As an era of invention and discovery, the nineteenth century is a rival
of the fifteenth.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES.—Too much was already known of the globe to
leave room for another so stupendous discovery as that of the New
World. Nevertheless, many important geographical discoveries have been
made, especially since about 1825. Geographical societies without
number have been founded, of which the Royal Geographical Society in
England (1830) is one of the best known. Geographical knowledge is
increased in two ways,—first, by the discovery of places not before
known; and secondly, by the scientific examination of countries and
districts, with accurate surveys, and the making of maps. In both these
departments, especially in the latter, the recent period won
distinction. The Russians in their advance rendered the regions
of Northern and Central Asia accessible to travelers. Not only India,
but also extensive districts in Central Asia, have been explored by the
British. China has been traversed by a succession of travelers, and
Japan has unbarred its gates for the admission of foreigners. Abyssinia
has been traversed. The mystery respecting the sources of the Nile has
been dispelled by Speke, Grant, and Baker. In 1822
and 1825 Clapperlon, in two journeys, went over the whole route
from Tripoli to the coast of Guinea. In 1830 Richard and John
Lander settled the question as to the outlet of the Niger.
Barth, and other later explorers, have carried forward the study
of the course of this great river, in the exploration of which Mungo
Park lost his life (1806). In 1816 the Congo was explored to the
falls of Yellala. The travels of Schweinfurth,
Livingstone, Barth, Cameron, and Stanley
have greatly enlarged our acquaintance with formerly unknown portions
of the African continent. In 1879 Stanley, commissioned by King
Leopold of Belgium, opened up communication with the populous
basin of the Congo. During the struggle of the European states to
acquire colonial territory, no part of the continent remained
unexplored. European rivalries also had similar important consequences
to geography in Asia, especially in the Trans-Caspian region and in
Tibet. Dr. Sven Hedin was the most successful of the explorers in
Tibet, traversing wholly unknown districts. Unknown regions on the
American continent, in South America, in far north-western North
America, and in Labrador, have been visited. The same is true of the
interior of Australia. The eagerness to find a north-western passage
(and later in scientific exploration) has led to hazardous and not
unfruitful expeditions under Ross, Parry,
Franklin, Kane, Markham, McClintock,
Greely, and other voyagers. In 1875 Markham reached the
highest latitude that up to that time had been attained (83° 21'
26"). A still higher point (86° 14') was reached by Dr. Nansen who in
1893 started to drift in the Fram across the polar regions. In
1892 Lieutenant Peary crossed Greenland from the west coast to a part
of the north-east coast never before visited. The Antarctic seas were
also explored first by the Challenger in 1874. By 1900 the
farthest point reached was 78° 50'. Geography has become a much more
profound and instructive science. The physical character of the globe,
and of the atmosphere that surrounds it, have been studied in their
relation to man and history. Physical geography, or physiography, has
thus arisen. In recent years scientists have gone far in the study of
the physical geography of the sea, in making maps of its bottom, and in
the endeavor to define the system of oceanic winds and currents. In
connection with physical geography, the distribution of animal life on
the land and in the depths of the sea has been studied, and much
valuable information gained.
FOUR INVENTIONS.—Among the useful inventions of the present century,
there are four which are of preëminent consequence. The honor connected
with each of these, as is generally the case with great inventions,
belongs to no individual exclusively. Several, and in some cases many
persons, can fairly claim a larger or smaller share in it. (1) The most
efficient agent in bringing the steam-engine to perfection was
James Watt (1736-1819), a native of Scotland. (2) In connection
with the application of steam to navigation, no name stands higher than
that of Robert Fulton. (3) Carriages on railroads were at first
drawn by horses. In 1814 George Stephenson, in England, invented
the locomotive, and afterwards (1829) an improved construction of it.
The first great railroad for the transportation of passengers began to
run between Manchester and Liverpool in 1830. Remarkable achievements
in engineering have been connected with the construction of
railways. The Alps were pierced, and the Mont Cenis tunnel was
completed in 1871. The principal civilized countries have gradually
become covered with networks of railways. The whole method of
transportation of the products of industry has been altered by
them. Besides their vast influence in facilitating and stimulating
travel and trade, they have modified the method of conducting warfare,
with very important results. (4) In contriving the electric
telegraph, Wheatstone, an Englishman, Oersted, a
Dane, and Henry, an American, had each an important part. The
most simple and efficient form of the telegraphic instrument is
admitted to be due to the inventive sagacity of Morse
(1837). His instrument was first put in use in 1844. The first
submarine wires connecting Europe with America transmitted messages in
1858, between England and the United States. Since that time numerous
submarine cables have been laid in different parts of the globe. Upon
the invention of the telegraph, another invention—that of the
telephone—has followed, by which conversation can be held with
the voice between distant places. By the phonograph it has become
possible to reproduce audibly songs, speeches, and conversations. Still
more recently a system of wireless telegraphy has been invented by
which messages may be sent even across the Atlantic without the use of
a cable.
The Suez Canal, a channel for ships, connecting the Mediterranean
with the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and opening thus a shorter
highway by water between Europe and the East, was officially opened
on the 17th of November, 1869.
USES OF STEAM.—The practical applications of steam, besides its use in
the propulsion of vessels, and of carriages on railways, are
numberless. It is used, for example, in automobiles, in traction
engines, in plowing and harvesting machinery, in fire-engines, in
road-rollers, and in all sorts of hoisting and conveying machinery.
Steam forge hammers were invented by Nasmyth, an engineer of
Manchester, in 1839. In a multitude of industrial occupations, where
water-power was once used, or tools and machines whose use involved
muscular exertion, the work is now done by the energy of steam. More
recently electricity has been displacing steam not only on street
railroads and suburban railroads, but also in many other industrial
processes, as well as the lighting of buildings and streets.
TOOLS AND MACHINES.—In modern days no small amount of skill has been
directed to the devising of tools and machines for the more facile and
exact production of whatever costs labor. Factories have become
monuments of ingenuity, and museums in the useful arts. Improved
machinery lightens the toil of the sailor. Machines in a great variety
facilitate agricultural labor. They open the furrow, sow the seed, reap
and winnow the harvest. In-doors, the sewing-machine performs a great
part of the labor formerly done by the fingers of the seamstress. The
art of printing has attained to a marvelous degree of
progress. Hoe's printing-press, moved by steam, seizes on the
blank paper, severs it from the roll in sheets of the right size,
prints it on both sides, and folds it in a convenient shape,—all with
miraculous rapidity. Inventions in rock-boring and rock-drilling have
made it possible to tunnel mountains. The use of explosives for
mechanical purposes is a highly important fact in connection with the
modern labor-saving inventions.
INDIA RUBBER.—Shoes made of caoutchouc, the thickened milky
juice of the india-rubber plant, were imported from Brazil to Boston as
early as 1825. Improvements in the use of this material, in the solid
form and in solution, were made by Mr. Macintosh of Glasgow, and
Thomas Hancock of Newington, England, about 1820. From the
dissolved caoutchouc, a coating was obtained making garments
water-proof. In 1839 Charles Goodyear, an American, discovered
the process of vulcanizing india-rubber,—that is, producing in it a
chemical change whereby its valuable qualities are greatly
enhanced. The material thus procured was applied to a great number of
uses. It enters into a great variety of manufactured articles.
ENGINERY OF WAR.—A continual advance has been made in the construction
of the implements of war. The whole science and art of war have been
fundamentally changed, mainly in consequence of these modern
inventions. Reference may be made to the invention of rifled
cannon, heavier ordnance, breech-loading guns, and shells and
explosive bullets. It was the needle-gun of the Prussians, which
gave them a signal advantage in their war with the French. The building
of armored battle ships has been followed by the construction of small
swift vessels from which to launch torpedoes at the battle ships. Other
swift vessels have been constructed to pursue and destroy the torpedo
boat. High explosives and smokeless powder have also been invented.
THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE.—Among the instruments which have
promoted the extension of science, the microscope, with its modern
improvements, is one of the most interesting. It has aided discovery in
botany, in physiology, in mineralogy, and in almost all other branches
of science. It has even assisted in the detection of crime. The large
refracting telescopes have been constructed within the last few
decades. Telescopes have recently been used with increasing success in
photographing the heavens with accuracy.
INSTRUMENTS IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY.—The microscope has rendered
inestimable service to the healing art. Rare ingenuity has been exerted
in contriving surgical instruments by which difficult operations are
performed with comparative safety and without pain. In medicine and
surgery, the discovery of anesthetics for the general or partial
suspending of nervous sensibility is one of the triumphs of practical
science in later times. Chloroform was brought into general use
in the medical profession in 1847; although it had been discovered, and
had been used by individuals in the profession, much
earlier. Nitrous oxide was first used by Horace Wells, a
dentist of Hartford, in the extraction of a tooth (1844). In 1846 the
great discovery of anæsthetic ether, by Morton of Boston,
was first applied in surgery. Jackson and others were claimants,
with more or less justice, to a part in the honors of this
discovery. Lately cocaine has been found to benumb the
sensibility of the more delicate membranes, as those of the eye and the
throat. In auscultation, or the ascertaining of the state of the
internal organs by listening to their sound, a very valuable instrument
is the stethoscope. The principle of the ophthalmoscope,
that wonderful instrument for inspecting the interior of the eye, was
expounded by Helmholtz in 1851. By its aid, not only the
condition of that organ is explored, but indications of certain
diseases in the brain, and in other parts of the body, are
discovered. Helmholtz did an equal work in acoustics. The recent
discovery and use of the X-rays has assisted surgeons in
locating foreign substances and in diagnosing disease.
THE SPECTROSCOPE: PHOTOGRAPHY.—In connection with the phenomena of
light, the spectroscope, by which the chemical elements entering
in the composition of the sun and of other heavenly bodies are
ascertained, is one of the marvels of the age. The way was paved for
this discovery by a succession of chemists and
opticians,—Fraunhofer (1814), Brewster (1832), Sir
John Herschel (1822), J. W. Draper, and others; but the
instrument was devised by Kirchhoff and
Bunsen. Photography, or the art of making permanent
sun-pictures, is the result of the labors of Niepce (who died in
1833), Daguerre (1839), Fox Talbot, an Englishman,
J. W. Draper, and other men of science and practical
artisans. Instantaneous photography has been of much service in
the observation of eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. Progress
has also been made in color-photography.
THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY.—Perhaps the most important conclusion of
physical science which has been reached in the recent period is the
doctrine of the conservation of energy. Chemists had shown that the sum
of matter always remains the same. In the transformations of chemistry
no matter is destroyed, however it may change its form. Now, it has
been proved that the quantity of power or energy is constant. If lost
in one body, it reappears in another; if it ceases in one form, it is
exerted in another, and this according to definite ratios. One form of
energy is convertible into another: heat, light, electricity,
magnetism, chemical action, are so related that one can be made to
produce either of the others. This fact is termed the
correlation of physical forces. Connected with the discovery of
it are Meyer in Germany, and Grove and Joule in
England. It has been expounded by Sir William Thompson,
Helmholtz, Tait, Maxwell, etc. The truth was
elucidated by Tyndall in his Heat considered as a Mode of
Motion, and by Balfour Stewart in his Conservation of
Energy. But Count Rumford, an American (1753-1814), the real
founder of the Royal Institution, long ago opened the path for this
discovery by furnishing the data for computing the mechanical
equivalent of heat.
GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.—In geology, from the publication of
Lyell's work (1830), the tendency has more and more prevailed to
explain the geological structure of the earth by the slow operation of
forces now in action, rather than by violent convulsions and
catastrophes. In 1831 Sedgwick and Murchison, likewise
English geologists, commenced their labors. Agassiz published
his Essay on the Glaciers in 1837, the precursor of like investigations
by Tyndall and others. These are only a small fraction of the
numerous body of explorers and writers in geological science. In the
United States, Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), an eminent
scientific teacher, lent a strong stimulus to the progress of geology,
as well as of chemistry. Even in the branch of paleontology, or
the study of the fossil remains of extinct animals, it would be
impracticable to give the names of those who have added so much to our
knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants in the ages that preceded
man.
ASTRONOMY.—The great French geometers, Lagrange and
Laplace, made an epoch in astronomical science. Since their
time, however, there has been a large increase of knowledge in this
branch. The discovery of the planet Neptune (1846) by Galle, as
the result of mathematical calculations of Leverrier, which were
made independently also by Adams, was hailed as a signal proof
of scientific progress; and, recently, the discovery of a fifth
satellite of Jupiter. Besides Neptune hundreds of thousands of stars
have been discovered and registered. Mathematical astronomy has
advanced, while the study of nebulae and of meteors, and the
investigation of the constitution of celestial bodies by the help of
the spectroscope, are among the more recent achievements of this oldest
of the sciences. Among the names identified with the recent progress of
astronomy are Sir John Herschel and A. Herschel,
Maxwell, Struve, Secchi, Bessel,
Bond, Peirce, Newton, Newcomb,
Young, Lockyer, Schiaparelli.
PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY.—In chemistry the major part of the more rare
elements have been discovered since the century began. It was proved in
1819 that the capacities for heat which belong to the atoms of the
different elements are equal. In the same year Mitscherlich's
law was propounded,—the law of isomorphism, according to which
atoms of elements of the same class may replace each other in a
compound without altering its crystalline structure. Chemists have
directed their attention to the molecular structure—the
ultimate constitution—of various compounds. Faraday (1791-1867)
developed the relations of electricity to chemistry. Liebig
(1803-1873), a German chemist, in connection with numerous laborers in
the same field, made interesting contributions in the different
departments of chemical science. Among the recent elements which have
been discovered are argon, which enters into the composition of air,
helium, and radium.
BIOLOGY.—No branch of natural science has been more zealously
cultivated of late than biology. Among those who have given an
impulse to the study of natural history, one of the most eminent names
is that of Charles Darwin. His work on The Origin of
Species (1859) advocated the opinion that the various species of
animals, instead of being all separately created, spring by natural
descent and slow variation from a few primitive forms of animal
life. He laid much stress upon "natural selection," or the survival of
the strongest or fittest in the struggle for existence. With the name
of Darwin should be associated that of Wallace, who
simultaneously propounded the same doctrine. The general doctrine of
evolution, or of the origin of species by natural generation,
has been held in other forms and modifications by Richard Owen,
and other distinguished naturalists. One of the most noted opponents of
the evolution doctrine in zoology was Louis Agassiz (1807-1873),
a very able and enthusiastic student of nature. One of its most eminent
expounders and defenders was Huxley. Some have sought to extend
the theory of natural development over the field of inorganic as well
as living things, and to trace all existences back to nebulous vapor.
ARCHEOLOGY.—Geology lends its aid to archeology, or the inquiry
into the primitive condition of man. Not only has much light been
thrown on obscure periods of history, by the uncovering of the remains
of Babylon, Assyria, and other abodes of early civilization, and by the
deciphering of monumental inscriptions in characters long forgotten;
but the discovery of buried relics of prehistoric men has afforded
glimpses of human life as it was prior to all written memorials. One of
the most instructive writers on this last subject is Tylor in
his Primitive Culture, and in other works on the same general
theme.
PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE.—Victor Cousin (1792—1867), a brilliant
thinker and eloquent lecturer and writer, founded in France the
eclectic school of philosophy. He aimed to construct a
positive view on the basis of previous systems, which he classified
under four heads,—idealism, sensualism,
skepticism, and mysticism. In his teaching, he sought a
middle path between the German and the Scottish schools, leaning now
more decidedly to the one, and now to the other. Jouffroy
(1796-1842), the most prominent of Cousin's disciples, but
more exact and methodical than his master, wrote instructively,
especially on aesthetics and moral
philosophy. Philosophy in France took an altogether different
direction in the hands of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the
founder of the positivist school. He taught that we know only
phenomena, or things as manifested to our consciousness, and know
nothing either of first causes, efficient causes, or of final causes
(or design). We are limited to the ascertaining of facts by
observation and experiment, which we register according to their
likeness or unlikeness, and their chronological relation, or the
order of their occurrence in time.
SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY.—The most distinguished expounder of the
Scottish philosophy, and the most learned of that whole
school, was Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856). He maintained
the doctrine of natural realism,—that we have a direct, "face
to face" perception of external things. He held that the range of the
mind's power of conceptive thought lies between two
inconceivables, one of which must be real. Thus we can not
conceive of free-will (which would be a new beginning), nor can we
conceive of an endless series of causes. Free-will—and the same is
true of the fundamental truths of religion—is verified to us as real
by our moral nature. A Scottish writer of ability, who, however,
opposed the peculiar tenets of the Scottish school, was
Ferrier (1808-1864). Among the other philosophical writers of
Scotland, affiliated, but with different degrees of dissent, with the
school of Reid and Hamilton, are Professors Fraser and
Calderwood, and the late James McCosh.
PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLAND.—More allied to the philosophy of Hume and of
Comte are the metaphysical theories of John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873). Intuitions were regarded by Mill as the
impression produced by a frequent conjunction of like experiences,
and thus to be the product of sensation. Causation was
resolved into the invariable association of phenomena, by which an
expectation is created that seems instinctive. Another writer of the
same general tendency, who seeks for the explanation of knowledge in
the materials furnished by the senses, is Alexander Bain, a
Scottish author, versed in physiology. Herbert Spencer
constructed a general system of philosophy on the basis of the theory
of evolution. He holds that our knowledge is limited to
phenomena, which are the manifestation in our consciousness of
things which in themselves are unknown; and that behind and below all
is "the Unknowable,"—an inscrutable force, out of which the universe
of matter and mind is developed, and which gives to it unity and
coherence.
PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.—In Germany the decline of the school of
Hegel was succeeded by a sort of anarchy in
philosophy. Herbart (1776-1841), a contemporary of
Hegel, framed a system antagonistic to Hegelian
idealism. Among numerous metaphysical authors, each of whom has a
"standpoint" of his own, are the justly distinguished names of
Fichte (the younger), Ulrici, Trendelenburg, and
Hermann Lotze. Lotze. in his Microcosm, has unfolded,
in a style attractive to the general reader, profound and genial
views of man, nature, and religion. A remarkable phenomenon in German
speculation is "pessimism,"—the doctrine gravely propounded in the
systems of Schopenhauer and E. Von Hartmann, that the
world is radically and essentially evil, and personal existence a
curse from which the refuge is in the hope of annihilation. In its
view of the world as springing from an unconscious force, and of the
extinction of consciousness as the state of bliss, as well as in its
notions of evil as inwrought in the essence of things, this
philosophy is a revival of Indian Oriental speculation. Historical
and critical writings in the department of philosophy abound in
Germany. The histories of philosophy by Ritter, Erdmann, Zeller,
Kuno Fischer, and Lange, are works of remarkable merit.
PHILOSOPHY IN ITALY.—Among the Italian metaphysicians, the two
writers who are most noteworthy are Rosmini (1797-1855), who
taught idealism; and Gioberti (1801-1882), whose system is on
a different basis,—a gifted writer who was equally conspicuous as a
statesman and a philosopher.
PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNITED STATES.—Philosophy in America has been
zealously cultivated, both in connection with theology and apart from
it, by a considerable number of teachers and writers. Among them are
James Marsh, C. S. Henry, Francis Wayland, L. P. Hickok,
H. B. Smith, and other eminent authors, mostly of a more recent
date.
POLITICAL ECONOMY.—Ricardo (1772-1823), who followed Adam
Smith (p. 492), dealt more in abstractions and processes of
logic, than his predecessor. The writings of Ricardo, together
with the discussions of Malthus (1766-1834) on population,—in
which it was maintained that the tendency to an increase of
population outstrips the increase of the means of subsistence,—led
to numerous other writings.
Political economy was handled in productions by James Mill
(1821), J. R. McCulloch, N. W. Senior (1790-1864),
R. Torrens (1780-1864), Harriet Martineau (1802-1876),
Thomas Chalmers, the celebrated Scottish divine, Archbishop
Richard Whately, Richard Jones (1790-1855), a critic of the
system of Ricardo, and others. An eminent writer, an expositor
with important modifications of the Ricardian teaching, is John
Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Fawcett and other able authors
have followed for the most part in Mill's path. An English author of
distinction in this field is J. E. Cairnes (1824-1875). The
French school of economists have adhered to the principles of Adam
Smith much more than have the Germans. Among the most noted of
the French authors in this field are Say (1767-1832), whose
views are founded on those of Smith; Sismondi (1773-1842),
who, however, departs from the English doctrine, and favors the
intervention of government to "regulate the progress of wealth";
Dunoyer (1786-1862); Bastiat (1801-1850), one of the
most brilliant advocates of free-trade; Cournot (1801-1877),
who applies, with much acumen, mathematics to economical questions.
In America, since the days of Franklin and Hamilton,
both of whom wrote instructively on these topics, a number of writers
of ability have appeared. Among them are H. C. Carey, who
opposes the views of Ricardo and Malthus, and defends
the theory of protection; Francis Bowen, also a protectionist;
F. A. Walker, Perry, etc. In Italy, there have not been
wanting productions of marked acuteness in this department. Of the
numerous German writers, one of the most eminent is List
(1798-1846), a critic of Adam Smith, and not an adherent of
the unqualified doctrine of free-trade. In the list of later English
writers, the names of Bagehot, Leslie, Jevons, and
Sidgwick are quite prominent. With regard to free-trade and
protection, the latter doctrine has been maintained in two
forms. Some have regarded protection as the best permanent
policy for a nation to adopt. Others have defended it as a
provisional policy, to shield manufactures in their infancy,
until they grow strong enough to compete, without help, with foreign
products. After the repeal of the corn-laws in England (1846), the
free-trade doctrine prevailed in England. Since Comte
published his exposition of Sociology (1839), the tendency has
arisen to consider political economy as one branch of this broader
theme. With it the controversies pertaining to socialism are
intimately connected.
The disciples of Adam Smith have contended for the
non-intervention of governments in the industrial pursuits of the
people. They are to be left to the natural desire of wealth, and the
natural exercise of competition in the pursuit of it. The prevalent
theories of socialism are directly hostile to this—called the
laissez-faire—principle. Socialists would make government the
all-regulative agent, the owner of land and of the implements of
labor.
ENGLISH ESSAYISTS.—In literature the later time has seen an
extraordinary multiplying of periodicals and newspapers, among whose
editors and contributors have been included numerous writers of much
celebrity. In Great Britain, several famous authors first acquired
distinction mainly by historical and critical articles in reviews. This
is true of Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas
Carlyle. Each of them became a historian. Macaulay, an
ardent Whig, with an astonishing familiarity with political and
literary facts, wrote in a spirited and brilliant style a History of
England from the Accession of James II. to the death of his hero,
William III. Carlyle, with a unique force of imagination and a
rugged intensity of feeling, original in his thought, yet strongly
affected by German literature, especially by Richter and
Goethe, wrote in his earlier days a Life of Schiller. He
wrote later a history of the French Revolution, in which the scenes of
that tragic epoch are depicted with dramatic vividness; and a copious
History of Frederick the Great. Among the most characteristic of
his writings are his Heroes and Hero-Worship; the "Latter-Day
Pamphlets," in which is poured out his contempt of democracy; and the
Life of John Sterling,—the counterpart of a biography of
Sterling, written in a different vein by a learned and scholarly
divine, Julius Hare.
Of essayists in a lighter, discursive vein, one of the most popular,
who has already been referred to (p. 544), was the Scottish writer,
John Wilson (1785-1854), the author of numerous tales and
criticisms, and of diverting papers written under the name of
"Christopher North." Without the fancy and humor of Wilson, yet master
of a style keeping within the limits of prose while verging on poetry,
was Thomas De Quincey, the author of The Confessions of an
Opium Eater, Essays on the Roman Emperors, etc.
HISTORICAL WRITINGS IN ENGLAND.—The literature of history has been
enriched by British authors with important works besides those named
above. Grote and Thirlwall each composed histories of
Greece which are the fruit of thorough and enlightened scholarship. The
work of Grote is a vindication of the Athenian democracy, a view
the antipode of that taken in the work on Grecian history by
Mitford. An elaborate work on the History of the Romans under
the Empire is one of several historical productions of Charles
Merivale. Stanhope [Lord Mahon] composed a narrative of the
War of the Spanish Succession, and other useful histories. Sir
W. F. P. Napier wrote a History of the War in the
Peninsula, in which the campaigns of Wellington in Spain are
described by an author who took part in them. The constitutional
history of England has been treated with satisfactory learning and
judgment by Hallam, May, and Stubbs. The Puritan
revolution has been described with masterly skill and judicial fairness
by S. R. Gardiner. In the earlier field, Mr. Edward
A. Freeman labored with distinguished success, the History of
the Norman Conquest being his principal work in this branch of
historical inquiry. J. R. Green is the author of an attractive
history of the English people. J. A. Froude wrote with engaging
literary art a History of England in the Reign of Elizabeth,
which attempts, in the preliminary part, an apology for the character
and conduct of Henry VIII. Spencer Walpole has written a
History of England since 1815. Ramsay has written the
Foundations of England, Angevin England, Lancaster, and
York. John Hill Burton, a Scottish author, educated as a
lawyer, composed vigorously written histories of Scotland and of the
reign of Queen Anne. Lecky wrote in a pleasing style a
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, besides a
History of Rationalism in Europe, and a History of European
Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. In ecclesiastical history,
Milman, whose leading work is the History of Latin
Christianity, Dean Stanley, and Bishop Creighton have
been the principal writers.
ENGLISH NOVELISTS.—The series of "Waverley novels" by Walter
Scott (1771-1832) had an unbounded popularity. Pervaded by a
cheerful, healthy tone, they presented fascinating pictures of life and
manners, and kindled a fresh sympathy with the Middle Ages and with the
spirit of chivalry. The poems of Scott depicted, in a metrical form,
like picturesque scenes, and knightly combats and adventures. The
fictions of Scott gave rise to a school of writers, one of whom was
G. P. R. James (1801-1860). A new and different type of novel
appeared, in connection with which the names of Dickens
(1812-1870) and Thackeray (1811-1863) are preëminent. Both are
humorists; in Dickens especially, humor runs into broad
caricature. Both present pictures of society and of common life. They
illustrate the tendency of the novel at present to rely for its
attraction upon scenes and incidents of ordinary life, and the minute
portraiture of manners and of character. Dickens owes his
popularity largely to the unique sort of drollery and the genuine
pathos that are mingled in his pages. Thackeray is a satirist,
with a keen eye to detect the weaknesses of humanity, but with a deep
well of sympathy, veiled, however, and sedulously guarded from
sentimentalism, by a tone of banter and a semblance of
cynicism. Measured by their popularity with the cultivated class, the
novels of Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot) stand next in rank to
the productions last referred to. In some of her tales, the artistic
motive and spirit are qualified by the didactic aim, or the underlying
"tendency,"—the purpose to teach, or to promote a favorite
cause,—which has become a frequent characteristic in modern
fiction. Among the other English novelists, Bulwer (1805-1873),
whose later stories are free from the immorality that stains the
earlier, is one of the most widely read. The novels of Charles
Kingsley (1819-1875) are among the justly popular productions in
this department. Among the novelists of the late Victorian Era were
Charles Keade, Blackmore, Stevenson,
Kipling, Meredith, Hardy, and Mrs. Humphry
Ward.
ENGLISH POETS.—Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the author of
The Princess, In Memoriam, and the Idylls of the
King, held the first place among the poets of his day. An adept in
the metrical art, he combines in these mature productions, with
terseness of diction and fresh, striking imagery, deep reflection and
sympathy with the intellectual questionings and yearnings of the
time. In his lyrical poems the fullness of his power is seen. He was,
without question, a consummate literary artist. Browning
(1812-1889), careless of rhythmical art, with a defiance of form, but
with dramatic power, in his descent to "the under-currents" of the
soul, placed himself open to the reproach of obscurity. Among English
poets of high merit in the recent period stand the names of the
delightful humorist Thomas Hood (1798-1845), Arthur
Clough (1819-1861), and more recently, Matthew Arnold
(1822-1888).
With this reference to the poets may be coupled the name of the most
eloquent and suggestive of the English writers on art, John
Ruskin.
THEOLOGY IN ENGLAND.—Theological scholarship in Great Britain, after a
long season of partial eclipse, again shone forth in the present
period. Critical works relating to the Scriptures have been produced,
which are on a level with the best Continental learning. About 1833,
there began at Oxford what has been called the "Tractarian movement,"
from a series of "Tracts for the Times," relating to theology and the
Church, which were issued by its promoters. The party thus originating
were called "Puseyites," as Dr. Edward Pusey (1800-1882), the
author of learned commentaries, and of works in other departments of
divinity, was their acknowledged leader. They formed one branch of the
class called "High Churchmen." They laid great emphasis on the doctrine
of the "apostolic succession" of the ministry, the necessity and
efficacy of the sacraments administered by them, and the importance of
visible ecclesiastical unity. They claimed to stand in the "middle
path" between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. One of the
leading associates of Pusey was John Keble (1792-1866),
the poet, author of The Christian Year. The most eminent writer
in this group of theologians was John Henry Newman (1801-1890),
who won general admiration by the subtlety of his genius and its rare
felicity of expression. He entered the Church of Rome, and was advanced
to the rank of a cardinal. One of the principal literary undertakings
of the recent period is the Revision of the Authorized Version of the
Bible, by associated companies of English and American scholars. In the
long catalogue of influential writers in theology, it is practicable to
refer here to a few suggestive names. Thomas Chalmers
(1780-1847) was equally noted as a glowing preacher, an eloquent
defender of the Christian faith, and a lucid expounder of the
Calvinistic system. Edward Irving (1792-1834) was a pulpit
orator of unsurpassed eloquence in his day, whose peculiar view as to
the restoration of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, that were
granted in the apostolic age, gave rise to a religious body calling
itself the "Catholic Apostolic Church." Frederick Denison
Maurice (1805-1872) was one of the leaders of the "liberal," or
"Broad Church," portion of the English Episcopal Church. His writings
have exerted a strong influence. In the same general direction, but of
a more critical and argumentative tone, were Richard Whately
(1787-1863), Archbishop of Dublin; and Thomas Arnold, who, in
addition to his influence as a teacher, classical scholar, and
historian, engaged actively in discussions on the questions relating to
Church and State.
LITERATURE IN AMERICA: POEMS AND TALES.—The period which we are now
considering witnessed a gratifying development of belles-lettres and
historical literature in the United States. At the outset, two writers
appeared who acquired a transatlantic fame. Washington Irving
(1783-1859) in 1818 published The Sketch Book, in a series of
pamphlets. It had been preceded by Knickerbocker's History of New
York and other humorous publications. Among his later writings were
included the Life of Columbus, the Life of Mohammed, and
the Life of Washington. The refinement and charm of his style,
which brought back the simplicity of Goldsmith, satisfied the foreign
critics who had ridiculed the florid rhetoric of previous American
authors. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) published The
Spy, the first of his novels, which attracted much attention, in
1821. This was followed, two years later, by The Pioneers, the
first of the famous "Leatherstocking" series of novels, in which Indian
life and manners were portrayed. Cooper was also the founder of the
"sea-novel," a line of fiction in which he was followed by an English
writer, Marryat (1792-1848). Richard H. Dana and
Fitz-Greene Halleck were poets who had a much higher than the
merely negative merit of freedom from tumidity, the bane of the earlier
American bards. Not only in verse, but also in his prose tales,
Dana manifested genius. Several later poets, acknowledged at
home and abroad, well deserve the name. Such are Bryant
(1794-1878), whose poems, pensive and elevated in their tone, lack
neither vigor nor finish; Longfellow (1807-1882), a poet of
exquisite culture, whose purity of sentiment, as well as polish and
melody of diction, have made him a favorite in both Europe and America;
Whittier (1807-1892), whose spirited productions are pervaded
with a glowing love of liberty and humanity. Lowell (1819-1891)
has justly earned fame as a poet and a critic; and, as a poet, in both
serious and humorous compositions. The "Biglow Papers" are without a
rival in the species of humor that characterize them. Distinction as a
poet and a prose writer belongs likewise to Oliver Wendell
Holmes (1809-1894), who was especially successful as an author of
"poems of society." Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), faulty in his
moral spirit as he was wayward in his conduct, exhibited, both in his
poems and tales, which are unique in their character, the traits of a
wild and somber genius. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), admired
as a poet, but more generally as an essayist, valuing insight above
logic, has commented on nature, man, and literature with so rare a
penetration and felicity of expression that Matthew Arnold has
placed his productions on a level with the Meditations of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius. In the list of American novelists the foremost
name is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In his romances the subtle
analysis of the workings of conscience and sensibility, in particular
the obscure—including the morbid-action of these powers, is combined
with perfection of style and of literary art. The novels of Harriet
Beecher Stowe, especially those which relate to slavery and depict
negro character, have had a world-wide currency. Among other novelists
were Paulding and Sedgwick, and more recently,
Howells, James, Bret Harte, Cable, and Aldrich. The most
distinguished humorist has been S. M. Clemens (Mark Twain).
Good work has been done by Americans in literary history and criticism.
The History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor, is
the fruit of many years of labor by a competent scholar.
HISTORICAL WRITINGS IN AMERICA.—Creditable works have been produced in
America in the department of historical literature. The lives of
Washington and Franklin, and other biographical and historical writings
of much value, have been composed or edited by Jared Sparks. George
Bancroft (1800-1891) published, in successive editions, the results
of extensive researches in the history of the United States. Works on
the same subject have been published by Richard Hildreth and
many others. John G. Palfrey is the author of an excellent
history of New England. William H. Prescott by his History of
the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, his histories of Spanish
conquest in America, and his fragment on the reign of Philip II. of
Spain, has deservedly attained to a high distinction on both sides of
the Atlantic. The same may be said of John Lothrop Motley
(1814-1877), in his Rise and Progress of the Dutch Republic. The
history of French colonization and of the contests of France in America
has been detailed with thoroughness and skill by Francis
Parkman. Other prominent writers have been John Fiske, Justin
Winsor, Henry. Adams, James F. Rhodes, and A. T. Mahan.
AMERICAN WRITERS ON LAW ANS POLITICS.—American writers on law embrace
names of world-wide celebrity. Among them are Henry Wheaton, in
international law, a science to which Woolsey and
Lawrence have made valuable contributions; James Kent,
whose Commentaries on American Law is a work held in high honor
by the legal profession; and Joseph Story, a jurist and legal
writer of distinguished merit. The speeches and other productions of
Webster, Calhoun, Clay, John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Seward,
Sumner, form a valuable body of political writings. The works of
Francis Lieber, a German by birth, and the treatise on
Political Science by Theodore D. Woolsey, are important
contributions to the branch of knowledge to which they relate.
PHILOLOGY IN AMERICA.—On the catalogue of students of language, the
name of Noah Webster (1758-1843) is prominent, through his
English Dictionary, the fruit of many years of arduous labor; a work
that since his death has appeared in successive and improved
editions. Another successful laborer in the same field was Joseph
E. Worcester (1784-1865), likewise the author of a copious and
valuable lexicon of the English language. George P. Marsh, an
erudite Scandinavian scholar, wrote also on the Origin and History
of the English Language. In the departments of classical learning,
of Oriental study, and of general philology, there have appeared other
American authors of acknowledged merit, e.g. William D. Whitney.
THEOLOGY IN AMERICA.—Theology has been cultivated with much fruit by a
large number of preachers and authors, of different religious bodies.
Moses Stuart, by his commentaries on Biblical books, and
Edward Robinson, especially through his published Travels in the
Holy Land, were widely known. Charles Hodge, long a professor at
Princeton; Nathaniel W. Taylor, who broached modifications of
the Calvinistic system; Henry B. Smith, an acute and learned
theologian; and Horace Bushnell,—are among the influential
authors on the Protestant side. To these should be added the name of
William Ellery Channing, the most prominent leader of the
Unitarians, equally distinguished as a preacher and as a
philanthropist.
The Unitarian movement in New England, which began in the early part
of the nineteenth century, included other theological writers, one of
the most learned and scholarly of whom was Andrews Norton
(1786-1853). Theodore Parker (1810-1860) subsequently went so
far in his divergence from received views as to reject miracle and
supernatural revelation altogether. He was one of the most vigorous
combatants in the warfare carried on through the press and in the
pulpit against slavery. Out of the Unitarian school there came a
class of cultured writers in literature and criticism, of whom
George Ripley (1802-1880) was a representative. The
"transcendentalists," as they were popularly styled, with whom these
were often at the outset affiliated, were much influenced by
contemporary French and German authors and speculations. Emerson, was
the most prominent writer in this vaguely defined class. A periodical
called "The Dial" was issued by them.
One of the most ingenious and active-minded thinkers in the Roman
Catholic Church was Orestes A. Brownson, a prolific author on
topics of religion and philosophy.
LITERATURE IN GERMANY.—The German mind has been so productive in
almost all branches of literary effort, that the annual issues of the
German press have numbered many thousands. The political condition of
Germany until a recent date was such as to attract large numbers to the
pursuits of literature and science. It is possible to allude to but few
of the principal authors. In imaginative literature, Heinrich
Heine (1799-1856), of Jewish extraction, was a most witty yet
irreverent satirist, and one of the principal song-writers of modern
times. Gustav Freytag has written some of the best of the later
German novels. Auerbach, Keller, and Spielhagen
stand very high on the roll of novelists. Of numerous recent poets,
Lenau and Freiligrath are among the few best esteemed. In
the long catalogue of German historical writers, to whom the world owes
a debt, are found the names of Schlosser (1776-1861),
Heeren (1760-1842), Raumer (1781-1873); Ranke,
whose numerous works are based on original researches, and are written
with masterly skill; Gervinus, a critic as well as historian;
Von Sybel, Droysen, Duncker, Weber,
Giesebrecht, Mommsen, Curtius,
Treitschke. A powerful impulse was given to the study of history
by Niebuhr (1776-1831). German researches have been carried into
every region of the past. In Egyptology, Lipsius, Bunsen,
Brugsch, and Ebers are leading
authorities. Neander, Gieseler, Baur,
Döllinger, Hefele, Alzog, Harnack,
Janssen, and Pastor are writers on ecclesiastical
history. German travelers have explored many of the countries of the
globe. Schliemann has uncovered the ruins of Troy. In
mathematics and the natural sciences, in philology and criticism, in
philosophy, in law and the political sciences, and in the different
branches of theology, the world acknowledges its debt to the patient,
methodical investigations and the exhaustive discussions of German
students during the nineteenth century.
THEOLOGY IN GERMANY.—The history of religious thought in Germany
includes the successive phases of rationalism, or that general
theory which makes the human understanding, apart from supernatural
revelation, the chief or the exclusive source of religious knowledge,
and the umpire in controversies. In the age of Frederick II.,
the Anglo-French deism was widely diffused (p. 493). Lessing;
the genial poet and critic (1729-1781), allied himself to no
party. In his work on The Education of the Human Race, he set
forth the view that the Scriptures have a high providential purpose
as an instrument for the religious training of mankind, but that
their essential contents are ultimately verified by reason on
grounds of its own; so that the prop of authority eventually becomes
needless, and falls away. Not radically different was the position of
Kant (p. 545), who gave rise to a school of theologians that
for a time flourished. This school made the essential thing in
Christianity to be its morality. With Semler (1721-1791), the
rationalistic Biblical criticism took its rise. From that day,
a host of scholars have engaged in the investigation of the origin
and interpretation of the Bible, and of the early history of
Christianity. A middle position between the established orthodoxy and
the Kantian rationalism was taken by Frederick Schleiermacher
(1768-1834), a man of genius, alike eminent as a critic, philosopher,
and theologian. He placed the foundation of religion in the feeling
of absolute dependence. In laying stress on feeling as at the
root of piety, he had been preceded by the philosopher
Jacobi. From the impulse given by Schleiermacher, there
sprung up an intermediate school of theologians, many of whom
departed less than he from the traditional Protestant creed. This
they professed to undertake to revise in accordance with the results
of the scientific study of the Bible and of history. In their number
belong Neander, Nitzsch, Twesten,
Tholuck, J. Müller, Dorner, Rothe,
Bleek, Ullman, and many other influential authors and
teachers. In the department of Biblical criticism, Ewald,
Tischendorf, Meyer, Weiss, are among the names
of German theological scholars which are familiar to Biblical
students in all countries. The critical works of De Wette
(1780-1849) were extensively studied. The philosophy of
_Hegel_connected itself with a new form of rationalism, which
found expression in the Life of Jesus, by Strauss,
published in 1835, in which the Gospel miracles were treated as
myths; and in the writings of Ferdinand Christian Baur, in
connection with his followers of the "Tubingen School," who attempted
to resolve primitive Christianity into a natural growth out of
preëxisting conditions, and held that the historical books of the New
Testament were the product of different theological "tendencies" and
parties in the apostolic and the subsequent age. The Roman Catholic
system has not lacked in Germany able defenders, one of the most
noted of whom was Möhler, the author of Symbolism
(Symbolik), an ingenious polemical work in opposition to
Protestantism.
PHILOLOGY AND LAW IN GERMANY.—Classical philology was founded as a
science by Heyne (1729-1812) and Wolf
(1759-1824). Their work was carried forward by G. Hermann
(1772-1848), Buttmann (1764-1829), Jacobs (1764-1847),
K. O. Muller (1797-1840), and by numerous contemporaries and
successors of these. By this succession of scholars, not only have
the tongues of Greece and Rome been accurately learned and taught,
but classical antiquity has been thoroughly explored. Comparative
philology, under the hands of Bopp (1791-1867), of
Lassen (1800-1876), a Norwegian by birth, of W. von
Humboldt (1767-1835), of Pott (born in 1802), of
Schleicher (1821-1868), and their coadjutors, has grown to be
a fruitful science. In the study of the German language and early
literature, J. Grimm (1785-1863), W. Grimm (1786-1859),
Lachmann (1793-1851), Simrock (1802-1878), have been
among the pioneers. The study of law, especially of Roman law, was
placed on a new foundation by the labors of Savigny
(1779-1861), while a like thoroughness was brought to the exposition
of German law by Mittermaier and others. In political science,
Mohl (1779-1875), Bluntschli (1808-1881), Stahl
(1802-1861), and Gneist (1816-1895) gained a worldwide
celebrity.
LITERATURE IN FRANCE.—A class of vigorous young writers in France
broke loose from the restraints of the "classical" school and its
patterns, and composed dramas in the more free method of the "romantic"
school. They drew their ideas of the drama from Shakspeare,
rather than from Corneille. Among these writers were
Alexandre Dumas, a most prolific novelist as well as writer of
plays; and the celebrated poet and dramatist, Victor Hugo. The
romances of Dumas comprise more than a hundred volumes. In his
historical novels, incidents and characters without number crowd upon
the scene, but without confusion, while the narrative maintains an
unfailing vivacity. Of the authors of light and witty comedies,
Scribe is one of the most fertile. George Sand
(Mme. Dudevant) is one of the principal novel-writers of the
age. Eugene Sue and Balzac are both popular authors in
this department. The leading poets are the song-writer Béranger,
Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset. With
the close of the first half-century romanticism began to give way
before realism, from which, however, there was a reaction before the
century closed. Among the greater poets are Sully-Prudhomme and
Coppée; among the novelists, Daudet, Zola,
Maupassant, and Bourget. In history some writers, as
Villemain, are remarkable for their power of descriptive
narrative; others, like Guizot, for their breadth of
philosophical reflection, superadded to deep researches. Some, like
Augustin Thierry, in his work on the Middle Ages, combined both
elements. His brother, Amédée Thierry, depicted the state of
society in Gaul and other countries in the period of the fall of the
Roman Empire. Barante composed an interesting history of the
Dukes of Burgundy. Among those, besides Guizot, who treated of the
history of France, Sismondi, the spirited Michelet, and
the thorough and dispassionate Henri Martin are specially
eminent. Thiers, Mignet, Louis Blanc,
Taine, and Lanfrey wrote on the Revolution or
Napoleon. The most eminent of the newer school of scientific historians
are Boissier, Sorel, Lavisse, Luchaire, and
Aulard. In political economy and the science of politics,
Chevalier, De Tocqueville (the author of Democracy in
America), and Bastiat are among the writers widely read
beyond the limits of France. Sainte-Beuve is only one of the
foremost in the class of literary critics, in which are included
Renan, Sarcey, Brunetière, Lemaître,
Faguet, and others, themselves authors. The clearness of
exposition which goes far to justify the claim of the French to be the
interpreters of European science to the world, appears in numerous
treatises in mathematics and physics. The qualities of lucid
arrangement, transparency of style, and terseness of language have
extended, however, to other branches of authorship; so that the French
have presented a fair claim to precedence in the literary art.
SWEDEN AND RUSSIA.—There are Swedish authors who are well known in
other countries. Such are the historian Geijer (1783-1847);
and the novelist Fredrika Bremer, who wrote "The Neighbors,"
and other tales. The most famous of the Russian novelists is Ivan
Turgenejff, some of whose stories contain admirable pictures of
Russian life.
ARCHITECTURE.—The nineteenth century witnessed in Germany, France, and
England a revival of the ancient or classic styles of
architecture. This appears, for example, in edifices at Munich,
and in such buildings as St. George's Hall at Liverpool. But a
reaction arose against this tendency, and in behalf of the Gothic
style, which is exemplified in the new Houses of Parliament in
London. Many Gothic churches have been erected in Great
Britain. Many-storied office buildings are characteristic of America.
SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.—One of the most original of modern sculptors
was Schwanthaler (1802-1848), who carved the pediments of the
Walhalla at Munich, and the bronze statue of Bavaria. French sculptors
at the present day are fully on a level with the recent sculptors of
Italy. Chantrey (1788-1841) and John Gibson (1791-1866),
a pupil of Canova and himself an original mind, are high on the
roll of English sculptors. A genius for sculpture appeared among
Americans, and to the names of Powers and Crawford, of Story,
Brown, and Ward, the names of other meritorious artists in this
province might justly be added. The German national school of painting
had Overbeck for its most eminent founder. Cornelius
(1783-1867) revived the art of fresco-painting, and established the
Munich school. Von Kaulbach, who painted the "Battle of the
Huns" in the Berlin Museum, was one of his pupils. W. von
Schadow is the founder of the Düsseldorf school. One of his eminent
pupils was K. F. Lessing. Still more recent are Ad. Menzel,
Liberman, and Lenbach. In Great Britain, Constable
(1796-1837) painted English landscapes full of thought and feeling, and
gave a fresh impulse to this branch of art. Stanfleld
(1788-1864) was a master of the realistic school, which aims at a
simple and faithful representation of the landscape to be
depicted. Wilkie, a Scotchman (1785-1841), was chief among the
genre painters, of whom Leslie (1794-1859), by birth an
American, was one of the most forcible and refined. Eastlake
(1793-1865) was a writer on art, as well as a painter. Landseer
(1802-1873) was unrivaled as an animal painter. William Hunt
(1790-1864) had decided skill as a painter in water-colors. The
pre-Raphaelite school, professing to go back of Raphael
to nature, included Turner, Hunt, Millais, and
Burne-Jones. Other prominent artists have been Herkomer,
Leighton, and Alma-Tadema. In France, Paul Delaroche
(1797-1856) followed in the path of Horace Vernet (1789-1863),
as a painter of battle-pieces and other modern historical
scenes. Ary Scheffer (1795-1858), a Dutchman by birth, painted
in a graceful and pathetic tone "Christ the Consoler," and other sacred
subjects. The more recent French school, comprising Delacroix,
Meissonier, Gérome, Cabanel, Millet, Rosa Bonheur, an artist of
masculine vigor, the famous painter of animal pictures,—is
distinguished for technical skill and finish, but also for a bold and
peculiar method of treatment. Among the leading landscape-painters of
this school, Corot, Daubigny, Rousseau, Diaz, are
conspicuous. Still more recent are Bastien-Lepage, Chavannes,
Bréton, Bouguereau, Dagnan-Bouveret, Lhermitte, Jean-Paul Laurens,
and Dupré.
About the year 1825 an American school of landscape-painters was
founded by Thomas Cole, many of whose pictures were
allegorical. Durand is one of those who excelled in landscape
painting. In other provinces of the art, Peale, Weir,
Huntington, Page, Morse, Chase,
Whistler, Sargent, Abbey; in landscape,
Gifford, Kensett, Church, Bierstadt,
McEntee, Inness, Winslow Homer, well represent
what is best and most characteristic in the later productions of
American painters.
MUSIC.—In music, Germany in the nineteenth century held the palm.
Schubert, Spohr, Weber, Meyerbeer, and
Wagner are names of world-wide celebrity, while in the works of
Mendelssohn (1809-1849) and Schumann (1810-1856) the art
of music reached its climax. Chopin (1810-1849), the founder of
a new style of piano-forte music, was born in Poland: his father,
however, was French.
In a survey of the course of recent history, notice should be taken of
the increased activity of a humane spirit in the several nations.
1. SOCIAL SCIENCE.—The investigation of social evils and of their
proper remedies, and of the laws which govern man in his social
relations, has received of late the name of social science. In
1857 a meeting in London, over which Lord Brougham
presided, resulted in the organization of a society of persons
interested in different forms of social improvement, bearing the name
of the National Association for the Promotion of Social
Science. Its work embraced the consideration of these five
subjects: law-amendment,—to promote which a society had existed, of
which Lord Brougham was the head; education; prevention and
repression of crime; public health; and social economy. Branches were
established in various towns in England. Similar societies have
flourished in the United States. An international society of the same
character held its first meeting in Brussels in 1862. The wide
range of special topics which these societies consider may give an
appearance of indefiniteness to their aims. The movement at least
indicates that social advancement has assumed the form of a distinct
and comprehensive problem, and is drawing to itself the deliberate
attention of thoughtful persons of diverse nations and creeds.
2. MITIGATION OF THE SUFFERINGS OF WAR: HOSPITALS.—If wars are still
frequent and destructive, much more has been done of late to mitigate
the sufferings consequent upon armed conflicts. The right of an
invading force to ravage the territory of an enemy was seldom
practically asserted in the nineteenth century. Non-combatants,
according to the modern rules of war, are not to be molested. Their
property, if it is taken, is to be paid for at its fair value. The
doctrine that requisitions may be made by a commander is not yet
abandoned. It was acted on by Napoleon on a large scale. It was
not approved by Wellington. There is a growing opinion against
it. It is not now held to be a crime for an officer to hold a fortress
as long as he can. In the care of the sick and the wounded, there has
been a great change for the better. The ambulance system, or the
system of movable hospitals accompanying armies on the field, was
established by the French, with the approval of Napoleon, in
1795. The name ambulance is also frequently given to the
vehicles for transporting the wounded and sick. The whole ambulance
system was completely organized in the American civil war, and defined
by an Act of Congress in 1864. To a French surgeon is due, also, the
establishment of a corps of stretcher-bearers. By the European
Convention adopted at Geneva (1864), the wounded, and the whole
official staff connected with ambulances, are exempted from capture as
prisoners of war. For the more efficient organization of hospitals, a
great service was rendered by the example of Florence
Nightingale, an English lady, who, at the head of a company of
volunteer nurses, during the Crimean war created a great establishment
of this sort at Scutari (1854). The increased pains-taking in the
method of building, in the ventilation and general management of
hospitals, during the last half-century, has gone far towards freeing
them from the dangers and evils to which they were formerly subject.
SANITARY SCIENCE.—Sanitary science, and the engineering connected with
it, belong to the nineteenth century, and mainly to the second half of
it. Systems of drainage have been devised which involve much mechanical
skill, not to dwell on their usefulness in promoting health. Prior to
1815, in England, the law forbade the discharge of sewage in
water-drains. The law of 1847 required that which up to 1815 was
prohibited. The great change on this whole subject dates from the
cholera of 1832, which awoke public attention to the sources of
disease. The condition of the poor, and the discussions relating to it,
lent a new stimulus to the inquiry. A series of English reports, from
1842 to 1848, had a great influence in producing a sanitary reform, in
the particulars referred to, in England and in other countries.
3. PUBLIC EDUCATION.—During the nineteenth century, systems of general
education were established in different countries. In a part of the
United States, an effective common-school system has always existed. In
Germany also, especially in Prussia, there have long been thorough
provisions for the instruction of all the young in elementary
branches. In France, in consequence of the laws requiring primary
schools in all the communes of any considerable size, the average of
illiteracy has of late steadily diminished. In 1881, in France,
instruction in the public primary schools was made absolutely
free. England has witnessed a very great change in the legal
establishment of means of instruction in the rudiments of knowledge for
the whole people. The Education Act of 1876 required that every child
between the ages of five and fourteen should receive such teaching. In
England, and in some other countries, the employment of children who
have not had a certain amount of school instruction was prohibited by
law. In the new kingdom of Italy, every commune having four thousand
inhabitants was required by law (1859) to maintain a primary school. By
subsequent legislation, the compulsory principle was adopted as far as
the circumstances of the country would allow. The result has been a
most remarkable diminution in the numbers of the wholly illiterate
class. Other European states have made primary education
compulsory. For instance, in Hungary, attendance at school was made
obligatory for children from the beginning of the eighth to the end of
the twelfth year. Such measures in behalf of general education as
governments have adopted in recent times are founded, to be sure,
partly on the conscious need of self-protection against ignorance and
its baleful consequences to the state. A more directly humane impulse,
however, mingles with this motive. The operation of benevolent feeling
is seen in the multiplying of special schools for the benefit of the
blind, of the deaf and dumb, and even of imbeciles.
4. REFORM OF CRIMINAL LAW.—The advance of humane sentiment has
produced a reform of criminal law. In England, in the closing part of
the eighteenth century, there were two hundred and twenty-three
offenses that were punished with death. To injure Westminster Bridge,
to cut down young trees, to shoot at rabbits, to steal property of the
value of five shillings, were capital offenses. Vigorous and
persevering opposition was made to the mitigation of this bloody
code. Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818) began his effort at reform
by endeavoring to secure the repeal of these cruel laws, one by
one. His bills, when carried with difficulty through the Commons, were
repeatedly thrown out by the House of Lords. One of the most strenuous
opponents of the change was the Lord Chancellor, Eldon. Lord
Ellenborough, the chief justice, stigmatized the proposed
alteration of the statutes as the fruit of "speculation and modern
philosophy." It was predicted that, if it were made, there would be a
terrible increase of crime. Sir James Mackintosh continued with
success the effort of Romilly. In 1837 the list of capital offenses had
been reduced to seven. One consequence was the striking diminution of
crime. Another reform in England was that of the police-system
(1816). The officers of the police had encouraged crime in order to
secure the reward of forty pounds offered by the government on
conviction, in the case of crimes of a certain grade.
5. PRISON-DISCIPLINE REFORM.—One of the distinctions of modern
philanthropy is the prison-discipline reform. When Howard began
his labors (1773), the prisons in England were generally dirty,
pestiferous dens, crowded with inmates of both sexes,—nurseries of
loathsome disease, and of still more loathsome vice. Soon after this
time, a serious effort began to make prisons a means of reform, instead
of schools of debauchery and crime. There was a movement for the
erection of penitentiaries of improved construction. This was aided by
the exertions of Jeremy Bentham. The most successful efforts in
behalf of a better system of management in prisons were made by members
of the Society of Friends. Of these, the most useful person in this
cause was Mrs. Elizabeth Gurney Fry (1780-1845), a woman of rare
powers of mind and of the noblest Christian character. By her personal
influence, she wrought such a transformation of character and behavior
among the female convicts in Newgate Prison as it had been deemed
impossible to effect. The reforms which Mrs. Fry effected spread
to other places. Her labors were not confined to Great Britain. She
visited France (1838), Belgium, Holland, and other countries. Her
correspondence in the interest of the cause which she served extended
to Russia and Italy. Her recommendations bore fruit for good in almost
all parts of Europe. Signal improvements in plans of construction, and
in the interior life of prisons, have been effected under the auspices
of the Prison Discipline Society in England. In these changes, the
example of changes and reforms in this matter in the United States has
had a marked influence. The two great ends kept in view at present in
the arrangements and occupations of prisons are the reform of the
criminal, and the deterring of others from the commission of
crime. Distinct establishments for the detention, reform, and training
of juvenile offenders, who were formerly corrupted by association with
criminals mature in vice, are peculiar to recent times. The
transportation of English convicts to Australia began in 1787. As these
multiplied, there sprang up cruelty on the part of supervisors in the
colonies; and in the penal settlements where the worst offenders were
guarded, there were found the most corrupt and degraded herds of
criminals. The opposition in the colonial communities to transportation
found support in England. In 1840 deportation to New South Wales
ceased. At length Van Dieman's Land also refused to receive this forced
emigration even of released convicts. The British Government was
obliged to rely on other methods of punishment, especially on the
graduation of the term of confinement according to the conduct of the
criminal.
UNITY AMID DIVERSITY.—The path of human progress has led in the
direction of unity as the ultimate goal. It is, however, a
unity in variety toward which the course of history has moved.
The development and growth of distinct nations, each after its own
type, and, not less, the freedom of the individual to realize the
destiny intended for him by nature, are necessary to the full
development of mankind,—necessary to the perfection of the race. The
final unity that is sought is to be reached, not by stifling the
capacities of human nature, but by the complete unfolding of them in
all their diversity. The modern era has made an approach toward this
higher unity that is to coexist with a rich and manifold
development. An enlightened man, Prince Albert of England,
remarked in a public address (1850): "Nobody who has paid any attention
to the peculiar features of our present era will doubt for a moment
that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which
tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which, indeed, all
history points, the realization of the unity of mankind! Not a
unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar
characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a
unity, the result and product of those very national varieties
and antagonistic qualities."
In concluding this volume, it is proper to advert to some of the signs
and means of this unification of mankind, which belong to the recent
era.
1. INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITIONS.—The words quoted above from Prince
Albert were spoken in anticipation of the Great International
Exhibition in London, in 1854. The industrial exhibitions, in which the
products of many nations are collected, and to which visitors are drawn
from different parts of the earth, are one indication of the effect of
manufactures and commerce in drawing mankind together. The first
displays of this kind were for French manufactures alone, and were held
in Paris in 1798, and, under the consulate of Napoleon, in 1801 and
1802. The first international exposition was in Paris in 1844;
and it was followed by the "World's Fair" in London (1850), for which
the vast edifice called "the Crystal Palace," made of iron and of
glass, was constructed. Similar exhibitions were held in New York
(1853), in Paris in 1855 and again in 1867, in Constantinople,
Amsterdam, Vienna, (1873), in Philadelphia on the hundredth anniversary
of American independence (1876), in Chicago in 1893, and in Paris in
1900. In these fairs, the products of the industry of the far East were
shown by the side of the products of European and American manufacture.
2. ECONOMICAL ENLIGHTENMENT.—In connection with the wide extension of
commerce, the better methods and ideas which have come into vogue in
respect to commercial relations deserve notice. The system of
credit, facilitating trade and forming a bond of confidence and of
union between different nations, although it began in the Middle Ages,
was not fairly established until the organization of the Bank of
Amsterdam in 1609. This system, if it is "one of the most powerful
engines of warfare," is likewise "one of the great pledges of peace."
The stimulus given to manufactures by mechanical inventions has been an
effective promoter of commercial intercourse. The teaching of Adam
Smith, and of the political economists since his time, by which it
is seen that the gain of one nation is not the loss of another, and
that nations are mutually benefited by the interchange of the products
of their labor, which is the true source of wealth, has operated as an
antidote to discord. The ruin of a neighbor, or non-intercourse with
him, has been discovered to be as contrary to the demands of a prudent
self-interest as of a disinterested benevolence.
3. COMMUNITY IN SCIENCE AND LETTERS.—The community of literature and
science has been growing more cosmopolitan. The barriers created by
differences of language are overcome. The custom of learning foreign
languages has become more diffused. The most important writings, in
whatever country they appear, circulate through translations in all
other civilized lands. All well-stored libraries are polyglot.
4. WIDENED POLITICAL SYSTEM.—In the political relations of countries,
it is found necessary to comprehend all parts of the globe in the
political system, in the right adjustment of which each country has a
stake, and over which stretches an acknowledged code of international
law. The establishment of an international tribunal of arbitration at
The Hague is a long step toward making such a code effective and toward
preventing war.
5. INTERNATION PHILANTHROPY.—The growth of humane feeling, of the
interest felt in man as man, engendered a spirit of universal
philanthropy. For example, the hostility to the slave-trade led to the
treatment of it as piracy by the municipal laws and by the treaties of
several nations, while it is prohibited and punished by nearly all of
the countries of Europe. This is the direct result of a heightened
respect for man and for the rights of human nature, however poor or
degraded man may be. Instances have occurred in which help has been
generously given to sufferers by fire or famine, by strangers in remote
lands. A famine in Persia called out liberal contributions from
America. Examples of the exercise of justice and kindness toward
distant nations may remind the reader of opposite examples of wrong and
cruelty. We are pointing out, however, only the drift of
sentiment; and it must be remembered that the facts which have been
referred to as illustrative of the growth of philanthropy, are such as
never occurred in former ages.
6. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.—The spread of the Christian religion by
missionary efforts is one of the means of unifying mankind. In ancient
times and in the Middle Ages, the two great achievements of the Church
were the conversion of the Roman Empire, and then of the barbarian
nations by whom it was subverted. But, in the Middle Ages, there was
also missionary labor, here and there among the Saracens and in the
lands of the East. Since the thirteenth century, missions in the Roman
Catholic Church have been chiefly prosecuted by the monastic orders. In
this work, the Jesuits, from the first establishment of their order,
were conspicuously active in all quarters of the globe. Of their
missionaries, none have been more eminent and zealous than Francis
Xavier (1506?1552), who died just as he was about to undertake the
conversion of China. Protestants, in the period after the Reformation,
were too busy in the struggles going forward in their own lands, to
undertake foreign missions on an extended scale. Yet they were not
indifferent to the importance of the work. Under the protectorate of
Cromwell, an ordinance established a Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in New England (1649). In 1701 the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was established in
England. Later, the Moravians from the beginning evinced great interest
in foreign missions, and planted missionary stations in several
countries. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Congregation of the
Propaganda was founded in 1622, for the general superintendence of
missionary operations. Colleges for their training were established,
the chief of which was the "Urban College" at Rome, where students from
all nations have been educated for missionary service.
The nineteenth century was marked by an extraordinary outburst of
missionary activity. In this sort of exertion the Roman Catholic body
has kept up an unflagging zeal. Within the various Protestant
denominations, a remarkable increase of fervor and of success in this
department of Christian labor has been witnessed. In the room of
seven societies for this purpose at the end of the eighteenth
century, there were in 1880, in Europe and America, seventy
organizations. At this last date, there were not less than twenty-four
hundred ordained Europeans and Americans employed in this service,
besides a great number of assistants, both foreign and native. The
native converts numbered not less than 1,650,000. The yearly
contributions for the support of the missions increased
proportionately. In 1882 British contributions alone amounted to
£1,090,000. It is not an exaggeration to say that the globe is now
"covered with a network of Christian outposts."
The following passage, slightly abbreviated, from a German writer,
presents a glowing sketch of the wide extension of recent missionary
labors:—
"At the beginning of this century, the island world of the Pacific
was shut against the gospel; but England and America have attacked
those lands so vigorously in all directions, especially through
native workers, that whole groups of islands, even the whole Malayan
Polynesia, is to-day almost entirely Christianized, and in Melanesia
and Micronesia the mission-field is extended every year. The gates of
British East India have been thrown open wider and wider during this
century; at first for English, then for all missionaries. This great
kingdom, from Cape Comorin to the Punjaub and up to the Himalayas,
where the gospel is knocking on the door of Thibet, has been covered
with hundreds of mission-stations, closer than the mission-net which
at the close of the first century surrounded the Roman empire; the
largest and some of the smaller islands of the Indian Archipelago,
Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and now New Guinea also, are
occupied, partly on the coast and partly in the interior. Burmah, and
in part Siam, is open to the gospel; and China, the most powerful and
most populous of heathen lands, forced continually to open her doors
wider, has been traversed by individual pioneers of the gospel, to
Thibet and Burmah, and half of her provinces occupied from Hong-Kong
and Canton to Peking; and in Manchuria, if by only a thin chain, yet
at many of the principal points, stations have been founded, while
the population overflowing into Australia and America is being
labored with by Protestant missionaries. Japan also, hungry for
reform, by granting entrance to the gospel has been quickly occupied
by American and English missionary societies, and already, after so
little labor, has scores of evangelical congregations. Indeed, the
aboriginal Australians have, in some places, been reached. In the
lands of Islam, from the Balkans to Bagdad, from Egypt to Persia,
there have been common central evangelization stations established in
the chief places, for Christians and Mohammedans, by means of
theological and Christian medical missions, conducted especially by
Americans. Also in the primitive seat of Christianity, Palestine,
from Bethlehem to Tripoli, and to the northern boundaries of Lebanon,
the land is covered by a network of Protestant schools, with here and
there an evangelical church. Africa, west, south, and east, has been
vigorously attacked; in the west, from Senegal to Gaboon, yes, lately
even to the Congo, by Great Britain, Basel, Bremen, and America,
which have stations all along the coast. South Africa at the
extremity was evangelized by German, Dutch, English, Scotch, French,
and Scandinavian societies. Upon both sides, as in the center,
Protestant missions, although at times checked by war, are
continually pressing to the north; to the left, beyond the Walfisch
Bay; to the right, into Zululand, up to Delagoa Bay; in the center,
to the Bechuana and Basuto lands. In the east, the sun of the gospel,
after a long storm, has burst forth over Madagascar in such
brightness that it can never again disappear. Along the coasts from
Zanzibar and the Nile, even to Abyssinia, out-stations have been
established, and powerful assaults made by the Scotch, English, and
recently also by the American mission and civilization, into the very
heart of the Dark Continent, even to the great central and east
African lakes. In America, the immense plains of the Hudson's Bay
Territory, from Canada over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean,
have not only been visited by missionaries, but have been opened far
and wide to the gospel through rapidly growing Indian missions. In
the United States, hundreds of thousands of freedmen have been
gathered into evangelical congregations; and, of the remnants of the
numerous Indian tribes, some at least have been converted through the
work of evangelization by various churches, and have awakened new
hope for the future. In Central America and the West Indies, as far
as the country is under Protestant home nations, the net of
evangelical missions has been thrown from island to island, even to
the mainland in Honduras, upon the Mosquito Coast; and in British and
Dutch Guiana it has taken even firmer hold. Finally, the lands on and
before the southern extremity of the continent, the Falkland Islands,
Terra del Fuego, and Patagonia, received the first light through the
South American Missionary Society (in London); and recently its
messengers have pushed into the heart of the land, and are rapidly
pressing on to the banks of the great Amazon, to the Indians of
Brazil."
RESULTS OF MISSIONS.—In carrying forward missionary work during the
nineteenth century, the Bible has been translated into numerous
languages. Missionaries, as in the early days of the Church, have
reduced the languages of uncultivated peoples to writing, and made the
beginning of native literatures. Schools, colleges, and
printing-presses follow in the path of the preachers. The contributions
made to philology and to other branches of science by missionary
preachers and explorers are of high value. As far as the number of
converts is concerned, progress has been more rapid, as was the case in
the first Christian centuries, among uncivilized tribes. The reception
of Christianity is more slow in a country like China, and among the
Aryan inhabitants of India. But the influence exerted by missions in
such communities is not to be measured by the number of
converts. Moreover, history has often shown, that, in the spread of the
Christian religion, the first steps are the most slow and difficult:
they are like the early operations in a siege. Sir Bartle Frere
writes thus: "Statistical facts can in no way convey any adequate idea
of the work done in any part of India. The effect is enormous where
there has not been a single avowed conversion. The teaching of
Christianity amongst a hundred and sixty millions of civilized,
industrious Hindoos and Mohammedans in India, is effecting changes,
moral, social, and political, which for extent and rapidity in effect
are far more extraordinary than any that have been witnessed in modern
Europe." Of the same tenor is an opinion expressed in strong terms by
Sir Henry Lawrence, governor-general of India during the mutiny
of 1857, and a most competent judge.
It is worthy of remark, as one characteristic of the Christian missions
of the recent period, that the religions of the non-Christian nations
have been studied more thoroughly, and the true and praiseworthy
elements in them have been better appreciated.
The progress made in the past encourages the hope that the unity of
mankind, a unity which shall be the crown of individual and national
development, will one day be reached. That unity of mankind, in loyal
fellowship with Him in whose image man was made, is the community of
which the ancient Stoic vaguely dreamed, and which the apostles of
Christ proclaimed and predicted,—the perfected kingdom of God.
LITERATURE. See lists on pp. Alison, Hist. of Europe, from
1815 to 1852 (8 vols.); Bulle, Gesch. d. neuesten Zeit,
1815-1871 (2 vols.); Flathe. Zeitalter der Restauration und der
Revolution; Stern, Geschichte Europas (3 vols.); Debidpur,
Hist. Diplomatique de l'Europe (2 vols.); Seignobus,
Political History of Europe since 1814; Sears. Political
Growth in the Nineteenth Century; Lavisse et Rambaud. Hist
Gén., Vols. X., XI., XII.; Phillips, European History,
1815-1899; Müller, Political History of Recent Times (Peters's
translation, 1882); Müller, Politische Gesch. d. Gegenwart (an
annual, since 1867); Honegger, Grundsteine einer
allgem. Culturgeschichte d. neuesten Zeit (5 vols.).
Works on the History of Italy. Thayer, Dawn of Italian
Independence (2 vols.); Reuchlin, Geschichte Italiens (4
vols.); Stillman, Union of Italy; Probyn, Italy from
1815-1878; Lives of Cavour, by De la Rive (English translation), by
E. Dicey, by Mazade (French); Life and Writings of Mazzini (9
vols.).
Works on the History of Germany. Treitschke, Deutsche
Geschichte; Von Sybel, Founding of the German Empire (6
vols,); Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War (2 vols.),
Bismarck, The Man and the Statesman (2 vols.); Springer,
Geschichte Oesterreichs (2 vols.).
France. Hillebrand, Gesch. Frankreichs (1830-1870); Adams,
Democracy and Monarchy in France; Stein, Gesch. der
Sozialen Bewegung in Frankreich; Guizot, Memoirs of His Own
Time (1807-1848) (4 vols.); Delord, Hist. du Second Empire
(6 vols.); Zevort, Hist. de la 3'me Republique (4 vols.);
Hanotaux, Contemporary France (Vol. I.); Bodley, France
(2 vols.); Simon, The Government of M. Thiers (from 1871-1873)
(2 vols.).
Works on the History of England. Harriet Martineau, The History of
England (1800-1854); Walpole, A History of England, from
1815 (6 vols., 1878-1880); Molesworth, The History of England
(1830-1874); Justin McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times
(1878-1880); Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea (6 vols.);
Seeley, The Expansion of England; Rutherford, The Fenian
Conspiracy; Richey, The Irish Land Laws; King, The
Irish Question; Morley, Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (1903)
(an able historical review).
Works on History of the United States. Benton, Thirty Year's
View [1820-1850]; Johnston, History of American Politics;
DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America (2 vols.); Thorpe,
Constitutional History of the American People (2 vols.);
Roosevelt, Winning of the West (4 vols); Stanwood, A
History of the Presidency; Bryce, The American
Commonwealth (2 vols).; Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Origin
of Political Parties (2 vols.); Henry Adams, History of the
United States (1800-1817, 9 vols.); Rhodes, History of the
United States from the Compromise of 1850 (4 vols.); Wilson,
Division and Reunion; Burgess, The Middle Period, The Civil
War and the Constitution (2 vols.); Dunning, Essays on the
Civil War and Reconstruction; Bolles, Financial History of the
United States (3 vols.); Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall
of the Slave Power; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress;
Histories of the Civil War, by the Count of Paris (2 vols.), by
Roper, by J. W. Draper, by H. Greeley, by A. H. Stephens, by
E. A. Pollard (The Lost Cause); Swinton's Twelve Decisive
Battles of the [Civil] War; Memoirs of
Gen. W. T. Sherman, by himself; Grant, Personall Memoirs
(2 vols.); John Sherman, Recollections (2 vols.); Moore,
The Rebellion Record (1861-1871); Biography of
Gallatin, by H. Adams; of Jackson, by Parton, by
W. G. Sumner; of Madison, by Rives; of J. Q. Adams, by
Morse; of Josiah Quincy, by Edmund Quincy; of Webster,
by G. T. Curtis, by Lodge; of Clay, by Schurz; of
Calhoun, by Crallé; of Sumner, by E. L. Pierce; of
Lincoln, by Nicolay and Hay, by Morse; of Seward, by
Fr. Brancroft; of W. L. Garrison, by O. Johnson, by
W. P. Garrison; The American Commonwealths, a series of
histories of the separate States (edited by H. E. Scudder); writings
of J. Q. Adams, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, E. Everett, C. Sumner,
W. H. Seward; John Fiske, American Political Ideas.
Literary Biographies. Life of Walter Scott, by Lockhart; of
Jeffrey, by Cockburn; of Macaulay, by Trevelyan; of Arnold, by
Stanley; of Dickens, by Forster; of Carlyle, by Froude; of George
Eliot [Mrs. Lewes], by Cross. Life of Irving, by P. M. Irving;
of Bryant, by Parke Godwin; Life and Letters of George Ticknor;
Life of Ripley, by Frothingham; Series of "American Men of
Letters," including Washington Irving, by Warner;
Cooper, by T. R. Lounsbury; Emerson, by O. W. Holmes,
etc.
Argyll, The Eastern Question, 1856 to 1858 and the Second Afghan
War; Taylor, Russia before and after the War [of 1877]
(1880); Daily News Correspondence of the War between Russia and
Turkey [1877-78] (2 vols.); Baker Pasha, War in Bulgaria
(2 vols.); Wallace, Egypt and the Egyptian Question; Malleson,
History of Afghanistan; Labilliere, Early History of the
Colony of Victoria (2 vols.); Grant and Knollys, The China War
of 1860; Scott, France and Tongking [in 1884]; Vambéry,
Central Asia; Stanley, Congo and the Founding of its Free
State (2 vols.).
Rae, Contemporary Socialism; Woolsey, Communism and
Socialism; Laveleye, Le Socialisme Contemporain (10th
ed.); Schaeffle, Quintessens des Socialismus; A. Menger,
Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag (2d ed.).
End of Project Gutenberg's Outline of Universal History, by George Park Fisher