been most prodigal of such theories. The latter assumes that the day of Christianity is past, that its night has come, and that "through the shadow of that night" the world is "sweeping into a new and younger day," to be ushered in by reorganization of society in church and in state. The Romanist as confidently maintains, that the ultra-montane view of the Church is the central idea in human history and destiny. And both equally predict and labor for the extermination of our Protestant Christianity. And so it is hardly strange, when history is made to read only such lessons, that many wise men are made willing, in faith, to let the historic problem work itself out, as it is most surely doing, without their aid or comfort.

But if Christian and Protestant men neglect such investigations, will not many ardent minds lend a willing ear to the bold generalizations of both papist and infidel? Will not many an imagination be set on fire by the dream of a splendid hierarchy, or by the vision of an occidental republic? And did not alchemy precede chemistry; and did not astrology anticipate astronomy?

And while we fear, as well we may, the presumption of grappling with the historic problem itself, and propounding a solution of it, are we not, by this sketch of the nature and present state of these inquiries, prompted and authorized to ask: What is the real problem of investigation in the philosophy of history? What are the conditions of the right solution of that problem? And in what sequence of historical events must that solution be found, if at all? To such preliminary questions as these, it may be the part of wisdom, and not of arrogance, to give an earnest heed. And even if Protestant. Christianity is too reverential to attempt definitely to solve the historic problem, there may at least be a vital necessity for its showing, that the theories of its two instinctive foes are premature, and not conformed to the demands of science in this high region of research.

What, then, is the real problem which the philosophy of history attempts to solve?

The philosophy of history proposes to treat history as a branch of science. This takes for granted, that it is susceptible of a scientific exposition; that from the study of its facts,

we can come to a knowledge of its laws and principles. It supposes, also, that only through the facts, can we come to a knowledge of its principles; that in a legitimate way the inductive method can be applied to these facts; and that the induction must precede the deduction, or the application of the historic laws to any future possible cases. The inquiry, then, is the same in kind with that in any other branch of philosophy. It may be more difficult, the causes more complex, and the mass of facts greater; but the process of investigation must be the same as in all the inductive sciences, and that is, from the facts learn the principles, and by the principles read the past, and, if possible, forecast the future.

The facts of human history do indeed cover a long tract of time, and a large sphere of space. They constitute one vast, progressive, connected series of events, having the earth for its material basis, time for its condition, moral freedom for its essential element, and the final destiny of the race for its end. They are the product of human freedom, but so far as they are facts, they have come out of the region of mere possibility into that of reality, and are proper subjects of investigation. Supernatural elements may be intermingled with the natural, but still, as extant in history, we may lawfully inquire for their origin and aim. This body of facts comprises whatever has been done or suffered by man's myriad tribes, so far as the record has survived, from the beginning until the most recent times. And it is with this body of facts, that the philosophy of history has to do; and, as a philosophy, the question it has to answer about them is one and simple, however difficult may the answer; and it is this: What is the destiny of the race, as that is contained in, and may be inferred from, the whole history of the race? The historic problem is without significance, unless it be understood as seeking for the rational grounds, order and ends of that which has actually occurred in the history of the race.

Many of the so-called philosophies of history have chiefly failed, from not keeping in view the only legitimate object of their investigation. They have not let history explain itself, they have laid their own theories to the judgment of it. They have not sought to infer the destiny of man from his

actual history; but they have prophesied his destiny, and by their prophecy misinterpreted his history.

Who, for example, from the actual facts of history could infer, with Auguste Comte, that the destiny of man was to form a republic with positive science as its means of regeneration? This is not an induction, but the speculation of a phantasiast. In point of fact, just so far as any theory about human destiny is not a legitimate inference from the facts of that history, taken in their integrity and widest scope, just so far does that theory fail to respond to the one legitimate inquiry in the philosophy of history, which is, as we have said, simply and solely this: What is the destiny of the race, as that is contained in, and may be inferred from, the whole history of the race?

Having thus stated what we conceive to be the legitimate purport of the historic problem, we are prepared for our central inquiry: What are the essential conditions of a right solution of it?

Here, then, is a vast, prolonged, intermingled, continuous series of historical facts, by whose light we are to attempt to read the problem of human destiny. We ask for the essential conditions of doing this aright. These conditions are chiefly four: (1.) That our philosophy of history be the legitimate reading of the whole history itself. (2.) That to this history it assign an adequate law of progress. (3.) An adequate end or object. (4.) An adequate author.

1. The first essential condition, we claim, of a true philosophy of history is, that it be a legitimate generalization from the mass of the historic facts themselves. Our theory must be the burden and the song of the whole history of humanity. It must be the one universal language and consent of all races, kingdoms and tongues. It must be the accord of their varied notes, and the harmony of their discord. If it be not this, it fails in the very first requisite of all proper science. It must be to human history what the "Kosmos" of Humboldt attempts to be to that wonderful Nature, which is but the theatre of this sublime series of facts; and which the more meditative brother of that same Humboldt had in mind, when in his "Correspondence" he speaks of "wishing to form a picture of humanity, to which all nations and ages should be seen to have been con

tributing," and which he there describes by three successive stages of culture; that in which we view objects in their wholeness, but unanalyzed; that in which we analyze their parts, but lose the sense of their unity; and that in which we see them again in their unity, illuminated and illustrated by the scientific analysis. And a like vision of the history of the race was that which swept before the august mind of Pascal, when he said, "that the succession of men in all the ages may be regarded as one man, who lives always, and who learns continually." So great is the problem of human history, that its solution demands of us an image, a representation, an organic reproduction of the whole life and growth of the race, in its successive nations and stadia, and in all its permanent interests.

Vital as is this condition to a right philosophy of history, yet it is one which is frequently violated in the most ambitious attempts. It excludes, of course, any theory which is applicable only to a portion of that history, or to any single race thereof, or to any arbitrary and partial series of its facts. It relegates all those speculations which contemplate only a future reorganization of society, as the proper end and philosophy of humanity, into the regions of imagination, whence they had their origin; they may be good as prophecies, but they are bad as a philosophy of history, for they are no induction from its authenticated facts. They would have been just as credible, and probably more so, had there never been any history at all.

And it is in the light of this condition of a right solution of the historic problem, that its grandeur, as well as difficulty, is disclosed to us. For it is a problem in respect to all the tribes of the race which have played an historic part, to all the nations, so far as they have influenced the general interests of humanity. It is a problem which has respect to the whole human family in the successive stadia of its progress; in all the acts and scenes of that grand drama, disclosed in the successive annals of our race, from its infancy in the plains of Central Asia, through its migratory course, south and north, yet ever westward; in its conflicts of races and nations around all the shores that skirt that memorable middle sea, the boundary of three continents; in its yet intenser strife in Central Europe, its mastery of the shores and islands of the Atlantic,

and its adventurous progress, freighted with the treasures and experience of the past, to this, our western world, whither are ever gravitating, as never to another centre, all races, tongues and tendencies. In the solution of this problem, a part must be assigned to the vast oriental despotisms of the East; to the golden Assyria, imaged as a winged lion, to the silver Persia, depicted as a mighty bear, to brazen Greece, that leopard with wings, and to iron Rome, for which no symbol of a beast might stand in the old prophetic word; to the progeny of Shem which has given its stability, and to the descendants of Japheth, who have given its impulse to the main historic stream; to Judæa, whence came forth the law; to Rome the Papal, as well as Rome the Pagan, and to the empire of the Germans, as well as of the Latins; to the conflicts of the Imperial and Papal power in the mediæval times, and of the hierarchy and monarchy with popular and religious rights in our latest era; and that alone can be the right solution which shall show us how, through all these nations, stages, contests, the race has been advancing in its youth, its manhood, and its maturity, in its material, its social, its civil, its artistic and its religious interests, under the dominion. of a law and in relation to an end, which are comprehensive enough to be the law and the end of the whole historic evolution.

This view of the grandeur and comprehensiveness of the historic problem, may at least restrain us from lending a willing ear to any proposed solution of it which is not conformed to the first requisite of a correct theory, which is, that it be a legitimate induction from the whole history itself.

2. Equally imperative is our second condition of a true philosophy, and that is, that it should recognize and give us an adequate law of progress in the development of the race.

The learned and versatile Chevalier Bunsen, in his recent work upon Hippolytus, truly remarks, "that the human race does not only continue to exist like other animal races, by the succession of generations, but advances in and through them, by families, tribes and nations, and in ever enlarging orbits of development." And it is only under the general idea of progress, of growth, that we can conceive of the construction of a real philosophy of history. All that is subject to time, and