18 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



It would be a fascinating subject of inquiry to ask what are 

 the relations to one an(Uher of the ideas that have ruled the 

 .world, and the relative importance of each; but the limits of this 

 essay forbid me to enter on that subject. 



The three great conditions or causes of history, which we have 

 thus far considered, are constant causes always at work. The in- 

 fluence of any one of them may be m )re or less in different ages 

 or countries, but it is always something. There are other causes 

 in history, which are occasionttl and temporary in their character, 

 but which sometimes have great weight, and turn the course of 

 history to a certain extent. But because they are occjsiosjal and 

 transitory their effects are far less than these constant forces of 

 .which we have spoken. 



There is, first, the influence of nations on one another. Man- 

 kind in past ages have been uniformly so eelfish and narrow and 

 ■cruel, as to think that one nation can only be happy and pros- 

 perous at the expense of other nations. The arts of war have had 

 the honor and the service which rightfully belongs to the arts c>f 

 peace. The hi-tory of the relations of nations has been a record 

 fof> war, of conquest and of oppression. And. therefo'-e, the de- 

 cisive battles of the world are of interest to the student of his- 

 tory. Sometime-^ their results were a foregone conclusion, as when 

 the training of Prussia in school and camp was matched with the 

 ignorance of Austria on the field of Sadowa, or when Philip 

 planned and Alexander carried out the first uni'ed effort of 

 Greeks to conquer the effete Persian despotism. Sometimes 

 they are df'cided by that class of providences which men call 

 chance, as when the fire at Moscow broke the power of Na- 

 poleon, or the storm shattered the pride of the Armaila. And 

 not only the decisive contests, but the indeci-'ive ones a'so have 

 had great and varied effects upon the course of history. Of the 

 -Thirty Years' War, it is not enough to say that it resulted in a 

 drawn battle between Protestantism and Catholicism ; history 

 must note also that it put back the progress of Grermany two 

 centuries, and made her for that time a mere "geographical 

 expression." 



The Crusades directly accomplished nothing; but indirectly 



