THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION 15 



only on this condition, life has had a history; and hu- 

 man history began ages before man's actual appear- 

 ance on the globe, just as American history began to 

 be fashioned by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans 

 before they set foot even in England. We study his- 

 tory mainly to deduce its laws ; and that knowing 

 them we may from the past forecast the future, pre- 

 pare for its emergencies, and avoid or wisely meet, its 

 dangers. And we rely on these laws of history be- 

 cause they are the embodiment of ages of human ex- 

 perience. 



Whatever be our system of philosophy we all prac- 

 tically rely on past experience and observation. Fire 

 burns and water drowns. This we know, and this 

 knowledge governs our daily lives, whatever be our 

 theories, or even our ignorance, of the laws of heat 

 and respiration. Now human history is the embodi- 

 ment of the experience of the race ; and we study it in 

 the full confidence that, if we can deduce its laws, we 

 can rely on racial experience certainly as safely as on 

 that of the individual. Furthermore, if we can dis- 

 cover certain great movements or currents of human 

 action or progress moving steadily on through past 

 centuries, we have full confidence that these move- 

 ments will continue in the future. The study of his- 

 tory should make us seers. 



But the line of human progress is like a mountain 

 road, veering and twisting, and often appearing to turn 

 back upon itself, and having many by-roads, which 

 lead us astray. If we know but a few miles of it we 

 cannot tell whether it leads north or south or due 

 west. But if from any mountain-top we can gain a 

 clear bird's-eye view of its whole course, we easily dis- 



