42 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



things, has its roots in millenniums past. None can doubt the 

 iact of human progress, but it will sober us to reflect that some 

 •of the advanced philosophies are but elaborations of ancient 

 schools of thought. If Socrates and Plato were the fathers of 

 Greek thought, Anaximander and Heraclitus, Pythagoras, 

 Parmenides and Anaxagoras were the grandfathers of modern 

 ideas. The doctrine of evolution, theistic and atheistic, and the 

 nebular hypothesis, antedate our day nearly twenty-five centuries. 

 No student dwells long on the annals of the race without 

 'Consciously or vuiconsciously constructing a philosophy of 

 history. Hegel points out three stages of historical devel- 

 opment in the mind : the first dealing with mere incidents, 

 the second treating of facts in broader relations, the third 

 reasoning upon causes and effects, and viewing particular acts 

 and facts as they are related to the w^hole process of develop- 

 m,ent. The Canadian boy is easily interested in the capture of 

 Quebec by Wolfe : the stealthy night passage before the French 

 b)atteries ; the red-coats clambering up the Heights of Abraham ; 

 the heroic fall of the two generals ; the dying Wolfe cheered 

 by the cry of victory. Later on the boy gives the battle its 

 proper setting in the campaign, connecting it with the genius 

 •of Pitt, the struggle between British and French and the final 

 triumph of the British cause. There will come a still later day 

 when his view will be so enlarged that in the history of North 

 America and the development of Europe, the fall of the 

 Laurentian capital will be but an incident, important indeed, but 

 very small. So will he learn to genei-alize. Grand combina- 

 tions of historic movements enable him to form great concep- 

 tions concerning the progress of mankind. No pent up Utica 

 confines his powers. He apprehends things as wholes, and the 

 accredited power of Pythagoras wall be his in reality ; success- 

 ive ages will be grasped by him. Here the philosophical student 

 of history stands on a critical point — too critical to be comfor- 

 table. He sees how evidently the ages have produced and 

 moulded men, and the operation of general laws appears as he 

 takes still wider views. His tendency then is to so generalise 

 upon all history as to completel}^ elinimate the personal element. 



