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Article HISTORICAL VIEWS OF PROGRESS. ← Page 6 of 6
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Historical Views Of Progress.
sary that the habit of abstraction should decay , so that practical utility founded upon it might follow ; that practical utility is necessary to progress ; and if all these things were necessary , may we not say , that they were right ?
When Faith had withered and Art decayed , what power was to keep the wheels of progress moving , antl to govern the world . MIGHT there was , nothing else left ; ancl Rome , whose great attribute was power , rose to serve the crisis . We need not argue that it was light Rome should fall , for Force is the lowest of all influences ; its use is only to be justified when it prevents universal confusion ancl anarchancl that end Rome served when
y , partial faith and unapplied philosophy had fallen . She kept the world under a rule of some kind , although that kind was of the lowest possible description , while the seeds of the principles of Faith and Art , sown by Israel and Greece , were springing into life . But those principles never could have expanded into new life , or regained a more powerful vitality , had not the reign of mere force ceased , ancl therefore it was necessary that Rome , the representative of mere force .
should fall ; but it was also necessary that she should have existed , for without some rule , ancl hers was tbe only rule left , such anarchy would have ensued , as must have retarded the advent of Universal Faith and Practical Science . The ground was fallow , her brute force was the power which ploughed ancl harrowed it , and prepared it for the crop . But she did more than that even , she lent some harmonizing influences . In the dark ages which followed her sway , her punctilious sense
of honour , which was the very essence of knighthood , and which , mingled with Gothic devotion to women , formed the life-blood of chivalry , shed a ray of light upon that dark period , when the law of the sword was the strongest of all law . Who shall say , then , that Rome has not , with all her demerits , clone good service in the cause of civilization ? Who shall say , that her rise and fall were not necessary and right ?
We may in conclusion remark , that of the three conditions of progress , Faith , Art , Strength , whose action we have thus far traced , Faith , the most powerful and important , came first ; Art , the next in the scale , came next in point of time ; Might , the lowest , came last ; and by a curious law of inversion they seem to return improved in the opposite order .
Thus the brute force of Rome had its better representative in the chivalry of the middle ages . The abstract philosophy of Greece produced its better result , the practical science of modern times . Faith , alas ! the full harvest of the old Faith which died has not yet sprung up ; for we have no Faith , which in the universality of its acceptation can be compared with the intensity of the confined Faith of Israel . The evidence of this fact , that the harvest has not yet ripened and been cut , and bound into sheaves and garnered , is that the Jews are still among us . Until that harvest has been gathered , the true and greatest elements of progress cannot be developed under the law of UNIOX .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Historical Views Of Progress.
sary that the habit of abstraction should decay , so that practical utility founded upon it might follow ; that practical utility is necessary to progress ; and if all these things were necessary , may we not say , that they were right ?
When Faith had withered and Art decayed , what power was to keep the wheels of progress moving , antl to govern the world . MIGHT there was , nothing else left ; ancl Rome , whose great attribute was power , rose to serve the crisis . We need not argue that it was light Rome should fall , for Force is the lowest of all influences ; its use is only to be justified when it prevents universal confusion ancl anarchancl that end Rome served when
y , partial faith and unapplied philosophy had fallen . She kept the world under a rule of some kind , although that kind was of the lowest possible description , while the seeds of the principles of Faith and Art , sown by Israel and Greece , were springing into life . But those principles never could have expanded into new life , or regained a more powerful vitality , had not the reign of mere force ceased , ancl therefore it was necessary that Rome , the representative of mere force .
should fall ; but it was also necessary that she should have existed , for without some rule , ancl hers was tbe only rule left , such anarchy would have ensued , as must have retarded the advent of Universal Faith and Practical Science . The ground was fallow , her brute force was the power which ploughed ancl harrowed it , and prepared it for the crop . But she did more than that even , she lent some harmonizing influences . In the dark ages which followed her sway , her punctilious sense
of honour , which was the very essence of knighthood , and which , mingled with Gothic devotion to women , formed the life-blood of chivalry , shed a ray of light upon that dark period , when the law of the sword was the strongest of all law . Who shall say , then , that Rome has not , with all her demerits , clone good service in the cause of civilization ? Who shall say , that her rise and fall were not necessary and right ?
We may in conclusion remark , that of the three conditions of progress , Faith , Art , Strength , whose action we have thus far traced , Faith , the most powerful and important , came first ; Art , the next in the scale , came next in point of time ; Might , the lowest , came last ; and by a curious law of inversion they seem to return improved in the opposite order .
Thus the brute force of Rome had its better representative in the chivalry of the middle ages . The abstract philosophy of Greece produced its better result , the practical science of modern times . Faith , alas ! the full harvest of the old Faith which died has not yet sprung up ; for we have no Faith , which in the universality of its acceptation can be compared with the intensity of the confined Faith of Israel . The evidence of this fact , that the harvest has not yet ripened and been cut , and bound into sheaves and garnered , is that the Jews are still among us . Until that harvest has been gathered , the true and greatest elements of progress cannot be developed under the law of UNIOX .