Produced by V-M Osterman, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
No. 13
Editors:
HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A. PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, Litt.D., LL.D.,
F.B.A. PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
All divisions of history into periods are artificial in proportion asthey are precise. In history there is, strictly speaking, no end and nobeginning. Each event is the product of an infinite series of causes,the starting-point of an infinite series of effects. Language andthought, government and manners, transform themselves by imperceptibledegrees; with the result that every age is an age of transition, notfully intelligible unless regarded as the child of a past and the parentof a future. Even so the species of the animal and vegetable kingdomsshade off one into another until, if we only observe the marginal cases,we are inclined to doubt whether the species is more than a figment ofthe mind. Yet the biologist is prepared to defend the idea of species;and in like manner the historian holds that the distinction between onephase of culture and another is real enough to justify, and, indeed, todemand, the use of distinguishing names. In the development of singlecommunities and groups of communities there occurs now and again amoment of equilibrium, when institutions are stable and adapted to theneeds of those who live under them; when the minds of men are filledwith ideas which they find completely satisfying; when the statesman,the artist, and the poet feel that they are best fulfilling theirseveral missions if they express in deed and work and language theaspirations common to the whole society. Then for a while man appears tobe the master of his fate; and then the prevailing temper is one ofreasoned optimism, of noble exaltation, of content allied with hope. Thespectator feels that he is face to face with the maturity of a socialsystem and a creed. These moments are rare indeed; but it is for thesake of understanding them that we read history. All the rest of humanfortunes is in the nature of an introduction or an epilogue. Now by aperiod of history we mean the tract of years in which this balance ofharmonious activities, this reconciliation of the real with the ideal,is in course of preparing, is actually subsisting, and is vanishingaway.
Such a period were t