[HUTTON] THUCYDIDES AND HISTORY 245 
of Thucydides, pessimistic enough though it be: and the other faith— 
which is very modern and Christian—in the perfectibility of human 
nature, even under democracy, or especially under democracy; a per- 
fectibility which will enable even the man in the street to listen more 
and more to the teachings of experience, and to give even to his de- 
mocracy that sweet reasonableness and that moderation which are 
natural enough without special virtues, just by force of circumstances 
and personal interests, to an aristocracy: to the wealthy, well-born 
and well-educated. Thucydides had no such faith in progress or in 
the evolution of human nature by itself and from within and by the 
very law of evolution: human nature is to be the same in all ages: 
its germ-plasms do not change. 
Evolution implies a terminus ad quem as well as a quo: but many 
of us forget the terminus ad quem or at least we assume that the ter- 
minus ad quem of evolution and democracy is the stage which we our- 
selves have already reached, and practically we only think about the 
terminus a quo. That is, we all recognize clearly and consciously 
that society has developed from barbarism but we assume vaguely 
and unconsciously that it has now reached its zenith. So Thucydides: 
he recognized—no man more clearly—that Athens had evolved from 
piracy and general barbarism: that it had evolved to a certain stage 
of general education and thought: but,—he seems to have thought— 
Athens having reached that culminating point could go no further 
and must even recede into the degeneracy and anarchy, which educa- 
tion and thought themselves produce: must fall before the more brutal 
powers like Macedon, which, without education and thought, yet 
retained the more brutal and masculine virtues: the will to fight, 
the will to power, the power to raise armies, and a rough indifference 
to all the luxuries of thought and the artificial and hot-house life of 
the theatre and the law courts and the public assembly, ‘‘the fountains 
and the fooleries” called civilization. Then in time evolution would 
take its turn with these uncivilized powers: and they also would begin 
to decay by reason of their new virtues, their thought and education, 
before new barbarians. Fate destroys nations by their very virtues, 
and the terminus ad quem is soon reached, and the cycle starts afresh 
from a new deluge of some sort. Fate leads nations in a cycle: evolu- 
tion is from one end of the cycle to the other: but the wheels soon 
revolve full circle, and then the evolution is over: at least for a time 
and for that nation. It is not a continuous evolution: it is strictly 
limited, with its beginning, its culmination and brief transitional 
period of glory—Athens under Pericles—and its decay. (This, by the 
way, | believe is also the doctrine of Chateaubriand’s first essay, his 
essay on Revolution: he was a student of Thucydides.) 

