Just as ecclesiastical opposition
to the exercise of private judgment had produced the
doctrine of justification by faith, so royal opposition to
the same theory produced an attack upon the basis
of political authority. It must, however, be admitted
that an individualist movement was bound to lead to
128 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
a questioning of internal Universalism. Even in those
countries of which the rulers supported the Reformation,
the reformers did not normally preach absolutist doctrines.
They advocated obedience to the crown, but they tended
to make that obedience depend on the continued good
will of the king towards themselves, to substitute a
species of limited monarchy for the prevalent despotic
system.
The Reformation, therefore, inclined towards the
attainment of a degree of Individualism productive of
anarchy, intellectual and political; such anarchy was
the logical result of the full exercise of the right of
private judgment. This tendency of the movement
appears clearly in the history of the period. In Germany
the preaching of Luther was followed by the outbreak of
the Peasants' War. That rising the reformer emphatic
ally condemned, nor can it be contended that his teach
ing was directly responsible for it. Luther owed much
to the friendship of the Elector of Saxony; his political
theories reflected his sense of obligation, and he was
the champion rather of absolutism than of anarchy in
secular affairs. Nevertheless, the Peasants' War was
closely associated with the Reformation. Those who had
preached the rejection of papal authority could hardly
be very convincing advocates of submission to royal
authority ; that which their teaching gained in practical
merit, it lost in logical excellence. And as must always
be the case, there were many who either could not
or would not appreciate the limitations of a theory.
Private judgment had been exalted; it was a refinement
to limit its exercise to religion. So it was that the
Reformation assisted to produce popular outbreaks,
despite the efforts of its leaders to check such outbreaks.
Even such extremists as the Anabaptists, preachers of a
communistic republic and free love, were only the logical
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 129
product of the theory that the individual was all-
important, that he should submit to no restraint save
that which he chose to impose upon himself.
Far more important than such occasional ebullitions
as the Anabaptist outbreak and the Peasants' War was
the new political theory put forward by the Huguenots.
The idea had gradually arisen that kings held their
office by divine right, that they were responsible to God
alone, and that resistance to them partook of the nature
of sin. But when the authority of government was
employed against the right of private judgment and
for the persecution of those who deviated from the
orthodox path, the Protestants were driven to resist
and to attempt a justification of their resistance; the
desire to be ruled was quenched in them, and for a time
the desire to rule gained an ascendancy over their minds.
They produced a new theory of politics, basing the
authority of kings not upon a divine commission, but
upon a social contract. The king was regarded as being
merely the lieutenant of his subjects, bound to perform
certain functions, removable in event of failure. Mon
archy was no longer considered as the sole legitimate
type of government ; a republic was equally admissible.
And the judge of royal conduct was the people.
The theory was thus individualist, since the people
consisted of many individuals, each one of whom had
the privilege of settling his own opinions. It was the
application of the right of private judgment to politics,
and its logical outcome was anarchy, an anarchy based
upon a complete political theory.
The same individualist spirit appeared in most of the
political movements of the age. Even the capture of
Constantinople failed to unite the Christian powers ; the
foremost champion of Europe against Mohammed II was
Scanderbeg, an obscure Albanian chieftain of dubious
i
130 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
orthodoxy. At first sight, the policy of Venice may
appear to have been directed to maintain the cause of
Christendom, but this was due to the accidental identifi
cation of that cause with the economic interests of the
Republic in the Levant. For the rest, an era of hitherto
unparalleled selfishness dawned. The Emperor Maxi
milian I imitated his father, Frederic III, in his pursuit
of the dynastic ambitions of the Habsburgs to the
exclusion of all other considerations. Of the Popes,
Pius II preached a crusade, to be beguiled by promises
and to die broken-hearted at Ancona. His successors
cared only for the establishment of their authority over
the Patrimony and the exaltation of their families. If
they advocated common action against the Turks, their
appeals were heard with sceptical amusement, and the
true motive for them sought in some project for the
advantage of a papal nephew. France and Spain
contended for the mastery of Italy, and such inter
mission of their hostility as occurred became the occasion
for unscrupulous bargaining concerning the spoils of
the Peninsula. The contemporary maxims of inter
national morality are revealed by Machiavelli. For
the first time, self-interest was openly admitted to be
the true guiding principle determining the policy of a
state. All idea of a commonwealth of Christian nations
seemed to have disappeared; external Universalism
seemed to be dead and buried.
Internally, a similar Individualism prevailed, if less
completely. Centralised governments had developed
from the necessities of national self-preservation, but
such governments were now held to have fulfilled their
function. The period was one in which anti-monarchical
ideas gained a wide currency. Despite the praises
lavished by the Renaissance writers on Lorenzo de
Medici, and on other princely patrons of the arts, the
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 131
" tyrannies," into which the city republics of Italy had
been converted, were generally unpopular. The Medici
were expelled from Florence. The Aragonese dynasty
at Naples and the Sforzas at Milan owed their rapid
fall before the French invader to the alienation of their
subjects. In Spain, the rising of the Comuneros was a
protest against the centralising policy of Ferdinand and
Isabella, and somewhat similar unrest appears in the
dominions of the House of Habsburg.
But the order of human life is conflict, and there was
conflict in the age of the Reformation. The ascendancy
of the desire to rule was not more, but rather less, com
plete than had been the previous ascendancy of the
desire to be ruled. The leaders of the Reformation
themselves were not wholly individualist. Luther's
work, it is true, was little more than destructive;
primarily the champion of private judgment, he was
unable in any real sense to organise a Church. Admis
sion of coercive power must be the ultimate basis of
any ecclesiastical society, no less than of any political
society; if the priesthood possesses no superiority over
the laity, religious anarchy is the inevitable result. But
logically the Reformation disclaimed coercion. By im
plication it advocated the destruction of every form
of rule, since all men were equal in the sight of God, all
equally fitted to judge of that which was requisite for
salvation. Even Luther, however, was not entirely
consistent. He frankly defended the theory of passive
obedience in temporal matters. In things spiritual,
his insistence upon the doctrine of justification by faith,
his condemnation of papal supremacy and of papal
dogmas, suggested a limitation of private judgment.
He was, in fact, the victim of that necessity which com
pels thinkers to build where they have destroyed, to
be positive as well as negative. No man can divest
132 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
himself of one side of his nature. Those who most
emphatically assert their desire to rule, who most strenu
ously urge others to gratify that desire, tend at the same
time to limit its gratification. They demand authority
over their fellows, since they claim to deny to others
the right to submit. In the mind of every man,
the two desires exist always side by side, engaged
in an eternal conflict. The inconsistency of Martin
Luther was little more than the measure of his
humanity.
Yet he was, perhaps, the most logical of the reformers.
In his hands, the movement was mainly negative, and
as such, though it might win converts, it was unlikely
long to retain their allegiance. This was realised to the
full by John Calvin, and he forthwith supplied the need
ful constructive leadership. While accepting in theory
the two great principles of the right of private judgment
and justification by faith, in practice he denied both.
The Bible was admitted to be the sole standard of human
conduct, but it was the Bible as interpreted at Geneva.
Faith alone was needed to save men from damnation,
but it was the faith of Geneva. No Pope ever repressed
heresy or silenced hostile opinion with greater vigour
than did this champion of spiritual liberty. If the
Catholic Church condemned to death those who rejected
transubstantiation, Calvinism made life impossible for
those who declined to believe that they were eternally
predestined either for Heaven or for Hell. The Calvin-
ists evolved the doctrine of the social contract. They
were prepared to justify rebellion and even tyrannicide,
if any ruler were unfavourable to them. But at the
same time they showed that if possessed of authority,
they would use it with vigour and effect. They realised
that their own preservation depended upon some
enforcement of discipline; they discovered that a high
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 133
degree of internal Universalism was not incompatible
with their individualist principles.
The Universalism of the reformers, however, may be
regarded as accidental, the product of necessity and fear,
and the universalist theory received far more positive
and deliberate support. The growth of Individualism
provoked earnest resistance. While Luther preached
the right of private judgment and thundered against
papal claims, Charles V stood forth as a new champion
of authority and order. But he was a practical states
man. He realised that the mediaeval system was a thing
of the past, that it was impossible to revive the ascend
ancy of the old imperial ideal. Even a Frederic Bar-
barossa had been driven to rely upon material as well
as upon moral force; such reliance was infinitely more
necessary in the era of the Reformation. It was idle
to hope that the outworn dogma of universal lordship
would win acceptance when every theory was being
subjected to the fiercest criticism.
No such idle hope inspired or deluded the Emperor
Charles V. For him, the imperial position was only
a means to an end. No doubt he did much to revive
imperial power and prestige. He forced the German
princes to show unwonted respect for their nominal
overlord. During his expeditions to Tunis and Algiers,
he did appear for a moment in the traditional r61e of
his great namesake, as the champion of the Cross against
the Crescent. Yet for the Empire in the truest sense,
for the ideal of a united Christendom, he cared not at all.
To extend the power of the Habsburgs was his ambition ;
Spanish military power was the means upon which he
relied for the attainment of this ambition. He elaborated
the tentative ideas of his predecessors; he almost
evolved a new theory of empire. His authority was to
be based, not upon mankind's acceptance of a political
134 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
ideal, but upon their recognition of material necessity.
If he aspired to be no less lord of the world than Charles
the Great had been, if his success would have produced
an actual unity of Christendom, yet his lordship would
have been akin to that of territorial rulers, the unity
dynastic rather than imperial.
The attitude of Charles towards the imperial office
displayed his indifference to the formerly accepted
theory of the Empire. In the Middle Ages, the title of
Emperor had only been assumed after the imperial
coronation at Rome. Maximilian I had supplied a
precedent for disregarding the rite of coronation by
assuming the title of Emperor-Elect. Charles, following
this example, assumed the title of Emperor without
qualification. And if he did eventually undergo the
ceremony of coronation by the Pope, this was intended
rather to signalise his Italian triumph than to be a
tardy concession to the practice of his predecessors.
Charles V was an external universalist, but his Uni-
versalism was not that of the mediaeval Emperors.
They had aspired to a moral supremacy ; he relied upon
force. They had conceived of themselves as the first
servants of the Christian Church; he aimed at founding
a European dominion in the House of Habsburg.
Charles V failed in his design. Certain causes of his
failure may be readily discovered. France was in-
veterately hostile ; other European states were extremely
jealous. The dominions of the Habsburgs were hetero
geneous in the extreme, and their ruler was embarrassed
by Turkish attacks and by the disaffection of the
German Protestants. Ferdinand, to whom the Emperor
had handed over the immediate government of the
Austrian provinces, hardly concealed his hostility and
dislike towards his brother. And throughout his reign,
Charles was constantly handicapped by lack of men
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 135
and money; even the strongest armies which he raised
suffered from that indiscipline which is the inevitable
result of lack of pay.
But the real cause of Charles' failure lies in the
Individualism of the period. The time had passed when
nations would submit to alien rule without resistance;
they refused to permit the sacrifice of their own interests
to dynastic ambitions. Internally, the efforts of Charles
to increase his authority and to produce a measure of
centralisation met with opposition upon all sides. In
earlier ages, the government of the Roman Empire had
been accepted because the desire to be ruled dominated
mankind, because that nationality which is the outcome
of the desire to rule was hardly existent. By the time
of Charles V, the desire to rule had gained strength.
An acute observer of the age could have gauged from
those events which had occurred and were occurring the
impracticability of the Emperor's schemes.
Philip II of Spain was sufficiently acute partially to
realise these facts. He understood that, in view of the
determined external Individualism of a great part of
Europe, the imposition of universal rule by force alone
was impossible. It was his object, therefore, to dis
cover means which would enable him to persuade where
he could not compel, and he believed that in religious
conformity he had discovered such means. During the
Middle Ages, the general acceptance of external Uni-
versalism had been favoured by the existing identity of
religious belief. Philip II argued that a restoration of
such identity would produce a revival of external
Universalism. To a certain extent his opinion was
justifiable. But he failed to appreciate the fact that
identity of opinion was itself the product of the desire
to be ruled; he did not realise the interaction between
that desire and its product; he tended to mistake the
136 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
effect for the cause. Herein lay the secret of his failure.
He laboured to produce a unity of Christendom based
upon the material strength of Spain and the moral
power of orthodoxy. But the former was unequal to the
task of compulsion and the latter failed to command
general assent in an individualist age. The desire to
rule was stronger than the desire to be ruled.
Indeed, the very attempt to establish a moral basis
for his dominion contributed to his defeat. Not content
with the promotion of external Universalism, he strove
also to establish internal Universalism. His system
demanded that he should have power to coerce the
opinions of his subjects. Hence he aroused the greater
opposition ; to foreign war, rebellion was added. In the
path of his universalist policy abroad stood Elizabeth
of England, the very incarnation of the spirit of external
Individualism. In the path of his universalist policy
at home arose the Dutch Republic. The movement
which produced the revolt of the United Provinces
aimed originally at local self-government. It gained
strength from the circumstance that Philip's system
was not confined to the enforcement of political con
formity, but extended to the enforcement of mental
conformity. Philip II did not fail because he was a
bigot or a persecutor. His bigotry was not so intense
as to prevent him from treating the Pope as cavalierly
as any Protestant might have done. He could advocate
toleration when persecution seemed likely to defeat his
political ends. He failed because he was so well able to
grasp the necessities of his age, so unable to grasp them
fully. Essentially just in his belief that a moral basis
for his dominion was necessary, he missed the truth that
the greatest danger to that dominion lay in mankind's
dislike of the particular moral basis which he projected.
The policy of Charles V and Philip II was universalist,
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 137
but its spirit was alien from that of mediaeval Universal-
ism ; their efforts were directed to promote the interest
of a particular dynasty. At the same time, there was a
movement towards the restoration of something akin
to the mediaeval system. The Counter-Reformation
may be described as an attempt by the more thoughtful
universalists to rectify those evils which they deplored,
and which afforded the best justification for Individual
ism. The leaders of the movement grasped the point
which Philip II missed. They saw that if unity were
to be given back to the Church, the desire to be ruled
must be revived. They further appreciated two im
portant facts. They realised that the desire to rule had
been promoted by the internal disorder of the Church;
that the restoration of unity and of ecclesiastical
supremacy depended upon the effecting of certain
requisite reforms in the practice of the Church. More
over, they realised that the Reformation was largely
the result of men's inclination to speculate upon all
topics, that many had been led to indulge in speculation
rather from ignorance of the orthodox view than from
any actual heretical leanings. They saw that it was
not enough to forbid debate; it was necessary to make
it clear that those who debated were in grave danger
of falling into heresy. In short, the leaders of uni-
versalist opinion wished to give the Church greater
purity of life and practice, greater clarity of doctrine,
that the rule of Universalism might be restored.
The Counter-Reformation was an attempt to supply
these requisites. The Council of Trent, perhaps origin
ally assembled with some faint hope of reconciling
the Protestants with the Church, became an almost
violently Catholic body. It proposed to effect the
doctrinal extinction of Protestantism; for this purpose,
it denned the fundamentals of orthodox belief in un-
138 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
mistakable terms. No one could any longer pretend
that communion with Rome was compatible with the
holding of Lutheran or Calvinistic doctrines; no one
could excuse his heresy by pleading inability to discover
the actual dogmas of the Church.
Simultaneously, the foundation of new religious
orders, such as the Theatines and the Ursulines, con
verted the Church once more into an agency making
for the uplifting of mankind. The clergy were brought
again into close touch with the people. The lives of
Popes and greater ecclesiastics ceased to be a source
of scandal; they became models of Christian virtue.
Moral turpitude could no longer be regarded, even by
the most bigoted Protestants, as a necessary character
istic of Catholicism. It was incontestably proved that
gratification of the desire to be ruled was consistent
with the maintenance of the most lofty standards in
private life. Virtue ceased to be the monopoly of
Protestant reformers.
But the success of the Counter-Reformation was
ultimately due less to the internal changes effected in
the Church and to the definition of doctrine than to
the labours of the Society of Jesus. The members of
that Society fought the Protestants largely with their
own weapons. The Reformation stood for personal
service and devotion; it attracted many because it
demanded a willingness to face peril, to bear all persecu
tion for the sake of truth. The Jesuit missionaries set
an example of hitherto unparalleled self-sacrifice; they
gave their wealth, their lives, their very wills to the
service of their Order and of the Catholic Church. In
a measure, the Reformation was the outcome of the
intellectual activity of the age; it attracted many by
offering them the right to increase their knowledge.
The Jesuits undertook the education of the world.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 139
They gratified mankind's desire for knowledge, proving
both by example and precept that a high measure of
mental development could be attained within the
Church no less than without it. They turned the
learning of the age into channels which would make it
flow to the profit of Catholicism. They inculcated the
habit of submission to authority by the indirect method
of secular instruction; they trained generations to find
in them the best guides to every branch of knowledge.
The Reformation asserted the right of private judg
ment ; many had welcomed it because they made their
mental liberty an excuse for the freer gratification of
their sensual desires. The Jesuits did not assert the
right of private judgment; they did not burden men
with the necessity of finding for themselves the true path
to happiness in this world and in the world to come.
But they eagerly accepted the work of hearing con
fessions, and in this capacity they emphasised rather
the tolerance of the Church to her faithful children than
her determination to dominate the minds of her subjects.
Their penitents were impressed by the fact that reproba
tion of their sins did not preclude an easy pardon, that
the punishment imposed upon them was duly propor
tioned to the frailty of their natures, that from the
Catholic Church they could receive a complete absolution
which elsewhere they might seek in vain. Luther bade
sinners repent and make their own peace with an aveng
ing God ; the Society of Jesus also bade sinners repent,
but would mediate their peace. The Jesuits were
prepared to assure men of the acceptance of their
repentance by Him Whose name the Society had
adopted; the sinner was condemned only to perform
some simple act in proof of his sincerity. And as the
Jesuits became the most popular confessors, they were
the more able to confirm the faith of waverers. They
140 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
found themselves able to admit that those who remained
within the Church and accepted her authority might be
allowed much divergence of private opinion.
The Jesuits, indeed, turned Individualism itself to
serve their own purposes. The most stalwart champions
of Universalism, they yet enunciated a political theory
hardly dissimilar from that of the Calvinists. They
advocated resistance to heretical governments; they
admitted the frequent legitimacy of tyrannicide. And
their influence was the greater since their organisation
was military, their obedience implicit; because the
whole Society acted according to the will of one absolute
general. And they had the additional advantage of
believing themselves to be justified in the use of any
means for the attainment of their ends.
In their skilful hands, the Counter-Reformation was
largely successful. Their subtlety enabled them to
avail themselves to the uttermost of man's attachment
to the old. All those who desired to remain within the
Church, but desired also some intellectual activity, were
won back from heretical opinions. All those who had
drifted rather than deliberately turned from the orthodox
path were reclaimed.
But the Counter-Reformation was not entirely vic
torious. Its success was limited by the existence of
the desire to rule. Individualism had attained definite
expression; it could in no wise be entirely crushed or
silenced. Many were not beguiled even by the ingenuity
of the Jesuits; many peoples would in no case tolerate
any reassertion of that external Universalism expressed
in the theory of papal supremacy. If Ireland and
southern Europe were held to their allegiance, if Poland,
the Habsburg dominions and much of southern Germany
returned to the communion of Rome, yet England,
Scotland, Scandinavia and northern Germany remained
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 141
obstinately Protestant. And in the presence of so great
a hostile force, the supremacy of the Pope had of neces
sity to be exercised with moderation and discretion.
Mediaeval external Universalism was gone, never to
return.
Internally, there was an equally bitter conflict between
the two desires. Gradually and laboriously, during the
later Middle Ages, the internal Individualism of most
countries had been subdued; royal power had been
extended, the triumph of centralised monarchy seemed
to be assured. But, as ever, the moment of triumph
was the moment of defeat. Men had, as it were, prepared
to submit to governance, to acceptance of the existing
order, when the Renaissance urged them to retain at
least their mental liberty. And upon the Renaissance
followed the Great Discoveries. During the Middle
Ages, the unquestioning acceptance of certain supposed
geographical facts had hampered private enterprise
and had impeded the development of Individualism.
But the growth of a critical spirit produced an inclina
tion to dispute the truth of the oldest and apparently
most proven beliefs. Men dared to doubt the validity
of current theories of geography, and from this doubt
resulted voyages of adventure culminating in the Great
Discoveries.
Those discoveries in turn reacted upon the human
mind. At this distance of time, and when the entire
surface of the globe has been measured and mapped with
approximate accuracy, it is impossible to realise the
sensation caused by the sudden appearance of new
continents, a sudden apparent increase in the area of the
world. But the results of that sensation may be clearly
discerned. Doubt, and the courage to act upon doubt,
had led to the opening up of possibilities undreamt of in
any previous age, to the acquisition of untold wealth
142 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
in new lands of fabulous extent and fertility. It was
not to be expected that men who had braved, and
braved so successfully, the dangers of the physical un
known world would be readily terrified by the more
remote dangers of the spiritual unknown. Among the
causes productive of that rejection of ecclesiastical
authority which was found in the Reformation, the
encouragement to doubt afforded by the Great Dis
coveries must hold a foremost place. It is true that the
pioneer explorers, the Portuguese and Spaniards, held
to their original orthodoxy; they were absorbed in the
pursuit of material wealth, and gold seemed to deaden
their intellectual spirit. But those peoples who entered
later into the field of adventure, the English and the
Huguenots, the Dutch and the Scandinavians, became
the natural champions of a new religious creed, the most
zealous enemies of ecclesiastical domination. Nor were
they more ready to accept without dispute the prevalent
theories of government and politics. The Great Dis
coveries resulted from the Renaissance spirit; they
aided that spirit in producing an atmosphere of
unrest.
That unrest found expression in civil commotions in
France, the Low Countries and Germany, in the so-
called Wars of Religion. In those struggles, religion
was certainly a factor ; it was not the only or most potent
factor. In France, it supplied the most obvious line
of division between the two parties; it was probably
responsible for much of the bitterness of the conflict.
But other lines of division may be easily discovered.
Between north and south there was a long-standing
rivalry, born of divergence in race, language and tradi
tion. Between the great families there were long
standing feuds. The Bourbons were jealous of the
Guises; the older nobles hated the newer. The adop-
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 143
tion of Huguenot opinions may in many cases be traced
to personal antipathies.
None of these facts, however, supply the ultimate
cause of the civil war. That cause is to be found in the
growth of individualist ideas; the conflict was a phase
in the eternal struggle between the desire to be ruled
and the desire to rule. On the one hand, the supporters
of Catherine de Medici, of the Guises and of the Poli-
tiques aimed at some increase in the control of the state
over its subjects, though they advocated different means
for the attainment of this end and though they desired
the same end for different reasons. A wish to pro
duce religious conformity played but a small part in
the conflict. Catherine de Medici was prepared upon
occasion to grant a wide toleration; the Politiques
would gladly have shelved all religious questions in the
interest of national unity. The massacre of St. Bartholo
mew was the result rather of jealousy than of religious
conviction; the crime of Coligny was not his heresy but
his ascendancy over the mind of Charles IX. If the
Guises relied more definitely upon Catholicism, the
explanation of this fact was that they were aliens and
could find no other basis of power.
Nor were the Huguenots purer in their opinions or
aims. They represented the centrifugal tendencies of
the south ; they were the champions of anti-monarchical,
and even of republican, ideas. Their cities aimed at
local independence; the essential principle of their
conduct is to be found in their desire to be free from
control. At a later date, when they came into conflict
with the centralising policy of Richelieu, they were
ready to ally with Spain, the supposed champion of
Catholicism; they would not accept religious tolera
tion unaccompanied by practical local independence.
Throughout its history, the Huguenot movement was
144 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
little more than the championship of internal In
dividualism against universalist tendencies in govern
ment. It found its chief support in those districts
which were least French, which were traditionally
opposed to the rule of Paris. The conflict culminated
in the triumph of internal Universalism. The con
solidation of despotism followed naturally upon the
defeat of the advocates of an individualist political
theory.
It is, indeed, a feature common to the conflicts of this
period that while external Universalism was normally
defeated, internal Universalism on the whole triumphed.
No movement, perhaps, was more essentially directed
against external Universalism than the rising of the
Dutch; no movement was more clearly individualist
in its internal aspect. It was a direct attack upon
the centralising, despotic system of Philip II. It was
produced by his destruction of municipal liberties, his
attempted reform of the bishoprics, his employment
of Spanish ministers, and his enforcement of religious
conformity. It was no more an entirely religious move
ment than were the French Wars of Religion. The wish
of the nobles to retain their position and the power to
provide for their younger sons, the wish of the burghers
to preserve their liberties and to avoid taxation, operated
to combine in defence of Protestantism many who were
Catholics by inclination and even by conviction. The
enemies or victims of Spain were not invariably heretics.
Egmont's orthodoxy was beyond dispute; William the
Silent's heresy was long dubious. Had Philip been the
very pattern of religious tolerance, the revolt of the
United Provinces might have lost some of its bitter
ness ; it would none the less have occurred. The Dutch
were wedded to the idea of Individualism, external and
internal.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 145
Yet even here the triumph of Individualism was not
complete. A republic, a loose federation, was theoretic
ally created by the Union of Utrecht; the constituent
states were theoretically granted as large a measure of
local independence as was consistent with safety. They
were, perhaps, theoretically granted more than was
consistent either with safety or with the permanence
of the state. But in practice the Union of Utrecht was
revised. A single Stathalter was created in place of
many; he secured a degree of power not contemplated
in the framing of the original constitution. The wealth
of the state of Holland, its control over foreign affairs,
reduced the independence of the other provinces to
little more than a shadow. The confederation became
rather a veiled monarchy than a republic. Internal
Universalism secured a notable triumph.
Internal Universalism, though perhaps to a lesser
degree, triumphed also in the Thirty Years' War. There
is a marked similarity between this conflict in Germany
and the Wars of Religion in France. In each, religion
appears as the most obvious cause of dispute ; in each,
there may be found the same strife between local and
national interests, between Universalism and Indi
vidualism. Ferdinand II, Maximilian of Bavaria and
Wallenstein were alike champions of centralised power
rather than of religious uniformity. The Emperor
aimed at the reassertion of almost obsolete imperial
rights in the interest of his family ; Germany was to be
united in religion, that it might be united also under
Austrian government. The same conception of unity
appealed to Maximilian of Bavaria; it was to attain
unity that the Catholic League was formed. But
between Ferdinand and Maximilian there was one point
of fundamental divergence. The latter proposed that
the House of Wittelsbach should assume the position
146 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
which the former assigned to the House of Habs-
burg.
Wallenstein was equally an exponent of unity, though
he paid no regard to the dynastic interests either of
Ferdinand or of Maximilian. He seems to have aimed
at a restoration of imperial power. His desire was
certainly to be the indispensable minister of the Emperor,
but he did not care whether that Emperor was or was
not a Habsburg. He would appear to have been actuated
by a curious, almost altruistic, attachment to the abstract
principle of imperialism. Yet, however greatly the three
leaders of the Catholic party differed in their aims, they
were agreed in championing German unity, in being
exponents of internal Universalism.
On the other hand, the resistance offered to the
Catholic League was largely the result of jealousy of the
Habsburgs and of rivalry between the two branches of
the Wittelsbachs. Maximilian of Bavaria regarded the
attainment of the electoral dignity as a first step towards
the establishment of his ascendancy in Germany. His
relative, Frederic, Elector Palatine, feared that the vic
tory of Bavaria would destroy his own position. And
the Calvinist princes in general dreaded the result of
Habsburg success. Their support of the Bohemian
malcontents, their resistance to the exercise of the
Bohemian vote in the imperial election, were alike due
to their wish to maintain their local freedom.
To the same fear of domination may be attributed the
hostility aroused by the Edict of Restitution ; the right
to secularise ecclesiastical lands implied an increase
of princely independence. Nor were John George
of Saxony and George William of Brandenburg, the
apostles of the status quo, less opposed to any unitary
schemes. They were resolved to prevent either an
extension of imperial power or the entire overthrow of
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 147
the Emperor. They wished to conserve a system under
which they had acquired so large a measure of indepen
dence, and their vacillating attitude towards the struggle
was the result of their determination to prevent any
change in the existing Germanic constitution. They
always opposed the party by which that constitution
appeared to be threatened.
Even Gustavus Adolphus himself, the great protagonist
of Protestantism, was actuated by individualist motives.
Sweden needed above all things a field for expansion.
The Polish war secured for her the control of the Baltic
Provinces. The German expedition was necessary for
the completion of the work begun in Poland. Wallen-
stein threatened to establish in Pomerania a new power
which would threaten Swedish control of the Baltic,
and Gustavus Adolphus invaded Germany to prevent
the complete undoing of that which he had already
half done. His policy was dictated rather by affection
for Sweden than by any special love for his German
co-religionists.
And after the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the decisive
intervention of Richelieu was determined by the actual
or supposed necessities of France. A Catholic and a
cardinal saved German Protestantism from destruction,
because a divided Germany was an advantage to the
House of Bourbon. In short, the Thirty Years' War,
rightly regarded, was but another phase in the secular
conflict between Universalism and Individualism.
And as in the French Wars of Religion, so in the
Thirty Years' War, the victory lay with internal Uni
versalism, though the peculiar circumstances of Germany
tend to obscure this fact. The attempt to secure unity,
whether under the Habsburgs or under a branch of the
Wittelsbachs, was defeated. But this defeat may be
attributed to the traditional association of the Emperor
148 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
with the mediaeval idea of external Universalism, the
day for which had passed, and to the fact that Germany
was rather a conglomeration of states than in any real
sense a single state. It was external Individualism
which triumphed at Westphalia. The destruction of the
last vestiges of the old imperial power facilitated and was
followed by a development of internal Universalism in
the constituent provinces of the Empire. The right of
princes to pursue an independent foreign policy was
recognised ; their right to determine the religion of their
subjects admitted. It was inevitable that such conces
sions should be followed by an increase of the power of
the ruler in each state, since those rulers were no longer
limited on two important points by theoretical sub
ordination to the Emperor. The appearance of such
sovereigns as the Great Elector was the natural result
of the settlement reached in the Treaties of Westphalia.
Those treaties mark a definite epoch in the history
of the world. The old type of external Universalism
ceased to exist. The Holy Roman Empire had in
reality died with Frederic II; its moribund condition
was now recognised. The world - dominion of the
Papacy had passed away with Boniface VIII; the
recognition of this fact by Europe was emphasised in
the contemptuous disregard of papal opposition to the
terms of the Peace of Westphalia. And the old type
of internal Individualism equally disappeared. The
assertion of local independence by petty nobles was no
longer possible. The day of centralised monarchies had
dawned, and resistance to those monarchies, to be suc
cessful, had to be something more than the ambitious
self-assertion of an individual or of a faction.
But the nature of man precluded all possibility of a
permanent, or even of a temporary, cessation of conflict.
Externally and internally, the struggle had of necessity
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 149
to continue. Externally, men soon perceived the danger
of perpetual war; the reaction towards a species of
Universalism antedated the assurance of Individualism's
victory. That reaction was foreshadowed by Grotius;
his De Jure Belli et Pads was an initial step towards the
discovery of a new justification of external Universalism.
Internally, unrest was hardly stilled, though in a
sense the victory of internal Universalism was more
complete than that of external Individualism. In the
Dutch Republic, the overthrow of the House of Orange
marked a reaction against the growing strength of the
central power. In France, Marie de Medici almost
succumbed to the turbulence of the nobles; Richelieu
was forced to reduce La Rochelle before he could pursue
his designs abroad. After his death, Mazarin was faced
by the outbreak of the Fronde, an expression not only
of the unwillingness of the nobles to submit to control,
but also of the more widespread feeling that despotism
was an imperfect type of government. The pretensions
of the Parliament of Paris to exercise the powers of a
representative body were crushed by Louis XIV, but
though his reign was marked by almost complete
political silence, discontent still muttered. At rare
intervals, signs of resistance appeared, even during the
height of the ancien regime ; Vauban found that system
imperfect. Generally speaking, however, the limita
tions upon internal Universalism were more real than
apparent. Such expressions of unrest as the hostility
to Christina in Sweden and the rebellion of Massaniello
at Naples only served to emphasise the almost uni
versal existence of superficial peace. The Treaties of
Westphalia, in short, may be described as marking
the triumph of external Individualism and internal
Universalism.
150 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
IX
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE I 4. FROM THE PEACE OF
WESTPHALIA TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
AT first sight, the conflict ended by the Peace of West
phalia appears to have lain between those who desired
to restore the lost doctrinal unity of Christendom and
those who desired to perpetuate the work accomplished
by the Reformation. But a further consideration of the
character of the period makes it clear that divergence of
religious opinion was not the sole cause of the struggle,
that it does not afford a complete explanation of the
divisions of western Europe. Catholic France allied
with Protestant Sweden ; her policy, which had favoured
the growth, secured the permanence of Lutheranism
and of Calvinism in Germany. In the foreign policy of
Richelieu, there is little trace of devotion to the Papacy ;
the cardinal never forgot that he was a Frenchman, he
seems never to have remembered that he was a prince of
the Church. Nor were the great protagonists of the
rival faith more single-minded. William the Silent
accepted the reformed creed with apparent reluctance.
Gustavus Adolphus was perhaps a paladin of Pro
testantism, but he was far more obviously the exponent
of a short-sighted conception of Swedish imperialism.
Indeed, to explain the so-called Wars of Religion in
France or the Thirty Years' War as being a strife of
creeds is to omit all explanation. It is still necessary
to account for the fact that any given nation was
Catholic or Protestant ; to discover, in fact, the ultimate
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 151
cause which leads an individual or a people to accept
and to adhere to a particular form of religious belief.
That cause lies in human nature. It is to be found
in the secular conflict between the two fundamental
emotions of man, the desire to be ruled and the desire
to rule. Of these two desires, the first is gratified by
Catholicism, which in its true conception is no more
than the religious aspect of Universalism ; the second
is equally gratified by Protestantism, the religious
aspect of Individualism. Catholicism is cosmopolitan in
essence, Protestantism is national. Catholicism urges
submission to authority, Protestantism urges the asser
tion of the right of private judgment. The one is the
creed of law and order, tending towards despotism ; the
other of independence, tending towards anarchy. And
both possess a permanent place in the intellectual life
of the world; each gratifies to the fullest extent one
paramount emotion ; neither can ever cease to exist.
The Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years' War,
therefore, were not struggles in which the existence of
Catholicism or of Protestantism was at stake. It would
be idle to pretend that the spiritual power of the Papacy
was not imperilled, that the creeds born of the Reforma
tion were not in danger of extinction. The immediate
success of the movement inaugurated by Luther did
threaten the withdrawal of all Europe from papal
allegiance; the progress of the Counter- Reformation
did promise the restoration of all the lands lost to that
allegiance. But Catholicism was not created by the
Papacy nor Protestantism by Martin Luther, and the
preservation of neither depended upon the fate of the
Vicar of Christ or of believers in the Augsburg Confession.
The Pope might have been destroyed; Lutherans,
Calvinists, Zwinglians, might have been exterminated.
But Catholicism and Protestantism were bound to
152 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
endure while man retained his fundamental characteris
tics ; their extinction could not have been accomplished
without the simultaneous accomplishment of a complete
revolution in human nature. Universalists must always
be Catholics; individualists Protestants. That some
universalists have rejected papal supremacy, that some
individualists profess adherence to the Roman com
munion, is merely accidental, the result either of past
training or of real religious indifference. It is impossible
that a true believer in the desire to be ruled should be
also a sincere advocate of the right of private judgment.
It is certain that those who desire to rule cannot sin
cerely assent to that surrender of their power of initiative
which the Catholic Church demands from her faithful
children.
And it follows that the attitude adopted by any
individual or nation towards religion has always been
and always must be determined by their attitude towards
the conflict of which religion is one expression. The true
conflict in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was
something much more permanent than any mere quarrel
as to the way of salvation; it was part of the eternal
struggle between Universalism and Individualism.
Where internal or external Universalism prevailed,
Catholicism retained or recovered its ascendancy ; where
internal or external Individualism prevailed, Protestant
ism was victorious. Spain, aiming at the headship of
Europe and inclined to accept despotism at home, was
loyal to the Papacy. The Dutch, eager to free them
selves from the Spanish yoke, turned to the new national
creeds. Paris aspired to dominate France; the south
resented the dictation of the capital; the former was
Catholic, the latter Protestant. During this period,
the mediaeval conception that Europe might be united
as a Christian confederation, that a government must
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 153
be in close accord with the Church and control the
religious beliefs of its subjects, continued. Philip II
pursued the policy which Charles the Great had pursued ;
he persecuted as a political necessity, because, alike
in his external and internal policy, he believed Pro
testantism to be an obstacle to the realisation of his
aims. And in general, those who were externally
wedded to the old idea of political organisation, those
who internally wished to consolidate their power, were
Catholics; those who believed in national and local
independence were Protestants.
Nor are the apparent exceptions true exceptions to
this rule. It may be admitted that the Lutheran princes
of Germany were aiming at strengthening their authority,
but they aimed also at freeing themselves from imperial
control, and at first their external Individualism was a
greater passion than their internal Universalism. The
natural result was that deliverance from the Emperor
should be followed by a reversion to Catholicism. In
some cases, as in that of Saxony, this reversion occurred.
In those cases in which it did not occur, the permanence
of Protestantism may be explained either by the exist
ence of such difficulties as that of Polish suzerainty pre
sented in the case of Brandenburg, or by the danger of
absorption by larger, Catholic neighbours which was
feared by the smaller states. In the history of Sweden,
the determination of religion by political considerations
appears clearly. Christina, aiming at absolutism, aban
doned the Lutheranism of her father; the Swedes,
always hostile to despotic rule, clung to the reformed
faith and secured the abdication of their crypto-Catholic
queen.
But the Peace of Westphalia proved that the old
mediaeval conception of external Universalism and
internal Individualism required revision. Imperial
154 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
power was reduced to less than a shadow. The princes
of the Empire, already practically independent within
their own territories, received the right to conduct their
foreign affairs without regard to the Emperor. Germany
became a collection of sovereign states united only by
the most formal tie. And for the first time, the limits
of the Holy Roman Empire were specifically circum
scribed in a public document; the Swiss and Dutch
Republics were declared to be beyond its borders. At
the same time, the Papacy lost both influence and pres
tige. It entered a protest against the signature of the
Treaty of Westphalia by Catholic rulers ; its protest was
ignored, and Europe thereby declared its rejection of the
papal claim to intervene authoritatively in temporal
matters. The recognition of the doctrine cujus regio,
ejus religio further struck at the root of that conception
of Christian unity upon which the supremacy of the Pope
ultimately rested.
Nor did mediaeval internal Individualism survive the
period of stress. The evils of the civil wars convinced
men of the necessity of law and order. They realised
that the attempt of each town and village to assert its
practical independence would lead to a paralysis of
government, which could culminate only in anarchy or
in subjection to some foreign power. To avoid these
evils, not only the internal universalists but also the
external individualists permitted or assisted the develop
ment of royal authority. The calamities which had
resulted or which were expected to result from lack
of governance produced centralised monarchies. The
epoch of the Peace of Westphalia saw the abandonment
of the mediaeval conception of external Universalism
and internal Individualism. In this fact lies its inter
pretation and its importance.
But the order of human life is conflict; the struggle
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 155
between Universalism and Individualism is eternal.
The Peace of Westphalia, therefore, was not and could
not be followed by a cessation of strife. It was, perhaps,
no longer possible to advocate the union of Europe into
a Christian commonwealth, based upon religious ortho
doxy, or the subdivision of kingdoms into minute
particles. But neither the external universalists nor
the internal individualists abandoned their ultimate
beliefs, because a particular expression of those beliefs
happened to have been discredited. Advocacy of some
form of international unity, of some limitation on abso
lute power, persisted ; the change was merely that of the
basis of this advocacy. Mediaeval conceptions were
abandoned, but in the inevitable reaction against the
too complete domination of external Individualism and
internal Universalism, new conceptions were discovered.
Externally, just as the triumph of Individualism was
the more complete, so the reaction was the more rapid.
And it was hastened by the character of the new cen
tralised monarchies. Universalist at home, their foreign
policy was intensely individualist. That disregard for
the claim of the Emperor or Pope to exercise European
authority, which had prevailed since the days of
Frederic II and Boniface VIII, was accentuated and
developed into a disregard of the claims of any state
even to its own national existence. But just as the
extreme of internal Individualism would produce
anarchy at home, so the extreme of external Individual
ism threatened to produce perpetual war. Some curb
on the foreign policy of states had to be discovered,
some principle devised to replace that which had been
lost in the fall of the mediaeval Empire and Papacy, if
the world were not to pass into practical barbarism by
the path of international anarchy.
The need for some such curb had been felt ever since
156 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the mediaeval system had begun to break up, and the
search for an expedient antedates the Peace of West
phalia. But the search had been spasmodic and had
produced no very tangible result. In the first place,
the world was as yet unconvinced of the futility of the
older expedient. There was a possibility that the Pope
or some sovereign, representing the temporal power of
Christ's Vicar, might win acceptance as an international
arbiter. Such had been the hope of Philip II, the dream
of Ferdinand II. But the end of the Thirty Years' War
saw the determination of two problems in such a manner
that the creation of an arbiter of this kind became an
impossibility. It was then decided that the work of
the Reformation was to be permanent, and, as a corollary
to this, that Europe should henceforward be divided
between Catholics and Protestants.
In the second place, the duration of warfare and its
intensity had been alike increased. During the Middle
Ages, the existence of feudal relationships between king
and king, and between the vassals of different kings,
tended to hamper all hostile operations, while the short
period of service owed by feudal hosts led to constant
interruption of such operations. Even when the use
of mercenary troops had become general, a lengthy
campaign was still often rendered impossible by the
mere poverty of rulers. The Italian Wars afford abun
dant illustration of the difficulties to which sovereigns
were reduced by their inability to pay their armies with
anything approaching regularity. But in the period
following the Peace of Westphalia, two causes contributed
to extend the duration of war and to increase its fre
quency and bitterness. All those bonds which had
united states during the Middle Ages were swept away
or were at least disregarded. In place of feudal relation
ship there was now only such unity as might result from
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 157
interest; even the closest ties of blood between rulers
did not contribute to maintain international peace.
And the sovereigns of the new centralised monarchies,
possessing absolute or almost absolute power, were able
to raise supplies according to their will; the only limit
upon their expenditure was the entire exhaustion of all
sources of revenue. Hence, the search for an expedient
by which hostile feelings might be controlled, the search
for a new basis for external Universalism, became
vigorous and produced definite results.
That the expedient when found was accepted may
perhaps be attributed principally to the character of
French policy at this time. Both in his own and at the
present day, Louis XIV has given his name to the age
in which he lived, and justly, since he was the very
embodiment of its spirit. Internally, the last traces of
opposition seemed to have vanished. Henry IV had
defeated the Catholic League; Richelieu crushed the
political independence of the Huguenots and limited
the power of the nobles. Mazarin completed the work
of Richelieu, the defeat of the Fronde marking at once
the extinction of the political power of the nobility and
the silencing for half a century of the Parliament of
Paris. Louis XIV assumed the government of an abso
lute monarchy. The States-General had ceased to meet ;
their very existence was hardly remembered. There
were no more chief ministers. Colbert and Louvois
were little more than efficient clerks, owing their position
solely to the king, acting entirely according to his will,
referring to him the minutest details. The lack of real
centralisation was concealed; diversity of law, taxation
and administration passed unnoticed. Internal Uni
versalism appeared to have attained its apotheosis in
the France of Louis XIV.
On the other hand, the foreign policy of Louis affords
158 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
a perfect example of external Individualism. At first
sight, indeed, his desire to dominate Europe recalls the
ambitions of the great mediaeval rulers. But between
them and Louis there is an essential difference. Charles
the Great, the Hohenstaufen, Innocent III or Boniface
VIII aimed not so much at the union of the continent
into a single state, as into a confederation inspired by the
ideal of maintaining Christian fellowship and extending
the borders of Christendom. They were cosmopolitan,
extra-territorial in their ideas. Even Philip II had
something of this same spirit ; typically Spanish in many
respects, he was in others the political heir of the
mediaeval Emperors. Louis XIV was essentially French ;
the first, perhaps the greatest, nationalist. He pos
sessed, and even in double measure, all the ambition
which had actuated the great rulers of earlier ages. He
would have extended the borders of France on every
side. He dreamed of uniting the Spanish dominions
with his own kingdom, of the creation of an empire in
comparison with which that of Charles V should fade
into insignificance. And over and above such extension
of his direct rule, he aspired to control England, Sweden,
Poland and Turkey, as subordinate allies. But in his
ambitions and in his policy there was nothing either
cosmopolitan or Christian; there was no ideal beyond
that of the glory of France and of her king. Louis was
no external universalist. He was rather so complete
an individualist as to forget the very existence of any
people save his own subjects.
It is, indeed, in the opponents of Louis XIV that the
contemporary external universalists are to be found.
There was a very real danger of French domination, and
that danger could be met only by a combination of
states, no one power being capable unaided of offering
prolonged and successful opposition. But the creation
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 159
of a durable and effective alliance has always been a
matter of extreme difficulty. With no ostensible object,
beyond self-interest, it is really impossible, and it was
therefore necessary to discover some theoretic basis
upon which an anti-French league might be founded.
During the Middle Ages, such a basis had been supplied
by Christianity; states had combined against the un
believer or to effect the overthrow of an excommunicate.
But the failure of the Crusades had illustrated the
inefficacy of this principle; Macchiavelli had given
a distinctly secular character to all political relations,
and the Reformation, by perpetuating and intensifying
religious disunion, had made it entirely impossible to
found any European league upon the defence of ortho
doxy. Religion could not afford even a colourable
pretext for joint political action by the powers against
France.
Opportunely, however, a new basis for external
Universalism was discovered in international law. At
the very moment when the complete breakdown of the
imperial and papal system threatened to dissolve the
last slender ties which bound together those units of
which the continent was composed, the value of certain
broad rules for regulating interstate relations was
suggested. It was felt that nations were " in a state of
nature towards each other"; that they could not be
subjected to the rule of any external power, but that
they might without derogation of their entire independ
ence accept as the guide of their conduct propositions
which might be regarded as " natural." Though
anticipated in many respects by such writers as Olden-
dorp and Winkler, Grotius was really the first to draw
these propositions together into a species of code, and
his De Jure Belli et Pads may be regarded as the primary
exposition of international law. It consists, perhaps, of
160 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
little more than a number of common-sense suggestions
for the regulation of intercourse between state and state,
and since all positive sanction was absent, the acceptance
of these suggestions, the validity of international law,
could depend only upon the public opinion of the con
tinent. Acceptance, however, was secured, and a new
basis for external Universalism constructed.
That this occurred was ultimately the result of the per
manence of universalist ideas in the human race, and of
nothing else ; it was impossible that external Individual
ism should enjoy unquestioned supremacy. But the
immediate occasion of the acceptance of the new basis
may be found in the need for some principle of resistance
to French aggression. Resistance to that aggression
was intensified by the very prevalence of external In
dividualism; every nation was eager to maintain its
independence, and that desire was all the stronger owing
to the recent defeat of the original claimants to universal
lordship. The theory of Grotius at once justified this
prevalent desire and supplied a principle upon which
resistance, and united resistance, to aggression could be
based. It was laid down that every state had an inalien
able right to preserve its integrity and its freedom from
foreign control, and from this it followed that opposition
to such states as might infringe the liberty of others was
fundamentally justified.
At the same time, however, it was generally admitted
that within very wide limits a state ought to have absolute
control over its own foreign relations, that its abstinence
from war should be entirely voluntary, that its alliance
should be of its own making. Only if the policy of a
state should become so aggressive as to threaten the
denial to others of that liberty which it claimed for itself,
was coercion justified in the view of the exponents of
international law. It still remained to define that degree
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 161
of aggression which should pass the limit of legitimate
pursuit of self-interest, and in that age no exact defini
tion applicable to all cases could be discovered. But
a working definition was found in the conception of a
balance of power. The new external universalist de
clared, explicitly or implicitly, that any disturbance of
the existing ratio of strength among the states of Europe
was an infringement of the rights of nations, a breach of
international law.
Traces of this conception may be found at a much
earlier date. During the period of the Italian Wars,
occasional leagues had been formed to counteract the
overwhelming preponderance of French or of Spanish
influence in the Peninsula. The apparent strength of
Charles V had led to the conclusion of alliances having
for their object the imposition of some restraint upon
that Emperor. But all these earlier leagues referred to
little more than a single district ; they were not inspired
by any theory of a balance of power as the permanent
basis of the political organisation of Europe. It was in
the age of Louis XIV that the originally vague idea of
union among the weak against the strong developed into
a clear policy of preventing any one state from acquiring
a predominant position on the continent. This policy
then took the place left vacant by the failure of the
mediaeval conception of the Christian commonwealth;
it became the expression of external Universalism.
Such, then, was that new theory of external Universal-
ism through which the secular conflict against external
Individualism was continued. To those states which
claimed entire liberty of action in foreign affairs were
opposed other states which desired to curtail that liberty
in the interest of Europe. Alliances were formed to
enforce observance of international law, the acceptance
of a modus vivendi which should prevent the occurrence
L
i6a THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
of international anarchy, a condition of perpetual war.
Only accidentally were those alliances directed against
France. Louis XIV happened to be the prime disturber
of the status quo; he alone appeared reluctant to accept
some theory of a balance of power. But the ultimate
aim of the allies was to coerce, not the king of France or
of Spain or of any given state, but the troubler of the
world. No power should be allowed to infringe the
liberty of its fellows.
And the new external Universalism, therefore, up to
a certain point, afforded a guarantee of external Indi
vidualism ; the reaction of which it was the outcome was
gradual, not violent. Louis XIV came into conflict with
the individualist tendencies of his age, because he was
so typical of that age, because his own intense Individual
ism denied to others that liberty which he claimed for
himself. In other words, the extreme of Individualism
touches the border of Universalism; there can never be
proselytism without a tendency to coercion. Never
theless, the opposition to France was primarily uni-
versalist. It was based on the assumption that the
various states of Europe had certain common interests,
that they must admit a measure of control, that the
concern of each was to a certain extent the concern of all.
If France were permitted to destroy the independence
of the Dutch, the safety of other states would be en
dangered. Europe was no congeries of isolated units.
It was in a sense a unit in itself, however impalpable
might be the bond drawing its component parts together.
Hence the new theory, while according liberty to all
states, qualified its grant with the proviso that the free
dom of action admitted in the case of one state should not
be used to curtail the same freedom in other states. But
it is clear that here a certain difficulty at once arose. It
was necessary to define what should be the limit of
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 163
liberty in each case. At first, and in a somewhat broad
sense, it was held that the Peace of Westphalia had
created a balance of power which should be maintained.
That treaty became, as it were, the basis of international
law, and the aim of the universalists was to preserve the
status quo therein established.
Even so, the exponents of the theory were doubtful as
to the exact interpretation of their own doctrine. They
hesitated between an attempt to preserve the actual
balance ordained by the Peace of Westphalia, and an
attempt to preserve a vaguer balance, readjustable if
necessary. Of these two possible interpretations, the
first implied the maintenance of existing territorial
arrangements, the prevention of all aggression, and
logically the prohibition even of any rectification of
frontiers. The second regarded the balance of power
as indefinite rather than exact. The inevitability of
territorial changes was admitted; a certain degree of
aggression was almost tolerated. But at the same time,
the disproportionate strengthening of any state was to be
prevented; the balance was not to be destroyed, and
even the existing balance was not to be unduly disturbed
by the self-interest of one member of the European
comity. From this desire to prevent the dispropor
tionate strengthening of any state, the idea of compensa
tion arose. If any country increased its power, and more
especially if it increased its territory, all other countries
affected by such an occurrence were held to be legiti
mately entitled to secure a compensating increase. An
aggressor was only to profit by his aggression in a limited
sense ; all other states were, so to speak, to profit from
their abstention from aggression. The acquisitions
made by war were to be equalled by those of diplomacy
and of peace. War was to be rendered decreasingly
advantageous to the power which should first take up
164 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
arms. The original balance was ultimately to be pre
served, perpetual strife to be prevented.
This new theory of external Universalism was gradually
evolved during the age of Louis XIV. At first, uni-
versalist efforts were directed to the preservation of the
existing balance in its entirety. But such efforts were
foredoomed to failure. Externally, the spirit of the age
was individualist, and into conflict with that spirit came
the exponents of the new theory. For while it was
certainly true that the states of Europe were ready to
combine against France and to prevent such aggression
as might be detrimental to their own interests, this was
the limit of their Universalism. That which was re
garded as aggression in the case of others, they held
to be merely lawful expansion in their own case. They
were externally individualist, quite unprepared to
sacrifice one iota of the advantage which they trusted
that they might reap by breaking the Peace of West
phalia, by destroying the status quo which that peace
had established. That curious altruism which appeared
from time to time during the Middle Ages had now
vanished almost entirely from the domain of high policy.
John Sobieski of Poland supplies a possible exception.
Regardless of the injuries which the Habsburgs had in
flicted, or had attempted to inflict, upon him, he saved
the Emperor from the Turks, and the relief of Vienna
recalled to mind those achievements of the earlier
crusaders by which the mediaeval world had been thrilled,
its imagination excited. But Sobieski was an anachron
ism. If he saved the Austrian capital, it was at the
expense of Poland. The energy and genius which pro
tected Leopold would have been far more profitably
expended upon the reconstruction of his own kingdom.
His heroism was certainly greeted with due applause,
but diplomatists smiled in secret at the folly which dis-
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 165
sipated too scanty resources upon an exploit rather
detrimental than advantageous to the hero and to his
state. The day when the reputation derived from such
an achievement would have produced a commensurate
political benefit had already passed. Every state was
prepared to preach altruism to its actual or potential
rivals; no state was prepared to practise such altruism.
Sobieski was born out of due season.
And the prevalent selfishness of international policy
ensured the failure of any attempt to maintain the
settlement reached at Westphalia. Individualist states
were in no case really prepared to sacrifice themselves
in order to deliver Europe from the spectre of continual
strife. The history of the wars of Louis XIV, and of
the alliances which those wars produced, illustrates the
failure of the first form of the new theory of external
Universalism, and in the record of that failure gradual
progress towards the evolution of the second form may
be traced. The alliances were the direct product of the
determination of France not to be hampered by any
external considerations in her pursuit of territorial
expansion. Europe was first roused to a sense of the
real danger of French domination by the enunciation of
the doctrine of " devolution," by which Louis attempted
to apply to the whole Spanish Netherlands that law of
inheritance which determined the succession to private
estates in Brabant. The legal pretence under which his
aggression was masked deceived no one; the Triple
Alliance was created to hold France in check, to assert
the interest of Europe in the maintenance of a balance
of power. The allies, however, were really united in
defence of an indefensible position. It was possibly
feasible to attempt the restraint of France, if a certain
measure of expansion were allowed to her. It was
assuredly not feasible to attempt to retain within limits
166 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
already reached, a state possessing great military power
and instinct with the spirit of external Individualism.
Accordingly, the Triple Alliance, though it secured
apparent success, in reality failed completely. Louis
made peace, but he did so less from compulsion than from
deep motives of policy. The formation of a league
against him gave warning of the possibility of an effective
European concert; he saw how valuable a reputation
for moderation might be to him. Still more, he was
determined to crush the Dutch who had stood in his
path; to have a free hand, untrammelled by the exist
ence of any anti-French alliance, when Charles II of
Spain should die and the fate of his dominions become
a question of practical politics. The authors of the
alliance might congratulate themselves on an apparent
victory; the short duration of the league put a period
on those rejoicings, and if an attempt be made to dis
cover the ultimate importance of the alliance, it will
perhaps be found in the fact that its ostensible success
aided Louis XIV by encouraging his opponents to devote
themselves to the pursuit of an impracticable ideal.
That no lesson had been learned from the failure of
the Triple Alliance appears in the history of the league
formed for the defence of the Dutch Republic which
Louis presently assailed. The root idea of that league,
as it ultimately found expression in the Treaty of Nime-
guen, was still the maintenance of the exact status quo.
The Peace of Westphalia was regarded as part of the
fundamental public law of Europe; theoretically, no
modification of its terms was to be permitted, and the
purport of the Treaty of Nimeguen was merely the inter
pretation of the earlier agreement. It is true that in
practice certain changes, not authorised at Westphalia,
were permitted, but such apparent acceptance of the
inevitable was rendered nugatory by the determination,
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 167
emphasised at Nimeguen, that the limit of change had
been reached, that there should be no further alteration
in the future.
Such a determination was rendered futile by the
character of Louis XIV, and of the French people, who
were as resolved as their ruler not to submit to any
dictation by foreign powers. France was intensely indi
vidualist so far as her external policy was concerned.
Though indubitably Catholic, she was at one with her
king in resisting not merely papal aggression, but even
the attempt of Innocent XI to preserve that minimum
of independence, the loss of which would have been
inconsistent with his position as a sovereign prince.
And it was obvious that a people who would not agree
to accord a reasonable measure of deference to the
acknowledged Head of the Church would be even more
unwilling to admit the right of any temporal ruler, or
combination of temporal rulers, to set bounds upon the
extension of French territory or of French glory and
prestige.
It was the existence of this pronounced external
Individualism which led Louis XIV to disregard the
terms of the Treaty of Nimeguen. That disregard was
not indeed expressed deliberately ; it was cloaked under
a pretence of giving effect to the very document to which
his opponents made most frequent appeal. A clause
in the Peace of Westphalia had transferred to France the
bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, " with the lands
belonging to them"; the vagueness of the phrase
afforded Louis the excuse which he desired, and the
Chambers of Reunion were created, ostensibly to deter
mine what districts were lawfully attached to the three
sees. No one credited the French king with any sincere
wish to secure a just interpretation of the treaty. No
one doubted that the Chambers were merely an excuse
168 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
for aggression, and if there had been any doubt, it would
have been speedily dispelled by the decisions of those
bodies. In short, the experience of the fate of the
Treaty of Nimeguen served to prove it was at least
extremely difficult to draft any document so accurately
as to leave no loophole for those who wished still to
pursue an individualist policy. A state which desired
to be aggressive would be restrained from aggression
only by force majeure.
From this it followed that the maintenance of the
exact status quo could hardly be secured unless the
powers of Europe were ready to face perpetual war.
There was no nation, possessed of military strength,
which was prepared voluntarily to forego any reason
able chance of extending its territory and its influence.
Only by positive proof that the chance was not reasonable,
that any attempt to gain something would in all prob
ability lead to the loss of that already possessed, could
a state be restrained from attacking the status quo.
But such proof could be supplied in no other way than
by the hazardous experiment of an appeal to arms; so
long as a state was undefeated in the field, it could not
be convinced that victory in war was an impossibility
for it. It was, therefore, necessary to sacrifice the actual
status quo ; to discover some alternative method by
which peace might be maintained, the aspirations of an
aggressive or progressive country sufficiently gratified
to induce that country to refrain from war, by which
and at the same time the balance of power might also
be preserved.
Such an alternative was found in the theory of com
pensation. The origin of that theory may be traced
back at least as far as the period of the Italian Wars,
when Louis XII and Ferdinand the Catholic arranged
the partition of Naples, when the League of Cambrai
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 169
was formed for the despoiling of Venice. Practically,
however, it developed in the years following the Triple
Alliance, and was first expressed in the agreement con
cluded between Louis XIV and Leopold for the eventual
division of the spoils expected to accrue from the proxi
mate extinction of the male line of the Spanish Habs-
burgs. But the theory did not immediately secure
acceptance. Louis was too thorough an external
individualist to admit the effecting of any real com
promise. After the Treaty of Nimeguen, he speedily
revealed his resolve to profit to the uttermost from his
military power and from the distraction of his enemies,
and his continued aggression produced the League of
Augsburg.
That League marks a distinct advance towards the
second interpretation of the new external Universalism.
It was a definite attempt to compel France to agree to a
permanent settlement of Europe; it was a European
combination, and no mere alliance of two or three powers
specially affected by the policy of Louis. The allies
recognised that it was futile to attempt the maintenance
of the Peace of Westphalia, except in the most general
sense. Though they appealed to that document, though
it was professedly taken as the basis of the Treaty
of Ryswick, yet the aim of the powers was really to
secure the safeguarding of their own interests. In other
words, they admitted the impossibility of preventing
some advance on the part of France. They were deter
mined that they would ensure that this advance should
not imperil their own safety, that they should receive
practical compensation for any concessions which they
made. Thus, though Louis retained Strassburg, he
had also to recognise William III; he was forced to
forego his design of including England within the orbit
of Bourbon influence, and thereby forced also to concede
170 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
political and economic security to the Dutch. These
limitations compensated Europe for the increase of
French power recognised in the treaty.
The idea of compensation, however, and the attempt
to discover a satisfactory and permanent modus vivendi,
appear less clearly in the actual terms of the Treaty of
Ryswick than in the circumstances in which that treaty
was concluded. Its signature was hastened by the
posture of affairs in Spain. Charles II was dying; the
problem of the Spanish succession held the deepest
interest for France and for the allies. Both parties
wished to be free to deal with the question, to be able
to devise a settlement unhampered by other considera
tions. At the same time, the conflicting claims to the
Spanish inheritance put forward by Louis XIV and the
Emperor made it clear that renewed war would result
from the death of Charles II, unless means were found by
which each claimant should secure reasonable satisfac
tion. The diplomatic energies of Europe were directed
to the task of inducing France and Austria to accept
something less than they demanded and desired, to the
discovery of adequate compensation for both parties.
More especially, William III devoted his attention to
this problem. He has frequently been described as the
inveterate enemy of Louis XIV ; the humiliation of the
Bourbons has been regarded as the keynote of his policy.
But his efforts were directed less to the depression of
France than to the maintenance of a balance of power
between her and the other states of Europe. He was,
indeed, the first clear exponent of the doctrine of com
pensation. He interpreted the new external Universal-
ism as being directed to secure, not the preservation of
any given distribution of territory, but the preservation
of a balance of power, by ensuring that the development
of any one state should be accompanied by a similar
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 171
development on the part of those states whose interests
would otherwise be endangered. And nowhere does
this aim of William appear more clearly than in his
treatment of the Spanish question. He rejected at once
the idea of ignoring French claims and aspirations; he
recognised at once that the integrity of the Spanish
monarchy could not be maintained. In place of putting
himself into a position of hostility towards France, he
hastened the conclusion of the Treaty of Ryswick that
he might act in conjunction with Louis XIV for the
preservation of European peace. To attain this end,
he formulated the two Partition Treaties. Austria and
France were to make substantial gains in consideration
of the abandonment of their claims to the whole Spanish
inheritance. That inheritance was to be divided as
equally as possible, and the powers of Europe were to
combine to secure the general acceptance of the division.
In short, the idea of compensation was to prevail, and
by prevailing to ensure the maintenance of the balance
of power.
It is not impossible that the scheme contained in
the Partition Treaties would in any case have proved
abortive, but it was accidental circumstances that forced
Europe into a new war. The death of the Electoral
Prince removed a candidate for the actual throne of
Spain whom Louis and Leopold were alike ready to
accept. The second Treaty gave a certain preference
to the Austrian claim, and secured only a reluctant
assent from the French king. In Spain, it secured no
assent at all. Charles II 's will forced Louis, even if he
had been unwilling, to accept the crown offered to his
grandson, and the struggle for the Spanish inheritance
followed inevitably. But the ideas of William III bore
fruit. They supplied the basis upon which the Grand
Alliance was founded.
i72 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
That Alliance may be regarded as a definite expression
of the new external Universalism. It admitted, as the
Partition Treaties had admitted, that France had a pre
scriptive right to pursue her own interest; so far it
admitted a measure of external Individualism. But it
was directed to prevent the danger of excessive Indi
vidualism, the danger of international anarchy. No state
was to promote its own interest in such a way as to
impair the position of other states; all reasonable
aspirations should be gratified, but the measure of
gratification was to be determined by a species of Euro
pean concert, was to be such that the balance of power
would be preserved. In event of a refusal to accept the
decisions of Europe, force might be used to coerce the
recalcitrant state. Yet force was not the primary idea
of the Grand Alliance. France was rather to be per
suaded by a display of military strength, than coerced
by the use of that strength And in the view of its
inceptors, the aim of the Alliance, and hence of any war
which it might undertake, was the establishment of a
durable peace.
The Grand Alliance led to war. Louis had reluctantly
accepted an arrangement to which he had been a party ;
he was entirely unwilling to endure the dictation of
a European confederacy. To induce him to abandon
his extreme external Individualism, it was necessary to
resort to arms, and when the war had once begun, the
Individualism of the allies reasserted itself. If Louis
was prepared to sacrifice Europe upon the altar of French
prestige and power, Charles VI was equally regardless
of all interests save his own. He aimed at the reunion
of the Habsburg dominions, at an overthrow of the
balance of power hardly less complete than that which
the Alliance had been formed to prevent. The Dutch,
moreover, were concerned with the prosecution of their
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 173
economic interests, no less than with the original purpose
of the league. Hence the war was needlessly prolonged.
From a sincere attempt to attain a modus vivendi, it
became an attempt to humiliate France and to secure
the special interests of certain members of the con
federacy. But in the Treaty of Utrecht, the original
aim of the Alliance reappears. The doctrine of compen
sation gained its first great triumph. France accepted,
while the allies granted, some satisfaction in return for
the abandonment of her full claims, and at the same
time each confederate secured some advantage which
might serve to counterbalance the possible increase of
French power. At Utrecht, the idea of an adjustable
balance was clearly put forward; the new external
Universalism received definitely the second of the two
possible interpretations, and that creed which was in
general to prevail during the succeeding period was now
really formulated.
This fact, however, was not immediately realised. Up
to the time of the Treaty of Utrecht, it so happened that
European leagues had been formed only against France,
and from this circumstance arose the idea, countenanced
by some historians, that the object of these leagues
was the humiliation of the Bourbons. It was supposed
that France was a permanent menace to European peace,
that the welfare of the continent required her coercion
and restraint, that some intrinsic qualities in the French
people made it essential to watch every action of the
French government with suspicious jealousy, and pre
cluded any possibility of an amicable agreement with it.
The history of the Partition Treaties might have in
dicated that this was not the opinion of William III.
An impartial study of the circumstances in which those
treaties had been disregarded by Louis XIV might have
suggested that France was not permanently or necessarily
174 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
irreconcilable. Yet it was only with great difficulty
that Stanhope secured the acceptance of a French
entente in England, so convinced were many that France
was the one source of danger. In reality, however,
the inspiration of the Grand Alliance was drawn from a
far deeper source than mere antipathy to a particular
king or a particular dynasty. Louis XIV typified the
external Individualism of the age ; France was the state
at once most ready and most able to disregard the interest
and the will of Europe. But this was merely an acci
dental circumstance. The history of the period follow
ing the Treaty of Utrecht reveals the true spirit of the
Grand Alliance. From that history, it becomes clear
that the powers which united against France were
actuated less by fear of subjection than by the conviction
that the concern of each is the concern of all, by external
Universalism.
For no sooner was Louis XIV dead than there ceased
to be any anti-French alliances. It would be absurd to
contend that the character of the French people suddenly
changed. It cannot be asserted with even a suspicion
of truth that the king coerced his people or that after
the death of Louis there was so strong a popular influence
on government that at last, and for the first time, the
court of Versailles was driven to modify its policy in
deference to the will of the nation. No ruler, however
despotic, however able, can compel his subjects to
sacrifice their lives and fortunes in a cause of which those
subjects really disapprove; the wars of Louis XIV were
made possible by the external Individualism of the
French nation, and the unparalleled exertions which
France made were the result of the fact that royal policy
commanded popular approval, were the proof of that
fact.
But there is a limit to exertion, and the long wars of
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 175
the seventeenth century produced exhaustion. France
began to desire peace; Louis himself, ever the most
typical Frenchman of his age, showed a new spirit of
conciliation in the last years of his reign. At the moment
of his death, the individualist tendencies of France were
curbed by exhaustion; for the remainder of the eigh
teenth century, France undertook no positive war of
aggression. Orleans and Dubois have been credited
with the successful revolutionising of French foreign
policy; in actual fact, they merely gave expression, as
Louis XIV had done, to the dominant feeling of the
French people. For a time France ceased to be exter
nally individualist; she became content to satisfy her
reasonable claims in concert with the powers of Europe.
If she engaged in wars, it was only that she might
defend her legitimate interests and secure adequate
compensation.
And the result of this modification in French policy
was that the Universalism underlying the leagues formed
ceased to be partially obscured ; the practical supremacy
of the idea of compensation became apparent. It was
realised that the ultimate aim of every European alliance
was to prevent the occurrence of perpetual war by
creating a modus vivendi. Thus, immediately after
the conclusion of the Treaty of Utrecht, the attention
of the powers was directed to Spain. There was
certainly no danger of a Spanish domination of Europe ;
the Triple Alliance was formed, not to prevent such
domination, but to secure that the external Individual
ism of a single state should not be permitted to disturb
the balance of power. At the same time, the alliance
was not intended to preserve the exact status quo, as it
had been established at Utrecht. Had they so desired,
England, France and Holland could have coerced Spain,
could have entirely ignored her aspirations. But they
176 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
attempted nothing of the kind. Alberoni, and after him
Ripperda, was driven from office ; they had endeavoured
to act independently of the will of Europe. Yet the
allies who had secured their downfall proceeded to grant
almost all for which the ministers had schemed. The
question of the Italian duchies was settled with at least
a due regard for the interests and claims of Spain. In
other words, the right of a sovereign state to attempt
expansion and the gratification of its ambitions was
admitted. Spain was dissatisfied with the settlement
effected at Utrecht ; attention was paid to her complaints
and the settlement was so far as possible revised to meet
those complaints. But she was not permitted to take
what she would or could; she was not permitted to act
without reference to the equally recognised interests of
the rest of Europe. She was given something with, as
it were, the proviso that she should acknowledge the
right of the powers to determine the nature and extent
of the gift.
In the decision of this question, the working of the
theory of compensation is to be seen. The states of
Europe were primarily individualist in their external
policy, and they felt that every country had in a measure
the right to act independently of all other countries.
But the danger of extreme Individualism was also
recognised; to a certain extent, external Universalism
prevailed. This fact led to the demand that the degree
of satisfaction accorded to any given state should be
determined by a concert. Such was the principle under
lying the Treaties of London, Seville and Vienna, by
which the claims of Spain were met; such was the
principle which appears in the Wars of the Polish and
of the Austrian Succession.
In the case of Poland, France was admitted to possess
a legitimate interest in the disposition of the crown;
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 177
Austria and Russia were held to have an equally legiti
mate interest. Hence at the end of the war, while the
candidate of the eastern powers secured the disputed
throne, France, defeated on the ostensible point at issue,
received compensation in the shape of the reversion of
Lorraine. In the whole history of the Austrian Succes
sion question, the same conception of national interests
appears. Charles VI desired to secure the whole Habs-
burg inheritance for his daughter, Maria Theresa, and to
that end promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction. Yet he
recognised that the claim of other states to a voice in the
settlement of the problem was not to be ignored, and
admitted this by seeking to obtain beforehand the assent
of Europe to the scheme which he had devised. In
this he was apparently successful; guarantees of the
Pragmatic Sanction were given in return for more or
less substantial concessions. But as soon as Charles VI
was dead, Frederic the Great deliberately set aside the
undertaking into which his father had entered, invading
Silesia and openly attempting to partition the Austrian
dominions. His conduct was not really susceptible of
even a colourable justification; he acted as an extreme
individualist, careless of all rights and interests save his
own. Nevertheless, Europe recognised that he had a
certain liberty permitting him to act as he did. The
efforts of the peacemakers, both during the War of the
Austrian Succession and at the Conference of Aix-la-
Chapelle, were directed, not to punish Prussia for her
aggression, but to induce her to accept in full satisfaction
some part of that which she had at first implicitly or
explicitly demanded. Frederic stole Silesia; Europe
condoned, applauded, envied the theft. The external
Individualism of the age had asserted itself. The
external universalists recognised that though the inde
pendent action of states might be alien from their own
M
178 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
principles, yet it could only be restrained and minimised,
not entirely prevented.
And it was this prevalent external Individualism
which led in large measure to the failure of the new
Universalism, limiting its ascendancy, making its com
plete success impossible. It was admitted that every
state had a certain inherent right to expand, a certain
inherent right to receive compensation for the gains of
its rivals. But a problem arose as to the true limits of
expansion, the degree of compensation which was to be
regarded as adequate. It was clear that the satisfaction
to which the powers would in any given case assent would
be too slight to satisfy the state seeking such satisfaction,
too great to be acceptable to the state compelled to grant
it. Both parties, therefore, tended to be so aggrieved
that they were prepared to enter upon war rather than
accept the decision given ; acceptance was generally the
outcome of compulsion rather than of voluntary consent.
Spain agreed to the Treaty of London only when her
fleet had been crushed at Cape Passaro and her territory
entered by a French army. It was the imminent danger
of a hopeless struggle against a European coalition that
led to the abandonment of the schemes of Ripperda and
to the acceptance of the Treaty of Seville by Spain and
of the Second Treaty of Vienna by Austria. France
would not give up her support of Stanislas Leszczynski
until she had been defeated in the War of the Polish
Succession. Austria only relinquished Silesia after
Frederic had inflicted crushing reverses upon her.
And even after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle she
remained a malcontent. The Diplomatic Revolution
was merely the expression of Austrian and French dis
satisfaction at the terms which that treaty had imposed
upon them. Maria Theresa would not accept a decision
which deprived her of a great province. France, offended
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 179
by the treachery of Frederic on the continent, was
further discontented because her efforts had neither
secured to her the Austrian Netherlands nor effected the
destruction of English power in North America and India.
It was found necessary to fight the Seven Years' War
before the conclusions reached at Aix-la-Chapelle were
accepted by the two malcontent powers, nor when the
Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg had been signed did
the Habsburgs cease to seek compensation for the loss
of Silesia, the Bourbons to desire vengeance upon the
country which had destroyed their colonial empire.
Wars of aggression were not prevented by the new ex
ternal Universalism ; the attempt to curb the prevalent
external Individualism of Europe did not achieve com
plete success. Something was certainly done to limit
the duration and extent of conflicts; the aftermath of
hostility between belligerents was reduced. But the
universalists, on the whole, failed really to attain their
end.
Nor was this true only of their efforts to preserve
peace. The basis of the new theory was the doctrine
of the balance of power and the meeting of legitimate
claims by means of compensation. But the compensa
tion sought was generally, if not invariably, territorial,
and land is not susceptible of indefinite increase. It
therefore followed that it was not every state which
could receive even a limited satisfaction ; that the moder
ate satisfaction of one state was liable to involve the
serious dissatisfaction of another. It was probable that
the wishes of the greater powers of Europe would be
gratified, and that this gratification would be at the ex
pense of the lesser powers. Such, indeed, was the case.
In order to meet the demands of Spain, the independence
of Parma was practically extinguished; to compensate
France and Austria, the exchange of Lorraine for Tuscany
i8o THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
inflicted a similar fate upon the latter district, while
the former was soon incorporated in the Bourbon
monarchy.
And probably the most characteristic feature of the
new external Universalism was that while the interests
of the larger states were almost scrupulously regarded,
those of the petty states were almost as generally ignored.
To some extent, this was the natural result of the
dominance of internal Universalism, which made con
sistently for the increase of the area under any one
government, for an ever greater departure from mediaeval
heterogeneity. To some extent, it was due to the fact
that the danger to European peace from the malcontent
of a small state was really negligible; complaints un
supported by adequate military force could be and were
disregarded with impunity.
But the prime cause of the neglect of the weak and the
consideration for the strong is to be found in the change
of conditions since the Middle Ages. Then, there had
existed a convenient mean between complete inde
pendence and complete subjection, the relationship of
feudal subordination. Few European states had actually
possessed entire freedom; a feudal tie generally bound
them to some other state. Thus the external Universal
ism of the Middle Ages, of which feudalism was a product
or expression, really saved both the greater powers from
humiliation and the lesser from extinction. The cities
of Italy and the Swiss cantons secured a large measure
of liberty, but they were content formally to recognise
imperial supremacy. But in the period after the Peace
of Westphalia such variation between actual and nominal
conditions became impossible. No state would any
longer admit even theoretical limitations on its inde
pendence; the reign of mediaeval fictions ended; the
very continuance of the Holy Roman Empire itself was
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 181
in the nature of an accident, the result of the entire
absence of any vitality in the institution.
It is true that for their own sake the larger states
became partially universalist in their external policy.
They sought to discover a modus vivendi ; they admitted
that they were to some extent bound to observe the
rules of international law. But they applied those rules
to themselves alone. The sacrifice of smaller states
was in no wise precluded; rather, the doctrine of com
pensation further imperilled their safety. For only at
their expense could the great powers secure any reward
for their abstention from war; only at their expense
could the great powers make the acquisitions necessary
for the maintenance of the balance. And this same
doctrine of compensation led also to the formation among
the strong of alliances having for their purpose the
despoiling of the weak.
Of such an alliance the fall of Poland was the result.
Russia desired primarily to regain the provinces of which
she had been despoiled duringthe " Timeof the Troubles,"
even if she ultimately desired also to absorb the whole
Polish state. But, in any case, Austria and Prussia
would not agree to any extension of Russian territory
without securing adequate compensation for themselves.
Therefore Catherine II, who might have been content to
leave the really Polish lands untouched, was driven to
accept the idea of partition. In the interest of the
balance of power, in deference to the new external
Universalism, Poland was gradually divided between
her neighbours. Her right to a national existence was
denied; her independence was extinguished. And in
this period, if independence were extinguished, it was
extinguished completely. No feudal superiority, no
mere suzerainty, would content aggressive states. Over
lands united to their dominions, the eighteenth-century
i82 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
rulers demanded and secured entire control. The
sacrifice of small states was one outcome of the new
external Universalism. Power to resist constituted the
sole right to resist ; might was the only measure of the
right to be externally individualist.
In the century which elapsed between the conclusion
of the Peace of Westphalia and the outbreakof the French
Revolution, there was a certain reaction against that
extreme of external Individualism which had prevailed
at the beginning of the period. There was, indeed, no
return to the mediaeval conception of a Europe united
under Emperor or Pope, but there was an acceptance
of the principle which had formed the ultimate basis
of that conception. To Grotius, nations had been in a
state of nature towards each other: by the close of the
eighteenth century they had come to be regarded as
members of a more or less definite corporation. In the
Middle Ages, they had also been regarded as united, not
isolated ; as members of an essentially Christian society,
to be tended and guided by the paternal care of the
temporal or spiritual representative of Christ on earth.
After the Peace of Westphalia, even formal religious
unity ceased to exist. The Christian commonwealth
was dissolved ; all things seemed to be fast degenerating
into a condition of international anarchy. In the new
union, devised during the following century, all thought
of Christian brotherhood and of paternal authority
passed away. Whereas the liberty of nations had been
theoretically restricted by their obligations to their
common Church, and limited as that of children by a
father, now the only recognised restraint was the mini
mum essential for the preservation of any order of society.
Into the complete external Universalism of mediaeval
theory an individualist element was intruded. Each
state was essentially individualist in its foreign policy,
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 183
though an enlightened self-interest dictated a limitation
of that Individualism. The reaction was incomplete;
the wheel had not swung full circle.
Though more slowly and less definitely, a similar
internal reaction occurred during this period. At the
time of the Peace of Westphalia, there had been an
apparent triumph of Universalism in every European
state; mediaeval internal Individualism disappeared.
And universalist ascendancy was strengthened and
maintained owing to the recent experience of the evils
resulting from weak government and civil strife. Men
were ready to endure much that they might escape
calamities such as had befallen France during the Wars
of Religion, such as caused a large part of Germany
to lie waste for two centuries after the Thirty Years'
War. And the inevitable reaction against the gratifica
tion of the desire to be ruled was hindered by other
circumstances. The extreme external Individualism of
the age induced most countries to pursue an aggressive
foreign policy, which served to distract attention from
internal affairs. Rulers did not devote their energy to
the further consolidation of their authority at home;
subjects were generally content to commit a large
measure of power to sovereigns who waged successful
wars.
But before all, the reaction was delayed because the
necessity for it was hardly acute. Though most states
appeared to possess centralised governments, their cen
tralisation was incomplete; the supremacy of internal
Universalism was rather apparent than real. France
under Louis XIV has often been regarded as a typical
despotism. Yet, while there is an element of truth in
this view, the element of error is far greater. At no
time during the ancien regime was France a truly central
ised state or her king a truly absolute monarch. Some
i&4 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Frenchmen lived under the droit ecrit, others under the
droit coutumier. Some provinces were ruled directly
by royal intendants, others were pays d'etats, possessing
local estates and parliaments. The method of taxation
varied from province to province; internal free trade
was unknown. It was not until the time of Colbert that
state regulation of economic conditions was really intro
duced. Religious conformity was not enforced until
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
And that which was true of France was true of other
countries. Prussia long remained merely a loose aggrega
tion of lands, happening to own a common ruler. The
Austrian dominions were anything except a centralised
monarchy. Even in Spain, remnants of old mediaeval
liberties were to be found in Catalonia and in the Basque
Provinces. Indeed, the majority of European states
presented a somewhat curious contradiction. The king
was absolute in theory, almost absolute in practice. He
could dispose at will of the public revenue ; he possessed
the right of peace and war; he could even legislate by
prerogative. He might sell his subjects to their death,
as did the landgrave of Hesse, or by condemning them
untried to perpetual imprisonment make their lives a
veritable hell. Yet, on every side, he was hampered by
a mass of local customs and privileges, by rights which
he might theoretically disregard and which he was
practically bound to respect. Not even a Louis XIV
could dare to impose direct taxation upon the nobles.
No Habsburg could with impunity ignore the liberties
of the Magyars; no Spanish king could defy the Holy
Office or deprive ecclesiastics of the right to indulge their
inhumanity.
This incomplete centralisation makes the history of
the internal conflict during the period following the Peace
of Westphalia more than usually complex. In it a dual
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 185
movement may be discerned; to a certain extent,
Universalism and Individualism make progress simul
taneously. On the other hand, governmental authority
was gradually extended and consolidated. On the other
hand, there was a growing tendency to advocate some
limitation of the ruling power. And of these two
movements, the first was for a while impeded by the
prevalent external Individualism. Attention was dis
tracted from internal affairs by its concentration upon
foreign policy ; frequent wars and crises threatening war
served to hinder changes at home. Generally speaking,
the progress towards more complete centralisation was
very slow. It was not until the new theory of external
Universalism had gained a measure of supremacy that
the work was resumed, and on the very eve of the French
Revolution there was still a distinct movement in many
countries towards a greater degree of absolutism.
The gradual progress of the universalist movement
may be attributed in a measure to the belief that despot
ism had already been established by the end of the first
half of the seventeenth century. The limitations on
royal authority were rather real than apparent; rulers
seemed to dispose at will of the lives and fortunes of their
subjects, and the absence of resistance created an idea
that resistance, or at least successful resistance, was
impossible. This appears very clearly in the history of
France. The overthrow of the Fronde seemed to have
completed the centralising work begun by Louis XI
and resumed after a long interval by Henry IV, Richelieu
and Mazarin. Both by his own subjects and by foreign
observers, Louis XIV was regarded as an absolute
monarch. He himself held the same idea; his well-
known remark, " L'etat, c'est moi," indicates his mistaken
belief. And to this circumstance may perhaps be attri
buted the fact that, during his reign, no advance was
i86 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
made towards the real establishment of despotism, save
in the domain of economics by Colbert and of religion
by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The infin
itely more vital checks upon the power of government,
diversity in administration, taxation and law, remained
untouched until the removal of an able, and the substitu
tion of a weak or incompetent, ruler made their existence
both apparent and a menace to royal authority. Even
the economic centralisation of Colbert was less a con
scious extension of the province of government than the
adoption of certain means to attain an end. It was
necessary to make France prosperous that she might
pursue an aggressive foreign policy; Colbert held the
mercantile theory, and therefore regulated industry
and commerce in order to secure the wealth needed for
the prosecution of war. And the Edict of Nantes was
revoked, the Huguenots persecuted, less as the result
of a settled scheme of policy than as the result of the
influence of an immoral pietist upon her superstitious
and egoistical paramour or husband.
Egoistical to a degree, Louis XIV failed to realise that
there were in France any elements of successful opposi
tion to the royal will. Their existence became very
apparent after his death, and in the reign of Louis XV
some attempt was made to effect the real consolidation
of the French monarchy. The Regent Orleans, while
posing as an admirer of limited monarchy, endeavoured
to create a more uniform administration. He was
thwarted by a combination of circumstances, the in
capacity of the nobles, the failure of Law, and, above
all, by the resistance of the Parliament of Paris. That
body came more and more frequently into opposition to
the king during the reign of Louis XV. Lits de justice,
and the banishment of the offending lawyers, served
rather to discredit the monarchy than to enhance its
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 187
power, and eventually Maupeou made a positive attempt
to secure that uniformity of justice without which central
isation was a mere name. The Parliament, which he
established, failed to achieve its dual purpose of popularis
ing despotism and providing an improved legal system ;
Louis XVI restored the old order, and when the Revolu
tion broke upon France, she was still a decentralised
state.
Nor was the supposed absolutism which reigned in
other states any more complete than that of France.
Spain possibly affords the best example of a highly central
ised monarchy. After the War of the Spanish Succes
sion, the work of Charles V and Philip II was resumed,
and almost the last vestiges of mediaeval liberty were
destroyed. Catalonia had always been a seat of internal
Individualism; its inhabitants had been led to support
Charles of Austria against Philip of Anjou, feeling that
they had more to hope or less to fear from a king brought
up in the atmosphere of Vienna than from one educated
in that of Versailles. The one was a member of a
dynasty ruling a motley conglomeration of loosely-
united territories, and might be expected to regard
leniently the existence of local independence. The other
was a Bourbon, a member of the supposedly most
despotic reigning family in Europe; his grandfather
had but recently torn up an agreement, sworn to by his
predecessor, merely because it guaranteed to some of
his subjects the right to worship God as they would.
The Catalans, however, supported the losing cause;
the majority of the Spanish people loved intolerance
and was prone to submit to authority, social and
political. And the triumph of the internal universalists
sounded the death-knell of the liberties of Catalonia ; the
first care of Philip V was to sweep away the privileges
of his rival's most loyal supporters. Yet even so, the
i88 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
centralisation of Spain was incomplete. The Basque
Provinces preserved traces of their old local self-govern
ment, and despite the prevalence of the desire to be
ruled among the people, royal power was subjected to
very real limitations. It was found impossible to destroy
the Inquisition. The efforts of Charles III to modify
the national dress and to provide adequate street lighting
for his capital almost produced a revolution in the most
conservative and loyal country in Europe.
And if signs of internal Individualism are not wanting
in Spain, they may be found far more abundantly in other
lands. Prussia was hardly united at all until the reign
of the Great Elector, whose work it was practically to
provide a common government for his dominions.
Though centralisation and despotism made progress
under Frederic William I and Frederic the Great, there
was still a lack of real cohesion in the Prussian state;
that lack of cohesion largely accounts for Prussia's
overthrow by the arms of France and of Napoleon.
Russia, at the time of the Peace of Westphalia, had
hardly emerged from barbarism; she had not emerged
at all from mediaeval decentralisation. So far from being
absolute, the Tsar had a spiritual colleague, until Peter
the Great abolished the Patriarchate of Moscow. Even
at the close of Catherine II 's reign, the wide extent of
the Russian Empire, and the extreme difficulty of com
munication between its different parts, left a large
measure of local self-government to the provinces. Not
only were the nobles almost independent princes on their
estates, but in the remoter districts unnoticed city
republics preserved their existence.
But it was in the Austrian dominions that the absence
of real despotism was most marked. The Habsburgs
ruled over races singularly tenacious of their local
privileges; they long failed to create even a single,
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 189
unified administration for their empire. Maria Theresa,
it is true, did something to remedy this defect, but when
Joseph II went further and attempted to destroy the
liberties of the Magyars and of the Austrian Netherlands,
he aroused a storm of opposition. In Belgium, an
actual revolt took place; Hungary was on the verge
of rebellion; before his death, the reforming Emperor
was driven to attempt concessions. Leopold II has
been regarded as a statesman largely because he admitted
the futility of his predecessor's dream of a united
Germanised monarchy.
Nevertheless, though consolidation was nowhere
really achieved and despotism was thus everywhere
imperfect, there was yet a general movement towards
both centralisation and absolutism. Even the so-called
republics participated in this movement. Venice, for
centuries controlled by the Council of Ten, became
an extremely narrow oligarchy. Holland accepted the
practical sovereignty of the House of Orange. Sweden,
long a veiled republic, was temporarily converted into
an absolute monarchy by Gustavus III. Only in Poland
did internal Individualism hold its own, and Poland paid
for this by passing through a period of anarchy into a
state of subjection to her universalist neighbours. On
the eve of her dissolution, she had recognised the errors
of her past ; the reformed constitution, annulled at the
Second Partition, endowed the executive with powers
greater than those which any Polish king had possessed
since the extinction of the House of Jagiello.
When, therefore, the French Revolution occurred,
Europe presented no picture of uniform absolutism, but
rather one of countries in almost every stage of centralisa
tion and decentralisation. Spain was, perhaps, as near
a complete despotism as possible; Poland was as near
complete anarchy as a state can be and yet continue to
igo THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
exist at all. Between these two extremes, most varieties
of government were to be found ; monarchies masquerad
ing as republics, republics masquerading as monarchies ;
countries possessing a mediaevally nebulous unity,
countries recalling the Greek city-states in the extension
of the functions of government.
And this peculiarity of eighteenth-century Europe must
be attributed to the fact that at this time a dual process
was occurring. While internal Universalism was labour
ing to complete its triumph, a new theory of internal
Individualism was being painfully evolved. Just as
there was no return to the external Universalism of the
Middle Ages, so there was no return to the internal
Individualism of that time. But each dominant emotion
found a new mode of expression, as was bound to be the
case unless human nature changed. And just as the
new external Universalism made some concession to the
individualist spirit, so the new internal Individualism
made allowance for the prevalent Universalism.
This reaction against the supremacy of the desire to
be ruled first appeared in the gradual evolution of the
new theory of monarchy. During the Middle Ages, as
soon as kingship ceased to be tribal, it became essentially
territorial; the king was, above all, a great landowner,
and his duties were held to be equivalent to those of a
good landlord. His title to rule was similar to the title
of every possessor of property; it was divine in origin,
based ultimately upon the distinction made in the Deca
logue between meum and tuum. But at the time of the
Reformation, this idea of monarchy was necessarily
and seriously assailed. Forced to find a ground for
resistance to government, the Protestants, not daring
to refuse obedience to a divine institution, were driven
to discover some human foundation for royal authority.
The Huguenots therefore produced the Social Contract,
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 191
formulating a theory that government is based upon an
original agreement between ruler and subject. Kings,
as one writer expressed it, were made by men for their
own convenience, " for quietness' sake, as one member
of a family is appointed to buy the meat." The idea
of contract, however, failed to secure ascendancy, partly
because it could be turned to support extreme tyranny,
partly because kings were reluctant to permit debate
concerning the origins of their authority, partly because
subjects were generally disinclined to enter upon such
debates.
On the other hand, the idea of convenience as a basis
of government developed and bore abundant fruit. It
became a recognised idea that royal authority was a trust,
that power was given to kings, not that they might
gratify their own inclination, but that they might pro
mote the welfare of their subjects. That welfare was
commonly interpreted as consisting in the maintenance of
prestige abroad and the promotion of material prosperity
at home. The external influence and interests of the
state were to be safeguarded; public works were to be
undertaken; everything possible was to be done to
improve the lot of the people. Kings, no less than their
subjects, accepted this theory of monarchy. Frederic
the Great was only voicing the opinion of contemporary
rulers when he professed himself to be " the first servant
of his people." The sovereigns of the eighteenth century
were almost morbidly eager to recognise and to fulfil
their obligations.
But those obligations did not, nor were they in any
wise intended to, limit the absolute power of the king.
Monarchy was to be benevolent ; it was at the same time
to be despotic. Frederic the Great crystallised the
contemporary conception of the royal office in his well-
known phrase, " Everything for the people, nothing by
193 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the people "; rule was to be autocratic, no less than
paternal. The governed were not to be permitted any
voice in determining the conduct of the governor; they
were held to be incapable of deciding what was and what
was not for their own good. No sovereigns, perhaps,
were so entirely resolved to disregard adverse expressions
of public opinion as were the benevolent despots of the
eighteenth century. They seemed to feel that they
could secure the welfare of their subjects; they laboured
conscientiously towards that end. They seemed at the
same time to be determined that no one else should
undertake that task which they conceived it to be their
duty to perform and to appropriate to themselves.
In these circumstances, it is hardly matter for surprise
that the enlightened despots engaged in undertakings
not obviously fraught with advantage to their subjects,
and of which those subjects disapproved. Generally
speaking, they were warlike, and if some of the wars
which they waged resulted in benefits to their people
commensurate with their cost, others had no such
merit. Frederic the Great's long struggle for the posses
sion of Silesia may be defended on the ground that it
gave Prussia a valuable and even necessary province, and
that it raised her to the rank of a first-class power. The
wars of Catherine II have a similar justification. Swedish
rivalry in the Baltic was economically dangerous;
victory over the Ottoman Turks served to give Russia
an outlet to the south, and was valuable as supplying
a community of sentiment, promoting a patriotic en
thusiasm, by which the empire of the Tsars was welded
into a single state. But the intervention of Charles III
in the Seven Years' War and in the War of American
Independence produced nothing but evil for Spain ; the
attack of Joseph II on Turkey merely served to accelerate
the advance of Russia and to embarrass the Emperor
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 193
still further in the prosecution of internal reforms. Few,
if any, of the wars undertaken by Louis XIV and Louis
XV were conceived in the best interests of France, nor
did they result in any advantage to her sufficient to
excuse the expenditure which they necessitated. None
of the Bourbons, however, can be with any real justice
included among the enlightened despots ; the selfishness
of their foreign policy supplies a fair indication of the
whole tenor of their conduct. Even the great public
works, completed under the ancien regime, were designed
largely to gratify the ostentatious vanity of the French
kings; on the testimony of Arthur Young, they served
no very useful purpose.
And if the wars undertaken by the enlightened despots
were not always advantageous to their subjects, their
internal policy was frequently still less advantageous,
still less in accord with the wishes of their people.
Frederic the Great deliberately organised his kingdom
as a camp, and if military strength was essential to
Prussia, the exaggeration of that strength was largely
responsible for the failure to cope with the many social
and economic evils eventually remedied by Stein and
his collaborators. But it is in the case of Joseph II that
the faults of enlightened despotism are best discerned.
His measures achieved so little popularity that the agita
tion aroused by them shook the Habsburg throne. Him
self indubitably intelligent and sincere, he lacked that
patience in face of stupidity and prejudice which is one
of the most necessary qualities in a statesman. Enthusi
astic to a degree, he attempted to impose his will upon
his reluctant subjects, to accomplish by means of a
few edicts the laborious work of centuries. And the
methods and errors of Joseph were those of his con
temporaries ; his haste was really typical of the working
of that system of which he was perhaps the truest repre-
N
194 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
sentative. The enlightened despots were alike in their
impatience of opposition, in their conviction that they
possessed a practical monopoly of political wisdom.
Catherine II abandoned the duma which she had called
into existence, when she found that even a tentative
representation might produce the expression of hostile
public opinion. Pombal in Portugal, Charles III in
Spain, forced through the suppression of the Jesuits,
with little regard for the feelings of the people.
Such disregard for the real wishes of their subjects
on the part of the benevolent despots produced important
results. It was admitted that government should be for
the good of the governed. The despots claimed to be
the sole judges of what constituted that good. But
their claim was soon disputed; Joseph II received
practical proof of the fact that his views were unaccept
able to his subjects. And even when no such dispute
occurred, when the ruled were content to receive with
out questioning the verdict of the ruler, a difficulty still
arose. If the majority of sovereigns sought, to the best
of their ability and knowledge, to promote the welfare
of their people, all did not do so. The benevolence of
the government of Louis XV was at least dubious; the
malevolence of that of Hesse, whose landgrave sold
his subjects to fight in wars in which they had not the
least interest, was beyond doubt. And the existence
of unenlightened despots produced a corollary to the
original thesis. If government was to be for the good
of the governed, there must be some sanction by which
such an employment of authority might be secured. A
ruler who misused his position must be liable to adverse
criticism and eventually to deposition, as having failed
to fulfil the duties imposed upon him by his office.
But though this corollary seems to follow logically
from the original hypothesis, it did not secure immediate
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 195
enunciation. The theory of benevolent despotism also
implied submission by the ruled, and upon this aspect
emphasis was laid owing to the prevalence of internal
Universalism. Mankind was in general inclined to
obedience; it was necessary to destroy or at least to
impair the ascendancy of the desire to be ruled before
men could be led to consider either the possibility or the
advisability of resistance to constituted authority. And
it is in the gradual growth of criticism of the established
order that the second stage of the reaction against
internal Universalism is to be found, in the intellectual
movement which characterised the latter half of the
eighteenth century.
The inclination to accept authority, to bow to the
decisions of all established powers, extended not only
over the realm of politics, but also over those of religion
and economics. In every direction the human intellect
was cramped and confined to certain recognised channels.
The task of the internal individualists was therefore the
harder; they were forced to induce the minds of their
contemporaries to break the shackles of convention, as
well as to brave the anger of governments and to con
vince the world that the supposed danger of anarchy was
unreal. They were obliged to run counter to all accepted
theories; it was their task to convert mankind to a new
mode of thought. And their success was the more
difficult since the agencies created by the prevailing
desire to be ruled were powerful, the defences of internal
Universalism strong. Those defences would indeed have
been impregnable if it had not been that the human
mind is easily satiated by gratification of one or other
of the two paramount emotions. As it was, the triumph
of the individualist reaction might be delayed ; it could
not be permanently prevented.
A certain weakness in the universalist position
196 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
facilitated the individualist victory. During the Middle
Ages, the bondage of the human intellect had been well-
nigh complete, because men upon one important topic
dared only to debate even with themselves in secret,
in fear and in trembling. Dogmatic religion possessed a
strong hold upon the world ; men were hardly unorthodox
in their own minds. Kings might be powerful and
impious, powerful and clear-headed; they still shud
dered before the prospect of excommunication, of con
demnation by the Church. Nor was it merely that they
dreaded the political consequences of such an event,
calculated as those consequences were to give pause to
the boldest statesman. They trembled also, and sin
cerely, for their eternal welfare; the flames of Hell
blazed brightly before the minds of mediaeval rulers.
And their subjects lived in a condition of equal dread
of ecclesiastical censures; they held fast in terror to
a body which claimed to control the only path to
Heaven.
That there were sceptics in the Middle Ages is in
deed certain. Agnosticism is no less permanent than
Catholicism, nor has there been any period in which all
men have been ready to modify their conduct merely
because a given course of action might be displeasing
to a distant and unseen Being. But mediaeval heretics
could with difficulty discover those who thought with
them; they were not strengthened in their hostility to
the existing system by the knowledge that this opposi
tion enlisted wide sympathy. The Church had secured
a practical monopoly of the written word ; her censorship
was severe and effective. Only by public preaching
could heterodox views be popularised, and it was no
very arduous task to silence a few preachers. Hence
the heretical movements of the Middle Ages always
failed; the Albigenses, the Hussites, and all other
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 197
assertors of individualist religious opinion were crushed
more or less effectively by the dominant Church.
The invention of printing, however, made the dis
semination of any opinion infinitely easier, and from that
moment heresy grew apace, until its progress culminated
in the Reformation. Individualism was at last generally
preached; the enunciation of the doctrine of private
judgment marks an important stage in the assertion of
the desire to rule against the desire to be ruled. Religious
bodies, other than the Catholic Church, sprang into
existence. Those whom fear of excommunication had
deterred from the expression of their secret convictions
were now able to console themselves with the hope that
there might be byways to Heaven, even if the road
which they had been taught to follow was closed to them.
A critical spirit developed; a tendency appeared to
reject the accepted because it was accepted. But the
individualist triumph was wholly incomplete. Universal-
ism had enjoyed a prolonged ascendancy; its influence
remained extremely powerful. Not only did Catholicism
regain much of the ground which it had lost, but Pro
testant Churches proved to be, or became, equally
universalist in their principles and their organisation.
Indeed, it was not until the latter half of the eighteenth
century that the work of the Reformation was completed.
At that time the internal individualists realised the
prevalence of superstition and of dogmatic opinion.
They saw how this hampered them in every way; they
came to appreciate the fact that they could not hope to
attain their object unless and until they succeeded in
training the human intellect to question accepted ideas.
Above all, they grasped the necessity of combating
dominant religious creeds, and especially of combat
ing the Roman Church. Catholicism has always been
primarily logical. It has offered consistent opposition
198 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
to all free expression of opinion, realising that if liberty
of thought were conceded in one direction, a first and
probably a fatal step would be taken towards the admis
sion of a similar liberty in the domain of theology. The
condemnation of Galileo was not due to any special
ecclesiastical objection to the rotation of the earth round
the sun ; it was a measure necessary for the safeguarding
of the theory of St. Peter's keys and the dogma of
transubstantiation. And while the Catholic Church
controlled education and possessed a practical censorship
over profane literature, the cause of Individualism could
make but little progress; the association between the
extreme of dogmatic religion and the maintenance of
universalist ascendancy over the human mind was at
once intimate and inevitable, since dogmatic religion is
nothing but one expression of the desire to be ruled.
Hence, it was against dogmatic religion in general,
and against the Catholic Church in particular, that the
first efforts of the eighteenth-century individualists were
directed. Two circumstances combined to encourage
their attack. In the first place, the age was rather
superstitious than religious. Obedience to the Church
was the product of fear, not the outcome of love; the
tendency to follow the promptings of fear was sedulously
encouraged by the clergy. The more influential laymen
were retained in communion with the Church largely by
the extreme tact of their confessors. The indulgence of
an inclination to infringe every provision of the Deca
logue was punished by the most moderate penalties;
the most profligate princes and nobles were never
refused the consolations of religion, and their mistresses
were often among the most favoured daughters of the
Church. Towards the masses, no doubt, the attitude
of ecclesiastics was more severe, but even the God of
the Many was found to be most tolerant of any specially
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 199
popular vice. Nor were the Protestant clergy more
sincere in their obedience to the creed which they pro
fessed. In England, courtly bishops were ready to
compliment the reigning beauty without regard to her
morality ; a drunken clergy were prepared to laugh with
appreciation at the broad jests of the local squirearchy,
and to marry the discarded mistresses of their patrons.
In the second place, the Catholic Church was character
ised by grave faults both of theory and of practice. As
education and learning increased, men abandoned many
beliefs countenanced by ecclesiastical authority; the
universal deluge and the Biblical account of the creation
were questioned, while the Copernican view of the solar
system was accepted. If such unorthodox opinions were
at first not openly proclaimed, this was only because a
superstitious and cynical age deemed it to be expedient
as well as possible, to hoodwink the Deity, if indeed He
existed, and His ministers, if indeed those ministers were
not themselves equally heretical.
The faults in practice were still graver. The richer
benefices were practically the perquisites of the cadets
of noble families; pluralities abounded, non-residence
was rather the rule than the exception. The higher
clergy were commonly unfitted for spiritual office; the
lower clergy were frequently too uneducated to minister
effectively to the needs of their flocks. All the ill-
consequences of enforced celibacy were apparent among
ecclesiastics, whose serious employment was politics
and whose recreation was vice. The undoubted devotion
of the few was forgotten in the irreligion of the many.
But the degeneracy of the Society of Jesus most of all
contributed to facilitate the individualist assault upon
the Church; and upon that Society it fell to bear the
first brunt of the attack. The Jesuits had been mission
aries of noteworthy zeal and efficiency, educationists
200 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
of marked capacity ; they had deserved and had secured
a wide popularity. But corruption is the fate of most
religious orders; they generally decline from their
original perfection, and the Society of Jesus afforded no
exception to this rule. They came into contact with
politics at home, entering with zest into every intrigue ;
abroad they developed into merchants of dubious
honesty. As a result, their dictum that the end justifies
the means, which had been pardoned or overlooked while
their work was full of benefit to the human race, began
to provoke more or less vigorous criticism. As long as
they had conscientiously fulfilled their purpose they had
been forgiven much; when they had ceased to do so
they were credited with faults of which they were guilt
less. The Jansenist movement was directed primarily
against the Jesuits, nor did the Society ever recover
entirely from the attack made upon it in the Provincial
Letters of Pascal.
And the teaching of Port Royal prepared the way for
the final assault, which was based upon the political
and economic conduct of the Order, but which would
have failed if that Order's reputation had not been already
undermined in other respects. As it was, Pombal was
enabled to set the example of expelling the Jesuits.
They had interfered with his foreign and internal policy;
they were therefore driven from Portugal. And his
example was followed in other Catholic lands. The
bankruptcy of La Valette afforded the occasion for the
suppression of the Order in France: in Spain, Austria
and the Italian principalities, the welfare of the state
supplied the formal justification. Eventually, Clement
XIV, by the Bull, Dominus et Redemptor, declared the
dissolution of the Society, and the growing Individualism
of the age achieved a remarkable victory.
For the suppression of the Jesuits was an event of no
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 201
ordinary importance in the history of the world. What
ever emotion may from time to time be ascendant in the
human mind leads to the creation of agencies to secure
and to maintain its ascendancy, and of the agencies so
produced by the universalist spirit the Society of Jesus
was one of the most notable and effective. Its members
had undertaken the education of the world; they had
been successful in this work and had trained their pupils
in habits of obedience. Hence, they had also done much
to ensure the supremacy of that emotion to which they
really owed their origin. It was their success in induc
ing submission which secured them a welcome from
Frederic the Great and from Catherine II, when Catholic
rulers had expelled them ; those who were endeavouring
to establish autocracy could wish for no better helpers
than the Jesuits. But this very fact made their formal
suppression all the more valuable to the cause of Indi
vidualism. Their place as educationists had to be sup
plied; it was supplied by men inspired rather by the
desire to rule than by the desire to be ruled. It is no
mere coincidence that the French Revolution, in one
aspect an individualist movement, found its most
typical leaders in men of that generation which had
received its education after schools had ceased to be
controlled by the Society of Jesus.
Nor was this the only importance of the fall of the
Jesuits. The event involved a defeat for the Pope, the
great exponent of Universalism ; the prestige of the
Papacy almost reached its nadir at the moment when
Clement XIV was compelled to abandon the most able
defenders of the Holy See. And the victory which
Individualism had achieved in this case encouraged the
opponents of the constituted ecclesiastical system; the
first success in the reaction against Universalism led
to further efforts. Accepted theories were generally
202 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
attacked. Montesquieu by implication criticised the
government of France in his Persian Letters ; the En
cyclopaedists questioned almost every recognised belief,
Diderot, in particular, preaching a practical agnosticism.
But it was Voltaire who really expounded that gospel
of disbelief which inspired the individualists to break
away from the past entirely. He was by nature devoted
to the desire to rule. He hated all dogmas, save those
which he himself propounded; he was the enemy of all
intolerance, save intolerance of intolerance; he was the
opponent of all superstition, save the superstition that
the human intellect is perfect. He was eager to subject
all things to the cold light of reason, and his great
literary gifts, his wit and his satirical power, made him
a peculiarly formidable opponent of prevailing beliefs.
In him, the work of the Reformation reached its logical
conclusion. Luther had asserted the right of private
judgment, but had anathematised those who dared to
exercise it upon such questions as the authenticity of
the Bible or the dogma of justification by faith only.
Voltaire asserted the same right, and to him nothing was
too profound, nothing too sacred, to be submitted to the
test of human reason. Himself a deist, he taught his
contemporaries to dare to deny the existence of God,
necessary as he supposed the Deity to be; he taught
them, in short, to dare to be complete individualists.
Voltaire appealed to a relatively limited audience;
his chief importance lies in the fact that he made it the
fashion to attack the Church, to question dogmas and
to despise superstition. It was the work of Rousseau
to popularise anti-clericalism; he appealed to a wider
public, and brought his ideas home to the many by the
very exaggeration of his language. Upon that exaggera
tion, upon the self-contradiction of which he was guilty,
his opponents seized eagerly; they hastened to apply
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 203
exact meanings to phrases probably inexact by intention,
nor, when arguments failed them, did they refrain from
descending to more or less scurrilous abuse. His success
may be gauged from the violence of the opposition to
him. The anger which he aroused in the minds of the
universalists is evidence that they realised how vital a
force the individualist creed had become in his hands.
And the fact that Rousseau compelled an answer,
compelled a counter-attack, was of no slight assistance
to his cause. Voltaire, though he had not entirely
escaped persecution, had yet found admirers among those
who rejected his opinions, and the resultant hushing of
controversy really subserved the interest of the dominant
theory. By provoking debate, Rousseau extended the
knowledge of his views, and increased knowledge of the
individualist theory meant an increase in the number of
those who adhered to that theory. For though Indi
vidualism, no less than Universalism, is a passion in
herent in man, it is less susceptible of clear expression
than the contrary ideal, and hence for it to make progress,
to come as near as may be towards attaining an ascen
dancy, there is almost need for some written, and even
for some graphically written, exposition of its nature.
But no sooner has such an exposition been secured than
many who had merely felt a vague discontent with
things as they were, a vague distrust of Universalism,
realise that Individualism is the creed which they have
subconsciously professed. Voltaire and Rousseau to
gether, therefore, did much to hasten the reaction which,
though it could not have been prevented, might yet
have been longer delayed. Much as they differed from
each other, they were alike individualists, and as such
contributed to undermine the ascendancy of the Church,
to make irreligion both fashionable and popular, to
encourage the rejection of all hitherto accepted ideas,
204 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
to ensure the emphatic assertion of the desire to
rule.
In this weakening of the Church, a definite advance
towards a complete reaction is to be found. Education
had been altogether in the interests of dogmatic religion ;
its spirit had been wholly universalist. If it did not
become less dogmatic, the dogma was changed; it was
no longer the duty of obedience that was taught, but
the obligation to rebel. Whereas in the past men had
learned that certain things were beyond criticism and
beyond question, now they learned to reject every
standard save that of their own reason, to hold nothing
too profound or too sacred to be debated. And the
removal of the long-standing barrier against free discus
sion of religion paved the way for the free discussion of
all topics, and more especially, for the free discussion of
politics. The Church was closely allied with the crown
in every state ; the power of priest and king went hand
in hand; ecclesiastical political theory was almost always
monarchical. The decline of the Church therefore led
to a decline of royal prestige ; the growth of free thought
tended to produce the limitation or destruction of
monarchy.
Nor was it the ascendancy of dogmatic religion alone
that the individualists attacked, though it was into that
channel that their first efforts were really directed.
Economic and political, no less than religious, liberty
was denied by the prevalent Universalism. The
mercantile theory had been everywhere adopted; the
government claimed the right and professed the duty of
regulating the industrial life of the community in the
real or supposed political interest of the state. But this
doctrine was called in question during the eighteenth
century. The Physiocrats preached the freedom of
industry; their ideas were elaborated by later political
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 205
economists, who taught a completely individualist creed.
All restraints upon trade were condemned; freedom of
contract between man and man, whether citizens of the
same state or no, was applauded; the dogma of laissez-
faire was promulgated. A definite individualist reaction
occurred in the sphere of economics, or at least of
economic thought.
That same reaction eventually extended to the region
of political theory. Absolute monarchy was criticised
at first by implication. Montesquieu and Voltaire
admitted their admiration of the English constitution,
and such admiration could only be construed as a ten
tative condemnation of unrepresentative government.
Rousseau went further. The Social Contract declared
in vivid phrases the inalienable right of peoples to
choose and to remove their rulers; the divine basis
of royal authority was ridiculed rather than seriously
attacked. And the immense popularity which Rous
seau's essay secured armed individualist opinion for the
contest against internal Universalism. It became, so
to speak, the gospel of the desire to rule.
But the theory of internal Individualism, evolved in
the eighteenth century, differed widely from that which
may be found in the Middle Ages. Mediaeval Indi
vidualism lacked systematisation. It amounted to
little more than a claim by every district to exist in a
state of anarchy, a denial of the right of the central
government to perform the elementary function of pre
serving law and order. The internal Individualism of
the eighteenth century was a clear theory, carefully
based upon certain fundamental facts or assertions.
It declared the excellence of human reason, denying
entirely the theory of a divine moral code and the idea
that any person or class was specially qualified or em
powered to teach morality. Man had a right to order
2o6 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
his intellectual life as he saw fit; he possessed an
identical right so to order his economic and political
life. The relationship between the state and the
individual could be legitimately determined only by
those individuals of whom the state was composed.
No one had any prescriptive right to rule ; all sovereigns
were limited by the inclination of their subjects. To the
thesis that government is for the good of the governed,
the new internal Individualism added the corollary that
rulers who failed so to rule as to promote the welfare
of their people might be and should be removed from
their office.
On the eve of the French Revolution, then, there was a
general reaction against the conclusions which had been
reached in the Peace of Westphalia. Externally, In
dividualism was losing ground. A new Universalism,
based upon the conception of a balance of power, had
been evolved, and the maintenance of that balance was
to be secured by the combination of such states as
individualist aggression might threaten. Expressions of
this idea are to be found in the alliances formed from
time to time to resist the isolated expansion of a single
state. The theory underlay the Armed Neutrality,
designed to oppose the claim of England to disturb the
commerce of the world in her own interest. It produced
the intervention of France, Spain and Holland in the
War of American Independence, a league which proposed
to readjust the balance held to have been disturbed by
the colonial successes of Great Britain in the Seven
Years' War. It led to the Fiirstenbund, a union of the
smaller German states under the auspices of Frederic the
Great, to defend the status quo in the Holy Roman
Empire from the danger to which it was exposed by the
ambition of Joseph II.
But perhaps the most complete expression of the new
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 207
external Universalism is to be found in the Triple
Alliance of England, Holland and Prussia. Originating
from the restoration of the House of Orange to the
stathaltership by a Prussian army, this alliance attempted
to secure a preponderating influence on all European
affairs. It imposed an armistice upon Sweden and
Russia, when the former seemed to be threatened with
conquest. When Catherine II and Joseph II combined
to inflict upon Turkey the recent fate of Poland, the
allies intervened with effect, and it was the mobilisation
of a Prussian army in Silesia, the imminent threat of
war, which led Austria and Russia to conclude the treaties
of Sistova and Jassy. And it was the Triple Alliance
which determined the conditions upon which Leopold II
should be permitted to restore his authority in Belgium.
It had, indeed, become clear that any deliberate aggres
sion would cause the formation of a European league,
that external Individualism was limited by compulsory
regard for the interests of at least the greater powers.
The Universalism of the last years of the eighteenth
century recalled the ordering of Europe by mediaeval
Emperors and Popes; the reaction would have been
complete, if the alliances had been permanent instead
of occasional, if a definite concert had been created.
Internally, there was an equivalent reaction against
that Universalism which had been established at and
after the time of the Peace of Westphalia. Absolutism
and centralisation had never been perfectly secured;
throughout the eighteenth century, rulers were endeav
ouring to consolidate their power while subjects were
evolving a new principle of resistance. But, at the end
of the period, it had almost become clear that the
ultimate victory would not lie with the universalists,
that they had already attained the highest point of their
success. Joseph II failed to impose his reforms upon
ao8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
his dominions; the Belgian Revolution indicated that
there was a definite limit to the submission of peoples
to their sovereigns. Gustavus III, who had been handi
capped by the individualist predilections of his subjects,
established a despotism ; his triumph was brief, and after
his assassination Sweden became once more a limited
monarchy. In France, Louis XVI found himself obliged
to restore the Parliament of Paris, and was forthwith
handicapped in his support of Turgot's reforms by the
factious opposition of a privileged bureaucracy.
In general, the reaction was evident, though incom
plete. Nothing appears more clearly in the history of
the eighteenth century than the permanence of the
secular conflict between Universalism and Individualism.
The triumph which one or other of the two seems to have
gained proves to be essentially unreal ; the reaction ever
anticipates the completion of the victory. At the time
of the Peace of Westphalia, the destruction of imperial
and papal authority promised the beginning of an era
in which nations should be unimpeded in the pursuit of
their own interests; the crushing of internal disorders
promised the consolidation of every state, the end of
all resistance to government. At the outbreak of the
French Revolution, the general acceptance of the balance
of power as the ultimate basis of international relations
evidenced the vitality of external Universalism; the
growth of criticism and of resistance to government
evidenced the vitality of internal Individualism. All
expectations were falsified save that of the enduring
nature of the struggle between the desire to rule and
the desire to be ruled.
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 209
X
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE : 5. FROM THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION TO THE PRESENT DAY
No great event in history is susceptible of and has re
ceived so many different and contradictory interpreta
tions as has the French Revolution. Some have regarded
the movement as being essentially directed against
absolutism; some have held that it was designed to
secure unity and centralisation. But it is easy to show
that the French government under Louis XVI was less,
rather than more, autocratic than had been the govern
ment at any other time during the ancien regime. The
Parliament of Paris successfully resisted the royal will;
Turgot and Brienne were alike thwarted by its oppo
sition. And the Revolution did not develop until the
king, by summoning the States-General, had implicitly
abdicated any claim to dispose at his pleasure of the
lives and fortunes of his subjects. Nor does the fact
that the Revolution culminated in a highly-centralised
and despotic system prove that to create such a system
was the original design of the movement or of its leaders.
On the contrary, the weakening of the executive by the
Constitution of 1791, the subsequent disappearance of
the king, the delegation of power to the commune, the
reluctance with which the republican legislature con
sented to part with its absolute control over the adminis
tration, and, above all, the definitive assertion of popular
rights, indicate that the Revolution was not wholly a
unitary and centralising movement.
o
2io THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Objection may equally be taken to the view that it
was intended only to sweep away intolerable political,
religious, social and economic abuses. The government
of Louis XVI had displayed its anxiety to remedy all
that called for remedy ; the nobles and clergy voluntarily
surrendered the privileges which had been cause for
complaint, and the way had already been prepared for
a thorough reform before the Revolution had finally
developed, since not until after the flight to Varennes
was the cause of limited monarchy irretrievably lost.
Nor, again, was the Revolution an uprising of the
masses against the classes. Only for a brief moment
did it create a franchise without a property qualification ;
universal manhood suffrage was hardly advocated even
by the most extreme revolutionaries. The leaders of
the movement were drawn from various walks of life.
Mirabeau was a noble, Sieyes was an ecclesiastic;
Robespierre, Danton, Marat, can hardly be described
with any justice as men of the people. And finally,
the Revolution is not to be degraded into a mere
disturbance organised by a dissatisfied middle class
anxious to appropriate to themselves that political power
from which they had been excluded under the ancien
regime. Apart from the inherent improbability that
an event fraught with such tremendous and enduring
consequences should have been the work of selfishly
discontented politicians, it is clear that the people at
large favoured the Revolution, that at no time did
they really withdraw that favour. And the dictum of
Abraham Lincoln is true: " You cannot fool all of the
people all of the time."
The truth is that no one of these explanations is
satisfactory. In each of them there is an element of
justice; each, as a complete interpretation, is unjust.
The French Revolution was all these things, all and more
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 211
also. To appreciate it, the true nature of History must
be realised, the true character of man and of nations.
Men are both individualist and universalist ; their life
is made up of an endless conflict between their two para
mount emotions. One or other may attain a momentary
ascendancy; that ascendancy is ever momentary, the
reaction always inevitable. The most human man,
perhaps, is one in whom the desire to be ruled and the
desire to rule are most evenly balanced, and in such a
man's life periods of reaction are most frequent and most
violent; he turns most readily from one extreme to
the other. And nations resemble individuals. There is
always and must always be an opposition to the existing
system in every state, be that system what it may.
Reaction from Universalism to Individualism, or from
Individualism to Universalism, will occur with more or
less frequency, and it will occur most frequently in the
least stolid race, the most human race.
Of all nations upon earth, the French is the most
essentially human. They embrace with enthusiasm;
they spurn with equal enthusiasm; they are almost
feminine in their moods. " A dancing nation, fickle and
untrue," characterises them from a hostile standpoint.
More friendly criticism recognises their generous tempera
ment, their idealism, their gifts of imaginative construc
tion, their sense of the poetry of politics. During the
period of the Revolution, the French people acted more
typically than ever before or since. Under the ancien
regime there had been too large a measure of Universal
ism to satisfy the individualists, too large a measure of
Individualism to satisfy the universalists. Both parties
were therefore eager to alter the existing system; each
in turn secured a passing ascendancy. The movement
thus became complex in character; its variations of
aim and attainment were numerous. So violent, indeed,
313 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
were those variations that France during the Revolu
tion resembles some passionate maiden, storm-tossed
by alternating gusts of love and hate.
This interaction of Universalism and Individualism,
the momentary triumph of each, appears alike in the
external and internal history of the French Revolution.
At the outset of the period, and in their attitude towards
foreign affairs, the French people were captivated by the
idealism of the desire to be ruled. They disclaimed, and
disclaimed sincerely, any wish to break the peace ; they
would not imitate the vices of the ancien regime by waging
wars of aggression. They were rather inspired by love
for their fellow-men, even though their love was some
what impatient and this impatience at times produced
a violence of affection closely resembling hatred, at
least in its results. The Revolution would perhaps not
have led to war at all if it had not been for the uncon-
ciliatory attitude adopted by the powers of Europe.
That attitude was partly the result of the reaction
towards external Universalism which had marked the
eighteenth century. It had become a political postulate
that the concern of each was the concern of all, and in
accordance with this supposition the internal changes
in France were held to be matter for the attention of
other states. In particular, Austria and Prussia claimed
that the French should not be allowed to settle their
government without reference to Europe. They were
led to take up this attitude partly by the prevalence of
internal Universalism, since the individualist tendency
of the Revolution appeared dangerous to such as were
actuated by the desire to be ruled. France was thus,
in a sense, driven to defend her existence as a sovereign
state, her right to determine her own internal concerns.
Excuses were certainly put forward by the allies to
justify their intervention; the Habsburgs became
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 213
suddenly solicitous for the welfare of the imperial
princes, the Hohenzollerns for the safety of the Bour
bons. But such excuses were too unreal to hide the
underlying motive of the two powers. Just as the Triple
Alliance had vetoed Joseph II's Belgian policy, so the
new coalition proposed to veto the Constitution of 1791,
to annul the work of the National Assembly, to restore
the ancien regime.
Even so, the revolutionaries were eager to preserve
peace. Their determination to do so was explicitly
announced in an article of the Constitution, and when
war had broken out, it did not at first become aggressive
on the side of France. The cosmopolitan view of foreign
politics still held sway. If France proclaimed her willing
ness to assist all nations striving to be free, she equally
proclaimed her resolve to exact no recompense for the
good which she proposed to do. The revolutionaries
repudiated all idea of hostility towards the inhabitants
of the lands invaded by their armies. They warred
with rulers, not with subjects. They adopted a self-
denying ordinance, prohibiting them from doing any
thing which might offend the sacred brotherhood of man.
They would annex no territory, they would reap no
profit save the abstract reward of virtue, the conscious
ness of probity. Even the Girondists, who advocated
war from less pure and more political motives, did not
attempt to reinforce that advocacy by any proposal to
secure the territorial prizes of victory. Revolutionary
France at first held fast to external Universalism.
But not all Frenchmen were altruists, not all external
universalists. Though few, if any, dared dispute the
dogma of international fraternity, an individualist view
of foreign policy gradually secured adherents. The
allies were defeated, the war proved costly. These two
facts combined to assist the development of an external
214 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Individualism in France. Adopting the Pauline dictum,
that " those who preach the gospel should live of the
gospel," the revolutionary armies proceeded to levy
contributions on the lands in which they had sown the
spiritual things of liberty. The French Republic per
mitted or persuaded, and eventually compelled, the
districts occupied by its troops to desire incorporation
with it. When some of these districts declined to receive
so great a benefit, an excuse for their annexation was
speedily found. Louis XIV had established the Cham
bers of Reunion to cloak or to facilitate his aggression.
The external individualists of the Revolution produced
the doctrine of the natural frontiers. They claimed
that they were doing no more than giving to France that
which Nature herself had accorded.
The natural frontiers, however, were partially un
natural. The Rhine proved to be less a boundary and
a barrier than an ever-open door into Germany, the
existence of which encouraged advance in place of pro
ducing the satisfaction of achievement. When the pro
jected goal had been attained, it was found that it was
of necessity merely the prelude to further effort. The
frontiers had to be defended. Such defence was sus
ceptible of facile justification, and the idea of buffer
states for the protection of the frontiers was easily
adopted even by those who had viewed with apprehen
sion the original annexation of territory. But from
the formation of such artificial barriers it was but a
small step to proceed to open aggression. By degrees,
all pretence of an appeal to natural rights was aban
doned. As under the ancien regime, the interest, real
or supposed, of France became the sole determining
principle of French foreign policy.
Napoleon, in effect, resumed the work of Louis XIV.
He completed it and went further; at the height of his
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 215
power, his empire recalled that of Charles the Great, to
whose example he made a conscious or subconscious
appeal. The annexation of the Illyrian Provinces marks
the entire rejection of the original principles of revolu
tionary policy. It could not be contended that lands
beyond the Adriatic Sea were attached to France by
any natural right, that France had indeed any title to
possess them other than that conferred upon her by
victory in war, the right of the strong to despoil and to
oppress the weak. At the same time, the substitution
in the client states of monarchical for professedly re
publican government marked the abandonment of the
revolutionary crusade for the spread of liberty, for the
delivery of mankind from the tyrant's yoke. Spain
may have been ruled badly by her Bourbon kings. The
attitude of the Spanish people, when Joseph Bonaparte
was substituted for Charles IV, shows that the change
of ruler was not in accord with their wishes, suggests that
it was not conceived in a spirit of anxious consideration
for their good. And Napoleon's cynical repudiation of
his original championship of Italian unity, his treatment
of Germany and his entirely political attitude towards
the Poles, were only the logical development of his
adoption of French nationality and interests as the key
note of his conduct. At the time of the Preliminaries
of Leoben, he had rejected revolutionary idealism by
arranging the partition of Venice. His later policy ful
filled the promise given at the close of his first Italian
campaign. And that policy was popular in France.
The nation had soon wearied of unselfishness; having
wearied, she became more entirely selfish than any other
state had ever been. From the extreme of external Uni-
versalism, she reverted to that of external Individualism;
the wheel swung full circle.
An equivalent variation appears in the internal policy
2i6 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
of the French Revolution. At the outset of the period,
though France was imperfectly centralised, though
despotism was qualified, yet the executive was powerful
and irresponsible, the king at least theoretically absolute.
Nor was this absolute power at first very antipathetic
to those who became the later revolutionaries. When
the States-General met, men were ready to commit the
leadership of the nation to Louis XVI; it was to his
beneficence that they trusted to secure such changes
and reforms as they desired. They believed implicitly
that the king would judge rightly as to what constituted
the good of his people; their spirit was universalist.
Even the preaching of liberty, equality and fraternity
was primarily little more than an assertion of the brother
hood of all Frenchmen under a paternal ruler. Re
publican or democratic doctrines were hardly known;
Individualism was almost silent.
But among the most marked characteristics of the
French people is love of logical conclusions. The
internal universalists of the revolutionary period were
typically French, and therefore were lacking in modera
tion. They aimed at the preservation of the ancien
regime ; they regretted the most necessary and salutary
changes. And this fact enabled internal Individualism
to gain converts; it hastened the reaction. Many who
would have been content to support a reasonable measure
of Universalism were forced or induced to embrace the
contrary creed, and the folly or blindness of the king,
the lack of organisation of the conservative elements in
France, completed the work which the violence of the
internal universalists had begun. The demand for a
definite constitution was an initial victory for the forces
of Individualism ; the Constitution of 1791 was a triumph.
Logical, because French, it adopted the extreme con
trary to that which had prevailed under the ancien
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 217
regime. Prefaced by a declaration of the Rights of Man,
itself an assertion of the privileges of the individual, the
Constitution established a weak executive, reducing the
king to the position of a shadowy figurehead for an
almost anarchical state. In place of a theoretical right
to legislate by prerogative, Louis XVI was granted
merely a suspensive veto. Election everywhere took
the place of royal appointment or hereditary succession.
The ministers of the crown ceased to be able to impose
their will on the nation; they were instead forced to
attempt the carrying out of laws in the making of which
they had no voice.
Even so, the internal individualists were not satisfied.
They pushed forward to the logical conclusion of their
theory, and the destruction of kingship was followed by
an attempted establishment of anarchy under the guise
of a pure republic. The Constitution of 1793 did more
than sweep away the few remaining vestiges of the
ancien regime. Executive power shared the fate of
monarchy. The popular assembly itself was distrusted ;
though permitted to suggest laws, it was prohibited
from enacting them. The right of legislation was given
to the people at large, and, that no regulations of which
they disapproved might possess validity, they were dis
couraged from obeying even the laws which they had
themselves ordained. A clause of the Constitution
insisted not merely upon the right, but also upon the
duty, of rebellion ; every Frenchman was urged to deter
mine for himself the degree of obedience which he would
render to constituted authority. Not even in Poland
had legalised anarchy been more completely proclaimed,
had internal Individualism approached more nearly its
logical conclusion. The Constitution of 1793 established
the private judgment of every man as the sole standard
of his political conduct.
2i8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
It is, however, in the relations between the Revolution
and the Church that the effects of the individualist side
of the movement can be most clearly seen. Dogmatic
religion is based upon the desire to be ruled ; Catholicism
gratifying that desire more completely than does any
other creed, is essentially the creed of the universalist.
The Roman Church denies to its members the right to
criticise the Vicar of Christ, or even to judge the priest
hood. The conscience of the individual is in the care
of his spiritual father; to that father he must yield
implicit obedience. But whatever else popular govern
ment may imply, it implies a certain exercise of private
judgment. The individual must possess the right of
security from oppression, the right to criticise the con
duct of his rulers. Without the existence of such rights,
liberty is a mere idle name, a mere phrase coined the
better to conceal the reality of tyranny. And for this
reason it is in truth impossible for a sincere Catholic to
be also a sincere believer in democratic rule, or for
popular government to exist in any sincerely Catholic
land.
So far, therefore, as the French Revolution was
directed against absolutism, so far as it involved cham
pionship of the right of the people to govern themselves,
championship of the desire to rule, it was bound to come
into conflict with the Catholic Church. The disciples
of an Ignatius Loyola and those of a Rousseau were
fundamentally in disagreement. Conviction of the merit
of entire submission and conviction of the iniquity of
such submission could not exist in harmony; conflict
between the two theories of happiness and right-doing was
inevitable. And the intensity of the necessary conflict
was bound to increase in exact ratio to the increase in
the strength of the individualist side of the movement;
its bitterness afforded a satisfactory index of the degree
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 219
of ascendancy possessed by the apostles of the desire
to rule.
At the beginning of the French Revolution, this con
flict was rather real than apparent. All, save such as
battened on corruption, were ready to agree that the
regulation of the Church was a necessary measure. The
abuses of the existing system were too patent to be
ignored, too great to admit any real apology. No one
could conscientiously defend clerical privilege, the gross
inequalities between the incomes of the higher and those
of the lower clergy, the faulty character of ecclesiastical
appointments, the prevalence of non-residence and
pluralities. The most sincere adherents of the Church
and her bitterest enemies united to effect certain reforms.
And, indeed, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was,
up to a certain point, in the nature of a compromise.
Those who wished to maintain the institution assented
readily to the destruction of certain obvious abuses in
it; even the establishment of state control over the
Church was hardly a measure antipathetic to the
Gallican Catholics. But the Civil Constitution went
further. The elective principle was applied to ecclesi
astical, no less than to civil, offices; the clergy were
brought directly or indirectly under the control of the
laity. Whereas the Catholic Church had always insisted
that the priesthood was responsible to God and to His
earthly representative alone, a certain responsibility to
the people was now introduced. This change was alien
from the historical attitude of the Church ; it struck at
the desire to be ruled. And it was followed by the
establishment of toleration for all creeds, the state
refusing to declare an absolute preference for any
particular form of religious belief.
But such toleration was insufficient to satisfy the
individualists. All religious creeds are universalist to
220 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
a greater or less degree; all insist upon a measure of
submission to authority; all depend for their vitality
upon the degree to which they gratify the desire to be
ruled. Dogmatic religion, in its very essence, is hostile
to Individualism. That theory rejects authority and
upholds the right of every man to work out his own
salvation or damnation. Logically, it declines to admit
the control of a Deity, no less than it declines to admit
the control of any man or of any human institution.
And to this logical conclusion the French individualists
tended. They regarded the recognition of mere equality
between the various creeds as at best a half-hearted step
towards the recognition of the truth. They were ill-
content that the state should professedly admit the
existence of a Deity Whose wisdom transcended that
of man; that the Declaration of the Rights of Man,
prefixed to the Constitution of 1791, should be said to
have been drawn up "in the presence and under the
auspices of the Supreme Being."
The individualists, therefore, continued to expound the
cult of Reason. They advocated the doctrine that there
was no external power to which the will of the individual
should, or indeed could, be subordinated. And just as
they secured the legal establishment of practical anarchy
in civil affairs, so they secured a momentary triumph
in ecclesiastical affairs. Christianity, and thereby all
dogmatic religion, was abolished. The Feast of the
Goddess of Reason was the final victory of those who,
pushing their theory to the uttermost, denied the exist
ence of any moral code other than that which each
individual might devise for himself. There was a
certain significance in the selection of a beautiful and
abandoned actress to personify the presiding genius of
the human intellect; such a goddess would never be
likely to enjoin restraint of inclination. In worshipping
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 221
the embodiment of beauty and of vice, men were accept
ing slavery only to their own passions, and such slavery
has, perhaps, never been regarded as impairing perfect
liberty. The identification of human reason and human
appetite marked the climax of the individualist triumph.
But such an orgy of gratification of the desire to rule
as appeared in the Constitution of 1793 and in the Feast
of Reason necessarily produced an early reaction. The
very completeness of the individualist triumph hastened
the revival of the contrary theory, and the more rapidly
because the logical character of the French people
induced revulsion from one extreme to the other. In
face of grave external dangers, the Constitution of 1793
was never actually put into operation ; government was
entrusted to Committees of Public Safety, and the rule
of these committees tended to become increasingly
autocratic. The period of the Convention was not one
of a weak executive. Nor did the victory of Individual
ism in the Feast of Reason fail to produce its retribution.
Immorality became almost a political offence, at least
in theory. The Hebertists were guillotined, and the
Festival of the Supreme Being announced to the world
that the governing party in the French Republic was
convinced that unrestrained licence was incompatible
with the existence of civilised society.
Indeed, the constitutional and religious history of
France, from the fall of the Hebertists to the establish
ment of Napoleonic despotism, is a record of the gradual
revival of internal Universalism. Executive power was
restored in the Committee of Public Safety ; the Consti
tution of 1793 was annulled almost at the moment of
its creation. The idea of direct popular control over
legislation was abandoned in the Constitution of the
Year III. A second chamber was created ; an executive
of five was established to secure freedom from sudden
222 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
change such as had resulted from the caprice of a despot
or of a despotic assembly. The Directory failed, but its
failure was due to the fact that the reversion to the old
order was incomplete, not to the fact that there was a
certain reversion.
At an earlier date, the statesmanlike warnings of
Mirabeau had been disregarded by the dominant indi
vidualist party. The French people had declined to
admit the possible fallibility of their chosen representa
tives; the doctrines of Rousseau had prevailed. The
result had been anarchy, from which the nation had
painfully emerged by passing through the nightmare of
the Terror. And the lessons of the period of the guillo
tine had been learned if anything too thoroughly. The
complaint against the Directory was that it did not
approach more nearly to the old order, that it was a
compromise between monarchy and a pure republic,
that it therefore offended the French love of logical
conclusions. Nor were the framers of the constitution
blind to their lack of popular support. They insisted
on the re-election of a percentage of their own party
sufficient to secure their control of the new legislative
bodies; they declined to submit the system which they
created to the verdict of the nation. But though they
were possibly able to hinder the reaction they were
unable to prevent it. The Directory was a period of
incessant disturbance, of frequent coups d'etat. It
culminated in the most complete victory ever gained by
internal Universalism in France.
The results of that victory were crystallised in the
Constitutions of the Year VIII and of the Empire, the
latter of which merely emphasised the absolutism estab
lished by the former. Alike in religious and in secular
affairs, there was a definite return to the past. Catholi
cism was declared to be the religion of the majority of
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 223
Frenchmen under the Consulate; under the Empire,
the conclusion of the Concordat marked the definite
restoration of the Roman Church. Napoleon rightly
interpreted the opinion of France; his government was
made possible by the new prevalence of the desire to be
ruled, and to that desire the fullest possible rein was
given. Legislative power was entrusted to a nominated
body ; if the forms of popular government were retained,
popular influence on the administration was reduced
to a minimum. The First Consul was exalted to the
position of a king ; the Emperor was more powerful than
any king of France had ever been. The advocate of
centralisation triumphed; the universalist side of the
revolutionary movement gained the ascendancy. If it
had not been that the abuses of the ancien regime were
finally swept away, the Revolution might seem to have
been effected in vain. But equality before the law was
established, even though it was an equality of subjection ;
uniformity of administration and of law was secured,
privilege died for ever. The internal Universalism which
had secured the victory was inspired by a different
spirit from that which had inspired the Universalism of
the Bourbon monarchy. If it gratified the desire to be
ruled, and gratified it to the fullest extent, it had in it
also an individualist element; it accepted the doctrine
that government should be for the good of the governed.
Externally and internally, therefore, there was a
universalist and an individualist aspect of the French
Revolution. Robespierre and Napoleon were alike
typical products of the movement ; each embodied the
spirit of the Revolution. In his attitude towards foreign
affairs, the former represented the extreme of Universal
ism. A firm believer in the essential brotherhood of
man, he was an earnest and sincere opponent of war.
Even when the conflict had begun he deprecated the
224 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
idea that France should profit from victory to promote
her private interest. He refused to gain such advantage
as might have been derived by giving assistance to the
Polish revolt, because the private and political character
of the Poles, in his opinion, debarred them from the
privilege of alliance with a pure republic.
In his attitude towards internal affairs there was
an identical spirit of idealism. Robespierre was a pro
nounced individualist, the champion of decentralisa
tion, the advocate of direct popular government. His
apparent inconsistencies were nothing more than the
measure of his intense conviction. His share in the
establishment of the Reign of Terror, his restoration
of religion in the Festival of the Supreme Being, only
illustrate his Individualism. In his view, and in that
of the party which he led, the French people had been
crushed under a tyranny, stupefied by long gratification
of the desire to be ruled. They were to be roused from
their stupor, taught to be free. But some, like Circe's
swine, loved their degradation and gloried in their
shame. Such must learn the error of their ways, or die,
lest their evil example should corrupt the very elect.
Nor were any to be permitted to degrade their freedom
by abandoning themselves to licence; such must learn
the perfect liberty of self-control, and recognise their
obligation to obey the divine instinct of their individual
consciences. The guillotine was set up, a regime of
compulsion applied to the recalcitrant. Those who
refused to accept the blessings of liberty should be
threatened with, and in the last resort should suffer,
the utmost penalty that human government can inflict.
Yet it was not that France might learn to obey that
Frenchmen were put to death. They died that by their
death their brothers might learn to live, to live the only
true life, the life of liberty; that the desire to rule might
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 225
triumph. It was true that the extreme Individualism
of Robespierre tended to become extreme Universalism.
Such, however, must always be the case. The strongest
advocates of the gratification of the desire to rule must
always tend to deny to others the right to gratify the
desire to be ruled.
And, owing to this connection between the two
extremes, between the logical conclusions of the two
theories, a curious apparent kinship exists between the
ideas and methods of Robespierre and those of Napoleon,
the exponent of the external Individualism and internal
Universalism of the Revolution. In reality, however,
they were entirely divorced. If, at the outset of his
career, Napoleon preached nationality in Italy, if he
could later urge the " Illyrians " to be free, he was
nevertheless essentially an external individualist. His
appeal to the altruistic sentiments, which the idealism
of the Revolution had invoked, was insincere, designed
to cloak or to support selfish, non-altruistic designs.
He was the political heir of Louis XIV. He aimed at
the establishment of a French dictatorship over Europe.
He would have revived the territorial empire of Charles
the Great, but the inspiration of that dominion would
have been no conception of a Christian commonwealth;
it would have been the Bourbon conception of the glory
and interest of France.
Internally, Napoleon was as determined as Robes
pierre had been to destroy all who differed from his views,
as determined to crush all opposition. But his motive
was no ideal of a pure state, no resolve to make men
virtuous whether they would or no. Rather, he recalled
the memory of Louis XIV, was actuated by the same
principles and carried out the same ideas with greater
success. He established that centralised absolutism
towards which the Bourbon kings had striven and to
p
226 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
which they had failed to attain. His word was law,
since the legislative body was composed of his pliant
nominees. He attempted even to mould literature
and art according to his will. The press was severely
censored; no one might write anything, no one might
say anything, which should detract from, or even fail to
exalt, the glory and reputation of the Emperor. The
Church was restored that it might promote the desire to
be ruled and thereby support the imperial system. By
the Concordat, France was reconciled with the Papacy,
but the reconciliation lasted only so long as the Pope
subserved or appeared to subserve the interests of
Napoleon. The clergy were to preach Bonapartism
rather than Christianity ; the Napoleonic Catechism was
to supply the matter of their sermons. They might
direct men's consciences and save their souls, provided
always that they taught their disciples to place their
lives at the disposal of the Emperor. Nothing was to
exist in France which did not contribute to the main
tenance of Napoleonic imperialism.
That interaction of Universalism and Individualism
which appears so clearly in the French Revolution
appears also in every episode in the secular conflict
between the two desires; to every episode there is a
dual aspect. But in other cases the interaction is less
evident. The sixteenth-century Reformation appears,
at first sight, to have been individualist throughout;
above all things, it was the assertion of the right of
private judgment. But the episode of the Reformation
is only completed in the Counter-Reformation, in the
reaction from the ascendancy of the desire to rule towards
a revival of the desire to be ruled. And the same is true
of all the great movements of History. It is not in the
fact that it possessed this dual aspect that the interest
of the French Revolution lies, or that its peculiarity is
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 227
to be found. It is rather in the rapidity of transition
from extreme to extreme. Violent reaction produced
an equally violent counter-reaction. Externally, France
passed from Individualism through a period of Universal-
ism to Individualism once more. Internally, she had
been universalist when the States-General met; she be
came intensely individualist, bordering upon the extreme
of anarchy. And when the movement culminated in the
Napoleonic empire, she was universalist once more. Into
the space of a single generation the changes of centuries
were concentrated. The French Revolution is a veritable
epitome of History.
Nor was the French Revolution really an isolated
event. Though it actually occurred in France, it might,
but for accidental circumstances, have occurred in
almost any European country; the ideas from which
it was born were current throughout the continent.
And the history of other countries during the revolu
tionary period displays a series of reactions, external and
internal, similar to those which appeared in France. At
the beginning of the epoch, Europe was possessed by the
spirit of Universalism. Externally, the ascendancy of
that spirit had been exemplified in the Triple Alliance;
England, Prussia and Holland had attempted to regulate
the affairs of the continent. And consequently, when
the Revolution occurred, the affairs of France were held
to be of international importance; a change in the
internal organisation of the French monarchy might
disturb the peace of Europe and overthrow the balance
of power. Austria and Prussia allied to watch over
their own interests and to secure that there should be
no undue interference with the political welfare of other
states. The exponents of external Universalism re
garded the altruism of the revolutionaries with suspicion.
They refused to accept their professions of disinterested-
228 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
ness, and by this refusal they gradually produced an
individualist reaction in France, enabling those who
disbelieved in cosmopolitanism as the basis of foreign
policy to emphasise their objections. The revolution
ary war thus early became a contest between French
Individualism and the Universalism of the allies, be
tween a nation resolved to shape its own destiny and
nations resolved that the affairs of Europe should be
settled by some species of European concert. The
coalitions formed against France were all directed
primarily to maintain the balance of power, and ulti
mately to compel the acceptance of the doctrine of
compensation.
The coalitions failed. French victories broke up
league after league, and this ill-success of external
Universalism prepared the way for a revival of external
Individualism. The reaction was begun by Prussia
when she concluded the Treaty of Basle ; under practical
compulsion, her example was followed by other states.
And the resultant Individualism was more extreme than
had been that of any other age. Institutions which had
survived the conflicts of centuries fell to the ground; a
complete breach with the Middle Ages was effected.
The Holy Roman Empire, which had prolonged its
moribund existence despite the Reformation and despite
the Peace of Westphalia, finally passed away. The
venerable character of the Venetian Republic did not
suffice to save it from extinction. The temporal power
of the Papacy, after having escaped unscathed the many
revolutions of Italy, was for a while extinguished.
Nothing was sacred from the destroying hand of the new
Individualism; nothing was permitted to stand in the
way of the gratification of self-interest.
But the failure of the European concert, and the
growth of external Individualism, consequent upon that
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 229
failure, produced no cessation of opposition to France.
It rather led to the evolution of a new and individualist
principle of resistance. Nationality is primarily the
claim of a nation to exist ; alike in its internal and in
its external aspect, it is individualist. It opposes any
attempt to subject a nation to foreign rule; it opposes
also any attempt at the exercise of control over a nation
by a concert of states. During the revolutionary period,
France set the example of championing the idea of
nationality. She refused to order her internal affairs
according to the will of foreign powers ; she asserted the
right of all peoples to freedom. She declared that she
herself would not impair that freedom, would not coerce
or repress nationalities. Thus, even when her foreign
policy was most emphatically universalist, it had an
individualist basis; her very cosmopolitanism, the very
theory of international fraternity, was the outcome of
the desire to rule. And the actual conversion of her
external attitude from one of Universalism to one of
Individualism was a triumph for the national idea. It
was the result of her enthusiastic championship of
French nationality.
And when the coalitions had been dissolved, when
the attempt of the concert to dictate to France, or even
to restrain her Individualism, had failed, nationality
became, for a time, the governing factor in the policy
of the powers. That policy became externally indi
vidualist, partly because Universalism had achieved no
success, partly because the danger of subjection to
France had become both evident and acute. In most
lands, this fear of conquest produced a spirit of resist
ance; the extreme of Universalism led to the natural
reaction. It was no longer merely a case of preventing
the destruction of the balance of power. External and
internal affairs became inextricably blended; countries
230 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
adopted an attitude of hostility to France, lest the con
tinued success of French arms should effect their annihila
tion. However illegitimate the aggression of Napoleon
may have been, the struggle against him partook of the
nature of rebellion rather than of that of war.
France, therefore, was successively attacked by states,
acting upon individualist principles. After concluding
the Treaty of Basle, Prussia had deliberately dissociated
herself from the other powers. She had declined to join
any coalition ; she had preserved the strictest neutrality.
But the very Individualism which had inspired her to
adopt a neutral attitude led her to resent the cynical
contempt with which she was treated by Napoleon. At
the time of Austerlitz, she had threatened France ; her
indecision exposed her to renewed insults. Eventu
ally her patience was exhausted. Without waiting for
Russian aid, she entered upon war, and her precipitancy,
the measure of her Individualism, involved her in the
disaster of Jena.
Though the fact is somewhat obscured, it was out
raged Individualism which moved Prussia to attempt her
deliverance from the thrall of Napoleon; the spirit of
nationality inspired her policy. But it is in the later
resistance of Austria and Spain to France that the
new individualist principle appears most clearly. The
Habsburgs had consistently opposed the Revolution,
had consistently championed the balance of power.
Their external Universalism, however, had brought upon
them nothing but disaster; provinces had been torn
from their rule, and the position to which they had been
reduced by the Peace of Pressburg was one in which the
very existence of their empire was imperilled. Fear
of subjection produced its inevitable result; the indi
vidualist element was aroused. Stadion, the exponent
of this reaction, preached the gospel of nationality; he
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 231
appealed to the desire to rule, that his country might
be delivered from the French. But his preaching was
necessarily ineffective. The Habsburg dominions were
united only by political bonds; Individualism was
so far weak within them. Conquest seemed to mean
nothing but a change of masters ; to peoples impregnated
with the desire to be ruled, freedom was an idle word.
The very circumstances which made the existence of
the Habsburg monarchy a possibility ensured the failure
of Stadion's crusade. The desire to be ruled was at
once the salvation and the temporary destruction of the
Austrian Empire.
Nor was the national resistance in Spain much more
successful. It may be admitted that it did, in a measure,
prevent the complete reduction of the country by
Napoleon. But the resistance to the French was only
that of guerilla bands ; such resistance has never attained
permanent success, and, unaided, the Spaniards would
have been defeated. As it happened, at the critical
moment, an English army landed, and if, indeed, it did
not turn the scale against the invaders, it at least served
to readjust the balance. Nationality inspired the original
resistance of Spain to Napoleon; it saved Spain from
immediate conquest. But having achieved such nega
tive results, it proved to be incapable of securing positive
results also; it could not drive the French across the
Pyrenees. The individualist movement in Spain was
only rendered successful by the introduction into it of
a universalist element.
It was this general failure of the national wars, of
isolated resistance to Napoleon, that enabled Universal-
ism to regain its influence, and that influence was all the
greater since the need of coalition was so clearly realised.
The defeat of external Individualism produced a soli
darity of Europe. In face of the common danger, the
232 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
powers reconciled their differences ; by a true European
concert Napoleon was eventually overcome. Victory,
even in the War of Liberation, that imagined triumph of
nationalism, was really the result of universalist ideas
and policy. The French were at least holding their own
when the intervention of Austria proved decisive. But
that intervention was secured at the price of the abandon
ment of the national crusade. The treaties between the
powers were conceived in a universalist spirit; their
inspiration was the desire to maintain the balance of
power, not to further nationalism. As in Spain, so in
Germany, nationality, an assertion of internal Indi
vidualism, supplied the motive for the original resistance
and gave the will to oppose subjection. But the current
universalist ideas afforded the necessary material strength
to them, the power to prevail was due. Stein led his
countrymen to dream of possible deliverance; the
decisive intervention of Metternich secured the realisa
tion of this dream. At the time of Leipsic, Europe
resumed that devotion to the balance of power from
which she had momentarily strayed; her devotion was
increased by the emphatic Individualism of the supposed
arch-disturber of peace, the alleged enemy of the human
race. A temporary alliance between the forces of ex
ternal Universalism and internal Individualism effected
the downfall of Napoleon; the fruits of victory were
garnered by the exponents of the desire to be ruled.
And the domestic history of European states during
this period reveals the same fluctuations in the strength
of the two contending emotions. When the French
Revolution began, the desire to be ruled held a general
supremacy, and induced a certain carelessness of foreign
conquest, which weakened the opposition to French
aggression. But in most countries, individualist ten
dencies were also both powerful and evident, and those
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 233
tendencies served to convert many from an attitude
of negative indifference to one of positive friendliness.
Revolutionary ideas spread rapidly. In most of the
lands which they invaded, the French were at first
regarded rather as deliverers than as enemies ; a cordial
welcome was extended to the apostles of liberty. In
Belgium and in the Rhine provinces, in the districts of
northern Italy, the inhabitants offered no voluntary
resistance to the invaders.
But the welcome, never universal, was everywhere
short-lived. From the very first, the violence of the
Revolution produced a revival of internal Universalism
beyond the French frontiers. In Russia, Catherine II
was able to abandon her tentative reforms. In England,
Pitt exchanged a liberal policy for one of severe repres
sion. Generally, those who held and expressed indi
vidualist views were regarded as " Jacobins," suspected
of a predilection for wholesale murder. And as France
gradually abandoned her original cosmopolitanism, the
ascendancy of Universalism was further enhanced. The
continent appeared to be threatened with subjection,
and the very individualists themselves began to fear
the consequences and results of their own theory.
Whereas the revolutionary armies had been welcomed,
they came to be regarded with hatred and aversion.
Districts which had applauded now cursed their self-
styled liberators, when they learnt that no choice of
ruler was to be conceded to those lands which had once
accepted French government, or even to those which
had once been occupied by French armies. And in
those lands which were as yet free from invasion the
strengthening of executive power was advocated by all
parties. In such a measure seemed to lie the only safe
guard against the last calamity of foreign conquest. An
immediate development of internal Universalism was a
234 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
primary result of the aggressive policy of revolutionary
France.
At the same time, the critical nature of the situation,
especially after the forced dissolution of successive
coalitions, tended to produce a certain atmosphere of
conciliation. If the individualists were prepared to
accept strong government as a necessity, the universalists
were in turn prepared to make concessions to their
opponents. Both parties recognised the need for union
against the external enemy; they were ready to make
common cause that they might avoid common destruc
tion. Individualists realised that anarchy would result
from too complete gratification of the desire to rule,
and that subjection would follow upon anarchy. Uni
versalists realised that too complete gratification of the
desire to be ruled would render them less capable of
resistance to aggression from without, would fit them for
subjection to a foreign power. The very extremes to
which French policy tended seemed for a moment to
open the eyes of mankind to the evils of extremes.
Accordingly, while the reaction in France produced
the consolidation of Napoleonic despotism, a contrary
reaction developed; within certain limits, in other
European countries. At an earlier date, Leopold II
had abandoned his brother's centralising policy, largely
owing to his prescience of coming French aggression ; the
concession of local liberty to the Magyars appeared to
him to be a less evil than the complete overthrow of the
Austrian Empire. Faced by a crisis hardly less acute
than that which had existed at the death of Joseph II,
Stadion adopted a similar conciliatory policy. He even
dared to preach nationality in the heterogeneous
dominions of the Habsburgs. In Prussia, Stein and his
collaborators undertook reforms, the underlying principle
of which was the extension of liberties to the people. In
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 235
Spain, the Constitution of 1812 was a definitely indi
vidualist document ; the organisers of opposition to the
French were champions ol limited monarchy, and,
indeed, of monarchy so limited that it was almost
anarchy. It may be asserted that the very despotism
of Napoleon encouraged this tendency to concession in
the countries hostile to him; his enemies were no longer
the champions of internal Universalism, but rather of
internal Universalism blended with Individualism.
All the concessions made, however, were yet made
rather in a universalist than in an individualist spirit.
There was no clear assertion of the right of self-govern
ment; no deliberate enunciation of popular rights, no
democratic propaganda. If the individual acquired
some increase of liberty, that increase was the result
rather of the consideration of the ruler than of any
recognition of the right of the ruled to order their own
lives. The concessions amounted to little more than an
acceptance of the theory of the benevolent despot, of
the idea that government should be for the good of the
governed. To the ruler still belonged the right or duty
to decide in what that good consisted. Internal Uni
versalism was really maintained; if anything, it was
stronger at the end than at the beginning of the revolu
tionary epoch. For, whatever consideration might be
given to the welfare and interest of the subjects, it was
still realised or supposed that weak government had
destroyed the Bourbon dynasty, it was still regarded
as axiomatic that at all costs weak government must
be avoided. Fear of revolution served to hamper the
development of internal Individualism, to maintain in
the minds of the majority of mankind the ascendancy
of the desire to rule.
The general result of the revolutionary period, there
fore, was to strengthen that ascendancy of the desire to
236 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
be ruled which had existed when the period began. A
longing for permanent peace, and the hope that such
peace might be attained by the creation of a satisfactory
balance of power, inspired the settlement of Vienna and
determined the decisions of the Congress. To avoid a
renewal of war, every effort was made to satisfy the
aspirations of the great powers, every care was taken
that each should receive adequate compensation for any
gains made by its rivals. Even the ambitions of the
lesser states were not wholly disregarded, though, since
their dissatisfaction offered a slighter menace to the
duration of peace, they naturally did not receive the
same consideration as did their more powerful fellows.
The balance of power thus established was also to
be safeguarded. In place of the loose and occasional
leagues of the eighteenth century, the Quadruple Alli
ance was formed; by the renewed Treaty of Chaumont,
England, Austria, Russia and Prussia agreed to unite
that they might " watch over the repose and prosperity
of nations." An attempt was made to secure a per
manent and effective concert, which should give to the
existing order the supreme guarantee of invincible
military force. And internally, absolutism was in
general restored, and restored to a position of increased
strength, because fear of revolution dominated the
human mind, producing a desire for peace at any price,
intensifying the desire to be ruled.
As might have been anticipated, this intensification
of the desire to be ruled found expression in a revival
of the Catholic Church. During the eighteenth century,
the reaction against internal Universalism had originated
in an attack upon dogmatic religion. The prestige of
the Papacy, shaken by the Reformation and by the
Peace of Westphalia, had declined still further, until it
reached its nadir when the Pope had been forced to
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 237
suppress the Society of Jesus. A cynical attitude
towards Christianity became a marked characteristic
of literature both in Catholic and in Protestant countries.
But at the close of the revolutionary epoch, the revival
of internal Universalism involved an equivalent revival
of Catholicism, that revival finding expression in the
Romantic Movement and in the growth of Ultra-
montanism. The reign of Pius VII gave renewed
influence to the Papacy. He had dared to withstand
Napoleon ; he had suffered for his daring. His sufferings
inspired sympathy and respect ; he appeared as the true
Vicar of Christ, the champion of conscience against the
tyranny of the world. His return to Rome was hailed
with genuine delight; it secured the approval even of
the Protestants. And the coincident re-establishment
of the Society of Jesus afforded a measure of the revived
power and prestige of the Papacy. At the same time,
in place of that cynical deism which Voltaire had
popularised and Rousseau vulgarised, the respectful
devotion to orthodoxy, inculcated by Chateaubriand,
became the fashionable attitude. A general desire for
peace, for relief from the wearying exercise of private
judgment, became apparent. Dogmatic religion re
covered its former strength; Catholicism after the fall
of Napoleon was perhaps more powerful in Europe than
it had been since the Reformation. Universalism, if
regard be paid both to its external and internal aspect,
secured an ascendancy more complete than at any other
period of History.
Nevertheless, general as was the longing for peace,
prevalent as was the desire to be ruled, the ascendancy
of Universalism was incomplete. At no period is the
eternal nature of the conflict between man's two emotions
more vividly illustrated than in the period immediately
following the Congress of Vienna. Europe was weary
238 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
of war, weary of all change. She had experienced to
the fullest extent the evils of international anarchy ; she
had witnessed in France the calamitous results of too
ardent gratification of the desire to rule. Yet she would
not admit the absolute triumph of the gospel of peace.
No misfortune sufficed to effect a modification in human
nature, and without such modification the complete
victory of the desire to be ruled was impossible. A
tendency to reaction persisted ; the desire to rule claimed
its exponents and adherents.
Externally, that concert for which the universalists
strove proved to be unattainable. Even in the first
enthusiasm of their joint triumph, the allies disputed as
to the division of the spoils. It was perhaps only the
return of Napoleon from Elba that prevented a new
European war ; England, Austria and France had formed
a separate alliance to prevent the accomplishment of
Russian and Prussian designs in Poland and Saxony.
After the episode of the Hundred Days, it was found
advisable to abandon all attempts to solve the Eastern
Question; the tentative efforts of Metternich to effect
a solution had almost destroyed the Quadruple Alliance.
The powers, indeed, were mutually distrustful of one
another. Each laboured to discover sinister designs of
self-aggrandisement, cloaked beneath the others' pro
fessions of friendship. When Alexander I suggested
that all states should declare their union in the bonds of
Christian brotherhood, and that international relations
should be ordered according to " the principles of Christ's
holy religion," his idealism was greeted with mingled
suspicion and contempt. The Holy Alliance, when not
considered to be the mere project of a madman, was
believed to be intended to conceal some nefarious plan
for aggression in the Near East.
But real harmony between the powers could in no
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 239
circumstances exist. Every state contained within it
an individualist no less than a universalist element, and
if, owing to fear of revolution and dread of renewed war,
the desire to be ruled had secured a general supremacy,
the desire to rule, the resolve to pursue self-interest, was
not the less existent. Austria was the most determined
champion of international unity, of the concert of Europe.
But Austria would not agree to submit the ordering of
Italy to the Quadruple Alliance; she demanded that
she should be allowed to act as the mandatory of the
powers, and that as mandatory she should possess the
fullest liberty of action. She was not less distrustful
of Russian or French intervention in Spain. Russia
wavered between an individualist inclination to favour
liberalism and a universalist wish to create a sincere
union of hearts among the states of Europe. But what
ever else she might desire, she hardly wavered in her
resolve that her right to protect her special interests in
the Ottoman Empire should not be questioned by her
allies. England might be eager to preserve peace, but
she was wholly disinclined to accept the theory, put
forward by the eastern powers, that peace depended
upon the maintenance of absolutism. The aims of the
greater states were, in fact, very divergent; the estab
lishment of a perfect concert was impossible. European
solidarity was an idle dream, born of the failure of the
universalists to recognise the permanence of any theory
save their own.
Nor was the ascendancy of internal Universalism
really complete. In most countries, indeed, the expo
nents of the desire to be ruled prevailed, but in some
they failed to do so. The internal Individualism of the
Revolution was not utterly extinguished. In France,
the downfall of Napoleon served to produce a govern
ment far less absolute than that of the Empire. The
240 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Royal Charter established a limited monarchy, and
during the Hundred Days the Emperor himself expressed
in the Acte Additionel his recognition of the fact that the
French Revolution had in reality overthrown absolutism.
In the new kingdom of the United Netherlands, indi
vidualist ideas equally prevailed; the rights of the
Belgians were at least safeguarded on paper. Certain
of the South German states hastened to avail themselves
of the ambiguous Article XIII of the Constitution of
the Federation, interpreting it as permitting and even as
en joining the establishment of representative government.
But the ascendancy of the desire to be ruled was far
more seriously and permanently impaired by the fact
that the French Revolution left an aftermath of violence.
For a generation, the strife of parties had been vigorous,
acute. For a generation, compromise had been con
sistently rejected, and its acceptance, when the period
of external war had ended, was improbable, if not im
possible. The universalists, apparent victors, regarded
their triumph as incomplete; they desired to crush
their opponents more utterly, they dreamed even of
an undoing of the past. The individualists, apparently
vanquished, refused to despair ; they declined to believe
their cause to be hopeless. And since the two parties
were thus malcontent with the existing situation, their
strife was unceasing. Here again the permanence of the
conflict appears. Those who believe in the desire to be
ruled, and those who believe in the desire to rule, alike
strain ever towards the logical conclusion of their theory ;
they cannot learn moderation, since the very imperfec
tion of human nature makes the retention of the golden
mean impossible.
The French Revolution had proved the evil of anarchy ;
universalists laboured to avoid anarchy by delivering
themselves over to despotism. The rule of Napoleon had
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 241
illustrated the calamities consequent upon the establish
ment of unfettered despotism ; the individualists laboured
to avoid despotism by delivering themselves to anarchy.
Neither party displayed any readiness to accept a com
promise, and the conflict was only less violent than in
the most violent days of the revolutionary period. It
did not for a moment cease. Peace might be the rule,
but it was a disturbed peace.
The period following the Congress of Vienna, indeed,
was marked by the constant recurrence of disturbances
in different parts of the continent; nowhere was the
dominion of Universalism unquestioned. And these
disturbances gradually increased in intensity. Of the
factors promoting the desire to be ruled, fear of revolu
tion was the most potent. Men could remember, or
at least had learned from their fathers, the violence of
the Reign of Terror. The extent and duration of that
violence was certainly not minimised by memory, and
for a while and in the minds of the majority revolution
was inseparably connected with spectacles of unreasoning
barbarity and senseless atrocity. It was merely neces
sary for a government to brand its opponents with the
epithet "Jacobin"; forthwith, the sentiment of fear
rallied the bulk of the community to the side of law and
order, to the side of absolutism and even of tyranny.
Any movement towards reform, any project for political
change, had to contend not only with the natural force
of universalist opinion, but also with a special hostility
resultant from the character of one period in the French
Revolution.
But this fear gradually diminished ; it was at no time
universal. From the very first, a section in every
country was sceptical as to the danger of revolution,
or callously indifferent to it. Revolutionary ideas had
permeated the armies of many states, partly because a
Q
242 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
long period of licence had fostered the desire to rule in
the minds of the soldiers, partly because more intimate
contact with Frenchmen and with French ideas had
produced a more favourable opinion of the Revolution
than that so zealously propagated by the chancelleries
of Europe. And in the ordinary course of nature, a new
generation came to birth, without memory of Jacobin
proscriptions or even of Napoleonic despotism. More
especially, the German university students, sentimental
like all their race, enthusiastic with the vague enthusiasm
of imagined intellectualism and extreme youth, eagerly
embraced individualist opinions. They resented the
repressive conduct of the dominant party ; they became
ardent, if somewhat unwise and ineffective, champions
of the desire to rule.
Disturbances, therefore, early occurred, and increased
in importance and extent, as ever wider areas came under
the influence of the reaction. But the movements were,
in the main, at first unsuccessful. The majority of man
kind were still wedded to the idea of peace ; the revolts
of the minority were powerless to effect any permanent
change in the existing system. Even when a passing
victory was gained, the alliance between external and
internal Universalism was in most cases able to secure
the restoration of the status quo. That alliance, indeed,
was an important factor in checking the reaction. The
external universalists, aiming at the preservation of
peace and of the balance of power, remembered that the
revolutionary war had originated in an attempt by the
French to remodel their government. Resolved that
no such war should occur again, they eagerly assisted
the internal universalists to maintain their ascendancy.
And in view of the prevalence of the desire to be
ruled, in most lands, the efforts of the Quadruple
Alliance, or of the three eastern powers, were usually
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 243
sufficient to prevent any victorious assertion of internal
Individualism.
Thus the riots of the German students, such as that
which occurred at the Wartburg Festival, only served
to perpetuate the existing universalist system in the
states of the Confederation. By the Carlsbad Decrees
and by the Vienna Final Act, machinery was provided
for the repression of all manifestations of liberalism,
the further development of constitutional government
was checked, the censorship of the press and the super
vision of the universities rendered more effective. The
military revolts in Naples and Piedmont were equally
unsuccessful. Their organisers were handicapped by
that difficulty by which individualists are constantly
faced ; they found it hard to define their creed, to rally
together the supporters of the desire to rule and to win
over those who were vaguely opposed to the desire to be
ruled. A demand for the " Spanish Constitution " was
a singularly unconvincing cry with which to appeal to
the Italians, a race long used to foreign domination,
habituated to internal Universalism since the fall of the
mediaeval city republics. It is not surprising that the
mass of the population regarded the revolutionaries with
apathy or aversion, that Austria proved fully equal to
the task of restoring the absolute government of Ferdi
nand and of Charles Felix. Nor was the success of
the similar movement in Spain more than transitory.
Though for a few years a liberal government was
established, it gained no hold on the people, and the
eventual French expedition was so little opposed as to
be practically a mere parade to Cadiz.
The desire to rule, however, is as permanent and
fundamental an emotion as is the desire to be ruled;
and that it should displace the opposing theory in its
ascendancy over the human mind was inevitable. The
244 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
history of the thirty years following the Congress of
Vienna is the history of the gradual development of
the reaction against the prevalent Universalism. Fear
of revolution, the longing for peace, grew weaker; a wish
to assert private judgment grew stronger. Whereas
immediately after the fall of Napoleon only a few students
and soldiers were prepared to risk anarchy in their
pursuit of liberty, at the end of a generation all classes
of the community in every state were more or less
infected by the revived Individualism. Whereas the
Quadruple Alliance was, at the beginning of this period,
apparently a firm and potent league, at its end it had
been almost dissolved into its component elements.
Even in the first years after the Congress of Vienna,
Individualism, external and internal, achieved a measure
of success, made some appreciable progress. Though
military revolts in Spain and Italy failed more or
less completely, the negotiations to which they gave
rise revealed and emphasised the divergence of opinion
among the allies. At the conferences of Troppau and
Laibach, the reluctance of England to join in any scheme
for the repression of liberalism was indicated. The dis
trust felt by Austria for Russia and the alarm with which
she regarded any concessions to France became apparent.
At the Congress of Verona, if the solidarity of the eastern
powers was confirmed, English isolation was confirmed
also. The projected intervention of Europe on behalf
of Spain against her revolted colonies was vetoed by
England, and it became clear that the concert by which
Napoleon had been overthrown was weakening, if indeed
it was not already dissolved. That league which French
aggression had called into existence, which the lingering
fear of revolution had for a while maintained, had now
in reality ceased to exist. Nor was the momentary
adhesion of France to the cause of external Universalism
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 245
any adequate compensation for the defection of England
and the consequent disruption of the Quadruple Alliance.
France was notoriously unstable. Individualism had
always tended to be a characteristic of her foreign
policy; it had led her to set the example of rejecting the
authority of mediaeval Emperors, it had led her to limit
the power of mediaeval Popes. And it was still alive
within her in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Europe found the problems presented to her by Italy
and Spain difficult of solution. She was entirely unable
to cope with that presented to her by the revolt of the
Morea. If the battle of Navarino afforded an example
of co-operation between the powers, the earlier and later
stages of the struggle for Greek independence afforded
much more significant examples of divergence. Alex
ander I, converted to Universalism by accidental circum
stances or by the ingenuity of Metternich, had laboured
to maintain that concert. The conferences of Czerno-
witz and Petersburg had proved abortive ; the Tsar had
been threatened at the close of his reign by rebellion
in Russia, where a tendency towards external Indi
vidualism was gaining strength and where there was
consequently an ever-decreasing inclination to preserve
the solidarity of Europe. Nicholas I gave way to the
wishes of his people. He followed the example already
set by England, when she recognised the Greek flag, and
adopted an independent attitude towards the problems
of the Near East. The concert, which had failed to
solve those problems at the time of the Congress of
Vienna, was in no real sense responsible for the establish
ment of the kingdom of Greece. In place of that per
manent alliance desired by the external universalists, a
temporary league between England, Russia and France
was formed, a league which resembled the occasional
confederacies characteristic of the period prior to the
246 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
French Revolution. Nor was it merely in the East that
the growth of Individualism appears. At the moment
when the Greeks were securing their independence,
the futility of the recent restoration of absolutism in
Spain was proved. Christina promulgated a constitution
drawn up by Zea Bermudez; a regent, threatened by
revolt, felt that her power could only be secured by
concessions to the majority of her subjects, to the grow
ing individualist sentiment of her country.
And in the next revolutionary outbreaks in Europe,
the development of Individualism was still more obvious.
It is true that, alike in Italy and in Poland, revolution
met with no success, but elsewhere a decline of Universal-
ism was evident. In France, the restored Bourbon
monarchy was overthrown. Charles X had become the
apostle of the desire to be ruled, at home and abroad.
He was deposed, and the government of Louis Philippe,
whatever may have been its real character, was at
least ostensibly individualist. Externally, though the ex
treme Individualism of Lafitte was rejected, the moderate
Individualism of Casimir-Perier was adopted. Austria
was checked in her universalist Italian policy; Portu
guese Individualism was definitely supported. Inter
nally, the royal title and the professed spirit of the
administration were individualist.
Nevertheless, though the desire to rule thus made
some progress, the reaction was essentially imperfect.
At home, the popular agitation for wider political rights
was repressed with vigour ; the period culminated in the
accession to office of Guizot, almost the embodiment of
the desire to be ruled. Abroad, it is true that France
showed little inclination to accept the ideas of the
Quadruple Alliance. But that alliance had been origin
ally formed against her; even during the most re
actionary period of the restored monarchy she had
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 247
hardly been accepted as one of the great powers. And
if her efforts under Louis Philippe were directed to pro
mote individualist movements, the basis of her policy
was universalist. It rested upon peace and the Anglo-
French entente; the extreme views of Lafitte did not
prevail; his successor, Casimir-Perier, was a man of
moderate opinions. France would give such help to
continental liberalism as she might be able to supply
without risking isolation; her external Universalism
was only coloured by individualist tendencies. She
was peaceful, even when she threatened war.
A more interesting example of the degree to which
Individualism succeeded and failed at this time is sup
plied by the case of Belgium. After the Congress of
Vienna, those treaties by which the powers had effected a
remodelling of Europe had become the gospel of external
Universalism, just as the treaties of Westphalia and
Utrecht had been at an earlier date; to their main
tenance the efforts of the exponents of the desire to be
ruled were directed. Among the provisions of those
treaties, one of the most important was that the former
Austrian Netherlands and the former Dutch Republic
should be united into a single kingdom under the House
of Orange, in order that France might be the better held
in check. From the very first, however, the union was
unpopular in Belgium. The news of the fall of Charles X
produced a revolution ; the kingdom was disrupted into
its component parts, and the external universalists failed
to prevent the acceptance of the fait accompli.
So far, the movement may be regarded as a victory
for external Individualism. Both in the case of France
and in that of Belgium, the weakness of the European
concert was exhibited. The first professed object of
the Quadruple Alliance had been the restraint of France
and the prevention of disturbance in that country ; yet
248 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
the allies had not dared to move when the elder branch
of the Bourbons was driven out. They were equally
unable to support the Dutch. England and France
refused to coerce the Belgians; the eastern powers
could not act alone. Even so, however, the triumph
of external Individualism was limited. The government
of Louis Philippe found itself obliged to consider the
universalist susceptibilities of Europe ; its foreign policy
found its basis only in a new alliance. And it was the
two western powers, not the rebels themselves, that
decided the Belgian question. England and France
came to an agreement. Adopting the broad principle
of the separation of the two states, they settled the
details of that separation. Dutch and Belgians alike
were compelled to acquiesce in the Anglo-French solution
of the problems of Luxemburg and Limburg.
And if external Individualism secured no complete
victory, it is also true that internal Individualism did
not do so. This fact was largely the result of the circum
stance that neither in France nor in Belgium was the
revolution entirely individualist. To every episode in
the secular conflict there must be an individualist and
a universalist side, since neither desire can ever achieve
complete victory, and the exponents of each must there
fore be in a greater or less degree dissatisfied with any
existing system. In the period after the fall of Napoleon,
this inevitable dissatisfaction was intensified, partly by
the violence of feeling which had marked the revolution
ary period, partly owing to the especial incompleteness
of the reaction. Both universalists and individualists
tended to refuse to accept as final the external and
internal settlement of Europe; both believed that a
modification in that settlement would benefit the cause
which they had at heart. Hence there was an inclina
tion on the part of the extreme exponents of either
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 249
desire to combine against those who favoured the idea
of compromise. Human nature, by reason of its very
imperfection, leads men to reject counsels of moderation ;
no compromise can end the conflict, since no compromise
can effect a revolution in the permanent character of the
race. The very preachers of compromise have them
selves an inevitable bias towards one or other extreme.
In no case can any man hold the balance exactly.
And this hatred of moderation, of middle courses, is
especially evident in the history of Europe during the
generation following the Congress of Vienna. In France,
successive ministers, Richelieu, Decazes, Martignac, and
to a certain extent even Villele, laboured to effect a
compromise. They were successively defeated by the
force of human nature, which expressed itself in an
alliance between the ultra-royalists and the ultra-
liberals. And to this refusal of either party to pursue
a moderate course the overthrow of the restored Bour
bons must be attributed. It may, indeed, be admitted
that the actual revolution was not supported by the
universalists, but it would never have occurred had not
the very universalists themselves been dissatisfied with
the restoration monarchy. The mere fact of the acces
sion of Louis Philippe indicates the strength of those
who were possessed by the desire to be ruled. In place
of a republic, the dream of the individualist, kingship
was perpetuated. And in the Orleanist government the
universalist element really prevailed. Even the " party
of action," the more individualist of the two parties
under Louis Philippe, did not display any inclination to
concede that degree of popular control over the adminis
tration which the advocates of the desire to rule supported.
In Belgium, the alliance of the two extreme parties
was more evident ; there the revolution was clearly both
internally universalist and internally individualist. It
250 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
was brought about by the union of clericals and liberals,
of those who desired to be ruled and those who desired
to rule. The former had hoped that the overthrow of
Napoleon would be followed by their recovery of their
former ascendancy ; they had been painfully undeceived.
A more or less individualist regime was created ; tolera
tion was proclaimed, education was to a great extent
taken from the control of the Church. Yet, though the
universalists were thus angered, their opponents were
not contented. Preference was given to the Dutch in
the use of their language, in the situation of the capital,
in taxation and in representation. The two parties
therefore combined, each hoping to find its own triumph
in the destruction of the existing system. The kingdom
of the United Netherlands was disrupted, not by the
isolated action of the individualists, but by a league
between them and the universalists.
Nevertheless, when a generation had passed, that
ascendancy of external and internal Universalism which
had prevailed since the fall of Napoleon was breaking
down. Externally, such unity as existed between the
great powers was becoming occasional rather than
permanent. The Quadruple Alliance, the real Euro
pean concert, which was the universalist ideal, early
failed; even the more restricted league of the three
eastern monarchies did not endure. Each successive
problem which demanded the attention of Europe
produced new and temporary alliances, akin rather to
the league of the eighteenth century than to the concert
suggested in the Treaty of Chaumont. England, France
and Russia combined to deal with the question of Greek
independence; England and France joined to defend
liberalism in the Iberian peninsula and to solve the
Belgian difficulty. Yet there was no definite recasting
of alliances. England and Russia intervened in the
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 251
quarrel between Egypt and the Porte, devising a com
promise and enforcing its acceptance, though they were
brought thereby into more or less direct conflict with
France. Austria had not been generally associated with
the western powers, but she joined England that she
might save Mehemet Ali from complete destruction. In
fact, love of peace, fear of revolution, was potent enough
to prevent any open conflict between the powers, to
secure a limited degree of external Universalism. It
was not potent enough to secure a complete universalist
ascendancy, the maintenance of a permanent and
effective concert.
Internally, the ascendancy of the desire to be ruled
was equally insecure. Even when fear of revolution was
at its strongest, some had been eager for change, some
had been restless under the absolutist regime. Secret
societies were formed, with the object of modifying the
existing system. The Carbonari in Italy, the Char-
bonerie in France, the Freemasons in Spain, laboured to
secure an increase of political liberty. Nor were these
societies the less revolutionary because their programme
was vague, because they tended to dissociate themselves
from the principles of the French Revolution. They
were always opposed to the existing absolutism, always
individualist. And as time went on, their Individualism
was emphasised; Mazzini's " League of Young Italy"
frankly advocated the destruction of monarchical
institutions and the creation of an Italian republic.
Though the outbreaks organised by the secret societies
failed, the programme for which they stood was yet in
a measure adopted. France under Louis Philippe was
ostensibly a liberal and popular monarchy; the ruler
was " king of the French," not " king of France." In
Portugal, political liberty was more or less established.
In Spain, insecure as was the position of liberalism, the
252 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
most obvious champions of absolutism, the Basques,
were led to support Don Carlos by their very Individual
ism ; they wished to preserve their local immunities.
The most significant indication of the decline of Uni-
versalism, however, is to be found in the growth of the
national spirit. Nationality is essentially individualist,
and it had been disregarded or crushed by the dominant
universalists at the time of the Congress of Vienna. But
the disregard was vain, the coercion ineffective. The
desire to rule was bound to continue; it was not less
bound sooner or later to find expression. In the years
after the Congress there was everywhere a gradual
revival of nationalism; it became a vital force and
supplied the real policy of the internal individualists.
The Greeks asserted their independence, the Belgians
followed their example. Even the deposition of Charles
X may be regarded as an assertion of French nationality ;
the Bourbons had been restored by foreign arms, and to
foreign powers they were supposed to look for support
in event of any conflict between them and their subjects.
Still more noticeable was the development of nation
ality in Germany and Italy. Since the Middle Ages,
those two countries had been politically divided; down
to the time of the French Revolution, the tendency had
been rather to perpetuate than to heal their divisions.
But the victories of Napoleon obliterated existing
boundaries ; his armies formed a school which tended to
reconcile the northern with the southern Germans, in
which north and south Italians learned to forget their
differences and to realise their practical identity of race.
At the time of the Congress of Vienna, the realisation of
racial identity was still incomplete both in Germany and
in Italy. In neither country was resistance offered or
much resentment felt at their continued partition into
independent states, at the fact that " Germany " and
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 253
" Italy " continued to be regarded as mere geographi
cal expressions. National feeling, however, had been
aroused ; during the next generation it grew in intensity.
An agitation for deliverance from foreign rule began,
and presently supplied the inspiration of the individual
ists in each country. Nor was this agitation confined to
Germany and Italy. The various races of the Austrian
dominions began to claim recognition of their diversity,
acknowledgment of their national existence. Magyars
and Slavs alike were moved to resent the really foreign
domination of the German Habsburgs. But this de
velopment of the national movement was merely an
indication that the desire to be ruled was losing its
ascendancy, that the inevitable reaction was making
definite progress.
The culmination of this reaction was reached in the
series of revolutions inaugurated by the overthrow of
the Orleanist monarchy. More or less serious outbreaks
of disorder took place in most European countries;
almost everywhere absolute government seemed to be
trembling on the verge of dissolution. Both in the
fact that a much greater area was affected, and in their
essential character, these movements differed from those
which had already occurred in the period since the
Congress of Vienna. The earlier revolutionary attempts
had at first been purely military ; they had later assumed
a more political character; to leaders such as Morelli
or Riego, men like Thiers had succeeded. But in most
European countries the mass of the population had still
remained subject to the desire to be ruled. At the time
of the fall of Louis Philippe, a distinct change may be
observed. Discontent with the existing system had
become widespread; all classes of the community
were infected by it. The desire to rule had secured
numerous converts ; nationalism, the expression of
254 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
that desire, in many lands received the support of a
majority.
Yet when discontent at last developed into active
resistance, only in Sardinia, perhaps, did Individualism
secure a real triumph. Victor Emmanuel, despite the
menaces and blandishments of Austria, there main
tained a liberal system and a limited monarchy. On
the other hand, in Prussia, though a constitution was
granted and survived, its character was rather universal-
ist than individualist. The franchise was deliberately
constituted to prevent any popular control of the
administration; the changes made rather afforded an
example of the generosity of despotism than asserted the
right of the people to govern themselves. In France,
though the Orleanist monarchy was destroyed and the
Second Republic created, the victory of Individualism
was transitory. The movement ended in the establish
ment of the Second Empire, of a government more
autocratic than any which had existed since the fall of
Napoleon.
Elsewhere, the failure of the revolution was still more
complete. In Italy, Austria recovered her possessions;
the Roman and Venetian Republics were destroyed,
absolutism was everywhere restored. And after the
restoration, rulers, such as Pius IX, who had dis
played liberal tendencies, resorted to despotic methods;
tyrannies became more tyrannical. The attempt to
secure German unity was frustrated. After a brief and
ineffective life, the Frankfort Parliament was dispersed,
and its dispersal was hardly regretted even by the extreme
individualists, so completely had it failed to impair the
ascendancy of Universalism. In the Austrian Empire,
the revolution at first achieved striking success, but
ended in complete disaster. Magyars, Slavs and Rou-
mans were alike brought once more under German
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 255
control; the rule of Schwarzenberg was more, not less,
universalist than had been that of Metternich.
Indeed, the revolutions would be relatively unimport
ant, were it not that there is a particular significance in
the manner of their defeat. Generally speaking, that
defeat was the result, not of the unaided efforts of the
internal universalists, but of an alliance between the
internal and external universalists. Even in France,
where there was no trace of foreign intervention, the
accession of Napoleon III must be attributed largely to
the fact that he gained the support of the external
universalists. He declared that " The Empire is peace,"
and thereby made an effective appeal to those who
dreaded international anarchy, who disbelieved in that
individualist foreign policy which, rightly or wrongly,
they imagined to be inevitably characteristic of republic
anism, or at least of French republicanism. To this
party of peace, rather than to the individualists, rather
even than to the internal universalists, the Second
Empire owed its existence, little as it justified the
expectations formed of a cessation of war.
This alliance of external and internal Universalism is
more obvious in other countries. Absolutism was re
stored in Italy by the arms of Austria and France.
A threat of armed intervention from Schwarzenberg
secured the final defeat of the revolutionary movement
in Germany; the submission of Manteuffel at Olmiitz
was not the result of the unaided efforts of internal
Universalism, but of fear that the Habsburgs would
impose their will by force, if persuasion proved ineffec
tive. Pursuit of Individualism seemed to threaten
Prussia with foreign subjection, and therefore Prussia,
in a sense, allowed the Confederation to fall for a while
under foreign rule, that by so doing she might preserve
her own independence. The conquest of the Hungarians
256 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
was equally made possible by the action of Russia. The
weakness of internal Universalism within the Habsburg
dominions was illustrated by the failure of the Unitary
Edict, a definite attempt to secure that centralisation
and consolidation which the universalists desired. Had
it not been that Nicholas I, true to the universalist con
ception that the internal affairs of each state are the
concern of all states, lent military aid to Francis Joseph,
the cause of Individualism in Hungary at least might
have prevailed.
But though the alliance between internal and external
Universalism was thus triumphant for a time, the
ascendancy of the latter was declining. Of the original
members of the Quadruple Alliance, only Austria and
Russia remained united. England had long since
parted company with her former allies; her sympathy
with Individualism was notorious, and formed a factor
aiding the internal reaction in every country. Prussia
had long been the docile follower of the other eastern
powers, but during the revolutions she had displayed a
tendency to separate herself from them. Her king had
even worn the red cap of liberty; he had become a
wandering star in the firmament of sovereigns. Nor
was the forced submission at Olmiitz calculated to per
suade her to join cordially with Austria or Russia in the
future; rather, the disgrace was felt and remembered,
though the time of vengeance might be postponed. And
meanwhile the fear that any war was bound to lead
to universal and unending strife was losing strength.
Though renewal of conflict was still dreaded, the struggle
between Austria and Sardinia in Italy suggested that
the flames of conflict need not necessarily spread; the
action of Schwarzenberg at Olmiitz indicated that war
was felt on occasion to be a less evil than the sacrifice of
national interest, that the champions of external Uni-
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 257
versalism were sometimes prepared to adopt an exter
nally individualist attitude. Indeed, the lesson of these
revolutions was that the prevalent love of peace among
the powers alone maintained the ascendancy of the desire
to be ruled, and that this love was growing cold.
War actually followed upon the crushing of the revolu
tionary movements; that general peace which had pre
vailed since the fall of the first, was broken soon after the
accession of the third, Napoleon. At Olmutz, it had
become clear that practical subjection was liable to be
the outcome of external Universalism. Prussia, weak
and unaided, had given way. She had accepted the
humiliating terms dictated to her by Austria. But the
submission of Manteuffel was the beginning of the end
for the supremacy of the desire to be ruled. It needed
only that the external universalists should attempt the
coercion of some power capable of resistance, for re
sistance to be made, for war to begin. Such coercion
was attempted in the case of Russia. She was forbidden
to regulate her relations with the Porte according to her
own will, and when she had displayed at least a limited
readiness to concede this point, England and France
proceeded further to attempt the regulation of her
military and naval position in the Black Sea. The limit
of endurance was thus reached ; Russia refused to submit
and the Crimean War followed. For two reasons, that
war was of paramount importance. In the first place,
the unreality of the European concert was revealed.
The western powers had formed ideas as to the neces
sities of the Near Eastern situation, which did not
commend themselves to Austria and Prussia. Conse
quently, though the four powers at first acted together,
they soon ceased to do so ; in the attack on the Crimea,
the two absolutist states had no part. In the second
place, the war served to dissipate the existing fear of
R
258 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
conflict. Though first-class powers were engaged in it,
it did not produce any general conflagration, nor was it
greatly prolonged. For the future, war was the less
dreaded; the ascendancy of the desire to be ruled was
proportionately weakened.
The result soon appeared. External Universalism had
owed its decided supremacy to the bitter memories of
the revolutionary period; it was feared and expected
that any disturbance of international peace would
result in a prolonged, general war. And since the French
Revolution had begun in a movement towards mere
internal reform, any such reform movement was dreaded,
as being likely to lead to an interruption of European
tranquillity. The successive changes in the government
of France had proved that this dread was largely illusory ;
the Crimean War proved that a conflict between some
of the great powers need not necessarily extend to the
rest of Europe, need not necessarily be prolonged.
Thus the ascendancy of external Universalism was
impaired, as that of internal Universalism had already
been impaired; the way was opened for a more rapid
reaction towards Individualism both at home and
abroad.
The outcome was a new alliance of forces. As the
exponents of the desire to be ruled had united, so now
the exponents of the desire to rule united, and from this
union resulted those national wars by which the second
half of the nineteenth century was marked. In her
foreign policy France is always potentially individualist,
even in her most universalist moments; the French
people are essentially human. And France, naturally
less susceptible to fear born of the experience of the
French Revolution, set the example of disregarding the
supposed danger of individualist foreign policy. At the
Congress of Paris, the powers, urged to consider the state
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 259
of Italy, had replied by the expression of pious hopes
of a change for the better. France presently went to
the help of the Italian nationalists. A short war with
Austria gave victory to the cause of Individualism;
once more, no general conflict resulted, despite the
murmurings of the universalists, illustrated by Prussian
mobilisation.
And the defeat of Austria in Italy encouraged the
individualists of Germany. Their agitation against
practical foreign control grew in strength, and Prussia
put herself definitely at the head of the national move
ment. Nor was this surprising. The very existence
of the Prussian state depended upon her rejection of
universalist ideas; she had been early obliged to free
herself from Polish suzerainty, and her progress had been
rendered possible only by denial of such obligations
as might result from the inclusion of Brandenburg in
the Holy Roman Empire. She had been individualist
during the period of the French Revolution; she had
tended to pursue the same policy in more recent dis
orders, and by her attitude on the Schleswig-Holstein
question had indicated her devotion to her own interest.
Hence Prussia undertook the championship of German
nationality, of Individualism. The Seven Weeks' War
accomplished the extrusion of Austria from the Confedera
tion ; it secured the defeat of the champion of external
Universalism.
The importance of these individualist wars, of this
further decline in external Universalism, soon became
apparent in the Austrian Empire. The German element
had hitherto been enabled to triumph over the Magyar
and Slav elements, owing to the universalist spirit in
the army and the aid received from the external Uni
versalism of Europe. France had not dared to inter
vene seriously in Italy, while Radetzky re-established
a6o THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Austrian control; fear of a general European war had
stayed her. The same fear had led Russia to intervene
in Hungary. But the Crimean War had greatly weakened
the forces of external Universalism ; no power was ready
to support the Habsburgs when they were brought
face to face with the individualist tendencies of the
peoples over whom they ruled. The German element,
the advocates of the desire to be ruled, were driven to
rely only upon the strength of that desire within the
Austrian Empire, and that desire, in view of the extreme
divergence of race, had to be, as it were, both external
and internal, in order to be effective. It was therefore
almost necessarily weak. All unitary attempts, indeed,
were doomed from the moment of the victory of Napo
leon III. The individualists learned the weakness of
the forces opposed to them; they realised their own
strength, they refused any longer to be coerced. And
their numbers were increased by the mere fact that the
existing system had failed to hold its own against
foreign aggression. Even before the Seven Weeks' War,
it was inevitable that some concessions should be made
to the local prejudices of the Magyars ; as a result of that
war, dualism was adopted.
And the establishment of union in Italy and of dis
union in the Austrian Empire were alike illustrations
of the reaction against the ascendancy of the desire to
be ruled. Italian unity implied the destruction of
foreign control of the peninsula, and so far was an
individualist triumph. Dualism involved the conces
sion of self-government to the Magyars; it meant the
cessation of German domination over one of the races
included in the Habsburg territories. But in each case
the reaction was incomplete. If Italy, by the extinction
of Austrian power in Lombardy and Venetia, was
finallv freed from external control, it was at the cost
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 261
of the simultaneous extinction of the independence of
the smaller Italian states; Naples and Sicily, racially
distinct from Piedmont, were compelled to accept the
rule of the House of Savoy. And though Hungary
secured autonomy, the Slavs were left as much as ever
under the control of races alien to them. Dualism, in
effect, was a bargain between the Germans and the
Magyars for the joint repression of the other peoples
of the Austrian Empire.
Nor did the reaction ever attain completion. The
culmination of the movement against the ascendancy
of Universalism may be found in the Franco-Prussian
War and in the events which preceded and followed that
war. In it, no other nations took part ; the growth of
external Individualism is indicated by the fact that the
powers of Europe did not intervene either to prevent the
conflict or to settle the terms upon which peace should
be concluded. In other ways also the struggle illus
trated the increased influence of the desire to rule.
Napoleon III aimed at the extension of French influence
over southern Germany; his attempt, individualist from
the point of view of France, from the contrary point
of view amounted to an effort to establish universalist
control over the states which he wished to domin
ate, and led them to ally with Prussia in defence of
their national existence. Prussia definitely became the
accepted champion of the external Individualism of the
German race. Her victory secured the deliverance of
Germany from the danger of foreign control. Yet this
victory of Individualism was bought at a price. The
German Empire was established, and in it the ascendancy
of Prussia was assured ; internal Universalism triumphed
hardly less obviously than external Individualism.
And the effect of the war upon France was also dual
in character. The autocratic Second Empire was over-
262 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
thrown, and in its fall internal Universalism fell also.
But the Communards, the real representatives of Indi
vidualism, failed to secure the acceptance of their views ;
the Third Republic was conservative in its very essence,
leavened by a perceptible admixture of Universalism.
The champions of the desire to rule had hoped that the
fall of Napoleon III would produce a condition of things
akin to that which had followed the fall of the ancien
regime. They were disappointed, and the actual re
action was so imperfect as to leave to the executive
almost as much power as it had possessed under the
Second Empire. Nevertheless, the history of the period
of the national wars is the history of a general reaction
against that Universalism which had prevailed since the
Congress of Vienna.
And, as always, reaction bred a counter-reaction. No
sooner had an apparent ascendancy been secured by
external Individualism than external Universalism began
to revive. Nor is it surprising that the very state which
in its foreign policy had most gratified the desire to rule
should be the first to tend towards the contrary extreme.
The ideal of the Quadruple Alliance had been the main
tenance of the status quo by means of a permanent and
invincible league between the great powers. The realisa
tion of that ideal had been rendered impossible by Prussia
rather than by any other state, and Prussia was the first
to dread the consequences of her own action, to attempt
the reconstruction of that system which she had assisted
to destroy. To her, the revival of external Universalism
in the so-called League of Emperors must be attributed,
and that league was really no more than a return to that
attempted concert of Europe which Metternich had
endeavoured to create at the time of the renewal of the
Treaty of Chaumont. The new alliance was based upon
the identical principle by which the Quadruple Alliance
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 263
had been inspired. Fear of revolution determined once
more the policy of the three eastern powers; love of
peace was at the root of this new expression of external
Universalism.
The League of Emperors did not become permanent.
Like the Quadruple Alliance, it was destroyed by the
inevitable tendency towards external Individualism in
its constituent states, by the conviction that the interests
of different states were themselves different. Nor does
the similarity in the history of these two universalist
attempts end here. Like the earlier alliance, the League
of Emperors was wrecked upon the rock of the Near
Eastern Question. Russia adopted an independent
attitude towards the Porte, and the degree of independ
ence in that attitude is the measure of the ascendancy
of Individualism in her foreign policy. But even in
Russia and in reference to the Eastern Question, the
ascendancy was incomplete. She permitted the re
vision of the Treaty of San Stefano by the Congress of
Berlin ; she subordinated her own will to that of Europe.
External Universalism gained a victory. And the cir
cumstances of that victory afford another illustration
of the fact that the state which has proceeded furthest
towards the gratification of one desire is most prone to
turn towards the gratification of the contrary desire.
Prussia had defied the concert of Europe in order to
gratify her desire to rule Germany. She also formed
the League of Emperors that the example of international
anarchy which she had set might not be followed. She
arranged the Congress of Berlin that the solidarity of
Europe might not be wholly destroyed; she gave birth,
in fact, to that new concert which, down to recent times,
served instead of the Quadruple Alliance.
And the conditions, illustrated by the Congress of
Berlin, still exist. Externally, there has been a marked
264 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
reaction from the Individualism which prevailed in the
second half of the nineteenth century. There is a
concert of Europe, however weak may be the bonds
uniting its members. Since the Franco-Prussian War,
it has sufficed to maintain continental peace, so far as
conflicts between the great powers are concerned. Yet
the concert is no union of hearts. The ascendancy of
the desire to be ruled is evidently limited. Each state
arms against its neighbours; within the concert itself,
mutually hostile alliances exist. An atmosphere of
extreme distrust prevails; the action of the concert is
slow and hampered at every turn by the suspicious
jealousy of its members. Russia once proposed inter
national disarmament, and the Hague Conference was
assembled. But the proposal of Nicholas II was regarded
with as much scepticism as had been the Holy Alliance,
nor is there any real evidence that nations are much
nearer sincere agreement with each other than they were
in the period immediately following the Congress of
Vienna.
From this mutual distrust, manifestations of indi
vidualist spirit have followed. Italy, however much she
might endeavour to conciliate the opinion of Europe,
remained firm in her resolve not to entrust her interests
in Tripoli to the care of the concert. At the risk of
producing a general war, she attacked the Ottoman
Empire. A similar disregard for the peace of the conti
nent was displayed by the Balkan League. Not merely
did they dare to raise the Near Eastern Question in
its most acute form, but they showed a carelessness,
amounting to contempt, for the preservation of the
status quo, maintenance of which lies at the very root of
the new external Universalism. Nor could the concert
of Europe in either case do more than regulate somewhat
the extent and duration of the conflict. It could induce
THE CONFLICT IN EUROPE 265
Italy not to conduct naval operations in the Adriatic ; it
did not decide the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. It
could create an Albanian state and secure a voice in the
disposition of the JEgean Islands; it could not enforce
the observance of the Treaty of London, and the Treaty
of Bukarest was due far more to the individualist action
of Rumania than to the complaints and protests of the
great powers.
Internally, there is an apparent ascendancy of Indi
vidualism. Every state in Europe has adopted, at least
professedly, representative institutions ; there is no state
in which the right of the people to a voice in their own
government is explicitly denied. Yet the degree to
which any actual influence is exercised is doubtful. The
close organisation of parties, the rise of a class of
professional politicians, almost ensures the practical
impotence of the electorate, and the existence of that
impotence has been realised in Switzerland, where a
special device has been adopted to secure that the people
should be able to determine legislation and policy.
During the eighteenth century, the benevolent despots
claimed to decide wherein lay the true good of their
subjects. The benevolent despots have passed into
oblivion. But in their place there are party leaders
who are equally reluctant to submit their conduct to the
judgment of those whose servants they profess to be.
Nor have the people at large a much greater share in the
determination of their fate than they had in the days
of a Frederic the Great; they possess little more than
the right to choose between two rival despots.
In short, the present age is externally universalist
and only internally individualist to a very limited extent.
There is no permanent concert, such as was desired by
those who secured the overthrow of Napoleon ; there is,
however, a partial concert, the members of which regard
266 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
each other with distrust, though ready to combine to
preserve the peace of Europe. The theory that govern
ment is for the good of the governed prevails. But the
right of the subject to determine what constitutes that
good is but partially recognised; the ascendancy of
internal Individualism is limited. The reaction from
the Universalism of the first quarter of the nineteenth
century is incomplete. Individualism has made pro
gress and has suffered reverses. The eternal conflict
continues, and to neither side is complete victory
vouchsafed.
THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND 267
XI
THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND
THROUGHOUT the general history of Europe, from the
dawn of civilisation to the present day, the eternal con
flict between the desire to be ruled and the desire to rule
may be traced clearly. But European nations have
been subject to violent commotions, have been the
scene of obvious revolutions ; their normal life has been
continually interrupted. England, on the contrary,
has not experienced such decided changes; she has
never known a French Revolution; for her, even the
Reformation was placid and orderly. Her history is
far less complex than that of any other land; for some
fifteen hundred years its continuity has hardly been
interrupted. The origin of many of her existing institu
tions may be traced back to the period at which the
English first appeared in the island to which they gave
their name; the origin of some may be found even in
the earlier days during which the Anglo-Saxons still
inhabited the districts of north-western Germany. It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that, with the exception
of one brief interlude of experiment, her government has
always been a limited monarchy. In the most revolu
tionary periods of her history, and by the most revolu
tionary leaders, appeal has always been made to the
experience of past ages. The creation of an ideal state
by legislative enactment has never appeared practical
to her statesmen; the most radical reformers have at
least professed devotion to the institutions of their fore-
268 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
fathers. And if there were any exception to the uni
versality of the conflict of desire, such an exception
would assuredly be presented by England. In her
history, if anywhere, the theory of persistent progress
finds justification. If England has been the scene of
unending strife between two ideals, with the implication
of a tendency to return to the original starting-point,
then certainly that strife would seem to supply the factor
explanatory of History.
And it may be asserted at once that England offers
no exception to the general rule. On the contrary, the
very simplicity and orderliness of her history makes the
conflict appear rather more clearly than it does in the
history of most, if not of all, other nations. It may be
admitted that the conflict has perhaps been less violent ;
the greater stolidity of the Anglo-Saxon race has freed
them from the experience of those rapid reactions and
counter-reactions which have been the lot of the French.
Change from approach to one extreme to approach to
the other has been more gradual; neither extreme has
been so nearly reached. The executive in England has
never been as despotic as was the French executive
under Napoleon I ; it has never been so weak as was that
of France after the promulgation of the Constitution of
1791. The English villeins were probably never de
graded to a position as low as that occupied by the
miserrimi populi Rutheniorum ; the English nobles
certainly never attained to privileges such as were
possessed by their peers under the ancien regime in
France. England never came within the orbit of the
Holy Roman Empire; she has never been wholly en
tangled in continental alliances. The authority of the
Papacy was never so extensive as to constitute a serious
limitation of the power of the government over its lay
subjects; independence of attitude has always been a
THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND 269
marked characteristic of the Anglican Church. Uni-
versalism and Individualism, external and internal, have
never come so near attainment of complete supremacy
as they have done in other lands. Yet, for all this,
English history is as entirely a record of conflict as is
that of every other nation ; in England, as in all other
countries, the desire to be ruled and the desire to rule
have been always battling for supremacy.
At the moment when English history may be said to
begin, after the Anglo-Saxon conquest, Individualism
was supreme. The island was cut off from the continent
and divided against itself. But the marriage of Ethel-
bert of Kent to Bertha of Paris was followed by the
mission of Augustine, and these two events inaugurated
the process of breaking down the isolation of the country
as a whole and of the units of which it was composed. A
closer connection with western Christendom and internal
consolidation went hand in hand; each made progress
despite strenuous opposition and frequent repulses,
until external and internal Universalism secured a
decided victory at the Norman Conquest. And the
reaction towards gratification of the desire to be ruled
culminated in the administrative monarchy of the
Angevins, in the submission of Richard I to the Emperor
Henry VI and in that of John to Pope Innocent III. At
home, a practical despotism was established; abroad,
England definitely admitted her inclusion in the Christian
commonwealth.
The inevitable reaction followed. England lost her
continental dominions, largely because she made no real
effort to retain them, and the consequent release from
foreign entanglements forced or enabled her to pursue
an individualist policy. Even the attempt to conquer
France in the Hundred Years' War was rather an asser
tion of the desire to rule than a reversion to the contrary
370 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
ideal. At home, that cosmopolitanism which had pre
vailed since the Norman conquest was destroyed; the
power of the monarchy was reduced by successful re
bellion and by half-voluntary concessions. So great a
hold, indeed, did Individualism secure upon the imagina
tion of the people that impatience of subjection produced
anarchy. The Wars of the Roses, a period during which
there was no foreign policy worthy of the name, marked
the culmination of the revolt against governance, and
at the same time expressed the growing conviction that
governance was a necessity. If the Lancastrians owed
much of their unpopularity to the attempted tyranny of
the royal council, that unpopularity was enhanced by
the very ineffectiveness of the tyranny; the ministers
of Henry VI denied the right of self-government, but
produced no satisfactory alternative.
And as the combination of external and internal
Individualism was found to produce incalculable evils,
the nation gave rein to its desire to be ruled. The
Yorkists initiated, the Tudors consolidated, a despotic
system. In the progress of the reaction against Angevin
Universalism, an interlude occurred, and to the fact that
they governed vigorously, that they repressed all dis
orders, the Tudors owed their undoubted popularity.
While in her relations with other states England, on the
whole, preserved an individualist attitude, and even
emphasised that attitude by the rejection of papal
supremacy, at home the contrary ideal was favoured.
The authority of the king was vastly increased, and the
control of the executive over the people was assured by
the creation of special courts, of which the deliberate
aim was to hold in check such persons and districts as
might tend to assert their independence.
Yet, even under the Tudor " despotism," Individual
ism survived and found expression. If parliament were
THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND 271
controlled, it was also used, nor are there wanting indica
tions of a tendency towards reaction. Each successive
ruler encountered more or less opposition ; the Commons
defended their privileges against royal aggression, and
the cessation of payment of members suggests that
parliament was felt to be something more than a mere
instrument for the registration of the royal will. And
no sooner had the Tudor regime freed England from the
evils resulting from the extreme of Individualism than
she began to fear the evils of the contrary extreme.
Resistance to the will of the executive gradually de
veloped. The Tudors had been able to appeal success
fully to the national spirit among their subjects; their
very Universalism conciliated Individualism. But with
the accession of the Stuarts the strength of the crown
seemed almost to involve alien rule, and, deprived of
any individualist support, the executive was faced by
difficulties which it was unable to overcome.
The reaction, which produced successively the Great
Rebellion and the Revolution of 1688, culminated in the
triumph of doctrines of political, religious and economic
liberty. The executive was deprived of its more danger
ous powers; the attempt of the legislative to establish
a veiled tyranny was thwarted, and the successful
agitation for parliamentary reform gave to the people
at least a voice in the decision of their own fate. The
dominant Church was compelled to admit the right of
men to decide upon the way of salvation which they
would follow ; the dominant mercantile class was driven
to resign its right to dictate to the consumer where he
should purchase his goods. Externally, the attitude
of England was, on the whole, individualist. It was
only with extreme reluctance that she consented to play
her part as one of the powers of Europe, and though
pressing dangers drove her momentarily to accept the
272 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
idea of the Quadruple Alliance, she seized the earliest
possible moment for freeing herself from foreign obliga
tions. Indeed, at the time when internal Individualism
reached its high-water mark, England was almost
reluctant to bear the burden of her colonial empire.
Since that date, a reaction towards Universalism has
occurred. Internally, the province of government has
been extended. State interference has become more
and more general ; the economic life of the country has
been more and more carefully regulated. At the same
time, the power of the cabinet has grown ; the increas
ingly strict discipline imposed upon the two great
political parties has served to give the executive the
direction of the details, as well as of the principles, of
legislation. Externally, the duties of empire have been
recognised; it has been contended that the interests of
England must even be subordinated to those of her
colonies, and that those colonies possess a specific right
to share in the government of the whole empire. Towards
foreign powers the attitude of England has become less
individualist. The Hague Tribunal has, in a measure,
been accepted as a body capable of performing functions
similar to those performed by the mediaeval Papacy.
International arbitration has made progress; there has
been an increasing readiness to submit all disputes to
the judgment of some external power. England, in
short, has shared in that general reaction towards
Universalism which has occurred on the continent since
the close of the Franco-Prussian War.
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 273
XII
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY
FROM the dawn of Greek civilisation to the present day,
History has been a record of eternal conflict between
the desire to be ruled and the desire to rule, a record
of constant reactions and counter-reactions. Complete
supremacy has never been attained by either desire ; the
proximate victory of the one has been invariably followed
or even anticipated by a reaction in favour of the other.
And, if the fundamental characteristics of human nature
remain immutable, it may be expected, it is indeed
inevitable, that this series of reactions will continue, that
History will always be the record of the same conflict.
If, therefore, the historian can discover the prevailing
tendency of the present, if he can decide whether
ascendancy is for the moment enjoyed by Universalism
or by Individualism, then it is in his power also to
predict the nature of the next reaction. And if he can
not so predict, his work is of relatively less value. He
may still both amuse and instruct. By recording the
past, he may inspire men to emulate the good and to
avoid the evil. He may supply to statesmen and to
nations some warnings, vague indeed, yet salutary,
suggesting at least the most obvious results likely to
follow upon a given course of action. But if he can
foresee the ultimate tendency of the age in which he
lives, his work will forthwith be raised to a loftier plane.
To foresee, to predict, is the highest, most permanently
valuable function of the historian. History ceases to
s
274 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
be a dead science ; it becomes instinct with vitality. It
gives to man that for which man has always sought,
whether by the path of religion, or by the more devious
paths of occult sciences ; it gives to him some knowledge
of the future destiny of the race.
For the historian to be able so to predict, it is clearly
the first necessity that he should be able to determine
accurately whether Universalism or Individualism for
the moment holds the ascendancy. Nor is such accurate
determination difficult, since History is nothing more
than the record of the interplay of the two desires, and
since nothing is more certain than that the reaction from
the one desire to the other proceeds with unfailing
regularity. At the present moment, it is clear that
externally the desire to be ruled prevails rather than the
desire to rule. In the second half of the nineteenth
century, and in the national wars of that period, Indi
vidualism reached a culminating point. Since that
date, there has been a sufficiently effective concert
among the powers to prevent any actual conflict in
Europe, and the general wish to avoid war has been
abundantly illustrated. By the creation of the Hague
Tribunal to adjudicate in cases not involving the vital
interests of states, an attempt has been made to revive
something equivalent to the supreme arbiter of the
Middle Ages, and one of the most noteworthy character
istics of the present day has been the growth of the
movement in favour of international arbitration and the
conclusion of arbitration treaties between different states.
Even in such wars as have occurred, the influence of
neutrals has been employed with effect to limit either
the duration or the scope of the conflict. Spain, in her
struggle with the United States, bowed to public opinion
by refraining from the issue of letters of marque, the
only method by which she might have injured her enemy,
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 275
refrained, that is, from exercising a right which she had
explicitly reserved to herself. During the war between
Turkey and Greece, the Greeks, in deference to the
powers, refrained from the use of their fleet. In the war
between Russia and Japan, the former gave way to
international opinion in the case of the Malacca, and
submitted the action of the Baltic fleet to the judgment
of a neutral court. More recently, Italy abstained from
naval operations in the Adriatic or against the Darda
nelles. The Balkan states, despite the general Indi
vidualism of their attitude and their refusal to accept
the decision of the powers in favour of the maintenance
of the status quo, agreed to the creation of the kingdom
of Albania and consented to leave the question of the
jEgean Islands in the hands of Europe. Thus, though,
as might be expected, individualist tendencies may be
discovered, yet the general attitude of the world is
universalist.
Nor is this less true internally. Absolutism has in
deed disappeared; Russia has now received her duma,
Turkey possesses a species of parliament. Nevertheless,
there is a decided increase in the area of state control,
a decided widening of the province of government. And
this has occurred not only in every country, but also
in every sphere of political life. Economic conditions
have been generally regulated by the state. The direc
tion of policy and of legislation is in most cases more
exclusively in the hands of ministers; the representa
tives of the people seem to tend everywhere to degenerate
into mere delegates. And the growth of socialism is an
indication of the strength of the desire to be ruled, since
that creed, in so far as it proposes to nationalise the
means of production, proposes also to make the state
supreme over the regulation of that which is perhaps
the most vital part of national life in every state.
2?6 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
If, therefore, human nature remains constant in its
fundamental characteristics, an individualist reaction,
both externally and internally, may be anticipated with
confidence. It can only be that when Universalism has
attained such a measure of supremacy, the satiation
of desire should tend to produce the contrary desire.
Nor are signs wanting that this expected reaction is
occurring. Externally, the preoccupation of the powers
in colonial questions has done much to preserve peace
on the continent. States have been absorbed in the
opening up of new markets and in the acquisition of
over-sea possessions; they have gratified their desire
to rule at the expense of the subject races. And it is
significant that, as the favoured places in the world have
been gradually occupied, the likelihood of European
war has definitely increased. The very powers of the
concert are mutually distrustful, armed against each
other. Those states, which from material weakness
have least to hope for from the modern doctrine of
compensation, have shown an increasing tendency to
act for themselves. It was Italy, the least powerful of
the so-called great powers, that was the first important
state to dare to enter upon an independent war in Europe
after the Congress of Berlin. It was the lesser powers
that destroyed the status quo in the Balkan Peninsula.
Internally, there have been signs of a growing reluc
tance to submit to authority. Portugal has experienced
a revolution; France, at the time of the separation of
Church and State, trembled on the verge of civil war.
In Germany, there is an ever-increasing agitation in
favour of the establishment of really representative
government; the dominance of the military caste has
been more and more resented. Russia has been the
scene of constant Nihilist plots; in Sweden, the exertion
of power or of influence by a limited king produced
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 277
an anti-monarchical agitation. Throughout Europe,
anarchist societies have been formed ; men have banded
themselves together with the avowed object of destroying
all constituted authority.
But the tendencies of the present day may be gauged
most accurately from the condition of England. In all
the revolutions of the past, in all the changes to which
political society has been subjected, England has in
general pointed the way, and other states have, though
often unconsciously, followed the example which she has
set. The Angevins created a strong monarchy, while the
continent was still the seat of loosely united feudal
states. Despite the early existence of modified repre
sentative institutions in Spain, England was the first
country to adopt a parliamentary constitution. For such
a measure of recognised Individualism as England
enjoyed even under the Tudors, the continent in general
was forced to wait for some two or three hundred years.
The Great Rebellion established the doctrine of limited
monarchy while other lands were still labouring to escape
from almost mediaeval anarchy. The English Revolu
tion confirmed the results of the Great Rebellion a
century before France, the most progressive state on
the continent, threw off the trammels of despotism.
Religious liberty, freedom of the press, the reform of
the representative, were all accomplished in England
while such changes were as yet hardly foreshadowed in
other lands.
It is therefore to be expected that the prevailing con
ditions in England at the present day will afford probably
the clearest indication as to that which the future has
in store for the generality of mankind. And both
externally and internally, the signs of an approaching
and even of an existing individualist reaction are obvious.
Externally, despite the increase in the use of arbitration
378 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY;
and despite the generally peaceful attitude of the English
government, armaments are increasing, expectation of
war is growing stronger. Still more significant is the
decline of colonial sentiment. English imperialism, in
its essence, partakes of the nature of Universalism ; it
involves not so much the government of subject races
as a league of almost independent states, and there is
in it a tendency to subordinate the interests of the mother
country to those of the colonies. The burden of such
empire was borne with reluctance in the early nineteenth
century; in recent years the heaviness of the burden
has once more been suggested. A growing body of
opinion holds that the establishment of complete inde
pendence in the self-governing colonies is not only a
probable event, but would also be beneficial to England.
The agitation in favour of colonial preference has made
little or no progress; the majority of Englishmen, or
at least of the English electorate, have declined more
than once to risk penalising themselves for the real or
supposed benefit of the colonial empire. It may be
suggested that such success as the tariff reform crusade
has secured has been due rather to individualist anti
pathy towards the foreigner than to universalist im
perialism. And an equivalent wish to free England
from external obligations is to be seen in the suspicion
with which alliances tend to be regarded. Though a
universalist attitude may be discovered in the alliance
between England and Japan and in the entente with
France and Russia, yet it is becoming increasingly
evident that the former is declining in popularity and
that there is little wish that the latter should develop
into any closer union. Its continuance may, indeed,
be attributed to a certain dread that the individualist
reaction will culminate in war.
Internally, there has been nothing more remarkable
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 279
in recent years than the rapid increase of a tendency to
reject hitherto recognised authority. Politically, the
agitation in favour of female suffrage has to a certain
extent been organised deliberately on the basis of
defiance of all law and order. Militancy owes its origin
and its permanence to the growth of individualist
sentiment. At an earlier date, the fact of resistance to
the constituted government of the state would have been
regarded as adequate ground for resort to the severest
and most extreme penalties. At the present time, the
most violent defiance produces only the most moderate
retaliation. Though on a very different plane, the re
sistance of Ulster to the project of Home Rule can be
traced only to the same growth of the individualist
opinion of the age. That opinion has led the inhabitants
of northern Ireland to decline to submit to the govern
ment of a majority of their fellow-countrymen, to
announce beforehand and in no uncertain terms their
refusal to obey the decisions of the imperial parliament.
In this protest they have received the support of a large
section of the English population. And it may be
suggested that the extent of the agitation in favour of
Home Rule itself is the measure of the Individualism
of the other provinces of Ireland.
Any consideration of the trend of economic move
ments affords further proof of the growth of Individual
ism. During the eighteenth century and until after the
Industrial Revolution, the labouring classes were more
than ready to submit to the control of their masters.
But no sooner had the evils of such subjection become
apparent, owing to the prevalence of sweating and the
repression of every attempt on the part of the labouring
classes to improve their lot, than a strong individualist
movement began. Trade unions came into being, and
if they have a certain universalist element in their
280 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
character, they are in essence individualist ; though the
members of a union are in a measure restrained by their
association, yet the union as a whole asserts the un
willingness of the employee to submit to dictation from
his employer. And the frequency of strikes in recent
years has indicated the existence of an almost cynical
disregard for contracts, a pronounced inclination, that
is, to refuse to admit any restriction upon freedom of
action.
At the same time, the recent increase of state inter
ference with the life of the individual, itself the product
of the universalist spirit of the age, has led to a reaction
which might have been foretold. Prosecutions under
the education acts have been frequent; prosecutions
under the Shop Hours Act have been more frequent. In
both cases individuals have claimed the right to refuse
to receive either education or recreation in the manner
provided by the state. And the admitted unpopularity
of the Insurance Act has been due less to any real re
luctance to affix stamps on cards than to the feeling that
government has exceeded its legitimate province in
compelling the citizens to take precautions against the
accidents and casualties of this life.
But nowhere is the spirit of revolt against authority
seen more clearly than in the domain of intellectual
activity. Just as the Reformation was in a measure
heralded by a general rejection of hitherto accepted
standards, so a similar rejection heralds the coming
individualist reaction of the present day. In religion,
new creeds have arisen and are arising ; the human race
is becoming more and more malcontent with those
beliefs which it once accepted without question. In
literature, there is a tendency to rebel against the tacit
prohibition of the discussion of certain topics; the same
tendency appears in the drama, and the agitation against
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 381
the dramatic censorship indicates the uneasiness of men
under the curb of some moral code. In art, the modern
ist movement is equally pronounced; the futurists and
the cubists deliberately outrage the once accepted canons
of artistic construction. And in music, the art most
affected by every trend of opinion, modernist tendencies,
the revolt against the old, against authority, are still
more evident. Wagner held at least to the recognised
laws of beauty in the constiuction of his music; his
modern successors tend to reject all laws, to pass from
a wide liberty of expression to the most entire anarchy.
But all this rejection of authority is nothing more than
an expression of the individualist tendency in man, the
assertion of the desire to rule against the desire to be
ruled. It is nothing more than a phase in that eternal
conflict which constitutes and which always has consti
tuted the very life of man.
There is, then, every sign of a proximate individualist
reaction ; that reaction would indeed seem to have begun
already, and to be destined to continue until the desire
to rule attains a supremacy at least equal to that which
has been recently enjoyed by the desire to be ruled. But
to the suggestion that such a reaction must necessarily
occur, and still more to any suggestion that for all future
time the same series of reactions will continue, one
proviso must be added. The idea that because History
has always been a record of conflict, therefore this
conflict must always endure, depends upon the assump
tion that in its fundamental characteristics the nature
of man is unchangeable, that man is always destined to
be the prey of two contrary emotions, the subject of
strife between his desire to rule and his desire to be
ruled. It is clear that great changes have occurred and
are occurring in many spheres of activity. Knowledge
in all its branches is to-day more widely diffused than
282 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
it has been in any other period. Civilisation is spread
over a wider area; in all arts and sciences, notable
advance has been made. It may well seem unreason
able to suppose that man's nature alone will remain
immutable.
At present, men act oftentimes irrationally; they fly
from extreme to extreme ; they are unstable. Life is a
perpetual conflict, in which no victory is ever gained,
since, though some may delight in extremes, the majority
weary of anything approaching complete gratification.
And nations act as do individuals; they are equally
unable to pursue a moderate course. But it does not
therefore follow that this will always be so, nor are there
wanting those who hold implicitly that a change will
occur.
For this change, some look to the gradual development
of human intellect. A child cannot be expected to act
with the considered judgment of a man ; the human race
has been, as it were, a child, but the race is growing up
as a child grows up, so that every century sees an in
crease and a deepening of the human intellect. Event
ually, mankind will be more able to foresee the ultimate
consequences of their actions. They will be able to
avoid errors and to hold fast to the true path of happiness
whether that path is to be found in the fullest possible
gratification of one of man's two desires, or whether it is
to be found in the blending of the gratification of each
desire.
Others hold a less optimistic view of the human
intellect. The brevity of life gives to each individual
but little time in which to train and to develop his mind.
The present lack of all exact knowledge of the future
suggests that man will never be able to gauge the ulti
mate consequences of his conduct. Yet many of those,
who are thus pessimistic as to any development of
TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 383
human intellect as a result of normal growth of the
human mind or as the result of human effort, none the
less anticipate a change. It will come, it may be indeed
that it has already come, by the mighty working of the
hand of God. Throughout the ages there have been
some men who seem to have been beyond and apart
from their fellows. Such men have experienced the
influence of the divine will upon them ; they have been
chosen out of the world to exemplify in their lives and
even in their deaths the omnipotence of the Deity. As
time passes, more and more men will be so influenced;
mankind will be brought into closer and closer com
munion with God, until at last that which is divine in
man triumphs over that which is earthly.
And if human nature is so changed, then History will
cease to be a record of conflict. Individuals and nations
alike will act with reason and with wisdom; attaining
happiness, they will have also the power to hold fast to
that happiness. But in that case, though the world
still endure, though individuals and nations still exist,
there will be no History. For History, being a record
of conflict, is also a record of mingled joy and sorrow,
mingled success and failure, and a world of perfect joy
could have no History.
THE CONFLICT IN THE FUTURE: THE WAR OF THE
TRIPLE ENTENTE
HISTORY is the record of an eternal conflict between the
desire to rule and the desire to be ruled, and in the
existence of this conflict its explanatory factor is found.
Herein lies the ultimate cause of all human action, of
the conduct of every individual and of every nation.
Herein, also, is to be found the true explanation of that
real or apparent alternation of progress and retrogres
sion, discoverable in every sphere of man's activity.
Between the causes of any two events superficial di
vergences may be detected, but of all events there is
only one ultimate cause. Everything that has occurred,
is occurring and will occur, while the nature of mankind
preserves unchanged its secular characteristics, is nothing
more than an expression of the undying strife between
Universalism and Individualism.
And in no period, perhaps, has this truth appeared
more clearly than in the century which has elapsed
since the fall of Napoleon. The First Empire was the
expression of the external Individualism of France; it
was made possible by the prior occurrence of an indi
vidualist reaction; it was destroyed by an alliance
between the exponents of the two contrary desires.
But of the two elements in the spirit of the Quadruple
Alliance, one, Universalism, attained an ascendancy,
with the result that, in the period immediately following
upon the Congress of Vienna, the desire to be ruled
appeared to have gained a victory more entire than any
284
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 285
which it had gained before. That victory, however, was
incomplete. The despotism of governments at home,
and the despotism of the three eastern powers abroad,
alike met with opposition; the inevitable individualist
reaction found its expression in a series of national move
ments. Those movements produced violent external
conflict. Europe was once more plunged into war, from
which emerged united Italy and united Germany, stand
ing witnesses to the impossibility of maintaining perma
nently a universalist regime.
But though men tend to hasten from one extreme to
the other, they also tend to realise the evils resultant
from their own violence. A weariness of self-assertion
was produced by the frequency of armed conflict. A
reaction towards external Universalism occurred, and
became vigorous as soon as smaller nationalities at
tempted to emulate the achievements of the Italians
and the Germans. The so-called " League of the Three
Emperors " was formed to check any further develop
ment of Individualism. The Congress of Berlin was
summoned and, in obedience to the renewed ascendancy
of the desire to be ruled, postponed for some forty years
the satisfaction of the hopes and aspirations of the
Balkan peoples. And in deference to this same spirit,
a European concert was gradually evolved. The six
great powers tacitly agreed that they would console
themselves for the frustration of many of their own
designs by coercing the weaker states. From the indi
vidualist maelstrom of the period of national wars,
Europe passed into the universalist doldrums of the
period of the concert.
Yet the eternal conflict knew no real cessation. A
reaction against the prevalent Universalism began almost
before the concert had come into being. Actual war
between the great powers was indeed prevented; little
a86 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
more than this was accomplished. The concert sufficed
neither to solve those problems which undermined its
own existence nor to maintain uninterrupted peace on
the continent. In other words, it effected no revolution
in human nature. The spirit of external Individualism
endured, and its existence was rendered palpably obvious
by the persistent dread of war, by the obviously intense
jealousy with which power regarded power, by the
elaborate preparations made on all sides for the antici
pated struggle. And within the concert itself, more
intimate leagues were formed. The Triple Alliance was
answered first by the Dual Alliance and then by the
Triple Entente. The great powers ranged themselves
in different camps; their professed unanimity became
ever more unreal, and though external Universalism still
preserved its ascendancy, that ascendancy trembled on
the brink of overthrow.
A fiction, which has once gained currency, is dispelled
only with the greatest difficulty, nor is this less true of
international politics than it is of internal politics or of
the private life of an individual. In all ages, accepted
myths have been exploded again and again; yet they
have still won one credence. Even to-day thousands
believe that Alfred allowed cakes to burn in the neat
herd's cottage, that the guillotine fell upon the neck of
Louis XVI to the words, " Son of St. Louis, ascend to
Heaven! " The fiction that the Roman Empire was
eternal subsisted long after it had been deprived even
of the merest simulacrum of truth. The fiction that
an English king rules, as well as reigns, survived the
Revolution and the Act of Settlement. The legend of
Russian cunning has hardly yet died ; the legend of the
military virtue of the Ottoman Turks was only destroyed
at Kirk Kilisse and Lule Burgas. And the pretence
that the powers were filled with cordiality towards each
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 287
other possessed surprising vitality. It was not killed
even when the eirenicon of Nicholas II provoked only
suspicion and an increase of military precautions. It
was not until Italy had adopted an independent attitude
towards the one question upon which concerted action
was held to be most essential, that men began to ap
preciate the existence of an individualist reaction. It
was not until the Balkan League had defied the powers
with impunity that it was realised how impossible was
any really united action by the would-be arbiters of the
continent. The reaction from external Universalism,
however, was not the less existent and vigorous because
it was obscured or denied, because there were some who
declared that a new and better age had dawned, that
war between the great civilised states had become an
impossibility. For human nature had not changed, and
while it remains constant, reaction must succeed re
action, culminating from time to time in an outbreak of
armed hostility, the supreme expression of the eternal
struggle. And those who realised that an external
individualist movement was in progress, were perforce
driven to realise also that a general war was probable,
if not inevitable.
For individualist reactions against the ascendancy of
external Universalism possess certain normal charac
teristics. Though the reaction is common to all states,
yet it proceeds more rapidly in some than in others, and
in any congeries of nations there will almost inevitably
be one which is more intensely affected by the prevalent
tendency than are others. The external Individualism
of such a state will impel it to aggression ; asserting its
own complete liberty of action, it will deny that liberty
to others, for its pursuit of its own interest will cause it
to discard all sympathy with or consideration for any
other interest. This is. indeed, an almost invariable
a88 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
concomitant of Individualism. During the period of the
Reformation, those who most earnestly proclaimed the
right of private judgment, tended to deny the exercise
of that right to such as were by it led to accept the
domination of the Catholic Church. Calvin was every
whit as intolerant as any papalist ; the narrow dogmatism
of Geneva was relentlessly enforced, and the world has
perhaps known no more bitter and cramping persecution
than that which was conducted by the Protestant ex
ponents of Individualism. The same illogical outcome
of a demand for liberty has marked the development of
international politics. With the breakdown of mediaeval
Universalism, England proceeded to attempt the im
position of her will upon France. At a later date,
Louis XIV, the most extreme of external individualists,
endeavoured to rivet the yoke of French ascendancy
upon the states of Europe. His antitype appeared in
Napoleon. After having passed through a period of
external Universalism, France reverted to the Indi
vidualism of the ancien regime, and had her designs been
accomplished, the continent would have been reduced
to political slavery. It may be admitted that the
appearance of such an aggressive state has not invariably
characterised individualist reactions; it has, however,
done so with sufficient frequency to render it not im
probable that the revolt against the system of the concert
would be marked by an attempt on the part of some
one country to secure for itself the domination of
Europe.
It is, however, clear that such gratification of the
desire to rule partakes of the nature of Universalism.
The aggressor denies to others the liberty of action
which he assumes for himself, and originally inspired to
pursue a particular line of action by the spirit of Indi
vidualism, he meets with opposition from that same
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 289
spirit. The French, who opposed the English invaders
during the Hundred Years' War, were not less external!}'
individualist than their enemies. Those states, by
which Louis XIV and Napoleon were defeated, were
not less individualist than was France. Indeed, in so
far as they displayed no desire to dominate the continent,
they were more fully actuated by Individualism. It is
true that the Grand Alliance, viewed in one aspect, was
a preliminary expression of that new theory of external
Universalism which ultimately produced the doctrine of
compensation and of the balance of power. In another
aspect, in its original inception, it was the outcome of
the desire to rule among its members ; they were resolved
not to part with their freedom as independent and
sovereign states. The Quadruple Alliance was always
marked by a measure of universalist sentiment. When
its triumph had been won, it became obviously the
exponent of the desire to be ruled, and it is not im
probable that it was little more than doubt as to the
eventual issue of the struggle which gave the indi
vidualist element in it a certain temporary weight. Yet
that individualist element was present, nor can it be
denied that the original purpose of the league was to
prevent the extinction of European liberty. And here
appears a second normal characteristic of external
reactions in favour of the desire to rule. As one state,
inspired by that sentiment, has often endeavoured to
impose its will upon others, so whenever such an attempt
has been made, it has been resisted by a league of other
states. Those whom aggression has threatened have
united in self-defence; being no less inspired by the
desire to rule, they have refused to forego the gratifica
tion of that desire at the bidding of some would-be
master.
Any reaction towards external Individualism, then,
T
290 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
will more probably than not find expression in the
appearance of an aggressive state, in the consequent
formation of an alliance to resist that state, and ulti
mately in armed conflict. And an illustration of this
fact is supplied by the War of the Triple Entente. That
struggle is the natural and normal, if not actually the
inevitable, outcome of revolt against the external
Universalism which prevailed in the period following
the cessation of national conflicts. It is, as are all
other events, an episode in the eternal strife between
the desire to rule and the desire to be ruled, nor is this
less true because the protagonists are all inspired by
the individualist spirit. For when external Indivi
dualism has been exaggerated beyond a certain point,
it partakes of the nature of Universalism.
France, under Louis XIV or Napoleon, demanded
that she should be allowed to ignore the ambitions and
interests, the rights and very liberty of all other states;
she was externally individualist. But if her policy be
regarded from the standpoint of her opponents, she
forthwith appears rather as externally universalist.
The triumph of the desire to be ruled would unite all
countries into some type of confederation. The triumph
of France would have produced the forced union of the
continent under her hegemony, and hence, though it
is true that French policy in these periods was the out
come of the spirit of Individualism, it could have won
acceptance elsewhere only if other countries had been
inspired by an extreme external Universalism. Louis
XIV and Napoleon, viewed in one aspect, were apostles
of the desire to rule; viewed in another aspect, they
were apostles of the desire to be ruled, and they failed
because mankind was satiated with gratification of the
latter desire. In the wars of the later seventeenth and
early nineteenth centuries, both parties were in a sense
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 291
externally individualist; in another sense, one party
bordered at least upon external Universalism.
And up to a certain point, the conditions of the periods
of Louis XIV and Napoleon are exactly reproduced
in the War of the Triple Entente. All the states of
Europe, to a greater or lesser degree, are inspired by the
desire to rule ; they are, however, so inspired in varying
measure. Hence, on the one side, there is found a
state aspiring to the completest liberty and implicitly
denying liberty to others. On the other side, there is
found a league of states tormed to compel the would-be
aggressor so to exercise his rights and to enjoy his liberty
that he does not impede the concurrent exercise of like
rights and the concurrent enjoyment of like liberty by
others.
Germany, in short, occupies to-day a position analogous
to that which France occupied in the days of Napoleon.
Her external Individualism has led her to enter upon the
path of aggression and to embark upon an attempt to
subject the world to her will. She has pursued her own
interest, or imagined interest, without consideration for
the interests of others; she has displayed a cynical
indifference towards the most sacred treaties and the
most sanctioned conventions. Since international law
was devised to impose some curb upon the free gratifi
cations of the desire to rule by any state, Germany
has naturally disregarded that law, and as in not dis
similar circumstances Louis XIV seized Strassburg, so
William II violated the neutrality of Belgium.
Nor is the Individualism of German policy really
impaired by the fact that this policy is being prosecuted
in harmony with allied states. It is clear that in any
alliance there is normally a certain universalist element.
The very existence of an agreement involves some
apparent limitation upon complete freedom of action,
292 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
some limited acceptance, at least, of the corporate con
ception of human society. But this is only true of
alliances between equals, and the states which are allied
with Germany are not united with her upon equal terms.
Rather the relationship which exists may be more
accurately paralleled in that which existed between
Louis XIV and Bavaria, or between Napoleon and the
Confederation of the Rhine. In her struggle against
the Grand Alliance or the Quadruple Alliance, France
in reality stood alone ; her friends were her dependants,
and their support was rather that of subjects than of
allies. The Bavarian government exercised but little
influence upon the councils of the Bourbons. The
princes of Germany were a source of weakness, rather
than of strength, to Napoleon, since prestige demanded
their protection and the resultant dissipation of energy
probably served to hasten the defeat of France.
In the present war, Germany enjoys a like embar
rassing predominance. Austria-Hungary has long been
the subordinate ally of the court of Berlin. Her policy
has been largely dictated to her; her independence of
action has become negligible. The command of her
armies has been taken out of the hands of her own
generals; the plan of campaign has been dictated to her.
The Dual Monarchy, indeed, has almost ceased to have
a separate existence; it has experienced a foretaste of
the meaning of German external Individualism. And
this is still more true of the Ottoman Empire. Germany
has secured both economic and political predominance
at Constantinople; she has assumed control of the
Turkish fleet and army, and the Sultan is hardly more
independent of William II than is the king of Bavaria
or the ruler of Lippe-Detmold. Indeed, the attitude
of Austria-Hungary and of Turkey is due to the fact that
those two states are not really actuated by the spirit of
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 293
Individualism; it really affords an illustration of the
truth that the extreme of external Individualism is akin
to Universalism. It was the weakness of the desire to
rule in the peoples of those two countries which induced
their acceptance of German control, as it was the
strength of that desire among the Italians which dis
rupted the Triple Alliance. Germany is not less an
exponent of the extreme of external Individualism
because she is possessed of subordinate allies, because,
in effect, she has already established her hegemony over
Austria and Turkey.
Nor are the enemies of Germany universalist in their
spirit, despite the fact that they have made a certain
concession to the ideal of Universalism. In their
original resistance, the powers of the Triple Entente
were clearly inspired by the desire to rule. Had they
refrained from opposition to Germany, they would have
been subjected to the decisive influence of an alien state.
They could have refrained from opposition only if their
peoples had been filled with the desire to be ruled, and
hence for them so to refrain was impossible unless they
had been unaffected by the prevalent reaction against
Universalism. But between the conception of external
Individualism, of which Germany is the exponent, and
that of which the allies are the exponents, there is a
deep and fundamental difference. Each member of the
Triple Entente claims liberty for itself; each recognises
the right of its allies to a like liberty. No one of the
three powers aspires to curtail the others' ultimate
freedom of action, nor can either Great Britain or France
or Russia be regarded as the predominant partner in
the league. They have not pressed their external
Individualism to that extreme at which it partakes of
the nature of external Universalism.
Even that element of Universalism, which is discover-
294 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
able in the conduct of the Triple Entente, is little more
than the outcome of necessity, and is possibly insepar
able from any true alliance. The French have sub
ordinated their fleets to the English naval command
both in the Atlantic and in more distant spheres of
operations. The English have placed their expedi
tionary force under the ultimate command-in-chief of
their allies. Such concessions, however, such seeming
admissions of a universalist element, are essential to the
efficient conduct of any joint operations; they evidence
not the subservience of subordinates but the co-opera
tion of equals. Even the common declaration of the
three powers that no one of them will conclude a separate
peace is nothing more than the announcement of a
conviction that the end in view can be attained only by
the most complete unanimity of action, and since that
end is externally individualist so the alliance is still an
expression of the desire to rule. In short, the pro
tagonists in the War of the Triple Entente are all alike
exponents of the reaction against external Universalism.
But they have placed very different interpretations
upon that reaction. In the past, when a people has
destroyed a despotic regime, there has not infrequently
been a certain tendency towards anarchy. There have
been some who have appeared to confound liberty with
licence, to have declined acceptance even of the most
moderate restraint, to have become actual or potential
criminals. They have been suppressed or held in check
by their fellow-citizens. Yet those who have employed
coercion have been individualists no less than the
coerced; they have only interpreted the reaction to
mean that liberty must be accorded to all and held that
this is an impossibility without a certain measure of
government. And when a reaction towards external
Individualism has occurred, there have normally been
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 295
those who have regarded that reaction as complete only
if it produces the most entire international anarchy;
there have been others who have held it necessary to
preserve some restraining influence. Both parties have
been individualist, but their Individualism has not been
of an identical type. To the one party, the desire to
rule has implied a state of anarchy and hence the
ultimate despotism of the stronger ; to the other, it has
implied a certain limitation of anarchy whereby the
ultimate equality of all may be secured.
To this divergence of interpretation the War of the
Triple Entente must really be attributed, and it may
be paralleled with apparent exactness from the past.
The attempt of Germany to establish her hegemony
over Europe has, at least to a certain extent, produced
exactly the result which was produced by a similar
attempt on the part of Louis XIV or of Napoleon.
Under those rulers, France was actuated by external
Individualism; the policy which she adopted was the
illustration of this fact. And she owed her ultimate
failure to the additional circumstance that the desire
to rule prevailed also in other lands and hence impelled
other states to oppose French aggression. Germany
has provoked an identical opposition, and by that
opposition she will be overcome. For the maintenance
of an hegemony over the continent is possible only when
mankind is actuated by the desire to be ruled. The
Roman Empire, whether in its original form or as revived
by Charles the Great, owed its maintenance to the fact
that the spirit of external Individualism was weak.
When that spirit had attained development, the union
of Europe became an impossibility; Charles V, Philip II,
Louis XIV, Napoleon and Metternich successively failed
to preserve harmony on the continent. And, at the
present time, the desire to be ruled clearly possesses no
296 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
ascendancy; even the mild authority of the concert
aroused resistance. That hegemony to which Germany
aspires would be far more complete than was the
attempted hegemony of the six powers ; it is essentially
alien in conception from the dominant reaction, and the
resistance to its establishment must therefore be crowned
with success. If History teaches anything, it teaches
that the War of the Triple Entente will end in the
victory of the Allies.
That victory will be the victory of states whose policy
was originally inspired by external Individualism. But
it does not necessarily follow that the victors will remain
external individualists. At least at first sight, indeed,
History would seem to teach that the}' will not do so.
There have, in the past, been two cases when a state,
moved to aggression by its external Individualism, has
been met and overcome by an alliance, and in both of
these cases the allies were seemingly converted to
external Universalism by their very success. When the
Grand Alliance had defeated Louis XIV its members
endeavoured to prevent the recurrence of those calamities
which appeared to have resulted from the breakdown
of the mediseval system. They made no attempt,
indeed, to return to that system; the conception of
Europe as a federation of Christian states under a human
vicegerent of the Deity was abandoned. But they did
attempt to create a new system, externally universalist
in character ; they adopted the conception of a balance
of power and the doctrine of compensation.
When the Quadruple Alliance had defeated Napoleon,
its members in turn attempted to organise Europe upon
a basis of external Universalism ; the Metternich system
in effect proposed that the four great powers should
govern the continent. In each case, experience of the
possible outcome of gratification of the desire to rule
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 297
produced a reaction in favour of the contrary desire.
In each case, also, the reaction towards external Univer-
salism had hardly culminated when a reaction towards
external Individualism began. The period after the
Treaty of Utrecht was marked by frequent wars, all of
which served to illustrate the permanence of the desire
to rule; the period after the Congress of Vienna ended
in a renewal of strife, in national uprisings against the
attempted domination of the powers. And in each case,
the impossibility of organising international society
upon a universalist basis was apparently proved the
more completely since the very states, which had
seemed to advocate such organisation, themselves
contributed to its overthrow.
It is, therefore, not unreasonable to anticipate that
the War of the Triple Entente, after the defeat of
Germany has been accomplished, will result in a reaction
towards external Universalism. The victorious allies
may be expected to imitate the members of the Grand
Alliance or of the Quadruple Alliance, and to attempt the
evolution of a system under which they will possess the
real control of the continent. In such circumstances,
the ultimate result may also be anticipated. Sooner
or later, gratification of the desire to be ruled will
produce satiation. The inevitable reaction towards
external Individualism will occur; the very conditions
which have led to the War of the Triple Entente, will
be reproduced, and experiencing the evils of the ascen
dancy of the desire to rule, the weary continent will
once more seek refuge in a reversion to Universalism.
There will be no cessation of that eternal conflict of which
all History is the record.
Such, indeed, is not merely a possible, and even
probable, outcome of the conditions of the present time.
It is more. It will indubitably be the future of the race,
298 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
if human nature remains unchanged, if its fundamental
characteristics remain unaltered. From earliest child
hood to extreme old age, the mind of each one of us is
the scene of never-ending strife between the desire to
rule and the desire to be ruled. Seeking happiness
always, we fail as perpetually to 'attain the coveted
goal. And since our nature is thus imperfect, so is the
nature of every nation likewise imperfect. The mind of
each state is the scene of an identical struggle, and
states tend, as do individuals, to seek deliverance from
the evil of one extreme by flying to the contrary extreme.
In their relations with one another, they have oscillated
since the dawn of History between an excess of Uni-
versalism and an excess of Individualism, and to all
seeming the powers of Europe to-day are as little able
to discover the true path of happiness as were the states
of the continent in the ages of the past. It would
appear, in very truth, that a consideration of History
and of human nature can lead only to the regretful
conclusion that the emergence of humanity out of
darkness into light will remain for ever the idle dream
of those optimists who blind themselves to the clearest
truths.
But in all ages there have been those who have held
a less pessimistic view of the ultimate destiny of man
kind. They have declined to believe that man has been
endowed with reason only that he may be unreasoning;
they have refused to admit that human nature is not
susceptible of betterment ; they have denied the asser
tion that it has not been bettered. On the contrary,
they have declared that the race, however slowly, has
advanced towards a truer appreciation of the ultimate
source of happiness; they have declared that nations
have displayed a gradual decrease of unwisdom, and
that though the world is still far from perfect, its imper-
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 299
fection has been sensibly lessened. They deny that
the work of all the prophets and teachers of the past
has been ultimately vain; they credit mankind with
the potentiality of appreciating and obeying the dic
tates of reason. Those who have held such opinions,
have in fact believed that the cessation of the secular
conflict is a constant possibility. They have looked
for that cessation and they have expected a revolution
in human nature as a result of every great crisis in the
world's history. To-day, such optimists hold that the
occasion has at last arrived. They deny that the War
of the Triple Entente will produce merely a reaction
towards external Universalism to be followed by a
further reaction towards external Individualism. They
suggest an alternative outcome. They profess to foresee
an enlightenment of mankind, which will enable it to
avoid those errors by which in the past its pursuit of
happiness has been impeded.
Nor is it enough for an historian to dismiss such
opinions with the contemptuous remark that similar
predictions of vast and salutary changes have hitherto
been invariably falsified. It is not enough for him to
point out that the end of war, the supreme expression of
the secular conflict, has been in the past frequently and
vainly anticipated. To deliver such an answer would
be to fall into the vulgar error of arguing that whatever
has been, will be. And that error is, perhaps, the most
serious of which an historian can be guilty. It is
necessary, before all things, that an historian, when
attempting to fulfil the highest of his functions and to
reveal something of that which the future has in store
for mankind, should be prepared to consider all possi
bilities and to approach with an open mind the book
of fate. If he permits his judgment to be warped by
prejudice or by too easy acceptance of apparent cer-
300 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
tainties, then he is unfit for the task which he has under
taken to perform and is unworthy of the name of
historian.
Hence, though it is abundantly clear that all History
has been the record of conflict between Universalism
and Individualism, though it may appear to be certain
that the present situation will develop as did the situation
in the days of Louis XIV and of Napoleon, it is vitally
important for the historian to remember that this pre
supposes the constancy of human nature and for him
to consider whether or no the study of the past affords
any ground for doubting that premiss. For if reasons
can be discovered for suggesting that though the con
flict has endured, yet its character has been gradually
modified, and if moreover that modification were
seemingly in the direction of a diminution of the inten
sity of strife, then the opinion of those who hold that a
revolution in human nature is imminent or is indeed
in process of accomplishment would acquire an added
weight and an increased plausibility.
And if the history of the past be carefully considered,
there may appear to be grounds for the opinion that,
even in its most fundamental characteristics, human
nature is not entirely constant. It is assuredly true
that the conflict of desire has persisted from the very
earliest times; it may also be true that this conflict
has undergone a certain modification. In the Middle
Ages, the ascendancy of external Universalism was
marked by a definite attempt to combine the states of
the continent into a species of Christian federation under
some definite head. The attempt ended in failure and
the lesson of that failure was at least partially learned.
That new type of external Universalism which appeared
after the Reformation contained in it a certain indivi
dualist element, and that element has gradually increased
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 301
in strength. Such success, indeed, as has attended
efforts to discover a modus vivendi would appear to have
been due to a mingling of the two opposing principles.
In other words, a certain abandonment of extremes
may be noted as a characteristic of the secular conflict.
Thus, when after the Treaty of Utrecht the Triple
Alliance was formed to prevent a recrudescence of
anarch}- , the members of that alliance, though externally
universalist in their ideals, were ready to make some
concessions to external Individualism, and to the
making of such concessions they owed the measure of
success which attended their efforts. Mankind would
appear to have grasped the fact that the organisation
of international society upon a basis of extreme gratifica
tion of the desire to be ruled was an impossibility. At
least, it was upon such assumption that the Triple
Alliance acted. The projects of Alberoni and Ripperda
were checked. But that they were checked without
any serious outbreak of war was due to the fact that
the wishes of Spain were not wholly disregarded. If
the two statesmen fell, their designs were not entirely
frustrated; concessions in the matter of the Italian
duchies formed the price paid to Philip V for his
abandonment of his claim to complete liberty of action.
And it was the irreconcilable Universalism of the powers
of Europe when brought into contact with the French
Revolution that caused the final break-up of that
system which had been created after the death of Louis
XIV. As soon as the moderation of the originators
of that system was abandoned, the human race revolted
against the too complete ascendancy of the desire to be
ruled.
And in that universalist reaction, which followed the
fall of Napoleon, the great powers, or rather the three
eastern powers, fell into the error of refusing all considera-
302 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
tion to the desire to rule. Their violence brought its
natural retribution; it served to hasten the reaction
towards external Individualism, and the vigour of that
reaction was proportionate to the original completeness
of the contrary reaction. To a certain extent, this fact
would appear to have been understood. Neither the
" League of the Three Emperors " nor the later concert
of Europe attempted to exercise that degree of control
over the continent which the Quadruple Alliance had
demanded. Allowance was made for the existence of
external Individualism and the success of the concert,
like that of the Triple Alliance after Utrecht, was due
to this readiness to regard the aspirations of all states.
At the Congress of Berlin, though Russia was compelled
to forego the realisation of her historical designs, and
though the peoples of the Balkan peninsula were pre
vented from attaining independence, yet no attempt
was made to preserve the status quo. In the case of
Eastern Rumelia and again in the case of the rejection
of Ottoman suzerainty by Bulgaria, the concert grace
fully accepted the fait accompli. When Crete revolted
and the Hellenic government intervened on behalf of
the rebels, the powers displayed at least a certain
willingness to consider the national ambitions of the
Greeks. And whenever the concert attempted to
pursue a more purely universalist course, its efforts
ended in failure. The powers proved to be unable to
modify at all seriously either the policy of Great Britain
in Egypt or of France in Tunis. Attempts to regulate
affairs by means of international commissions have been
almost notoriously unsuccessful. Nor has this truth
been ignored. The nations of Europe have apparently
realised with ever-increasing clarity that a universalist
regime can be maintained only by a certain admixture
of Individualism.
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 303
But not only is it true that the necessity for a certain
measure of compromise has thus been appreciated, it
is also true that the significance of extremes has tended
to be more clearly understood. When France under
Louis XIV entered upon a policy of aggressive external
Individualism, the other states of the continent were
slow to realise the meaning of that policy. Though
leagues were formed against her, they were both weak
and transitory. The Triple Alliance accomplished
little, and its members, if roused for a moment to a
sense of their danger, were easily lulled into a renewed
feeling of security. The League of Augsburg was
dissolved before its work was really accomplished.
Even William III, keen as was his appreciation of the
European situation, hardly understood at first the true
meaning of French policy. If the Partition Treaties
indicate his grasp of the fact that the peace of the con
tinent could be preserved only by making some con
cession to the external Individualism of France, they
indicate also that he failed to understand that a state,
resolved to gratify its desire to rule, cannot be held in
check by any treaty, unless it is clear that to break that
treaty is to court certain disaster.
And in their attitude towards the French Revolution,
the allies displayed an equal inability to understand the
situation with which they had to deal. They showed
themselves to be incapable of realising the supreme
necessity of sincere co-operation, if they were effectively
to resist the aggression of Napoleon, and successive
coalitions were wrecked upon the rock of mutual dis
trust, itself the outcome of a mal-appreciation of the
character of the struggle. It needed Jena and Wagram
and Moscow to bring Europe to a realisation of the ex
tremity of its danger. Indeed, paradoxical as it may
seem, it is almost true to say that of the causes of
304 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Napoleon's failure, his success was not the least
potent.
On the other hand, to-day the meaning of German ex
ternal Individualism has been far more readily grasped.
Even before that Individualism had actually developed
into positive aggression, the necessity of resistance to it
was realised, and appreciation of its inevitable outcome
appeared. The raison d'etre of the Triple Entente is
to be found only in an understanding that the prevalence
of the desire to rule in Germany constituted a menace
to the remainder of the continent. And when war at
last began, not only was the Entente speedily converted
into an alliance, but its members marked their sense
of the realities of the case by announcing their joint
determination to prosecute the struggle in common
until victory had been secured. It needed long experi
ence of the insatiable ambition of Napoleon to lead the
powers to frame a similar declaration at Chaumont;
at the present time, it needed no more than the mere
revelation of Germany's resolve to wage an aggressive
war. Nor has this accurate appreciation of 1 he situation
been confined to the Allies. Louis XIV and Napoleon
never attained to understanding of the forces against
which they had to contend. Germany fully attained
such understanding. She realised even before the
struggle had begun the certainty of the formation of a
coalition to resist her, and all the efforts of her diplomacy
and the whole conception of her strategy were directed
to counteract this particular danger.
It is, perhaps, possible to account to some extent
for this feature of the present situation by the fact that
to-day news is far more rapidly disseminated. In the
past, communications between state and state were
difficult and often defective. The action of a govern
ment was often rendered cautious by uncertainty as to
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 305
the policy of potential friends and enemies. Negotia
tions proceeded slowly; a war developed gradually as
its circumstances and character became gradually denned.
At the present day, all this has been changed. News
may be received from the most distant lands in the
space of a few hours. Views can be rapidly exchanged.
Hesitancy in a government is now rarely the result of
inadequate information as to the facts of a situation.
And there can be no reasonable doubt that improvement
in means of communication has greatly expedited the
progress of all international negotiations.
Nevertheless it may well be argued that the increased
rapidity with which decisions of policy tend to be
reached is not the result only of greater facilities for
the acquisition of information. The conduct both of
individuals and of states is frequently irrational, but
there is at least some colour for the suggestion that to
day it is on the whole less irrational than it was in the
past. The dominion of unreason over the mind of the
individual finds its most obvious expression in violence
of all kinds, in the adoption of extreme opinions and in
the performance of extreme actions. There is every
ground for believing that at the present day there is
a diminution of violence. The coarse language and the
brutal conduct of an eighteenth-century squire would
be almost impossible in the modern country gentleman.
Though crimes of violence still occur, they are less
common than they were a century ago, and this cannot
be attributed solely to the efficiency of the police. It
must be due in a measure to a greater exercise of reason,
since even if a man refrains from crime merely from
fear of punishment, the fact that he considered the
probability of retribution argues that he was not the
blind victim of his natural passions, that he has dis
played some self-restraint. Indeed, every decrease of
306 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
violence implies a decrease of irrationality; it indicates
that the individual man is a more rational being to-day
than were his ancestors a century ago.
But nations are aggregations of individuals. If, there
fore, there is an increase of rationality in each individual,
there will tend to be a similar increase of rationality in
the whole nation, and hence there arises a probability
that there will be a certain tendency towards the avoid
ance of extreme courses, both in internal and in external
politics. This tendency to moderation seems actually
to be present in modern times. Though reactions
and counter-reactions still occur, though the race still
oscillates between the gratification of Universalism and
that of Individualism, yet there does appear to be a
diminution of intensity in the conflict. It may be
admitted that violence is still a characteristic of internal
politics, and that violence of language has indeed
increased. But the most violent language is rarely
translated into action; revolutions and civil wars have
become less frequent; partisans, however embittered,
are content with the use of merely verbal weapons.
And if the external aspect of the conflict be considered,
a similar tendency towards greater moderation would
seem to be discoverable. Extreme Individualism has,
perhaps, always been regarded as impracticable; that
extreme Universalism which produced the conception
of an eternal and all-embracing empire has long been
abandoned. Even when the desire to be ruled has
achieved a temporary ascendancy, that ascendancy
has been constantly more limited. If in the opinion
of its most convinced supporters the function of the
Quadruple Alliance after the Congress of Vienna was to
dominate the continent, in actual fact its authority
was from the very first greatly impaired by the " insu
larity " of England and the crypto-liberalism of Russia.
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 307
The aspirations of the recent concert were far more
modest; it secured little more than the exercise of a
discreet and moderating influence over the lesser states,
since with the will to coerce it so clearly lacked the
power. And the champions of external Individualism
have been at pains to convince mankind of their detesta
tion of international anarchy, the logical outcome of
their own creed. They have denied or have excused
their disregard for the law of nations; they have
felt or pretended a certain willingness to defer to the
opinions of others. If the series of reactions has not
been interrupted, yet the devotees of the desire to be
ruled and the devotees of the desire to rule have alike
indicated their readiness to conciliate their opponents.
Nor are there lacking other arguments in favour of
the view that the eternal conflict is losing, and has
indeed already lost, something of its pristine intensity.
Of that conflict, war is the supreme expression. Almost
before one desire has attained supremacy, a reaction
towards the contrary desire begins. The violence of
that reaction is directly proportionate to the complete
ness of the ascendancy against which it is directed, and
when that ascendancy is as nearly as possible entire,
there is a probability, if not a certainty, that the attack
upon it will be so vigorous as to produce armed con
flict. Accordingly, from the frequency or infrequency
of war, the strength of the reaction and the degree to
which nations have proceeded to logical conclusions,
to extremes, may be gauged with comparative accuracy.
In the last three centuries wars have become less frequent ;
the percentage of years of peace has increased. More
than half the years of the seventeenth century were
years of war ; in the eighteenth century more than half
the years were years of peace. In the nineteenth century
the general peace of the continent was only disturbed
308 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
for the space of some twenty years. Between the death
of Louis XIV and the final overthrow of Napoleon,
there were more than thirty years of war; between the
final overthrow of Napoleon and the outbreak of the
War of the Triple Entente, only some ten. And if the
conflicts which have occurred in Europe during the last
hundred years be considered, it will be observed that
no one of them has assumed the character and dimensions
of a general war. It would obviously be unreasonable
to insist too much upon these facts. The violence of
conflict cannot be estimated solely from the space of
time for which it endures. It may very often be that a
brief war entails far more destruction and suffering,
and is marked by far greater bitterness, than one which
drags its weary course over a much longer period. But
in the absence of any conclusive evidence to the contrary,
the fact that the intervals of peace have increased in
duration creates at least a certain presumption in
favour of the view that the violence of the eternal
conflict has been diminished, that in the nature of man
kind a sensible modification has occurred.
And this presumption is perhaps supported by a
consideration of the present economic organisation of
the world and of the extent and character of modern
civilisation. In the Middle Ages, as soon as a reaction
against the original cosmopolitanism of that period had
begun, the generality of mankind held it to be axiomatic
that trade between lands owing a different political
allegiance was a practical impossibility. John, after
the French conquest of Normandy, permitted the almost
unrestrained continuance of commerce between England
and the lost province, and a clause in Magna Chart a
provides for the reasonable treatment of merchants
even if subjects of an enemy country. Such conduct,
however, was exceptional. The normal spirit of the
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 309
age is more accurately illustrated by the case of Edward
III, whose motive in embarking upon the Hundred
Years' War was largely due to his concern for the trade
with Aquitaine and Flanders. And at a later date
the conviction that all foreign states were economic
enemies was crystallised into a theory. It was the
assumption that the profit of one state could only be
the loss of another that formed the true basis of the
mercantile system.
At the present day, though there are some who incline
to believe that this assumption possesses at least a
substratum of truth, there are also many who hold it
to be entirely false. They assert that international
division of labour is as beneficial as internal division
of labour and condemn as pernicious all barriers against
the free exchange of the product of industry. Even
those who regard some restraint upon the economic
intercourse of nations as necessary, hardly go so far as
to declare that identity of political allegiance is a pre
requisite for such intercourse. Indeed, though the
sentiment of nationality is assuredly no weaker to-day
than it was in the past, though states are perhaps even
more jealous of their sovereign rights, it has been very
generally recognised that intimate economic relations
do not necessarily impair political independence, that
the prosperity of one country does not necessarily imply
the adversity even of its actual or potential enemies.
Nor is this increase of economic toleration seriously dis
counted by the fact that most states have adopted a
protective system. The intention of modern tariffs is
not to prevent, but merely to regulate, external trade;
their very existence may be regarded as indicative of the
increased volume of commerce and of clearer recognition
of the fact that no country can be wholly independent
of the products of other countries.
3io THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
But inasmuch as the ultimate spring of all human
activity, whether mental or physical, is to be found in
the conflict between the desire to be ruled and the desire
to rule, this modification of economic opinion argues a
certain modification in human nature. The extreme of
external Universalism would tend to produce complete
free trade ; the extreme of external Individualism would
tend to produce the cessation of all international trade.
To-day the world attempts rather to preserve the mean
between the two extremes, and thus into the eternal
conflict there has entered a measure of moderation.
Mankind appears to appreciate more accurately the evil
of excessive gratification of either of its two prevailing
desires, Universalism tends to be coloured by an admix
ture of Individualism; Individualism by an admixture
of Universalism.
A similar conclusion is suggested by a consideration of
the extent and character of modern civilisation. In the
last hundred years, in that period which has elapsed since
the end of the last general war, the area of the civilised
world has been vastly increased. Japan has entered the
comity of nations; North America and Australia have
been extensively colonised; Africa has been permeated
by the influence of the white races. Regions, then unex
plored, are now pierced by railways; once trackless
oceans are readily traversed; the whole surface of the
habitable globe has been mapped with approximate
accuracy. In the mid- Victorian era, the journey from
London to Cornwall was regarded as something of an
adventure; to-day the journey across the Atlantic is a
mere incident. San Francisco is now nearer England
than was the Riviera in the days of George III. All
nations have been brought into closer contact with one
another, and with the resultant increase of mutual
knowledge, a better mutual understanding has arisen.
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 311
The mere fact that civilisation is more widely diffused
suggests a probability that the bitterness of the secular
conflict will be diminished, since civilisation in its very
essence implies some restraint of passion and hence an
increased reluctance to proceed to the extreme gratifica
tion of desire.
Nor are grounds wanting for the belief that this
probable result has actually been produced. Of all the
activities of the mind, love and religion are those by
which man is most profoundly influenced. If, therefore,
he displays moderation in these two regards, it is hardly
disputable that he will probably display a similar or even
a greater moderation in all other regards. And there are
noteworthy indications that in love and in religion man
kind is more prone to avoid extremes. The days when
marriage was effected by rape or purchase have long
since passed away. The days of excessive parental
authority have also passed ; the control of husband over
wife has been limited by sentiment, and that sentiment
has secured expression in legislation. The tendency of
the age is in the direction of regarding marriage as a
contract between equals ; it is far less commonly held to
constitute any indissoluble bond. The efforts of man
kind have been directed to the discovery of a mean
between the rigidity of the canon law and that licence
which was advocated by the Hebertists or by the earlier
Anabaptists.
In the case of religion, the growth of moderation is
still more apparent. Men no longer believe that those
who differ from them in theological opinion should be
persecuted to the death; they hardly condemn them
even to social ostracism. It is no longer a recognised
maxim of statecraft that identity of allegiance should
necessarily involve identity of religious belief, or even
of publicly professed belief. There is a certain inclina-
312 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
tion to recognise the possible existence of a mean between
the absolute negation of God and the unquestioning
acceptance of dogmatic religion. Even the Roman
Church, the most conservative and unchanging of all
human institutions, has modified in practice, if not by
explicit admissions, her attitude towards various ques
tions. If the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals have not been
actually repudiated, they are no longer paraded. The
Papacy has silently allowed to fall into desuetude its
mediaeval claim to the lordship of the western world.
The famous Bull of Alexander VI would be impossible
of issue at the present day ; not merely is it certain that
no sovereign state would recognise the validity of such
an edict, but it is equally certain that no modern pope
would advance claims so extensive. Formerly, a rigid
insistence upon orthodoxy compelled the excommunica
tion of all heretic princes and the issue of commands for
their immediate deposition. To-day the Papacy pursues
a policy more akin to that of Innocent XI who assisted
to finance the expedition of William III. Benedict XVI
is in nowise reluctant to enter upon friendly diplomatic
intercourse with the Defender of the Faith, though that
ruler owes his position to the Act of Settlement and to
the explicit repudiation of the legitimate and Catholic
heir.
It is a curious and not entirely unimportant fact that
in the present crisis the Bavarian claim to the English
crown has not been raised. Germany has used every
effort to enlist the sympathy of any disaffected or
potentially disaffected elements in the British Empire.
Her agents have been active in Egypt and in India;
they have appealed to the extremists in Ireland and in
South Africa. They have not attempted to win over the
Catholics by urging them to support their co-religionist,
the legitimist claimant. In the past such an appeal
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 313
would in all probability have been an effective weapon ;
it would at least have caused some heartburning among
the loyal children of the Roman Church. That the
appeal was not made therefore suggests an increase of
moderation in Catholicism, and it suggests this the more
strongly since the failure to advance it cannot be reason
ably attributed to any peculiar insight into the minds of
English Catholics. German statesmen and diplomatists
have displayed an extraordinary incapacity for appre
ciating even the broadest characteristics of national
temperament in other lands; they confidently antici
pated an Indian mutiny, an Irish civil war and a Russian
revolution. The futility of urging the Bavarian claim
must have been indeed obvious for it to have been
realised at Berlin, and hence the increased political
moderation of the Roman Church must also be con
siderable.
And it is impossible to account for this indubitable
growth of moderation in the attitude of mankind towards
religion on the ground that the race has become coldly
indifferent. Nothing could be more untrue than the
assertion that the present age is more irreligious than
the last. It has been marked by exceptional eccle
siastical activity. Renewed vigour has been shown by
the older Churches. Missionary enterprise is general.
The Anglicans assert that the number of their com
municants has increased; the nonconformist bodies do
not deplore any decline in their strength. It is the
opinion of the most unprejudiced observers that in
France the anti-clerical movement which produced the
Separation Law has spent its force and that the Catholic
Church to-day is there more popular and more powerful
than it has been for many years. The frequent appear
ance of new sects indicates the continued interest of
mankind in the problems and perplexities of theology.
3i4 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
If the number of professed agnostics has increased, this
is no proof of indifference. A man inclines naturally
to adhere to that creed in which he has been born and
bred; if he is indifferent, he is unlikely to discard ex
plicitly the faith of his childhood. Deliberate profession
of agnosticism argues at least some thought upon the
principles and implications of revealed religion; in a
large number of cases, it is not improbably the result of
prolonged and even of painful debate.
There would, then, appear to be little ground for the
suggestion that the existent increase of religious modera
tion is the mere expression of religious indifference. It
is far more probably resultant from a growing distrust of
extremes. But it cannot be denied that in the past men
tended to gratify immoderately one or other of their two
dominant desires; it is really indisputable that such
tendency to excess has been most apparent in the
attitude of mankind towards religion. Of all types of
controversy, theological controversy has been the most
embittered and the most violent. Of all forms of
toleration, religious toleration has been most hardly
attained. Persecution for conscience' sake was almost
introduced into the world by the Christian hierarchy;
it has never assumed a more thorough and vindictive
character than when devised and carried out by saintly
ecclesiastics. If the race displays greater moderation
in its attitude towards religion, if in this particular aspect
the conflict has become less intense, then there is at least
considerable justification for the belief that human
nature has experienced a sensible and an important
modification.
It is, in short, permissible to suggest that in those
mental activities by which he is most profoundly moved,
man is displaying a greater conviction of the merit of
some intermingling of Universalism and Individualism.
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 315
There is a tendency to seek for some mean between that
view of marriage which was held by the mediaeval
canonists and that which was preached by the Ana
baptists of Miinster. There is a tendency to seek for
some mean between Catholicism and atheism. The
generality of mankind believes more implicitly that in the
middle path true happiness must be sought ; it displays
less incapacity for seizing and holding fast to the golden
mean. But if in its fundamental characteristics human
nature is not wholly immutable, if it is susceptible even
of the slightest modification, there is at once a presump
tion in favour of the opinion that to such modification
there is no assignable limit. A possibility arises that in
the life of each individual the conflict may become less
intense ; there is even a possibility that the conflict may
entirely cease. Nations, however, are aggregations of
individuals ; their conduct ultimately corresponds to the
conduct of every individual. It therefore follows that
there is also a possibility that the conflict in the life of
nations will cease; it is by no means certain that the
world will for all time continue to experience that series
of reactions and counter-reactions which have filled the
record of the past.
At first sight, indeed, the study of History clearly
suggests that the eternal conflict will continue in all its
intensity. It would appear to be certain that in the
future, as in the past, mankind will tend to hasten
rom one extreme to another, that the world will ever
waver between the exaggeration of Universalism and
the exaggeration of Individualism. The unwisdom of
humanity has hitherto been far more patent than its
wisdom; man's capacity for error is far more clearly
proven than is his capacity for right judgment. There
are innumerable instances of folly both in nations and
in individuals. The most earnest strivings of the race
316 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
have been constantly misdirected; they have been pro
ductive of no apparent results commensurate with the
energy expended, and the results produced have been as
often evil as good. A philosopher, contemplating the
long vista of past centuries, may well be impressed
rather by the essential littleness, than by the achieve
ments, of his fellow men. He may well permit himself
to smile at the futility of human endeavour or to mourn
over the calamitous results of human unreason. Since
the dawn of History, ability has been constantly misused.
Elaborate schemes have been formed and carried out,
only to reach the fruition of a foredoomed failure. Those
very institutions, upon the perfection of which most
effort has been exerted and in which men have taken
most pride, have not infrequently proved to be pernicious,
detrimental to the ultimate well-being of the race. The
wisdom of one age has only too often proved to be the
folly of the next.
It is little wonder that some are tempted to cry with
the prophet of old that they are no better than their
fathers. It is little wonder that some theologians have
pointed an apparently obvious moral, declaring that the
whole past history of the world conspires to justify those
who have asserted that the betterment of mankind can
occur only through the personal intervention of an
almighty God. It is still less surprising that many
should declare that out of the present evil times no
permanent good can come. Even those who admit that
the War of the Triple Entente must affect profoundly
the future of the world can see little hope of any sub
stantial advance towards better things. They may
anticipate some transitory respite from armed conflict,
some local advantages for themselves or for others.
They anticipate far more confidently a repetition of the
errors of the past. They are assured that a brief inter
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 317
lude of comparative happiness and calm will culminate
only in a renewal of turmoil and misery. For whether
the teaching of History as to the character of nations,
or its teaching as to the character of individuals, be re
garded, there seems to be abundant reason for the belief
that it is probable, that it is indeed certain, that the
eternal conflict will endure, its intensity undiminished.
And in this event men and nations alike will continue to
prosecute vainly the search for happiness, will continue
to gratify unwisely their desire to rule and their desire
to be ruled.
But it would be a fatal error for an historian to accept
without the closest investigation an apparent truth. It
is his primary duty to test all things, to bow to no
authority save that of his own intimate conviction. And
the record of the past affords abundant proof that the
superficially probable has constantly not occurred.
Nothing appeared to be more unlikely than that the
Swiss could resist successfully the power of the Habs-
burgs,or that the Dutch could carry their cause to victory
despite the strength of Spain. While the world yet
accepted the dogmatism of the Middle Ages, it seemed
improbable that the human intellect could be delivered
from thraldom, that there could ever be such intel
lectual activity as characterised the epoch of the
Renaissance and the Reformation. It was improbable
that the preaching of an obscure Augustinian could avail
to shake the mighty fabric of the Papacy and to imperil
the very existence of an ecclesiastical system, sanctioned
by centuries of acceptance, supported by the most
powerful interests, and but recently triumphant over a
movement which had commanded the assent of many
of the princes of the Church. It was improbable that the
rancour and bitterness of the so-called Wars of Religion
could culminate in the dawn of an era of even comparative
3i8 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
toleration. While France was yet ruled by Louis XV,
while her very sages and prophets were tainted by the
corrupting influence of the court and were ready to
prostitute their talents to the adulation of a worthless
king and of his effete associates, it might well have
seemed to be impossible that her sons should presently
arise and preach to the world a new gospel of political
liberty. In the face of these and of many other examples
of the frequency with which the improbable has occurred,
it would be unwise for an historian to assert that an
event will not have a particular outcome because that
outcome appears to be unlikely. For him to make any
such assertion would, indeed, be for him to display the
most crass ignorance of the very elements of his subject.
And thus an historian cannot with justice declare it to
be certain that the War of the Triple Entente will be
followed by results identical with, or even by results
similar to, those which have followed the general wars
of the past.
And if the history of mankind be more closely con
sidered, reason appears for the belief that any such
declaration would be indicative of ignorance of human
nature. Man is to-day, as man has always been, the
plaything of two dominant passions; he submits
alternately to the dominion of one or of the other.
Seeking for happiness and content, he tends to gratify
to excess either his desire to rule or his desire to be ruled.
His mind is the scene of a perpetual conflict, not the less
real because often unconscious. But while it is true
that this conflict has endured through all the. ages, since
man first became man, there are not wanting indications
that its character has not remained as constant as might
be supposed. There are grounds for the belief that
human nature has been modified, and hence is susceptible
of further modification. If a greater appreciation of the
WAR OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 319
evil of extremes, and a consequent increased readiness to
consider different points of view, be a good, then there
is ground for believing that the modification has been
for the better. History has always been a record of
ceaseless oscillation, but it would seem that this oscilla
tion has grown less violent. There has been an increas
ing tendency for the pendulum of human thought to
come to rest at some point midway between the extremes
of Universalism and Individualism.
In the past the appearance of such a tendency has
proved to be merely the prelude to more violent oscilla
tion. It may be that herein lies the true explanation of
this apparent tendency to-day. But it may be that the
pendulum is indeed coming at last to rest. It may be
that the long conflict is at last drawing to its close. It
may be that we who now live are destined to witness
the final cessation of that weary quest which has occupied
the race since the dawn of History, a cessation due, not
to the abandonment of hope, but to the glad attainment
of the long-sought goal.
The value of History lies most truly in the fact that
through its medium alone can man lift even the veriest
corner of that dark veil which hides the future from our
eyes. Theologians, astrologers, all who in sincerity or
fraud profess to be able to reveal the destiny of mankind,
are but idle speculators. Men may prophesy, but their
words are vain and idle, unless they are inspired by the
light which comes from true understanding of the past.
All men may guess ; the historian alone can know. His
mission, therefore, is lofty; it is sacred, not lightly to be
undertaken. For its due fulfilment, care and patience,
sincerity and zeal, are needed, freedom from prejudice
and from the tyranny of preconceptions. And at no
time were these qualities more needed than they are
to-day. The world is in travail; the pangs of birth
320 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
afflict humanity, and the desire of nations is to know
what shall be brought forth. The historian alone can
approach to an answer of this question; to answer it is
his highest privilege, his noblest function. If he answers
carelessly, if he permits his judgment to be clouded by
his private longings, by pessimism or by optimism, he
commits a crime against his kind, he sins against the
light of reason. He must beware of dogmatism; he
must hesitate lest by haste he plunges some into despair
or buoys up any with vain hopes. And hence, if he
deals faithfully and truthfully with his present task, he
must declare this message to the world; that though
History seems to teach that the War of the Triple
Entente will end in the mere repetition of those errors
by which man has been distressed and perplexed in the
past, yet it does not teach this so clearly as to preclude
the possibility that the War will end in the dawn of a new
era, in which the race will be delivered from the dominion
of unreason and, triumphing at last in its search for
happiness, enter upon a bright age of peace and goodwill.
INDEX
AACHEN, coronations at, 79
Abdul Hamid II, sultan of Turkey,
43
Abraham Lincoln, quoted, 10, 210
Achaean League, the, individualist
resistance to, 63
Acte Additional, the, individualist
character of, 240
Adriatic Sea. the, 215, 265, 275
jfUgean Isles, question of the, 265,
275
Africa, 310; Roman province of, 68
Agilulf, king of the Lombards, 70
Agnosticism, an expression of Indi
vidualism, 20-21, 30; per
manence of, 196; no proof of
irreligion, 313, 314
Aistulf, king of the Lombards, 71
Aix-la-Chapelle, conference and
treaty of (1748), 177, 178, 179
Albania, kingdom of, 265, 275
Alberoni, Cardinal, Spanish states
man, 176, 301
Albigenses, the, individualist
character of, 93, 105, 120
Alexander the Great, 60, 63;
successors of, 7
Alexander VI, pope, in, 124;
Bull of, 312
Alexander I, Tsar, 44, 238, 245
Alfred the Great, 286
Algiers, expedition of Charles V
against, 133
America, North, 179, 311
American Independence, War of,
192, 206
Amphictyonic Council, the, an
expression of Universalism, 60
Anabaptists, the, Individualism of,
128, 129, 311, 315
Anarchy, the extreme of Indivi
dualism, 37, 276, 277
Anastasius I, Byzantine emperor,
67, 68
Ancona, Pius II at, 114, 130
Angevins, the, 269, 277
Anglicanism, illogical character of,
21 ; independence of, 268, 269 ;
continued success of, 21, 313.
(Cp. Religion, etc.)
Anglo- Japanese Alliance, the, 278
Anglo-Saxons, the, Individualism
of, 267-269
Antalcidas, Peace of, 41,
Anthemius, Roman emperor, 68
Antonines, age of the, 7, 61
Apprentices, Act of, 40
Aquitaine, 67, 73, 74, 309
Aragon, 117. (Cp. Spain)
Arbitration, idea of international,
universalist, 36, 37
Argos, Individualism of, 63
Arianism, 65, 71
Anstides, 2
Aristotle, internal Universalism of,
59, 64, 125
Armada, the Spanish, 2
Armagnacs, the, 117
" Armorican " Republic, the, 69
Arnold of Brescia, Individualism
of, 92, 93
Arnulf, king of Germany, 77
Article XIII of the constitution of
the Germanic Confederation,
240
Asceticism, importance of, in early
Middle Ages, 65, 66
Asia Minor, 59 ; pillar saints of, 66
Athanasius, persecution of, 65
Athaulf, king of the Visigoths, 67
Athens, individualist resistance to,
63
Augsburg Confession, the, 151
Augustus, Roman emperor, 73
Austerlitz, battle of, 230
Australia, 310
Austria, Universalism and Indi
vidualism in, 170, 171, 177-
181, 188, 189, 200, 207, 212,
227, 230-239, 244, 246, 251-
261, 292, 293
Austrian Succession, War of, 176-
178
Auvergne, autonomous state in, 69
321
322 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Avignon, residence of the popes at,
44, 103, 104, 109
" Babylonish Captivity " of the
popes, 103-105, in, 114
Balance of Power, theory of, basis
of a theory of external Uni-
versalism, 160, 161, 289; in
the Grand Alliance, 170-172;
in Treaty of Utrecht, 173, 174 ;
difficulty of maintaining, 179-
182, 206-208; relation of the
coalitions to, 228; 230, 232,
236
Balkans, the, 44, 276, 302 ; Balkan
League, 264, 265, 275
Balkan Wars, the, 264, 265, 275,
287
Baltic Fleet, the Russian, case of,
275
Baltic Provinces, the, 147
Basle, Council of, in, 112
Basle, Treaty of, 228, 230
Basques, the, Universalism and
Individualism of, 184, 188, 252
Bavaria, 73, 74, 292; electoral
prince of, 171; claim of, to
England, 312, 313
Becket, Thomas, 40
Belgium, revolution in, 208, 233,
240; independence of, 247,
248, 252; violation of, 291.
(Cp. Netherlands)
Belisarius, Byzantine general, 68
Benedict XVI, pope, 312
Beneventum, duchy of, indivi
dualist character of, 73
Benevolent Despotism, theory of,
relation to Universalism, 191-
195, 265
Berlin, Congress of, 263, 276, 285,
302
Bertha, wife of Ethelbert of Kent,
269
Bertrand de Born, the younger, 105
Black Sea, the, 257
Bohemia, Individualism in, 106,
113, 115, 146. (Cp. Hussites)
Bonap ar tism, creed of , univer salist ,
226
Boniface VIII, pope, 103, 109, no,
ii2, 115, 148, 155, 158
Boso, king of Provence, Individual
ism of, 116
Bourbons, the, individualist prior
to their accession, 142 ; gener
ally internally uniyersalist
and externally individualist,
41-43, 179, 187, 225, 292; not
benevolent despots, 193, 213,
246, 248, 252; of Spain, 215
Brabant, county of, 165
Brandenburg, externally indivi
dualist and internally uni-
versalist, 117, 153, 259. (Cp.
Prussia)
Brienne, Cardinal Lomenie de,
French financier, 209
Britain, conversion of, aided exter
nal Universalism, 75
Bukarest, Treaty of (1914), 265
Bulgaria, Individualism of, 302
Burgundy, county and duchy of,
evidence of Universalism, 115-
117
Cabochins, the, Individualism of,
118
Calvin, John, reformer; Univer
salism of, 18; less consistent
than Luther, 124, 125; more
universalist than Luther, 124,
125; gave the Reformation
its more positive form, 132-
133; intolerance of, 288
Calvinism, as dogmatic as Catho
licism, 18, 20, 288; the posi
tive form of Protestantism,
132, 133; political theory of,
127-129, 140; favoured in
ternal Individualism in Ger
many, 146; permanence of, in
Germany, 150; existence of,
not essential to Protestantism,
151; 138. (Cp. Huguenots,
Protestantism, Reformation)
Cambrai, League of, 168
Campagna, the, 80
Capetians, the, 83, 85, 100, 101
Caracalla, Roman emperor, edict
of, 60, 64
Carbonari, the, Individualism of,
251
Carlsbad Decrees, the, a univer
salist triumph, 243
Carolingians,the,72, 75; empireof,
100. (Cp. Charles the Great)
Casimir-Perier, Jean Paul, French
statesman, moderate Indi
vidualism of, 246, 247
INDEX
323
Castile, 117. (Cp. Spain)
Catalonia, Individualism of, 184,
187
Catherine II., Tsarina, external
Individualism and internal
Universalism of, 181, 188, 192,
194, 201, 207, 233
Catherine de Medici, queen of
France, Universalism of, 143
Catholicism, an expression of Uni
versalism, i 8, 19, 30; does
not depend on Papacy for
existence, 151, 152; perman
ence of, 151, 152, 196; in
crease of toleration in, 288.
(Cp. Church, Papacy)
Catholic League, the, in France,
157; in Germany, 145, 146
Chalcedon, Council of, 107
Chambers of Reunion, the, 167,
168, 214
Charbonerie, the, Individualism of,
251
Charles the Great, emperor, Uni
versalism of, 72-76, 80-83, 99,
100, 133, 134, 153, 215, 225,
295; empire of, 74, 75, 81,
225, 295
Charles the Bald, emperor, Uni-
versalism of, 75
Charles III, the Fat, emperor, 75,
82, 83, 116
Charles V, emperor, Universalism j
of, 134-136, 158, 161, 187, 295 '
Charles VI, emperor, Universalism
of, 172, 177, 187
Charles the Bold, duke of Bur
gundy, mingled Universalism
and Individualism of, 115, 116
Charles VII, king of France, 118
Charles IX, king of France, 143
Charles X, king of France, 246,
247, 252
Charles II, king of Spain, 166, 170,
171
Charles III, king of Spain, 188, 192,
194
Charles IV, king of Spain, 215
Charles Felix, king of Sardinia,
243
Chateaubriand, Francois Rene,
vicomte, French statesman
and author, leader of the
Romantic Movement, 237
Chaumont, Treaty of, 236, 250,
262, 304. (Cp. Quadruple
Alliance)
China, empress-dowager of, 43
Chlodoyech, king of the Franks,
universalist, 67, TOO
Christian Commonwealth, idea of
nations as a, an expression of
external Universalism, 44, 46;
prevalent in the Middle Ages,
35, 40, 44, 81, 82, 98, 100, 159,
161, 296, 300; advocated by
the Church under the Roman
Empire, 50, 61, 62; emperor
claims headship of, 62, 66, 68,
7o-77, 78-81, 102, 108, 109,
113, 114; pope claims head
ship of, 70-77, 92, 102-104,
109 ; pope ceases to be regard
ed as head of, 111-113; cos
mopolitanism of, 105 ; ascend
ancy of idea, weakened by
quarrel of empire and Papacy,
76-78, 87, 88; emphasised by
the Crusades, 88, 89; not
destroyed by fall of Hohen-
staufen, 98; degraded for
political purposes, 100; im
paired by vices of popes, 103-
107; threatened by heretics,
104-106, and by nationalism,
104-106,112,115; apparently
revived at Constance, 108;
attitude of Renaissance to
wards, 122; impaired, but
survived the Reformation,
130, 152; rejected by Charles
V, 133; new idea of, put for
ward by Charles V and Philip
II, 133-136; destroyed at
Westphalia, 148, 150, 154-156,
182; not the basis of later
external Universalism, 161,
182; does not appear in the
Napoleonic empire, 225 ; ac
cepted by Richard I and John
in England, 269
Christianity, see Religion
Christina, queen of Sweden, Uni
versalism of, 149
Christina, queen-regent of Spain,
246
Church, the Christian, universalist
character of, 18-20, 50, 288,
312; opposed to Individual
ism, 197-199; extra - terri-
324 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
tprial character of, 78; some
times assists Individualism,
52,65,66; political theory of,
under Roman Empire, 61, 62,
71-73; converted Roman
Empire into a veiled theo
cracy, 61; assisted to preserve
external Universalism in
Middle Ages, 75-77; import
ance of missionary success of,
75, 76; decline of prestige,
owing to quarrel of empire
and Papacy, 100; corruption
of, in Middle Ages, 93, 94; in
eighteenth century, 197-199;
effect of Friar movement on,
93-96, of Conciliar movement
on, 106-113; attitude of
Renaissance towards, 121-
124; attacks of Voltaire and
Rousseau on, 202-204; as
sociation of, with monarchy,
204; French Revolution and,
218-221; Napoleon and, 223,
226; revival of, after fall of
Napoleon, 236, 237; increas
ing toleration of, 312-314.
(Cp. Catholicism, Papacy, Re
formation, etc.)
Civil Constitution of the Clergy,
the, individualist character of,
219
Claremont, Council of, 88
Clement VII, pope, 104
Clement XIV, pope, 200, 201
Colbert, Jean Baptiste, French
statesman, 157, 184, 186
Coligny, Admiral, Huguenot
leader, 143
Colonna, the, family of, 103
Communards, the, Individualism
of, 262
Communion in One Kind, doctrine
of, expression of Universalism,
106, 113
Compensation, theory of, relation
to external Universalism, 163,
164, 295; difficulties of, 179-
181; effect on smaller states,
181, 182
Comuneros, the, revolt of, 131
Concert of Europe, the, character
of Universalism of, 44, 264,
265, 285-287, 302, 307
Conciliar Movement, the, attempt
to revive Universalism, 106-
108, iu-112, 123
Concordat, the, of Napoleon, Uni
versalism of, 222, 223, 226
Constance, Council of, unreal
revival of Universalism at,
108-115
Constantine the Great, Roman
emperor, 7, 65, 99; " Dona
tion of," 92
Constantine VI, Byzantine em
peror, 71, 73
Constantinople, emperors of, 68-
71; fall of, 120, 122, 129
Constantius II, Roman emperor,
6.5
Constitution, French, of 1791,
Individualism of, 209, 213,
217,268; of 1793, Individual
ism of, 217, 221; of the Year
III (Directory), Universal
ism of, 221, 222; of the Year
VIII (Consulate), Univer
salism of, 222,223
Constitution, Spanish (1812), In
dividualism of, 235, 243;
(1833), 246
Cosmopolitanism, relation of, to
Universalism, 34; of the
Church, 78
Council of Ten, in Venice, Uni
versalism of, 117, 189
Councils, General, of the Church,
106-108
Counter- Reformation, the, Uni
versalism of, 20, 124, 137-141,
151,226. (Cp. Jesuits, Refor
mation)
Crete, 302
Crimean War, the, effect upon
Universalism, 257, 258, 260
Crusades, the, an expression of
Universalism, 88-90; the first,
88; later, 88-90; the fourth,
88-89; of Frederic II, 89;
cause of end of, 89, 90, 159;
against the Albigenses, 93;
attempted, of Pius II, 114, 130
Cujus regie, ejus religio, doctrine of
individualist, 154
Czechs, the, Individualism of, 113,
I2O
Czernowitz, Conference of, 245
Dante, Universalism and acci-
INDEX
325
dental Individualism of, 102, \
119, 120
Danton, Georges, French revolu
tionary, 210
Dardanelles, the, 275
Darius, king of Persia, 63
Decazes, Due de, French states- !
man, 249
DeCivitate Dei,oi St. Augustine, 66
Defoe, Daniel, 9
De Jure belli et Pacis, of Grotius, '
149, 159, 160
DC Monarchia, of Dante, 102, 119,
120
Desire to be ruled, the, see
Universalism
Desire to rule, the, see Indi- \
vidualism
Devolution, theory of, 165
De Vulgari Eloquentia, of Dante,
120
Diderot, Denis, French savant, 202
Diocletian, Roman emperor, 7, 61
Diplomatic Revolution, the, ex
pression of Individualism, |
178, 179
Directory, the, in France, t niver-
salism of, 221, 222
Divina Comedia, of Dante, 120
Divine Right, Theory of, expres
sion of Universalism, 129, 190
Dominicans, the, 95
Dominus et Redemptor, Bull, 200
Don Carlos, claimant to Spanish
throne, 252
Dual Alliance, the, indication of
Individualism, 286
Dualism, in Austria-Hungary,
mingling of Universalism and
Individualism in, 260, 261
Dutch Republic, Universalism and
Individualism in, 40, 41, 136,
142, 144, 149, 152, 154, 162,
166, 170-175, 189, 206, 207,
247, 250, 317. (Cp. Nether
lands)
Eastern Question, the, 44, 238, 263,
264
Eastern Rumelia, 302
Edict of Restitution, the, 146
Education Acts, in England, 280
Edward I, king of England, 13
Edward III, king of England, 13,
309
Egmont, Count, Flemish patriot,
144
Egypt, ancient, 59; modern, 251,
302 ; hermits of, 66
Elagabalus, Roman emperor, 61
Elba, return of Napoleon from, 238
Electors, ecclesiastical, in Holy
Roman Empire, importance
of, 86
Elizabeth, queen of England, 13,
40, 136
Emperor, deihcation of, an expres
sion of Universalism, 60, 61
Emperor, Holy Roman, exponent
of Universalism, 35 ; claimed
headship of Christian Com
monwealth, 62, 67, 68, 70-81,
100, 102, 108, 109, 113, 114;
weakness of, 79, 8q, 83-85, 96,
97, 245 ; quarrel with Papacy,
76-78, 87, 88; anti-emperors
created, 86; fail to maintain
anti-popes, 87; territorialism
of later, 102. (Cp. Holy
Roman Empire)
Encyclopaedists, the French, Indi
vidualism of, 202
England, Uiiiversalism and Indi
vidualism in, 267-274, 277-
282 ; character of history of,
267, 268; tendencies of mod
ern, 277-282; 7, 32, 40, 44,
78, 83, 103, 109, 140, 142, 158,
r6g, 175, 179, 199, 206, 207,
227, 231, 233, 236, 238, 239,
244, 247, 248, 250, 251, 256,
257, 288, 289, 293, 294, 302,
306
English Revolution, the, 42, 271,
277, 286
Epicureans, the, promote Univer
salism, 64
Erasmus, Desiderius, scholar,
moderate Individualism of,
123, 124
Ethelbert, king of Kent, 269
Eugenius IV, pope, 112, 113
Factory Acts, the, in England, 40
Fathers, the Early, 122, 125
Feast of Reason, the, an expres
sion of Individualism, 220, 221
Female Suffrage, militant agita
tion for, individualist, 279
Ferdinand I, emperor, 134
326 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Ferdinand II, emperor, Univer
salism of, 145, 146
Ferdinand the Catholic, king of
Spain, 117, 131, 168
Ferdinand, king of Naples, 243
Festival of the Supreme Being, an
expression of Universalism,
221, 224
Feudalism, an expression of Indi
vidualism, 81, 82, 97, 98; an
attitude of mind, 81 ; served to
protect smaller states, 180,
181
Filioque Clause, the, 105
Flanders, cities of, 117, 309
Florence, republic of, 117, 131
France, Universalism and Indi
vidualism in, 7, 32, 33, 41, 42,
75, 78, 93, 98, 100-103, 117,
118, 127, 130, 142-144, 149,
150, 152, 157-167, 175-179,
183-188, 193, 200, 2O2, 2O6,
208-240, 244, 246-251, 253-
255, 258-262, 268, 269, 276,
277, 284, 288-295, 302-304,
308, 313, 317, 318. (Cp.
French Revolution)
Francis I, king of France, 127
Franciscans, the, 95
Francis Joseph, emperor of
Austria, 256
Franco- Prussian War, zenith of
Individualism in, 261, 264,
272 ; universalist reaction
after, 261, 264
Frankfort Parliament, the, an
expression of Individualism,
254
Franks, the, 67, 69, 70
Frederic I, Barbarossa, emperor,
Universalism of, 41, 44, 84, 86,
133
Frederic II, emperor, a typical
Universalist, 84, 86-90, 102,
103, 108, 115, 148, 155
Frederic III, emperor, Individual
ism of, 114-116, 130
Frederic, elector palatine, 146
Frederic II, the Great, king of
Prussia, internal Universal
ism and external Individual
ism of, 177-179, 188, 191-193,
201, 206, 265
Frederic William, of Brandenburg,
the Great Elector, 188
Frederic William I, king of
Prussia, 188
Frederic William IV, king of
Prussia, Individualism of, 256
Freemasons, the, Individualism of,
in Spain, 251
French Revolution, the, the epi
tome of History, 227; com
plexity of, 209-211; an ex
pression of the conflict be
tween Universalism and Indi
vidualism, 211-212; not only
directed to secure liberty, 209,
or centralisation, 209, or to
remove abuses, 210; not a
rising of masses against
classes, 210; not a mere poli
tical movement, 210; dual
aspect of, 223-225; spirit of,
illustrated by Robespierre and
Napoleon, 223-226; not an
isolated event, 227; internal
Individualism in, 239; left an
aftermath of violence, 240;
inculcated evils of anarchy,
240; 32,33,42,182,185,187,
189, 201, 206, 208, 241, 242,
246, 251, 252, 258, 259, 267,
288,303,318
Friars, the, importance of, 93-96;
cosmopolitanism of, 94, 95;
doctrine of apostolic poverty,
94-96, 123; observant, 94, 95
Fronde, the, expression of Indi
vidualism, 149, 157, 185
Furstenbund, the, resistance to
Universalism, 206
Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, Indi
vidualism of, 67
Galileo, condemnation of, 198
Gallo-Romans, position of, 67
Gaul, Roman province of, 68, 83
Geneva, Church of, 20, 132, 288
George William, elector of Bran
denburg, Individualism of, 146
Germany, Universalism and Indi
vidualism in (the old empire),
7, 75, 77, 80, 100, 102, 116,
117, 128, 133, 140, 142, 145-
148, 150, 154, 183, 206, 214,
215, 232; (Germanic Con
federation), 240, 243, 252-255,
259, 285; (modern German
Empire), 261, 263, 267, 276,
INDEX
327
285, 291-293, 295-297, 304,
312, 313; princes of, 84-87,
153,292; students in, 242,243
Gibbon, Edward, quoted, 16
Girondists, the, 213
Gladstone, W. E., statesman, 2
Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of first
Crusade, 89
Granada, conquest of, 117
Grand Alliance, the, resists ex
treme Individualism of Louis
XIV, 171-173, 289, 292, 296, |
29?
Great Britain, see England.
Great Interregnum, the, in the j
Empire, 87, 102
Great Rebellion, the, in England, j
271, 277
Great Schism, the, in the Papacy, |
44, 104, 105, 108, 114
Greece (ancient), 7, 41, 122;
(modern), 245, 246, 250, 252,
275, 302; political theories of |
ancient, 59, 60; city states of j
ancient, 60, 190
Gregory I, the Great, pope, 70
Gregory VII (Hildebrand), pope, |
79, 102
Gregory IX, pope, 102
Gregory XI, pope, 104
Grotius, Hugo, Dutch thinker, !
supplies basis for new Univer- j
salism, 149, 159, 160, 182
Guises, the, family of, individual- j
ists, 142, 143
Guizot, Francois Pierre, French j
statesman, 246
Gunthar, king of the Burgundians, !
67
Gustavus III, king of Sweden, j
Universalism of, 56, 189, 208 j
Gustavus Adolphus, king of
Sweden, Individualism of,
147, 150
Habsburgs, the, external Indi
vidualism of, 109, 130, 172,
179,255; external Universal-
ism of, 133, 134, 212, 230; in
ternal Universalism of, 146,
157, 184, 188, 189, 193, 234,
253, 260; 41, 127, 164, 312;
of Spain, 169
Hague Conference, the, of Nicholas
II, 264, 287
Hague Tribunal, the, an expres
sion of Universalism, 35, 272,
274
Hanseatic Towns, the, 102
Hebertists, the, Individualism of,
221, 311
Henry III, emperor, 86, 87
Henry IV, emperor, 86, 102
Henry VI, emperor, 269
Henry VII, emperor, 102
Henry II, king of England, 44, 99
Henry IV, king of England, 13
Henry VI, king of England, 270
Henry VIII, king of England, 13,
40
Henry II, king of France, 127
Henry IV, king of France, 157, 185
Henry the Fowler, king of Ger
many, 77
Heresy, an expression of Indivi
dualism, 105-106; relation to
nationalisnij ibid.
Historian, function and necessary
qualities of, i, 4, 273, 274, 299,
300, 317-320
History, the record of conflict be
tween Universalism and Indi
vidualism, ii, 31-38, 39-57,
284-286, 297-300, 315-317
and passim ; the explanatory
factor of, thisconflict, 5, 31-38,
268 and passim ; meaning of,
1-5 ; theories of, optimistic,
6-8, 298-300; pessimistic, 8-
10; conflict of progress and
reaction, 11-14; continuity
of, 3, 4; importance of the
human element in, 10, 15-31
and passim ; complexity of,
35, 54, 55 ; will be a record of
conflict as long as it endures,
281-283, 317-320; prevalence
of fictions in, 286-287; the
French Revolution the epi
tome of, 226, 227
Hobbes, Thomas, 45
Hohenstaufen, the, emperors, Uni
versalism of, 85-92, 109, no,
158
Hohenzollerns, the, external Uni
versalism of, 213
Holland, 145, 189. (Cp. Dutch
Republic, Netherlands)
Holy Alliance, the, abortive Uni
versalism of, 238, 264
328 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Holy Roman Empire, the, put-
come of external Universalism,
71-73; creation of, 72, 73;
revival of, by Otto, 77; quar
rel of, with Papacy, 78 et seq.,
119; weakness of, 83-85;
effect of fall of Hohenstaufen
on, 87,88; effect of weakness
on other states, 99, 100; effect
of decline of, in Germany, 102 ;
attempted revival of, by Sigis-
mund, 108, 109, 114; under
Frederic III, 114, 134; really
ends with Frederic II, 115,
148 ; under Maximilian 1, 134 ;
under Charles V, 133, 134;
effect of Westphalia on, 148,
153, 154; formal ^nd of, 228;
50, 52, 180, 181, 206, 259, 268,
286
Home Rule, character of opposi
tion to, 279
Hubertsburg, Treaty of, 179
Hugh Capet, king of France, 100
Huguenots, the, Individualism of,
127,142-144,157,186; politi
cal theories of, 127-129, 190,
191; effect of the Great Dis
coveries on, 142. (Cp. Cal
vinism, Protestantism)
Hundred Days, the, 238
Hundred Years' War, the, 118,
269, 270, 289, 309
Hungary, Individualism in, 115,
189, 255, 256, 260, 261. (Cp.
Magyars)
Hunold, duke of Aquitaine, Indi
vidualism of, 74
Hus, John, reformer, Individualism
of, 90, 106, 113
Hussites, the, Individualism and
nationalism of, 106, 120;
concessions to, 113
Iberian Peninsula, see Spain
Iconoclastic Controversy, the, 71
Ignatius Loyola, St., founder of
the Jesuits, 218
Illyrian Provinces, the, 215, 225
India, 179, 313
INDIVIDUALISM : the desire to
rule : explanation of the term,
36
In general : in religion, 19 et seq.,
311-315; in love, 23 et seq.,
311-315; conflict of, with
Universalism in the life of
the individual, 25 et seq. ; not
peculiar to religion and love,
28; dual aspect of the con
flict in the life of the indi
vidual, 29-30; conflict largely
sub-conscious, 30 ; conflict of,
with Universalism in the life
of the nation, 31 et seq. ; re
action for or against may be
insensible or rapid, 32; con
flict is eternal, 32 et seq. ;
part of human nature, ibid. ;
supplies the factor explana
tory of History, 33, 285; has
a dual character, 32-33; ex
ternal aspect of, 37; internal
aspect of, 37; anarchy, logical
extreme of, 37-38; com
plexity of the conflict of,
with Universalism, 39 et seq. ;
feneral character of the con-
ict of, with Universalism, 39
et seq. ; tendency to complete
ascendancy of, 41-42; rela
tionship of, with patriotism,
43; arguments in favour of,
45 et seq. ; arguments against,
45 et seq. ; permanent factors
in conflict of, with Univer
salism, 48 et seq. ; relation
ship of, with institutions, 48-
49 ; complex action of factors
favouring, 52 et seq. ; rela
tionship of commerce with,
54; cause of complexity of
conflict of, with Universah'sm,
54-55; no immutable course
for the conflict, 55 ; probable
normal course of the conflict,
55-59 ! French Revolution
an expression of this conflict,
211-212; intensity of the
conflict during the period of
the French Revolution, 211-
212; dogmaticreligion essenti
ally hostile to, 219-220; con
flict part of human nature and
must continue while human
nature is unchanged, 273,
296-298
Prior to the coronation of Charles
the Great, 58-73
In general : conflict with
INDEX
329
Individualism — continued
Universalism existent, but
not apparent in earliest times,
58-59; defined after Univer
salism, 58; slow development
of, 64
External : prevalence of, in
ancient Greece, 60, 62-63;
impaired by victories of Rome,
60; by Christianity, 61-62;
not assisted by barbarian
invasions, 66-68; or by de
cline of the Roman Empire,
68-69; opposed by growth of
papal power, 70 et seq. ; not
assisted by unsurpation of
Irene, 71-73; or by creation
of Holy Roman Empire,
72-73
Internal : existent in ancient
Greece, 63-64; opposed by
Greek philosophers, ibid. ;
slight progressof .underRoman
Empire, 64; preparation for,
under Roman Empire, 65-66;
progress of, after barbarian
invasions, 69; in barbarian
kingdoms, 69-70
From the coronation of Charles
to the fall of the Hohenstaufen,
74-90
External : slow develop
ment of, after creation of
Holy Roman Empire, 75 et
seq. : definition of, partly
due to Papacy, 76 et seq. ;
assisted by incompetence of
emperors, 77 et seq. ; reaction
in favour of, after Otto the
Great, 78; relation of feudal
ism to, 81-82; beginning of
conflict of, with Holy Roman
Empire, 82-83; reason for
absence of conflict of, with
Papacy, 83 ; supports Papacy
against the Empire, 83;
growth of, in France, 83; in
Italy and Germany, 83-87; of
the Italian cities, 84; assisted
by quarrel of Papacy and
Empire, 87-90
Internal : prevalent after
Charles the Great, 74; in
conflict with the Holy Roman
Empire, 80 et seq. ; effect of
the Saracens and Northmen
on, 81; relation of feudalism
to, 81-82; growth of, in
Germany, 84-85
From the Jail of the Hohenstaufen
to the Peace of Westphalia,
91-149
External : allied with the
Papacy against the Empire,
91-92; opposed to Papacy
after fall of Hohenstaufen,
92; advocated by Arnold of
Brescia, 92-93; assisted by
Albigenses, 93 ; indirectly
assisted by the Friars, 93-96;
growth of, after fall of Hohen
staufen, 96; assisted by dis
organisation of civil society,
97; effect of, on mediaeval
France, 101 ; influence of
difficulty of communication
on, 101 ; retards development
of national states, 101 ; marks
the policy of later mediaeval
popes and emperors, 101-
102; causes failure of Boni
face VIII, 103; encouraged
by the " Babylonish Cap
tivity " and Great Schism,
104-105; relation of nation
alism and heresy to, 105;
Hussite movement an expres
sion of, 1 06; assisted by
Conciliar Movement, 107-108,
and by its failure, 112-113;
progress of, after Constance,
114; real victory of, at Con
stance, 115; influence of, on
internal Individualism, 117,
118; progress of, aided by
independence of thought, 119,
by Dante, 119-120, and nega
tively by " First " Renais
sance, 120; expressed in the
later Renaissance, 119, 120
et seq. ; advocated in spiritual
matters, 124 ; of Reformation,
126, 128 et seq. ; appears in
most movements of Reforma
tion period, 129-130; causes
failure of Charles V, 135, of
Philip II, 135-137; promoted
by disorder in the Church,
137; influence of Great Dis
coveries on, 141-142; in
330 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Individualism — continued
Dutch Republic, 144-145; in j
Thirty Years' War, 146-149; ;
of Gustavus Adolphus, 147; :
triumph of, at Westphalia, 149 j
Internal : assisted by ex- j
ternal Universalism, 96-97;
effect of difficulty of commu
nication on, 101 ; of Charles
the Bold, 115; continuance
in later Middle Ages, 116 et
seq. ; assisted by external
Individualism in later Middle
Ages, 117; decline of, in
France after Hundred Years'
War, 118; not really extin
guished by Louis XI, 118-119;
negatively assistedby" First "
Renaissance, 120; expressed
in the later Renaissance, 119,
120 et seq.; of Reformation,
126, 128 et seq. ; in Social Con
tract theory, 129; prevalence
of.during Reformation period,
130-131; opposed to Charles
V, 133-135, to Philip II, 135-
137; used by the Jesuits, 140;
decline and revival of, 141 et
stq.; influence of Great Dis
coveries on, 141-142; Wars of
Religion an expression of,
142 etseq.; of Huguenots, 143-
144; in Dutch Republic, 144-
145; in Thirty Years' War,
146-149; disappearance of
mediaeval type of, at Peace of
Westphalia, 148
From the Peace of Westphalia to
the French Revolution, 150-208
External : Protestantism
an expression of, 151-153;
victory of Protestantism a
victory for, 152; of the Ger
man princes, 153; of the cen
tralised monarchies, 155; war
the most extreme expression
of, 155; of France under
Louis XIV, 157-158; im
possibility of continued supre
macy of, 160; share of, in
leading to resistance to Louis
XIV, 160; international law
intended to limit, 160-161;
balance of power intended to
limit, 161-162; extreme of,
tends to become Universalism,
162; of Louis XIV, arouses
opposition, 162, and produces
alliances against France, 165
et seq. ; prevents maintenance
of Peace of Westphalia, 165-
166; responsible for the
policy of Louis XIV, 167-168;
partially recognised in Parti
tion Treaties and Grand
Alliance, 172-174; extreme,
of Louis XIV, 172-173; aban
doned by France after Louis
XIV, 174-175; made wars of
Louis XIV possible, 174-175;
recognition of the danger of,
if extreme, 176 et seq.; as
serted in Wars of Polish and
Austrian Succession, 176-178;
prevents the ascendancy of
the new type of external Uni
versalism, 178-179; character
of, in the powers of Europe,
178-179; not entirely preven
ted by new theory of external
Universalism, 179; of the
stronger states, 182; limited
by self-interest, 183; impedes
progress of internal Universal
ism, 185; losing ground on
eve of French Revolution, 206
Internal : Protestantism as
an expression of, 151-153;
triumph of Protestantism a
victory for, 152; effect of
Peace of Westphalia upon
mediaeval conception of, 153-
154; continuance of, after
Westphalia, 155; anarchy
the extreme expression of,
155; disappearance of medi
aeval conception of, 183 ; exist
ence of, in Catalonia, 187, in
Prussia, 188, in Russia, 188,
in Habsburg dominions, 188,
in Poland, 189; evolution of
anew theory of, 190 etseq.; ele
ment of internal Universalism
in new theory of, 190; rela
tion of theory of Social Con
tract to, 190-191, and of bene
volent despotism to, 191 et
seq. ; opposed by Church, 196-
197; growth of critical spirit
assists, 195-197; effect of in-
INDEX
Individualism — continued
vention of printing on, 197;
attack of, on the Church, 197
rt seq. ; victory of, in suppres
sion of the Jesuits, 200-202 ;
of Voltaire and Rousseau, 202-
204; effect on, of attack on
Church, 204; completeness of
theory of, in eighteenth cen
tury, 204-205 ; of the Physio
crats, 204-205 ; Rousseau's
Social Contract the gospel of,
205 ; differences between that
of eighteenth century and that
of the Middle Ages, 205-206;
clearness of eighteenth-cen
tury conception of, 205-206;
progress of, on eve of French
Revolution, 207-208; vitality
of, 208
From the French Revolution to
the Present Day, 209-266
External : alternate victory
and defeat of, during French
Revolution, 212; growth of,
among revolutionaries, 213-
214; of Napoleon, 214-215,
225; interaction of, with
Universalism, 226-227; of
France, produced by coali
tions against her, 228 ; revolu
tionary war an expression of
the conflict of, with Univer
salism, 228; revival of, in
Europe owing to failure of
coalitions, 228; of Prussia,
228; extreme character of,
during revolutionary period,
228 ; triumph of, in France, a
triumph of nationalism, 229;
causes of adoption of, by
powers of Europe, 229-230;
of Prussia, 230, of Austria,
231, of Spain, 231; defeated
in the national wars against
France, 230-231; partial, of
Russia after Congress of
Vienna, 239; reaction to
wards, influence of alliance of
external and internal Univer
salism upon, 242-243; reac
tion towards from Congress of
Vienna to 1848, 244; in
creased by mutual distrust of
powers at conferences of
Troppau and Laibach, and at
Congress of Verona, 244-245 ;
normal attitude of France,
245 ; of Lafitte and Casimir-
Perier, 246-247; relation of, to
Belgian independence, 247 ; no
complete victory for, in 1830,
248 et seq. ; reasons for lack of
complete victory, 249; rela
tion of, to nationalism, 252 et
seq. ; in the Crimean War, 257-
258; alliance of, with internal
Individualism,258-259; neces
sary to Prussia throughout
her history, 259; growth of,
illustrated by non-participa
tion of other powers in Franco-
Prussian War, 261; Prussia
champion of, in Germany,
261 ; national wars an expres
sion of, 262; reaction against,
after national wars, 262 et
seq.; checked by League of
Emperors, 262, and at Con
gress of Berlin, 263; decline
of, after Congress of Berlin,
264; examples of, since Con
gress of Berlin, 264, in Italy,
264, in Balkan states, 264-
265, of Rumania, 265
Internal : existence of, in
French monarchy offended
internal universalists, 211;
alternate victory and defeat
of, in French Revolution, 212 ;
of French Revolution alarms
the powers, 212-213; gradual
growth of, during the Revolu
tion, 216 et seq. ; demand for a
constitution in France an
example of, 216; Constitu
tion of 1791 a victory for,
216-217; Constitution of
1793 a triumph for, 217;
forced to attack the Church,
218-219; Civil Constitution
of the Clergy an example of,
219; opposed to recognition
of the Supreme Being, 220;
and the Cult of Reason, 220-
221 ; final victory of, in Feast
of Reason, 220-221; Robes
pierre represents an extreme
of, 224-225; Reign of Terror
the result of, 224; of Robes-
332 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Individualism — continued
pierre tends to Universalism,
225 ; interaction of, with Uni
versalism, 226-227; allies with
external Universalism, 232 ;
existent in all states, prior to
French Revolution, 232-233;
assists progress of revolution
ary armies, 232-233; causes
acceptance of partial Univer
salism, 234-235; impaired by
fear of revolution, 235; not
extinguished after Congress of
Vienna, 239; increased in |
France by fall of Napoleon, i
239-240; of the Acte Addi- \
tionel, 240; in the United
Netherlands, 240, in Germany,
240 ; preserved by general vio
lence of opinion after Congress
of Vienna, 240 ; anarchy, the
extreme of, discredited by
French Revolution, 240-241;
in armies after Congress of
Vienna, 241-242; of Ger
man students, 242-243; re
action towards, checked after
1815 by alliance of external
and internal Universalism,
242-243; character of, in
movements of 1820, 243;
reaction towards, from 1830 to i
1848, 244; aided by distrust •.
of powers at Conferences of I
Troppau and Laibach, and at j
Congress of Verona, 244-245 ; j
in France, under Louis Phi- j
lippe, 246-247; in Portugal, i
246; in Belgium, 247; no i
complete victory of, in 1830,
248-249; reasons for absence
of complete victory, 249; of
the "party of action" limited,
249; alliance with internal
Universalism in 1830, 248 et
seq. ; character of, in Italy,
France, Spain and Portugal,
251-252; of the Basques, 252;
relation of, to nationalism,
252 et seq. ; in France, after
fall of Louis Philippe, 253 et
seq. ; general development of,
after Congress of Vienna, 253-
254; in Portugal, 254; in
France, under Second Repub
lic and Second Empire, 254;
failure of, in 1848, in Italy,
Austria and Germany, 254-
255; causes of this failure,
255 ; causes of its rejection by
Prussia, 255; defeated in
Hungary, 256; favoured by
England, 256; indications of,
in Prussia, 256-257; reaction
towards, hastened by Crimean
War, 258; alliance of, with
external Individualism, 258-
259; aided in Germany by
Franco- Austrian War, 259 ;
progress of, in Habsburg
dominions, 260-261; dualism
partly the result of, 260-261 ;
ascendancy of, in Habsburg
dominions incomplete, 260-
261 ; represented by Com
munards in France, 262;
national wars an indication of
progress of, 262 et seq. ; re
action against, after national
wars, 262; apparent ascend
ancy of, after Congress of
Berlin, 265-266
In England, 267-272; external
and internal, never so vio
lently in conflict with Univer
salism as on continent, 268-
269; external and internal,
supremacy of, at time of
Anglo-Saxon conquest, 269;
external, assertion of, in
Hundred Years' War, 269-
270; internal, during the
Hundred Years' War, 270;
internal, during Wars of
Roses, 270; external, preva
lent after loss of France, 270 ;
evil effects of, in Lancastrian
period, 270; external, of the
Tudors, 270-271 ; internal,
during Tudor period, 270-271 ;
reaction towards internal,
under Stuarts, 271 ; indicated
in Great Rebellion and in
Revolution of 1688, 271; ex
ternal, general ascendancy of,
since the Tudor period, 271-
272; external and internal,
culminate in Victorian period,
272 ; subsequent reaction
against, 272
INDEX
333
Individualism — continued
At the present day, 273-283
External : culminated in
national wars, 274; of the
Balkan League, 275 ; tenden
cies towards, 275-277; re
action towards, inevitable,
276-277; signs of reaction
towards, ibid. ; of Italy and
the Balkan states, 276; re
action towards, in England,
277 et seq. ; probable culmina
tion of reaction towards, in
war, 278; fear of such cul
mination maintains entente
with France and Russia, 278;
expectation of such a general
reaction, 278
Internal : extent of, 275-
276; reaction to, inevitable,
276-277; signs of reaction
towards, ibid.; of Portugal,
276, of France, 276, of Ger
many, 276, of Russia, 276,
of Sweden, 276; nihilism an
expression of, 276; anarchism
an expression of, 276-277;
found earliest in England,
277; signs of reaction to, in
England, 277 et seq. ; militant
suffragist agitation an ex
pression of, 279; Ulster
movement an expression of,
279; illustrated by trade
unions, 279-280; by strikes,
280; by resistance to acts of
parliament, 280; by objec
tion to censorship of plays,
280; in religion, literature,
art and music, 280-281
In the War of the Triple Entente,
284-320; clearness of the con
flict with Universalism since
the fall of Napoleon, 284;
attempts to check, in League
of the Three Emperors, 285,
302, and concert of Europe,
285, 302; failure of these
attempts, 285-287; character
istics of reactions in favour of,
287-290; of France, under
Louis XIV and Napoleon,
284, 290, 291, 303, 304; of
opposition to France, 300,
301; of modern Germany, 291-
293, 304; German alliances
not opposed to, 291-293; of
the Triple Entente, 293, 294;
two interpretations of reac
tions towards external, 294,
295 ; divergencesof interpreta
tion caused war, 290, 295, 296;
victory of Allies will be vic
tory for, 296; possibility of
reaction against, 296-298 ;
possibility of cessation of
series of reactions, 298-320;
in French Revolution, 284,
303; extreme of, impractic
able, 306; war the ultimate
expression of, 307; violence
of conflict with Universalism
perhaps declining, 298-320;
at the present day more
mingled with Universalism ,
298-320
Industrial Revolution, the, 279
Innocent III, pope, 103, no, 158,
269
Innocent XI, pope, 167, 312
Insurance Act, the, in England,
resistance to, 280
International Law, an expression
of Universalism, 35, 37, 159-
162, 291, 307
j Ireland, 140, 313
! Irene, Byzantine empress, impor
tance of usurpation of, 71-73
Isabella the Catholic, queen of
Spain, 117, 131
Isthmian Games, the, 60
Italy, Universalism and Indi
vidualism in, 8, 67, 68, 70, 71,
77, 100, 116, 117, 200, 215,
225, 228, 233, 239, 243-246,
251-256, 259-261, 264, 265,
276, 285, 287, 293; city re
publics of, 41, 84, 102, 117,
130, 131, 1 80; duchies of,
176, 301; wars of, 161, 168
1 Jacobins, the, 233, 241, 242
Jacquerie, the, Individualism of,
118
; Jagiello, House of, 189
Jansenists, the, Individualism of,
200
j Japan, 275, 310
; Jassy, Treaty of, 207
! Jena, battle of, 330, 303
334 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Jesuits, the (Society of Jesus),
exponents of Universalism,
138-140; share in promoting
the Counter - Reformation,
ibid. ; made use of Indi
vidualism, ibid. ; political
theory of, 140; original
virtues and later corruption
of, 199, 200; attacked by the
Jansenists and by Pascal,
200; suppression of, 194,
200, 201, 237; importance of
the suppression of, 200-202;
restoration of, 237. (Cp.
Counter-Reformation)
John XXII, pope, 108
John, king of England, 269, 308
John, Don, of Austria, victory of,
at Lepanto, 2
John George, elector of Saxony,
Individualism of, 146
John Sobieski, king of Poland,
Universalism of, 164, 165
Joseph II, emperor, internal Uni
versalism of, 189, 192-194,
206, 207, 213, 234
Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain,
215
Julius II, pope, 124
Julius Caesar, 2
Justification by Faith, doctrine of,
individualist, 126, 131, 132
Justification by Works, doctrine of,
universalist, 125, 126
Justinian I, Byzantine emperor,
Universalism of, 68, 70, 77
Kirk Kilisse, battle of, 286
Koln, archbishop of, 86
Lacedaemon, 41, 63, 64; possible
constitutional opposition in,
63
Lafitte, Jacques, French states
man, Individualism of, 246,
247
Laibach, Conference of, 244
Laissez-faire, doctrine of, indi
vidualist, 205
Lancastrian dynasty, Individual
ism under, 7, 13, 270
Laon, 100
La Rochelle, 149
Latin, importance of, in promoting
Universalism, 119, 120
Laurentius Valla, scholar, Indi
vidualism of, 121, 123
Lausanne, Treaty of, 265
La Valette, Jesuit administrator
of Martinique, 200
Law, John, Scotch financier, 186
" League of the Three Emperors,"
the so-called, directed against
Individualism, 262, 263, 285,
304
Legnano, battle of, 41, 84
Leipsic, battle of, 232
Lepanto, battle of, 2
Leo I, Byzantine emperor, Uni
versalism of, 68
Leo III, pope, Universalism of,
72, 76
Leo X, pope, 124
Leoben, Preliminaries of, uni
versalist defeat, 215
Leopold I, emperor, 164, 169, 171
Leopold II, emperor, 189, 207, 234
Levant, the, 130
Lewis the Pious, emperor, 74, 8 1
Lewis the German, king of Ger
many, 75
Liberation, War of, Universalism
in, 232
Limburg, duchy of, 248
Lippe-Detmold, principality of,
292
Lits de Justice, the, 186
Livy, 121
Lombards, the, 70, 71
Lombardy, Austrian province of,
260
London, Treaty of (1718), 176,
178; (1913), 265
Lorenzo de Medici, 8, 130
Lorraine, duchy of, 177, 179
Lothar I, emperor, 75
Lothar II, king of Lorraine, 76
Lotharingia, mediaeval kingdom
of, 116
Louis XI, king of France, internal
Universalism of, 115, 118, 185
Louis XII, king of France, 168
Louis XIV, king of France, internal
Universalism and external
Individualism of, 7, 42, 149,
157-175, 183-187, 193, 214,
225, 288-296, 300-304, 308
Louis XV, king of France, decline
of internal Universalism under
42, 77, 186, 193, 194, 318
INDEX
335
Louis XVI, king of France, in
ternal Individualism under,
43, 187, 208-210, 217, 286
Louis Philippe, king of the French,
Universalism under, 246-249,
253
Louvois, marquis de, French
statesman, 157
Love, analysis of the character of,
22-25; relation to religion,
23; origin of, 24, 25; private
judgment in, 24; conflict in,
25, 3H-3I5
Lule Burgas, battle of, 286
Luther, Martin, reformer, Indi
vidualism of, 90, 121, 133;
attacks doctrines of the
Church, 124; relation to
Erasmus, 124; tendency of,
to Universalism, 128, 131,
132, 202; inconsistency of,
131, 132; represents destruc
tive side of Reformation, 131 ;
analogy of methods of, with
those of the Jesuits, 139; did
not create Protestantism, 151
Lutheranism, Individualism in,
i$%, T53! tendency to Uni
versalism, 18-20; illogical
character of, 20; rather de
structive than constructive,
131; permanence of, secured
by Westphalia, 150; exist
ence of, not essential to
Protestantism, 151, 152. (Cp.
Protestantism, Reformation)
Luxemburg, duchy of, 248
Luxemburg, house of, 109
Machiavelli, Niccolo, Italian
writer, expressed Individual
ism of his age, 130, 159
MagnaCharta, individualist clauses
in, 308
Mainz, archbishop of, 86
" Malacca," the, case of, 275
Manteuffel, Count, Prussian states
man, submission of, 255, 257
Marat, Jean-Paul, revolutionary,
210
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor,
political philosophy of, 65
Maria Theresa, empress, external
Individualism and internal
Universalism of, 177, 178, 189
Marie de Medici, queen-regent of
France, 149
Marjorian, Roman emperor, Uni
versalism of, 68
Marozia, " senatrix of the Ro
mans," corrupting influence
of, 78
Martignac, M. de, French states
man, 249
Martin V, pope, 108, no, 112, 113,
124
Martina, Byzantine empress, 71
Massaniello, rebellion of, at Naples,
149
Matthias Corvinus, king of Hun
gary, Individualism of, 115
Maupeou, M. de, French states
man, 187
Maximilian I, emperor, Individual
ism of, 130, 134
Maximilian, duke of Bavaria,
Universalism of, 145, 146
Maximinian, Roman emperor,
61
Mayors of the Palace, the, in
France, 100
Mazarin, Cardinal, French states
man, 149, 157, 185
Mazzini, Giuseppe, Italian revolu
tionary, 251
Medici, the, in Florence, 117,
131
Metternich, prince, Austrian
statesman, Universalism of,
43, 232, 238, 245, 255, 262,
296
Metz, bishopric of, 167
Milan, republic and duchy of, 117,
131
Mirabeau, Gabriel Honore, comte
de, French statesman, 210,
222
Missi Dominici, the, in the empire
of Charles the Great, 74, 80,
81
Mohammed II, sultan, 129
Monarchy, theories of, 190-195.
(Cp. Benevolent Despotism)
Monasticism, effect of, on Univer
salism, 65, 66
Montesquieu, Charles, baron de,
French thinker, 202, 205
Moreaj the, 245
Morelli, Neapolitan revolutionary,
253
336 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Moscow, burning of, 303; patri
archate of, 1 88
Minister, Anabaptists of, 128, 311,
Nantes, Edict of, revoked owing
to internal Universalism, 184,
186, 187
Naples, kingdom of, 103, 131, 149,
168, 243, 261
Napoleon I, emperor of the
French, internal Universalism
and external Individualism
of, 32, 188, 214, 215, 221, 223,
225, 226, 230-232, 237-242,
244, 248, 250, 254, 256, 265,
268, 284, 288-292, 295, 300-
304, 308
Napoleon III, emperor of the
French, 255, 260-262
Napoleonic Catechism, the, uni-
versalist, 226
National Assembly, in France, 213
Nationalism (Nationality), an ex
pression of Individualism, 37,
43, 45, 47, 53, 105, 106, 113,
285; relation to heresy, 105,
106, 120; relation of language
to, 119, 120; causes wars,
259-261, 285, 290; strength
of, 309; in the Middle Ages,
113, 115, 120; in the Con-
ciliar Movement, in, 112; in
the Reformation period, 134-
136, 147, 150, 154; after
Westphalia, 158; in the
French Revolution, 228-232;
of Stadion, 230, 231; in
Spanish resistance to Napo
leon, 231; in War of Libera
tion, 232; development after
fall of Napoleon, 252-260; in
Germany, 252, 253, 259; in
Italy, 252, 253, 258-260; in
Austria and Hungary, 253,
259, 260; of the Greeks, 245,
246, 252; in Belgium, 252;
championed by Prussia in
Germany, 259-261
Natural Frontiers, theory of, pro
duced by Universalism, 214,
215
Navarino, battle of, 245
Netherlands, the (Spanish), 165;
(Austrian), 179, 189, 207, 313,
247; (United, kingdom of),
240, 247, 248. (Cp. Belgium,
Dutch Republic)
Nicaea, Council of, 107
Nicephorus I, Byzantine emperor,
73
Nicholas I, pope, 76
Nicholas I, Tsar, 245, 246
Nicholas II, Tsar, 44, 264, 287
Nimeguen, Treaty of, 166-169
Norman Conquest, the triumph of
Universalism, 269, 270
Normandy, duchy of, 98, 308
Northmen, invasions of, effect on
Universalism, 52, 75-77, 97
Odo, count of Paris, 82
Odovacar, the Herulian, " patri
cian " in Italy, 67
Oldendorp, jurist, 159
Olmiitz, submission of Manteuffel
at, 255-259
Olympic Games, the, 60
Orange, House of, Universalism of,
149, 207, 247
Oriental Monarchies, the ancient,
59
Orleans, Philippe, duke of, regent
of France, individualist, 175,
1 86
Ostrogoths, kingdom of, in Italy,
68
Otto I, the Great, emperor, ex
ponent of Universalism, 75,
77, 78, 84, 99, 100, 109
Otto II, emperor, 83
Ottoman Empire, see Turks
Papacy, the (Popes), exponent of
Universalism, 18, 71-73, 76,
196-198, 245; as head of
Christendom, 70-77, 92, 102-
104, 109; represents external
Universalism in the Middle
Ages, 35, 39, 40, 76, 272;
indirectly promotes Indivi
dualism, 54, 91, 92, 119; rise
of political power of, 70, 71;
aids creation of Holy Roman
Empire, 72, 73; degradation
of, in the early Middle Ages,
52, 76, 77; reform of, by
Otto, 78 ; strength and weak
ness of, in early Middle Ages,
76-78; quarrel of, with em-
INDEX
337
Papacy — continued
pire, 53, 78, 88, 119; advan
tages of, against the empire,
78-80; importance of elective
character, 79; value of ex
communication to, 80, 196;
relation to feudalism, 82, 83;
relations with princes of Ger
many, 85, 86; creates anti-
emperors, 86, 87; not harmed
by anti-popes, 44, 87; effect
of Crusades on, 88-90; results
of victory over empire, 87-92 ;
mistaken policy towards em
pire, 91; unreality of victory
over empire, 91-93 ; mediaeval
ends with Boniface VIII, 102-
104, 108, 115, 148; policy of,
after fall of Hohenstaufen, 92,
102-104; weakness in Rome,
92; basis of political claims,
92; attacked by Arnold of
Brescia, 92, 93, by the Albi-
genses, 93 ; effect of the Friars
on, 94-96; effect of wealth of,
95,96; declining power of , 96 ;
degrades conception of Chris
tian commonwealth, 100;
territorialism of, 102, no;
effect of Babylonish Captivity
on, 103, 104, of Great Schism,
104, 106-108; decline of,
assists Individualism, 104-
116; Conciliar Movement and,
106-108, 111-113; after re
turn from Avignon, 109-111;
nepotism in, no, in, 124;
policy changed after Con
stance, 109, no, 130; weak
ness after Constance, 113, 114,
116; threatened by Renais
sance, 123-125 ; doctrine of
justification by works and,
126; attack of Reformation
on, 124-128; Charles V and,
134; Philip II and, 136;
effect of Counter-Reformation
on, 137, 138, 141; Richelieu
and, 150; did not create
Catholicism, 151, 152; rela
tion to despotism, 152, 153;
protest against Westphalia,
154; decline after Westphalia,
154. 156, 182, 208; Louis
XIV and, 167, 312; eigh
teenth-century attacks on,
197-204; danger of criticism
to, 198; effect of suppression
of Jesuits on, 200, 201 ;
reached its nadir under Cle
ment XIV, 201 ; French
Revolution and, 218-221;
Napoleon and, 223, 226; tem
poral power of, destroyed by
Napoleon, 228, and restored
after his fall, 236, 237; revival
of, after fall of Napoleon, 236,
237; importance of restora
tion of Jesuits to, 237; power
of, in England, 268, 269;
increased toleration of, at
present day, 312
Paris, 109, 144, 152; Parliament
of, 149, 157, 186, 187, 208, 209
Paris, Congress of (1856), 258, 259
Parliament, the English, 270, 271
Parma, duchy of, 179
Partition Treaties, the, expressions
of Universalism, 171-173, 303
Pascal, Blaise, French writer,
attacks Jesuits, 200
Passaro, Cape, battle of, 178
Patrimony of St. Peter, the, no,
130
Pays de drott coutumier, in France,
184
Pays de droit icrit, in France, 184
Pays d'etats, in France, 184
Peace Society, the, 40
Peasants' War, the, in Germany,
Individualism of, 128, 129
Persia, ancient kingdom of, 41;
war of, with the Greeks, 63
Persian Letters, the, of Montes
quieu, 202
Peter the Great, Tsar, 188
Petersburg, Conference of, 245
Philip II, king of Spain, Univer-
salism of, I35-I37, 144, 152,
158, 187, 295
Philip V, king of Spain, 187, 302
Philip II, Augustus, king of
France, 88, 99
Philip IV, the Fair, king of France,
90, 103
Philopcemen, general of the
Achaean League, 63
Physiocrats, the, Individualism of,
204, 205
Piedmont, see Sardinia
Y
338 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Pippin, the Short, king of the
Franks, 71, 72, 74, 100
Pisa, Council of, 104
Pitt, William, the younger, Eng
lish statesman, 233
Pius II, pope, abortive crusade of,
114, 130
Pius VII, pope, resistance of, to
Napoleon, 237
Pius IX, pope, 254
Plantagenets, the, 7
Plato, internal Universalism of, 59,
64, 123
Podiebrad, George, king of Bo
hemia, Individualism of, 115
Poland, extreme internal Indivi
dualism of, 115, 140, 149, 158,
176, 177, 189, 207, 215, 217,
224, 238, 259; first partition
of, 18 1, 182; second partition
of, 189
Polish Succession, War of the, 176-
178
Politiques, the, Universalism of,
143
Polytheism, persistent tendency
towards, 122
Pombal, marquis de, Portuguese
statesman, 194, 200
Pomerania, duchy of, 147
Poor Law of Elizabeth, in Eng
land, 40
Porte, the, see Turks.
Port Royal, headquarters of the
Jansenists, 200
Portugal, kingdom of, 142, 194,
200, 246, 251 ; republic of, 276
Pragmatic Sanction, the, of Charles
VI, 177
Prague, 106; university of, 106
Praguerie, the, individualist out
break in France, 118
Predestination, doctrine of, 132
Pressburg, Treaty of, 230
Private Judgment, right of, ex
pression of Individualism, 19
etseq.; 125,128,129,139,288
Prokop, Hussite leader, 113
Protestantism, expression of Indi
vidualism in religion, 19, 20,
125, 126, 136, 151-153; rela
tion to agnosticism, 19, 21;
occasionally universalist, 18,
20, 132, 133; in France, 127,
142-144, 147, 184, 186; politi- ;
cal theories of, 127, 129, 190,
191; in Germany, 128, 129,
134, 145-148; Anabaptists an
extreme form of, 128, 129 ; re
lation of the Peasants' War to,
128; inconsistency of, 131-
133; Council of Trent and,
137. J38; morality and, 138;
preserved against the Counter-
Reformation, 140-144, 152-
156; in Dutch Republic, 144;
after Thirty Years' War, 150-
153,156; creeds not essential
10,151-153; permanent char
acter of, 151-153, 156, 196;
corruption of, in eighteenth
century, 199. (Cp. Calvinism,
Lutheranism, Reformation)
Provencal language, aided Indi
vidualism, 120
Provincial Letters, the, of Pascal,
200
Prussia, general external Indivi
dualism and internal Univer
salism of, 181, 184, 188, 192,
193, 212, 227, 228, 230, 234,
236, 238, 239, 254-259, 261-
263. (Cp. Germany)
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, the,
92, 312
Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II,
Byzantine emperor, 71
Quadruple Alliance, the (1814-15),
Universalism of, 44, 236-239,
242-247, 250, 262, 272, 284,
289, 292, 296, 297, 306
Radetzky, Count, Austrian general,
259
Ravenna, exarchs of, 70
Reason, Cult of, in French Revolu
tion, individualist, 220, 221
Reccared, king of the Visigoths, 70
Reformation, the, an expression of
Individualism, 125-129, 226,
280; results still felt, 3; found
in embryo in Albigenses, 93;
inevitable, 113; character of,
due partly to Eugenius IV,
113; relation to Renaissance,
124, 125; more extreme than
Renaissance, 124, 125 ; politi
cal side of, 126-129; religious
side of, 125, 126; political
INDEX
339
Reformation — continued
theories of, 127, 128, 140; ]
opposition of rulers to, 127; .
caused popular outbreaks, !
128, 129; Peasants' War and, j
128; tended to produce ;
anarchy, 128; Anabaptists I
represented extreme side of, j
129; partial Universalism in, >
I3I-I33, 226, 288; destroyed
moral basis of Holy Roman j
Empire, 133, and idea of !
Christian Commonwealth, 159;
spread of, partly due to acci- i
dent, 137, 138, to abuses, 138; j
stood for personal service, 138 ; ;
advocated intellectual acti
vity, 138; right of private
judgment in, 139; Jesuits
and, 138-140; Great Dis
coveries and, 142 ; Thirty
Years' War and, 145, 150; ;
Wars of Religion and, 142- '
144; Dutch Republic and, I
144, 145; greater than the
creeds it produced, 151;'
theory of monarchy arid, 190, '
191; relation to eighteenth-
century writers, 197, 202; i
printing and, 197; Voltaire i
the logical outcome of, 202 ;
completed in the Counter-
Reformation, 226; Holy Ro
man Empire survived, 228;
shakes prestige of Papacy, :
236, 237; in England, 267; ,
heralded by rejection of '
accepted standards of criti
cism, 280. (Cp. Calvinism, ;
Counter-Reformation, Luther- I
anism, Protestantism)
Reform Bill, the (1832), i, 12, 13, ;
271
Religion, dogmatic, analysis of, 17- '
22 ; a fundamental activity of
the human mind, 16, 17, 311;
origin of, 17-19, 218-220; j
gratifies desire to be ruled, 19, j
218-220; origin of opposition i
10,19-20; opposition to, grati- >
fies desire to rule, 19-21;
Catholicism, logical form of,
20,21,150-152; Agnosticism,
logical form of opposition to,
ao, 21, 150-152; middle creeds
illogical, 21 ; conflict in, 21,
22, 25-30; kinship with love,
22, 23; feminine element in,
23; conflict not peculiar to,
28; necessarily universalist,
50, 71; patriotism and, 65;
Christian, cosmopolitan, 71 ;
barbarian, individualist, 51;
private judgment in, denied
by Catholics, 76, by Protes
tants as anarchical, 131-133;
supported by Albigenses, 93,
and by Protestants up to a
certain point, 125-128; private
judgment in, leads to anarchy,
128, 131; pagan Renaissance
and, 121, 123; polytheism in,
122; Christian Renaissance
and, 123-125; Reformation
and, 124-126; heresy and,
127; conformity in, basis of
Philip II's policy, 135, 136,
153; relation of, to Wars of
Religion, 142-147; localism
of, after Westphalia, 148, 150,
182; controversy about, an
expression of the eternal con
flict, 152; determined often
by political considerations,
152, 153; not the basis of
later external Universalism,
157-159,161,182; conformity
of, in France, 184, 186 ; accept
ance of authority in, 195, 196;
rejection of authority in, 196-
204; effect of printing on, 197;
corruption of, in eighteenth
century, 198 - 200; French
Revolution and, 210, 218-223,
226; revival of, after fall of
Napoleon, 236, 237; influence
of, in Belgian revolution, 250;
toleration, in England, 271,
277; modern innovations in,
280,313; view of, as to human
nature, 282, 283; decline of
violence in, at present day,
311-315
Religion, Wars of, result of the
conflict between Universalism
and Individualism, 7, 142-147,
150, 151, 183
Religious Orders, tendency of, to
corruption, 200
Renaissance, the " First," an in-
340 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
dividualist movement, 119,
I2O
Renaissance, the, individualist,
119-124; character of, 120-
124; cause of, 120, 121 ; pagan
side of, 121, 122; Christian
side of, 121-125; permanent
importance of, 123; relation
to Reformation sometimes
friendly, sometimes hostile,
123-125, 130
Rhine, the, ecclesiastical states on,
56, 233; Confederation of,
292; frontier of, 214
Richard I, king of England, 88, 269
Richelieu, Cardinal, French states
man, external Individualism
and internal Universalism of,
118, 143, 147, 149, 150, 157,
185
Richelieu, Due de, French states
man, 249
Riego, Rafael del, Spanish revolu
tionary, 253
Rights of Man, Declaration of the,
individualist, 217, 220
Ripperda, Baron, Spanish states
man, 176, 178, 301
Robespierre, Maximilien, French
revolutionary, external uni-
versalist and internal indi
vidualist, 210, 223-225
Rois Faineants, the, in France, 100
Romagna, the, no
Roman Empire, the, external Uni-
versalism represented by, 53,
295 ; tendency to internal
Individualism in, 53; con
verted into a veiled theocracy,
62 ; lack of patriotism in, 64 ;
significance of so-called end
of, 67; hope of revival of, 100;
cause of acceptance of, 135;
myth of continuance of, 286.
(Cp. Holy Roman Empire)
Roman Republic, the (1848-49),
254
Romantic Movement, the, expres
sion of Universalism, 237
Rome, 70, 76, 77, 79, 80, 87, 99,
104, 114, 122, 134; senate of,
72
Romulus Augustus, Roman em
peror, 67, 68
Roumans, the, 254
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, French
writer, Individualism of, 44,
202-205, 218, 222, 237
Rudolf, king of Burgundy, 116
Rumania, individualist action of,
265
Russia, Universalism and Indi
vidualism in, 8, 177, 181, 188,
192, 207, 230, 233, 236, 238,
239, 244, 245, 250, 251, 256,
260, 263, 264, 275, 276, 286,
293, 302, 306
Russo-Japanese War, the, 275
Ruthenians, the, depression of, 268
Ryswick, Treaty of, 169-171
St. Augustine, of Hippo, 60, 122
I St. Augustine, of Canterbury, 269
| St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 143
St. Dominic, 93
St. Francis, of Assisi, 93
St. Paul, the apostle, 50, 61, 123,
214
St. Peter, the apostle, 61, 70, 76,
108; apocryphal letter of, 72
! St. Thomas Aquinas, 125
' Salamis, battle of, i
| Salian emperors, the, 85
! San Stefano, Treaty of, 263
| Saracens, the, influence of in
vasions of, 75, 97
j Sardinia, kingdom of, 243, 254,
256, 261
Saxony, 153, 238; elector of, 128
Scanderbeg, (George Castriot),
Albanian chieftain, 129
Scandinavia, 140, 142. (Cp.
Sweden)
' Schism, the Great, see Great
Schism
Schism of Eastern and Western
Churches, 105
Schleswig-Holstein Question, the,
259
Schwarzenberg, Count, Austrian
statesman, 255, 256
Scotland, 140
Separation Law, the, in France,
313
Settlement, Act of, 286, 312
Seven Weeks' War, the, 259
Seven Years' War, the, 192
Seville, Treaty of, 176, 178
Sforzas, the, family of, in Milan,
131
INDEX
Shop Hours Act, the, a 80
Sicily, 261
Sieyes, Abbe, French revolution
ary, 210
Sigismund, emperor, Universalism
of, 108, 109, 114
Silesia, conquest of, by Prussia,
177-179, 192, 207
Sistova, Treaty of, 207
Slavs, the, 106, 253, 254, 259, 261
Social Contract, theory of the, ex
pression of Individualism, 129,
190, 191
Social Contract, the, of Rousseau,
205
Socialism, relation toTJniversalism,
34, 35
South Africa, 312
Spain, Universalism and Indi
vidualism in, 2, 41, 68, 70, 78,
83, 89, 117, 130, 131, 142, 143,
144, 152, 162, 170-179, 184-
189, 192, 194, 200, 206, 215,
230-235, 239, 243-246, 250-
252, 274, 277, 3«i
Spanish-American colonies, the,
244
Spanish- American War, the, 274,
275
Spanish Succession, War of the,
187
Stadion, Count, Austrian states
man, Individualism of, 230,
231, 234
Stanhope, Earl, English states
man, 174
Stanislas Leszczynski, king of
Poland, 178
States General, the, in France, 118,
157, 209, 227
Status Quo, idea of maintaining the,
universalist, 162-168, 242, 262,
264, 275, 276, 302
Stein, Freiherr vom, Prussian
statesman, 193, 232, 234
Stoics, the, assist Individualism, 64
Strassburg, seized by Louis XIV,
169, 291
Stuarts, the, 7, 43, 271
Suleiman, the Magnificent, sultan,
127
Supremacy, Act of (1558), 40
Sweden, general internal Indi
vidualism of, 41, 147, 150, 153,
158, 189, 192, 207, 208, 276
Switzerland (the Swiss), 40, 56,
154, 180, 265, 317
Syagrius, so-called kingdom of, 69
Syria, 59
Tassilo, duke of Bavaria, Indi
vidualism of, 74
Ten, Council of, in Venice, uni
versalist, 117, 189
Terror, Reign of, in France, its
character, 222, 224, 241
Theatines, order of the, 138
Thebes, 63
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths,
67
Thiers, Adolphe, French states
man, 253
Thirty Years' War, the, 8, 145-148,
150, 151, 183
Time of the Troubles, the, in
Russia, 8, 181
Toul, bishopric of, 167
Toulouse, county of, 93, 105
Trafalgar, battle of, 2
Transubstantiation, doctrine of
universalist, 132
Trent, Council of, 137, 138
Trier, archbishop of, 86
Triple Alliance (1668), against
extreme Individualism, 165,
166, 169, 303
Triple Alliance (1717), universalist,
175, 176, 301, 302
Triple Alliance (1788), universalist,
207, 213, 227
Triple Alliance (1883), sign of
Individualism, 286, 293
Triple Entente, of England, France
and Russia, individualist, 286;
directed against the extreme
Individualism of Germany,
293, 294, 304
Triple Entente, War of the, against
the extreme Individualism of
Germany, 284-320; probable
outcome of, 296-320
Troppau, Conference of, 244
Troy, siege of, 60
Tudors, the, external Individual
ism and internal Universal
ism of, 270, 271, 277; 7, 13
Tunis, expedition of Charles V
against, 133; French and, 302
Turco-Greek War, the, 275
Turco-Italian War, the, 275
342 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Turgot, baron de, French states- I
man, 208, 209
Turks, the (Ottoman Empire,
Turkey), 127, 134, 158, 192,
207, 239, 251, 257, 264, 275,
286, 292, 302
Tuscany, duchy of, 179
Ulster, agitation concerning, indi
vidualist, 279
Ultramontanism, an expression of
Universalism, 237
Unitary Edict, the, in Austria,
universalist, 256
United States, the, 274
UNIVERSALISM: the desire to be
ruled: explanation of the
term, 35
In general : in religion, 17 et seq. ;
in love, 23-25; conflict of,
with Individualism in the life
of individuals, 25 et seq. ; not
peculiar to religion and love,
28; dual aspect of the con
flict, 29-30; conflict largely
sub-conscious, 30 ; conflict of,
with Individualism in the life
of the nation, 31 et seq.; re
action towards or against, may
be insensible or rapid, 32;
conflict is eternal, 32 et seq. ;
part of human nature, ibid.,
287; supplies the factor ex
planatory of History, 33, 284;
has a dual character, 32-33;
relation of, to cosmopolitan
ism, 34, to socialism, 34-35;
external aspect of, 35-36;
external aspect in Middle
Ages and modern times, 35;
internal aspect of, 36; com
plexity of the conflict of, with
Individualism, 39 et seq.; in
the Middle Ages, 39 - 40 ;
general character of conflict
of, with Individualism, 39 et
seq. ; tendency to complete
supremacy of, 41-42; relation
ship of, to despotism, 39, 43,
to ideal of united Christen
dom, 44 ; arguments in favour
of, 45 et seq.; arguments
against, 45 et seq.; perma
nent factors in conflict of,
with Individualism, 48 et seq. ;
relationship of, to institutions,
48-49, to simplicity of mind,
49, to the Roman Empire, 49-
50, to the Christian Church,
50; attitude of barbarian in
vaders to, 50-52 ; relationship
of Holy Roman Empire to, 50 ;
effect of imperial taxation on,
5 1 ; complex action of factors
favouring or opposing, 52 et
seq.; relationship of com
merce with, 54; cause of the
complexity of conflict of, with
Individualism, 54-55; no im
mutable course for the con
flict, 55; probable normal
course of the conflict, 55-59;
French Revolution an ex
pression of this conflict, 211-
212; intensity of the conflict
during the French Revolution,
211-212; conflict part of
human nature, 273; must
continue till human nature is
changed, 273; possibility of
such change, 281-283; end of
conflict means end of History,
283
Prior to the coronation of Charles
the Great, 58-73
In general : conflict with
Individualism existent, but
not apparent in earliest times,
58-59; defined before Indi
vidualism, 50; not defined in
ancient oriental monarchies,
59 ; incomplete supremacy of,
in ancient Greece and under
the Roman Empire, 62-63
External : lack of, in ancient
Greece, 6q, 63; effect of
Roman victories on, 60;
effect of Christianity on, 61-
62; of barbarian invasions,
66-68; attitude of later em
perors towards, 68; causes
of continuance of, after fall
of Roman Empire, 68-69;
assisted by the Papacy, 70
et seq. ; effect of usurpation of
Irene on, 71-73; effect of the
creation of Holy Roman
Empire on, 72-73
Internal : defined by Greek
philosophers, 59-60; strength
INDEX
343
Universalism — continued
of, in ancient Greece, 60;
under the Roman Empire, 60,
69; in the barbarian mon
archies, 69-70
From the coronation of Charles to
the fall of the Hohenstaufen,
74-90
External : effect of the
coronation of Charles on, 74;
survives Charlos the Fat, 77-
78; under Otto the Great, 77;
reaction against, after Otto
the Great, 78 ; undermined by
feudalism, 82-83 '. decline dur
ing the Middle Ages, 83 etseq. ;
weak in Italy after Frederic
Barbarossa, 84, and in Ger
many, 84-88; ascendancy of,
impaired by the quarrel be
tween Empire and Papacy,
87-90; the crusades an ex
pression of, 88-89; embodied
in Frederic II, 89
Internal : lack of, in Caro-
lingian Empire, 74; in the
Holy Roman Empire, 83-86
From the fall of the Hohenstaufen
to the Peace of Westphalia, 91-
149
External : papal supremacy
depended on, 91; attacked by
Arnold of Brescia, 92-93; by
Albigenses, 93 ; exemplified
by the Friars, 95 ; results in
maintenance of internal Indi
vidualism, 96-97; assists de
velopment of feudalism, 98;
its strength checks the normal
development of mankind, 99-
100 ; effect of, upon mediaeval
France, 100-101; checks de
velopment of national states,
101 ; ascendancy of, impaired
by policy of mediaeval popes
and emperors, 103; effect
of " Babylonish Captivity "
upon, 103-104; effect of
Great Schism upon, 104-105;
opposed to nationalism, 105;
opposed to heresy, 105; con
flict of, with Papacy, 106 et
seq.; Cpnciliar Movement an
expression of, 106 et seq. ;
expected revival of, by
Council of Constance, 108-
109; attempted revival of,
by Sigismund, 109; weakened
by policy of Papacy after
Constance, no; by nepotism
of popes, iio-m; by policy
of popes towards Conciliar
Movement, 111-113; resisted
by Hussites, 113; diminished
after Constance, 114 et seq.;
of Charles the Bold, 115-116;
continuance of, during later
Middle Ages, 116; value of
common language to, 119-120;
opposed and supported by
Dante, 119-120; relation of
nationallanguagesto,ii9-i2o;
attitude of " First " Renais
sance towards, 119-120; rela
tion to later Renaissance, 120
et seq.; rejected in spiritual
matters after Renaissance,
124; of Papacy, opposed to
Reformation, 126-127; ap
parently extinct during Re
formation, 130; of the Re
formers, 131-133; of Charles
V, 133-135; of Philip II, 135-
137; Counter- Reformation an
expression of, 137 et seq.;
championed by Jesuits, 138-
140; declining during Re
formation period, 144; asso
ciation of Ferdinand II with,
147-148; mediaeval type of,
ends at Peace of Westphalia,
148; development of a new
type of, 148-149; relation of
international law to, 149
Internal : progress of, after
fall of Hohenstaufen, 96-99;
slow growth of, 98-101 ; pro
gress of, in later Middle Ages,
101 etseq., 116 etseq.; in Italy,
117; in Germany, ibid.; m
France, 117-118; assisted by
external Individualism, 118-
119; opposed by Renaissance,
121 et seq. ; favoured by artis
tic side of Renaissance, 121-
122; of Catholicism, opposed
to Reformation, 126-127;
questioned by Reformers, 128 ;
of Reformers, accidental, 131-
133; of Philip II, 135-137;
344 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Universalism — continued
championed by Jesuits, 138-
140; triumph of, in Wars of
Religion, 144; progress dur
ing the Reformation, 144-145;
in Dutch Republic, 144-145;
in Thirty Years' War, 145 et
seq. ; supported by Catholic
party in Germany, 145-146;
by Wallenstein, 146; pro
gress of, in Germany at Peace
of Westphalia, 148; triumph
of, at Peace of Westphalia,
149
From the Peace of Westphalia to
the French Revolution, 150-208
External : Catholicism an
expression of, 151-153 ; victory
of, is victory of Catholicism,
152; effect of Peace of West
phalia on mediasval, 153-154;
effect on, of doctrine of cujus
regio, ejus religio, 154; con
tinuance of, after Westphalia,
155 ; search for a new form of,
at first half-hearted, 156;
search for new form of,
hastened by Peace of West
phalia, 156-157, and by policy
of Louis XIV, 157-158; of
opponents of Louis XIV, 158-
159; religion not the basis of
new form of, 159, but inter
national law, 159-160; balance
of power an expression of,
161-162; concessions of, to
external Individualism, 162;
in alliances against France,
162 ; doubt as to new form of,
162-164; new form of, de
fined during period of Louis
XIV, 164; limits on new, 164-
165; failure of, to maintain
Peace of Westphalia as basis
of European polity, 165-166;
expressed in Treaty of Nime-
guen, 166-167, but fails there,
167-168; revision of new
theory of, owing to failure of
Treaty of Nimeguen, 168;
compensation, part of new
theory of, 168 et seq.; ex
pressed in League of Augs
burg, 169-170, by William III,
170-171, in Partition Treaties,
ibid. ; leads to Treaty of Rys-
wick, 170-171; expressed in
Grand Alliance, 171-174; new
theory of, defined at Utrecht,
173-174; accepted in France,
174-175; in Triple Alliance of
1717, 175-176; character of,
after Peace of Utrecht, 176
et seq. ; influence of, in Wars
of Polish and Austrian Succes
sion, 176-179; ascendancy of,
prevented by external Indi
vidualism, 178 etseq.; fails to
prevent wars of aggression,
179; considers only selfish
interests, 179 et seq. ; effect of
internal Universalism on, 180
et seq. ; originally considered
smaller states, 180-181, but
ceases to do so, ibid. ; partial
in larger states, 181 et seq. ;
leads to partition of Poland,
181-182; has no idea of a
Christian commonwealth, 182;
element of Individualism in,
182-183; ascendancy of,
assists internal Individual
ism, 185; aided by Jesuits,
201-202; gaining ground at
time of French Revolution,
206; expressed in alliances of
later eighteenth century, 206-
207 ; on eve of French Revolu
tion recalls the Middle Ages,
207; vitality of, 208
Internal : expressed by
Catholicism, 151-153; victory
of, is victory of Catholicism,
152; in Germany during
period of Westphalia, 153; of
Christina of Sweden, 153; in
supposed centralised mon
archies, 155; in France,
limited, 157; influences ex
ternal Universalism, 180 et
seq. ; apparent triumph of,
after Westphalia, 183; pro
moted by Wars of Religion
and Thirty Years' War, 183;
not complete in France under
Louis XIV, 1 83- 1 84; character
of, in Prussia, Spain and Aus
tria, 184; incomplete victory
of, complicates the conflict
with Individualism, 185;
INDEX
345
Universalism — continued
causes of slow progress of, 185
et seq. ; impeded by its ap
parent ascendancy, 185 etseq. ;
character of, in France, 185-
187, in Spain, 187-188, in
Prussia, Russia and Austria,
188-189, in Venice, Dutch Re
public and Sweden, 189; in
complete ascendancy of, on
eve of French Revolution,
189-190; benevolent despot
ism an expression of, 191 et
seq. ; causes emphasis on
despotic character of mon
archy, 195; reaction against,
resulting from benevolent
despotism, 195; accepted in
religion and economics, 195 ;
strength of, 195 ; weakness of,
195 et seq. ; favoured by the
Church, 196-197; effect of
invention of printing on, 197;
in Protestant Churches, 197;
aided by Jesuits, 201-202;
attack of Voltaire and Rous
seau on, 202-204; denial of
economic liberty by, 204 ;
declining on eve of French
Revolution, 208
From the French Revolution to
the Present Day, 209-266
External : triumphant and
defeated in turn, during
French Revolution, 212; of
the revolutionaries, 212-213;
of the powers affects French
Revolution, 212-213; asserted
in Constitution of 1791, 213;
abandoned by France under
Napoleon, 215; extreme of,
represented by Robespierre,
223-224; interaction of, with
Individualism during French
Revolution, 226-227; preva
lent at beginning of French
Revolution, 227; expressed
in Triple Alliance of 1788, 227;
causes intervention of powers
in French Revolution, 212-
213,227-228; in conflict with
Individualism of France, 228;
of the Habsburgs, 230-231;
revival of, owing to failure of
national resistance to France,
231-232; causes defeat of
Napoleon, 231-232; allied
with internal Individualism,
232; strengthened by violence
of French Revolution, 235-
236; illustrated by revival of
Church, 236-237; basis of
settlement of Vienna, 236;
general ascendancy of, after
fall of Napoleon, 237, but in
complete, ibid. ; causes of its
ascendancy, 237-238; failure
of, in Quadruple Alliance-, 238-
239; ascendancy of, impaired
by distrust of powers after
Congress of Vienna, 238; only
partially championed even by
Austria, 239; of Russia, after
1815, 239; of England,
different from that of her
allies after 1815, 239; im
portance of alliance of, with
internal Universalism after
Congress of Vienna, 242-243 ;
evidence of decline of, at con
ferences of Troppau and Lai-
bach, 244, and at Congress of
Verona, ibid. ; supported by
France, 244-245 ; decline of,
illustrated in War of Greek
Independence, 245-246; of
France, under Louis Philippe,
246-247; decline of, illus
trated by French and Belgian
Revolutions of 1830, 247-248;
breaking down in period from
Congress of Vienna to 1848,
250-251; of powers, becomes
occasional, 250-251; relation
of, to nationalism, 252 et seq. ;
causes defeat of internal Indi
vidualism in 1848, 255; allied
with internal Universalism,
255-256; partial association
of, with Individualism after
1848, 256-257; effect of sub
mission of Manteuffel at
Olmiitz on, 257; impaired by
CrimeanWar,257-258; danger
ous to Prussia throughout her
history, 259; defeated in
Seven Weeks' War, 259;
value of, to Austria, 259-260;
reaction against, culminated
in Franco- Prussian War, 261 ;
346 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Universalism — continued
reaction towards, after the j
national wars, 262-263 ; re- j
vived by Prussia in League of !
Emperors, 262-263; illus- \
trated in Congress of Berlin, :
264; concert of Europe sup- |
ports a form of, 264-265; j
maintenance of status quo, '
basis of concert, 264 ; limited }
after Congress of Berlin, 265- j
266
Internal : of French mon
archy, too great to satisfy
Individualists, 211; trium
phant and defeated in turn
during the French Revolution,
212; at first accepted by re
volutionaries, 216; rapid de
cline of, during French Re
volution, 216-221; of the
Church causes revolutionaries
to opposethe Church, 218-219 ;
Constitution of 1793 and
Feast of Reason produce a
reaction towards, 221; ex
pressed in the Committees of
Public Safety, 221, in Conven
tion, ibid., in Festival of
Supreme Being, ibid.; revival
of, from fall of Hebertists to
the Consulate and Empire,
221-222; incomplete char
acter of, in Constitution of
Year III, 221-222; triumph
of, in Constitution of Year
VIII and of the Empire, 222-
223; of the Empire, different
from that of the Bourbons,
223 ; expressed by Napoleon,
225-226; interaction of, with
Individualism, 226-227; re
vived in Europe, owing to
violence of French Revolu
tion, 233-234 ; concessions by,
to Individualism, 234-235 ;
general character of, during
Napoleonic period, 234-235 ;
strengthened as a result of
the French Revolution, 235-
236; revival of, after 1815
illustrated by revival of
Church, 236-237; expressed
in Romantic Movement and
Ultramontanism, 237; seen
in re-establishment of Jesuits,
237; great ascendancy of,
after Congress of Vienna, 237,
but incomplete, ibid., 239 et
seq. ; diminished in France
after fall of Napoleon, 239-
240; defeated in France by
the Revolution, 240; effect
on, of violence after French
Revolution, 240; extreme of,
discredited by Napoleonic
despotism, 240-241 ; ques
tioned after Congress of
Vienna, 241; maintained by
fear of revolution, 241 ; re
sisted by German students,
243; importance of alliance
of, with external Universal-
ism, 242-243,255-256; victory
of, in 1820, 243; Alexander I
converted to, 245 ; of Austria,
in Italy, checked, 246; in
France, under Louis Philippe,
246-247; alliance of, with in
ternal Individualism in 1830,
248 et seq.; decline of, from
1830 to 1848, 250-251; in
secure ascendancy of, 251 et
seq. ; relation to nationalism,
252 et seq. ; in France, under
Second Empire, 254; triumph
of, in Germany after 1848, due
to help of external Universal-
ism, 255-256; weak in Habs-
burg dominions, 256; im
paired, as result of Crimean
War, 257-258; defeated in
Austria, 260-261 ; partial pre
servation of, in Austria, 260-
261 ; prevalence of, in Ger
many owing to Franco- Prus
sian War, 261 ; decline of, in
France owing to Franco- Prus
sian War, 261-262; some, in
Third Republic, 262 ; reaction
towards, after the national
wars, 262-263
In England, 267-272 ; external
and internal, ascendancy of,
never so complete as on the
continent, 268-269 ; victory
of external and internal, at
Norman Conquest, 269; ex
ternal, culminates in sub
mission of Richard I to Henry
INDEX
347
Universalism — continued
VI, 269, and of John to
Innocent III, 269; internal,
of the Angevins, 270, of the
Yorkists, 270, of the Tudors,
270-271 ; internal, of the
Tudors conciliates individu
alists, 271 ; internal, reaction
against, under Stuarts, 271,
illustrated in Great Rebellion
and Revolution of 1688, 271 ;
reaction in favour of external
and internal, during Victorian
age, 272
At the present day, 273-283
External : prevalent after
close of national wars, 274;
illustrated in Spanish-Ameri
can War, 274-275, in Turco-
Greek War, 275, in Russo-
Japanese War, Turco-Italian
War, Balkan Wars, 275; re
action against, inevitable, 276-
277, and indicated, ibid.; effect
of colonial expansion on, 276;
relation of English imperial
ism to, 278; relation of
colonial preference to, 278
Internal : extent of, 275-
276; state interference an
expression of, 280
In the War of the Triple Entente,
284-320; clearness of conflict
of, with Individualism, since
Napoleon, 284; incomplete
victory of, after Napoleon,
284, 285, 301, 302; in the
Quadruple Alliance, 284,
289; reaction towards, after
national wars, 285, expressed
in Congress of Berlin and the
concert of Europe, 285 ; weak
during the concert, 285-287;
normal character of reactions
against, 287-290 ; attacked by
France under Louis XIV and
Napoleon, 284, 290, 291, 303,
304; in resistance to Louis
XIV and Napoleon, 289, 301;
in the Triple Entente, 293,
294 ; in the War of the Triple
Entente, 291 ; German success
depends on, 295 ; weakness of,
at present day, 295, 296; war,
supreme expression of conflict
with Individualism, 287, 294;
extreme Individualism akin
to, 288, 289, 293, 302 ; possible
reversion to, after end of War
of Triple Entente, 296, 297;
present in all alliances, 291-
294; extreme of, impossible,
285, 297; evil of extreme,
realised, 285; character of, at
present day, more moderate,
302-320; character of, differ
ent from that of other periods,
288-301; more mingled with
Individualism, 298-320
Urban II, pope, 88
Urban VI, pope, 104
Ursulines, order of the, 138
Utraquists, the, individualist,
"3
Utrecht, Treaty of, 173-176, 247,
297, 301
Utrecht, Union of, 145
Valens, Roman emperor, 65
Valois, House of, 41, 115
Vandals, the, Individualism of,
5i,68
Varennes, flight of Louis XVI to,
210
Vasas, the, in Sweden, universalist,
4i
Vauban, marshal of France, indi
vidualist, 149
Venice, republic of, externally
individualist and internally
universalist, 69, 73, 117, 130,
169, 189; partition of, 215,
228; Austrian province, of,
260; republic of (1848-49),
254
Verdun, Treaty of, 75; bishopric
of, 167
Verona, Congress of, 244-245
Versailles, 174, 187
Victor Emmanuel II, king of Italy,
254
Vienna, 115, 164, 187; treaty of
(1731), 176, 178; Congress of,
56, 236, 237, 241, 244-252, 264,
284, 297, 306; Final Act of,
243
Villele, M. de, French statesman,
249
Visconti, the, in Milan, 117
Visigoths, the, in Spain, 68-70
348 THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Vladislav, king of Poland, Indi
vidualism of, 115
Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet
de, French writer, individu
alist, 202, 203, 205, 237
Wagner, Richard, German
musician, individualist, 281
Wagram, battle of, 303
Waldrada, mistress ot Lothar II,
case of, 76
Wallenstein, Albrecht von, Ger
man general, universalist, 145,
147
Wallia, king of the Visigoths, uni
versalist, 67
Wars of the Roses, the, 270
Wartburg Festival, the, 243
Waterloo, battle of, i
Westphalia, Peace of, 115, 148-
150, 153-156, 163-167, 180,
182, 183, 188, 206, 208, 228,
236, 247
William I, king of England, 101
[ William III, king of England, uni
versalist, 169-171, 173, 303
William II, German emperor, 291,
292
William the Silent, stathalter of
Holland, 144, 150
Winkler, jurist, 159
Wittelsbach, house of, 145, 146
Wittenberg, 20
Xerxes, king of Persia, 63
Young, Arthur, agriculturist,
quoted, 193
Young Italy, League of, 251
Zachary, pope, 100
Zea Bermudez, Spanish dramatist
and statesman, 246
Zeno, Byzantine emperor, 67
Ziska, Hussite leader, 113
Zurich, creed of, 20
Zwinglians, the, individualists, 20,
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