troubling Mr. Hylan? It has been said, with a good deal of truth, that the problem of determinism in history is merely a new phase of the old problem of the freedom of man's will. However, the psychologic effect of the doctrine is rather different. This may be due to the fact that man's individual consciousness is far more highly developed than his social consciousness and spurs him on to action in spite of theory. The most determined fatalist will still struggle for his own good or strive to save his life. The urge to do so is so great as not to be affected by any inhibition in the realm of theory. But the urge to strive for the good of society, or to save its existence, is far weaker, and succumbs far more quickly to the doctrine that the individual is powerless in the matter. However, do the facts of history or science, as thus far developed, point inevitably to the conclusion that man is thus powerless? Is there any foundation for the position taken by the various extremist groups? In examining the degrees and forms of determinism assumed in history we may note certain general and specific aspects of the theories. In so far as man has to work out his individual or racial destiny subject to general laws, such as those suggested by Professor Cheyney, there is nothing which should serve to depress individual effort. The only one of those deduced by him which might seem to have a pessimistic implication- the law of impermanence — merely places limits upon the life of nations similar to those which we have to recognize in the life of the individual. As individuals, we are born, grow, sicken, and die, but this physiological cycle has no bearing whatever upon the problem of the freedom of our wills. In the same way, in the larger cycle of the life of organized societies, the fact that they may decline by natural law as inevitably as they arise has no bearing whatever upon the ability. of the individuals who compose them to mould the destinies of their groups or nations during their existence. Individuals may or may not have that ability, but the law of impermanence is wholly irrelevant to the question at issue. Such a law belongs to what we may call the physiology of history. We may similarly trace the development of the individual from the union of two germ cells, through all the stages of growth, disease, decay, and death. That is a legitimate standpoint from which to observe one aspect of that individual life, but if we had every detail in such an account should we have in any sense a biography of the man? The discovery of the laws relating to the physiological growth of the individual has been of enormous benefit to mankind. It may make no difference to the universe whether a man is a living, thinking, willing organism or has degenerated into his physical elements after death, but it makes all the difference to the man. The laws of physiology thus far discovered have taught us that, if we are to maintain our health, we must do certain things and avoid others. It is precisely because we can and do avail ourselves of such known choices that the discovery of those laws has been of service. In the same way the discovery of the laws of the health or disease of nations would not mean that we were less capable of determining their development but that, on the other hand, by enabling us to foresee the results of certain choices of conduct it would enable us to extend and enrich the average national life, as we have been able to extend and enrich the average individual life. IV In a survey of the literature dealing with the relations between geography and man's history we are struck by certain aspects of the geographer's contribution to the historian. One of these is the vast span of time, compared with the life of the individual, required for the influence of certain geographic factors to be felt, and, in some cases, as that of the alterations in climate, for the factors themselves to become operative. We are, in these cases, dealing with what we may term the geology rather than the physiography of history. We cannot understand the physiography of any locality without knowing its geological history, the original formation of its rocks, the slow upheaval, perhaps, from below an original sea level, the crumpling of the earth into mountain ranges, their slow denudation, or the effects of glacial action. But here, as in the general laws of history, we are dealing with a different order of facts from those which we study in describing a landscape in its human terms of villages and the life of their inhabitants. Man's activities are influenced by the climate, by the nature of the soils and other resources, by the character of the portion of the earth in which he dwells; but this is merely the framework of an environment to which he reacts, and he reacts very differently at different times and under different conditions. In fact, when we leave the broader generalizations and come down to tracing the influence as a determinant of any particular geographical factor upon any particular people at a particular time, we find that we have to make so many allowances for other factors in the way that such a people respond to their environment as to force us, by any canon of common sense, to consider geographic factors merely as modifiers and not as determinants at all. Consequently, the leading workers to-day in the field of anthropɔ-geography have adopted an extremely conservative attitude as compared with the extremists of a few years ago. In what is probably the ablest contribution to this growing science in America, Miss Semple's Influence of Geographic Environment, the author states in preface that she 'speaks of geographic factors and influences, shuns the word geographic determinant, and speaks with extreme caution of geographic control.' Many of the most scientific workers in the field to-day admit the decreasing importance of geographic factors as peoples progress in knowledge and control over their environment, although this is denied by some. Buckle himself stated that the influence of the physical environment decreased as civilization progressed, and that the advance in civilization had been 'characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws and an increasing influence of mental laws.' What we have just said of the theory of geographic determinism may also be said of economic determinism. In America the ablest exponent of the doctrine has been Professor Seligman, and in his final estimate he states that ‘from a purely philosophical standpoint, it may be confessed that the theory, especially in its extreme form, is no longer tenable as the universal explanation of all human life,' and that 'as a philosophical doctrine of universal validity, the theory of "historical materialism can no longer be successfully defended.' Although he believes it to have been substantially true of the past, he thinks it will become less and less true of the future. As Dr. Shotwell has pointed out, even Marx's extreme economic determinism ended in assuming the control of mind. When Marx turned from considering the past evolution of soci 99 ety to forecasting the socialist state of the future, he predicated that the proletariat, hitherto ground down by blind economic forces, were finally to master economics for themselves and so to control the forces which had formerly mastered them. This same admission on the part of those most interested in proving geographic or economic control over man's history the admission that in the end mind counts increasingly in the scale - receives added confirmation from Professor Cheyney in his sixth law of history, that of moral progress. 'Obscurely and slowly,' he says, 'yet visibly and measurably, moral influences in human affairs have become stronger and more widely extended than material influences.' Of course, the extreme determinists claim that this is a mere begging of the question, and that mind and morals are themselves the products of the determining factor. Aside, however, from the unproven assumptions involved in this claim, it may be pointed out that we can never know the ultimate cause of the present universe, and that as we trace back successive proximate causes we are apt to find them multiplying as do the ancestors of any individual in his family tree. It may be that the derivation of a particular moral idea, for example, may be traced to economics, but to describe the derivation of a thing is not to describe its potential possibilities or developed nature. If we approach the question of historic determinism from the standpoint of biologic necessity, we are involved in all the philosophical difficulties which are beginning to beset the biologist in his narrower field. The more the development, structure, and functioning of living beings are studied, the more difficult does it become to reject 'end as distinguished from mechanical cause.' In the functioning of the individual cells which make up the aggre gate of a living body there is now recognized to be a quasi-purposiveness that cannot be philosophically ignored. The study of life requires the employment of conceptions which do not belong to the realm of mathematics, physics, chemistry, or the other sciences, though these are all required for the full understanding of the living organism. The sum total of all the data derived from them, however, is inadequate to complete knowledge of life itself. V The modern method of extending the bounds of knowledge is by considering reality in one aspect only at a time. The philologist is concerned only with the laws of language, the mathematician with the serial order, and so with the other scientists, each working in his particular field which he purposely isɔlates. But the actual universe has many aspects, innumerable points of approach, no one of which alone can give us an adequate idea of the underlying reality. The various sciences are, as it were, but varying points of view from which we scan nature. We can no more interpret its vast richness solely in terms of chemistry than in those of theology. In the last few generations, the natural sciences have made such enormous strides in adding to our knowledge of certain aspects of the universe that they have overshadowed all other methods of approach to its problems. It is too often forgotten, however, that these sciences rest on certain metaphysical assumptions which are ignored by the public and often held naïvely or unthinkingly by scientific workers themselves. By utilizing these assumptions we have been able to solve a vast number of problems, as the algebraist solves his by the use of x, y, and z. But it by no means follows that all the problems of the universe can be solved by making the same assumptions and using the same rules. This fact, and it is a most important one, is largely lost to view because of the dazzling results of science in exploiting the universe from its particular standpoint. As a method of investigating one aspect of reality it has been an unqualified success, and the possibility that there are other aspects, for the interpretation of which it might not be fitted at all, has been lost to sight, ignored, or flatly denied. Every age unconsciously fashions its own philosophy, and this philosophy moulds the thoughts and outlook of the millions who never read a philosophical work. As Viscount Haldane has recently said of the scientists, 'it is only their clinging to an a priori metaphysical view, held most often unconsciously, that makes so many try to render the phenomena of life into physical and chemical conceptions.' Geography, economics, biology, psychology, sociology, and the other sciences have enormously enriched the content and conception of history. History can never again be written as the record of the acts, desires, caprices of a few leading men and their effects. But it may well be asked whether the sudden opening of these vast new domains of knowledge has not tended to depress unduly the share taken in the historic process by thinking, willing man. Are we not in danger of making too much of the environment, understood in its broadest sense, and too little of the chief actor in our drama, the self-conscious individual man, whose reactions to that environment form the real theme of our story? No doctrine is held more in contempt at the present time than that of the 'great man in history.' It will probably never be held again in its old form; but have we not reacted too far? It is true that no individual, no matter how vast his apparent historic importance, can alter the historic process in any direction he might choose; but because he cannot make himself felt unless he is in harmony with the social forces of his time, are we to assume offhand that those forces accomplish everything and that the influence of the 'great man' is wholly negligible? May he not give just the deflection at any given time which may set those forces in a direction which they would not otherwise have taken, with incalculable results? The view, for example, is becoming more and more widely held that the American Revolution was inevitable owing to many causes. I myself believe it to have been so. But to proceed from that to say that the life and character of Washington were not of determining importance I believe to be an unscientific assumption. Had it not been for Washington, I do not believe that the revolt would have succeeded at that time in achieving separation from England. Granted that the separation was inevitable sometime, is it scientific to assume that the course of all European and American history would have been unchanged at all from what it was? Or is it scientific to assert dogmatically that, if Washington had died or failed the cause, some other man with the same qualities would have of necessity arisen to replace him? Is not that a gratuitous assumption, not only not based upon any provable facts but opposed to the fact of the scarcity of great men in history? Is it not more scientific, as William James pointed out many years ago, to accept great men as part of our data and as, at least, one factor in effecting social change? And as with the great man in the nation, so it is with the small man in his community. Is it any more scientific, though it may sound more learned, to invoke as sole causes of social change the 'great cyclical forces' rather than the thoughts and wills of you and me and the rest of our hundred and ten millions who make up the present nation? It may be that our thoughts and wills are more or less dependent upon those of all the rest, and that these constitute a 'force' against which at times we seem powerless. But in so far as we ourselves think and act are we not modifying, infinitesimally it may be, that very force, and is it not incumbent upon us so to do? It would seem as though, within the limits set for us by our environment and subject to the as yet undiscovered laws of history, the future of the nation depended very much upon our doing so. Rather than rest in a fatalistic belief in the forces shaping our destiny it behooves us to attempt actively to mould that destiny for ourselves and our posterity, welcoming all knowledge of the conditions under which we exist and of the laws which may be utilized to shape our ends. As we have seen, the extreme views held by certain determinists in geography, economics, and the other sciences are not sanctioned by the leading men in those various branches of knowledge, and the whole trend of recent thought is rather toward ascribing a wider and wider range to the spiritual factors. History can never be a mere science, in the narrow popular meaning of that word in America. It is not wholly determined by the laws postulated by the sciences. The metaphysical assumptions underlying the sciences probably underlie certain portions of the historic process as well and can be used for their interpretation, but there are others which require an entirely different method of approach. For the past three generations, the shadow of scientific determinism has been slowly obscuring in the popular mind the light from the spiritual side of the universe, as the shadow of the moon in an eclipse obscures the light from the sun. The attitude of the unphilosophical public was never warranted even by the facts of science and certainly not by a view of the universe which gives to science its proper place and function. In history the delimiting of the field in which determinism plays its part, and the recognition of the potency of the spiritual factors, should restore tone to the slackened will of the citizen. If, in despair, man should refuse to believe in and to avail himself of his power to control his own destiny, then, and then only, would there be no hope. Yea, if no morning must behold Man, other than were they now cold, |