f^ mL. D16.8 HOCKING, William. H62^8 On the law of history. D^ ¥^f,. ^'jm\t ^ ^^fo^'eiT. LIBRARY UNlVERSin OF CALIFORNIA BIVERSIDE RIVERSIDE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY September 17, 1909 Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 45-65 ON THE LAW OF HISTORY WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING iir BERKELEY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS .(0*0 r^M'' UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS Note.— The University of California Publications are offered in exchange for the publi- cations of learned societies and Institutions, universities and libraries. Complete lists of all the publications of the University will be sent upon request. For sample copies, lists of publications or other information, address the Manager of the University Press, Berkeley, California, U. S. A. All matter sent in exchange should be addressed to The Exchange Department, University Library, Berkeley, California, U. S. A. PHILOSOPHY.— George H. Howison, Editor. Price per volume, $2.00. Cited as Univ. Calif. Publ. Philos. The first volume of the University of California Publications in Philosophy appeared in November, 1904, and was prepared in commemoration of the seventieth birthday of Pro- fessor George Holmes Howison, under the direction of a committee of his pupils composed of Evander Bradley McGilvary, Charles Henry Eieber, Harry Allen Overstreet and Charles Montague Bakewell. The price of the volume is $2.00. It may be had bound, or the papers may be obtained separately. Its contents are: Vol. 1. 1. The Summum Bonum, by Evander Bradley McGilvary. Pp. 1-27 $0.25 2. The Essentials of Human Faculty, by Sidney Edward Mezes. Pp. 28-55 .25 3. Some Scientific Apologies for Evil, by George Malcolm Stratton. Pp. 56-71 - 15 4. Pragmatism and the a priori, by Charles Henry Rieber. Pp. 72-91 20 5. Latter-Day Flowing-Philosophy, by Charles Montague BakeweU. Pp. 92-114 20 6. Some Problems in Evolution and Education, by Ernest Norton Hender- son. Pp. 115-124 — .10 7. Philosophy and Science in the Study of Education, by Jesse Dismukes Burks. Pp. 125-140 15 8. The Dialectic of Bruno and Spinoza, by Arthur Oncken Lovejoy. Pp. 141-174 35 9. The Logic of Self-Realization, by Henry Waldgrave Stuart. Pp. 175- 205 - • 30 10. Utility and the Accepted Type, by Theodore de Lopez de Laguna. Pp. 206-226 20 11. A Theory of the Syllogism, by Knight Dunlap. Pp. 227-235 10 12. The Basal Principle of Truth-Evaluation, by Harry Allen Overstreet, Pp. 236-262 26 ^ Vol. 2. 1. The Dialectic of Plotinus, by Harry Allen Overstreet. Pp. 1-29. May, 1909 Si5 2. Two Extensions of the Use of Graphs in Elementary Logic, by William Ernest Hocking. Pp. 31-44. May, 1909 .1^5 3. On the Law of History, by William Ernest Hocking. Pp. 45-65. Sep- / tember, 1909 2(5 \ \ A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 45-65 September 17, 1909 ON THE LAW OF HISTORY. WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING. The empirical conscience of our time, in setting a high stand- ard of objectivity for historical labors, lays a tax heavier than ever upon the pretence to grasp a definite law pervading the suc- cession of changes in human society. The motives which in Hegel's time led to doubt as to the existence of any such law have been in some measure set aside and exchanged for others. It is no longer the freedom of the human will that is commonly felt to shut out the possibility of order in history, but rather the complexity of human affairs. We are not now held off from a speculative study of history by a conviction that unfore- seeable intrusions of Providence disturb the processes of or- ( derly development among us, but rather by a belief that the mental phenomena of the world are more deeply under control of the physical than was formerly thought. The regularities of the world, it is believed, lie deeper than the surface of historical experience. Among ultimate physical units, order is perfect; as we deal with groupings of these units, laws become more con- ditional and limited in scope, until in the vastly compound region of " epiphenomena " they cease to have even a statistical exist- ence. This extreme fruit of the naturalistic temper has a certain logical coherence to recommend it. It does not discountenance the attempt to reach empirical generalizations as to tendencies in human affairs, of greater or lesser scope ; but it guards even the most timorous of these generalizations with an escort of condi- tional clauses. It will not say that "the law of political change involves a continual increase of political liberty ; ' ' but it will say, 46 University of California Publications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 with reservations, that "the trend of modern European history- has been, until recently, in the direction of enlarging the political privileges of the masses. ' ' It cannot, indeed, be said that the naturalistic point of view rigorously excludes the possibility of exact law in history; it simply makes the presence of such law extremelj^ improbable. Given a system of elements which on any level operates conserv- atively and with perfect order, and it is at least conceivable that other aspects of the system would present other types of order ; so a clock whose pendulum moves, let us say, in an invisible and fundamental sort of order, may show on its dial an orderly movement of hands. Any finite conservative system that had a fixed regime anywhere in its hidden interior would exhibit an order of some sort, in any chosen aspect. And although we do not know empirically whether or not our universe is finite, there is a chance that the same principle may be true of it. That is, if we regard the total conscious life of the universe as some defi- nite function of the total physical life of the universe, then since there are assumed to be definite historical laws regarding the physical universe, such as the law of entropy or the law of con- servation of energj', it is possible that there may be historical laws regarding the career of conscious life in the universe at large. But even in such case, the chances that conscious life on this planet would exhibit any special orderly sequences would be most remote, — irregular fragment, as it probably is, of the gen- eral conscious life of the whole. Still more remote, a thousand times more remote, would be the chance that historical laws for this human episode could be stated which should be formally identical with the laws of phys- ical transformation in time. Upon what a verj' remarkable rela- tion, then, between the various groups of phenomena evolving in the world must be based the possibility of stating a law of evolution which shall hold identically for all of them. Certainly Herbert Spencer has lightly assumed for his law of evolution responsibilities which no simply naturalistic plan of existence would impose upon him, and of whose extraordinary implications he was apparently unaware. Historians at the present day, ac- cordingly, deeply influenced by naturalistic presuppositions, are 1^0^] Hocking: On the Law of History. 47 consistently disposed to class Spencer's philosophy of history with Hegel's, as a more or less doctrinaire construction. And they are, so far, right. Spencer's assumption that the several spheres of phenomena which participate in the evolutionary pro- cess are united in their careers by a principle of thoroughgoing analogy is a piece of pure speculation on his part; and it marks his spiritual kinship with the philosophers of Germany, who announced precisely that same doctrine, but on grounds more consciously avowed. Contemporar}^ sociology, which feels bound to understand "social progress," is much more, given to stating historical laws than contemporary history is. And the laws which it is making for are not of the phenomenalistic type ; they are given a certain air of necessity by being expressed in terms of "social forces." But it is questionable whether there is any such thing as a permanently valid social force. Conscious reflection is the per- sistent solvent of habit and custom, and the deliverer from such ' ' forces ' ' as affect consciousness : whenever human nature knows that something is true of it, that thing has forthwith ceased to be entirely true. Whatever has been seen has been overcome; the moment of comprehension is the moment of release. The idea that we may know the future by the past is thus neutralized by the truth that knowledge of the past is the very thing which makes the future incalculable. Prince Schwarzenberg was accustomed to say, "I can learn nothing from history." In brief, such historical law as can be form- ulated by human thought becomes untrue by the very process of its formulation. On a large scale, this truth becomes itself a kind of historical law, and was incorporated as such by Hegel in his philosophy of histoiy. When a nation becomes aware of its own genius, Hegel declared, it has reached the day of its destiny ; it is thenceforth doomed to decline, as Greece did in becoming conscious of the subjectively individual element of freedom, and Rome in becoming conscious of the soul of her power. But un- less this law itself becomes untrue by being comprehended, it is impossible that the goal of history should contain what Hegel's central dogma maintains. — a perfect self-consciousness in the uni- versal spirit. 48 University of California Publications in Philosophn. [Vol. 2 This general type of objection, however, only makes against the absolute validity of such laws as the sociologist is inclined to formulate. Unless one carries it farther, to the point of saying that it is the destiny of conscious life to become aware of every law which has been true of it at any time, and so to rise step by step above every such type of regular process, it does not make against the possibility that some entirely valid law of history may exist, M'hich we are destined never to realize.^ Or if the discovery which must invalidate that ultimate law of history were deferred to infinite time, we should have a position sim- ilar to that which the religious consciousness in all ages has been prone to take up. There is a law, a plan of historical existence, which God alone knows, and Avhich man shall never see. To see the law would be equivalent to looking upon the mind of God; and no man seeth God at any time. Indeed, in the spirit of the type of piety which Hegel had especially to encounter, it is a sacrilege even to seek to know this plan of destiny. The true religious attitude, it was felt, was one of acquiescence in a state of ignorance. In this respect the temper of piety has had much in common with the anti-speculative temper of nineteenth century naturalism. It is indeed time to lay aside this bondage ; and to claim for the human spirit the right to enter, at least, upon a know^ledge of its own destiny. The prevalent feelings which we have reviewed and analyzed, to the effect that there are no laws of history, or that they are unascertainable if they exist, rest on more or less plausible conjectures, more or less important relative truths, which must play a part in every circumspect effort in this direc- tion. But such conjectures close no door. They therefore do not need to be explicitly refuted. The important thing is to consider positively what type of law it may be within our reach to discover. 1 That we are destined to become completely self-knowing is still a pos- sible position, and would amount to a doctrine of ultimate freedom from all historical law. In quite a different sense from that of the doctrine of the freedom of iudetermination, this doctrine would hold that the pos- sibility of historical law is limited by the freedom of the will. 1909] Hocking: On the Law of History. 49 THE LAW OF HISTORY AS A LAW OF SPIRIT. Any category which necessarily applies to the course of events in the world as a whole may be made the kernel of a law of his- tory in the most general sense. The category of change itself is most immediately applicable. If all historical things are in a flux and alwaj^s in a flux, we have at least one feature of the world of events which can be counted on, and which might ap- pear to have some significance in connection with the concept of a goal of history. But that which is always true, although it constitutes the background, is merely the frame of a law of his- tory in any vital sense. Things change, — that is, they become what they were not ; and for us, it is the negation that is impor- tant; we require to know the direction of these differences, if they are any other than a senseless shifting of kaleidoscopic forms. We require a concept which shall stamp universal change with character, or at least with form, and we may think to find such a concept in that of rhythm, of rise and fall, of evolution and dis- solution, of death and rebirth, of emanation and return, — des ewigen Wiederkehrs. Could such a principle be established — and it has lived not only in the religious dreams and prophetic fancies of men, but in the deliverances of their mathematical physics, and speculative biology — it would tend to throw the thought of history into a definite conceptual mould, it would harmonize with and strengthen our sense of the eternal, perhaps of the eternal Mind, to whom time is nothing and tomorrow is not preferred before yesterday, in whose presence there is a veritable ' ' conservation of values, ' ' for the whole meaning of all that has gone out is that it return to the source from which it came. No one can fail to recognize in this thought the inspira- tion of the older Orient, which paused in its march not because of its fatalism, but because its history was in the eye of its God a history of temporal indifference. To such thought, it is not in progress but in life that values lie. Change which simply repeats itself, though it be with ever changing elements, is play; and if it be held in some spiritual philosophy, it is the play of the Spirit, the play of God. Life is in play like a system of fountains 50 University of California Publications in Philosophy. [Vol.2 which, if they were conscious, might delight in the experience of their own pulsing. And if in the thought of Western naturalism, whose cosmic picture contains this same element of return, there is retained a motive of thrust and earnest, it is because the other half of reality is deliberately excluded from view, and men have determined to look on historical things with the eyes of men and not with the eye of the Eternal. If men are to have an ethical religion, God himself must have a temporal interest, a preference for that which as yet is not but which may be, or is to be. To the "absolute idealism," a genuine historical direction was found compatible with eternal identity by use of a third concept, the concept of development, of the change from the implicit to the explicit, of the world's perpetually "becoming what it eternally is. ' ' For Hegel, the law of history is completely contained in statements of what the spirit is : the spirit is free- dom, the spirit is self-consciousness, — history is therefore the becoming of freedom, the becoming of self-consciousness. The law has further details, because the becoming of the spirit must take place in definite stages, whose order is logically fixed. When, for instance, the development "of spirit has reached that point at which cosmic history becomes human history — the point, that is, at which Hegel begins to enter the field of modern sociology — we find that freedom must bear away from the form of the prim- itive family to the form of the State ; and that within the State progress has its stages, which are explained as those of the free- dom of one, the freedom of some, the freedom of all. ' ' The East knew that One is free (the eternal Being, — on earth, the despot) ; the Greek and Roman world knew that some are free (as in aristocracy or democracy) ; and the Germanic world knows that all are free. ' ' Deductive history can go farther : it can deter- mine by what movements of expansion and decay nations must work out their own segments of the idea embodied in the national genius, attain self-consciousness, and pass off the scene. What is here mapped out is not indeed a chronology, but still a rough temporal order; for the logical goal cannot come before the log- ical beginning, and the movement of time in any age is the prep- aration of the spirit of that age for knowledge and weariness of itself, and emancipation in that which is next higher. 1909] Hocking: On the Law of History. 51 Hegel might perhaps accept as a crude and limited way of expressing his meaning, so far as human history is concerned, such a statement as the follo\^dng: Human nature, we might say, makes first of all for independence of physical nature ; and then it proceeds in this relative independence to work out what is in itself. If man is indeed a political animal, we shall see the state appear; and if the essence of human nature is indeed free- dom, we shall see political forms making for greater and greater freedom. The defects of this statement from Hegel's point of view might be, first, in the somewhat empirical way in which it takes man's position with regard to nature, as if there might be a contingency that man should not get foot-free so as to work out his destiny without interference from matter, as if the earth might by accident have contained no land in the temperate zone, etc.: whereas the idealist conviction that the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, seems to contain provision that the hin- drances to the development of spirit shall in no case be greater than spirit can bear. Another defect would perhaps be found in the more empirical way in which it takes man's nature: it is regarded as a question of fact whether man is or is not a political animal. To find what man is, it is customary nowadays to look to his instincts : and to find what his instincts are, it is customary to look at what he has done. If he has been gregarious, it is said that he has a social instinct; if he has eaten and wedded, the instincts of hunger and sex may be attributed to him ; if he has built cities, he has the political instinct ; and if he has made gods, a religious instinct is evident. Hegel would not find much profit in this type of procedure, for the reason that it seems to lack power; it is too "metaphysical," in Comte's sense; it leaves things about where they are found, and gives no light on the central thrust of history. But it is the essence of this view to question the presence of any other central thrust than the thrust of these fundamental motives ; with the possible clarification, that some of them may be reduced to others. As far as freedom is concerned, Hegel's critic might say, that word simply allows the evasion of the main issue : to say that man seeks to satisfy his instincts is to say, at the same time, that he seeks freedom ; but to say that he seeks freedom is to leave it quite undetermined 52 University of California Publications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 what he shall be free for. Given the instincts, and it goes with- out saying that human society will take those forms which per- mit the maximum satisfaction, so far as physical nature allows — that is freedom; but there is nothing in human nature which makes for freedom per se, apart from a given material. And further, granted that there is something in man permanently trying to unfold, to express itself, to get free, to attain satisfac- tion, we cannot construct historical laws from the logic of the progressive steps in that attainment without regard to the con- tinual dependence of human history upon the course of nature. Human history is at every point a resultant : men do not first step off from nature, and then freely evolve, but the process of emancipation from nature is a continuous one, in the course of which human nature itself changes, so that the face of history will never show the simple development of an original analyz- able germ. In brief, to interpret the law of history as a law of spirit is to assume much, and to leave much more unconsidered. I so far sympathize with these considerations as to think that Hegel has not given a satisfactory account of the resistances to the development of the spirit, nor of the materials which are taken up into its development. To the absolute idealist, it is true, "Reason is Substance, as well as infinite Power; its own infinite Material ... as also the infinite Form — that which sets this Material in motion." Nature is thus never alien to, but only the Otherness of the spirit ; hence Reason can never be blocked by matter at the point of mere intention or desire with- out fulfillment. ' * The physical has no truth as against the spir- itual ' ' ; hence the destiny of the spiritual world is the destiny of the world iiberhaupt. The apparent struggle of the spirit with Nature is an illusion. Spirit is "at war with itself; it has to overcome itself, as its most formidable obstacle ' ' : hence, though the goal be hidden from its own vision, and though its ideal seem to be in danger of obliteration, the warfare of the spirit is in perfect security, — the enemy is but the dumb shadow of itself. These, the general assurances of idealism, it is the business of metaphysics to demonstrate, whereas the philosophy of history has only to show their substantiation after the fact. But it can- not be said that even Hegel's metaphysics has met all the condi- 1909] Hocking: On the Law of History. 53 tions for upholding these doctrines, without making some appeal to our faith. The idealistic movement was successful in showing in many ways what Nature might mean to Spirit ; so that had Spirit been planfully framing itself a world and a career in time, it must needs have "set over against itself a divisible non- ego, as a limit, a resistance to its infinite activity." There is some value to Spirit even in a (strictly limited) region of chance, risk, disorder; and Nature is this "Kealm of Chance." And since Nature could be shown so significant to the ego, the argument was certainly appealing that the ego does in truth constnict Nature, constitute it as its other self. But all these are universal aspects of Nature ; whereas it is really not the uni- versal more than the particular aspect of Nature that is critical for history. I do not mean simply that the significance of resist- ance for the striver is dependent as much on the amount of re- sistance as on the general condition that resistance shall exist; nor that the measure of deferment of the goal in time and the number of reversals in the ideal journey are quite as momentous for the special principles of history on our planet as the general principles that the goal must be deferred, and the journey have some backward passages. I mean rather that the course of his- tory is determined as much by conf.guration as it is by law. In- deed there are those, like Rickert and Stumpf who would confine the whole field and interest of history to the record of change in configuration, in the particular alone. There is a real tendency for weights to slide down hill ; but it depends on actual tempera- tures and the actual set of mountains whether any given glacier reaches the sea. The "law of the heaviest," as Carlyle calls it, creates a presumption that much gold will find its way close to the heart of the earth, and that justice will make itself felt in human affairs, in the long run. But it is the circumstance of continual jarring that allows the iron of the carwheel to assert its nature in crj^stallization ; and it is the presence of opportune facts that lets justice shoulder one length farther forward in the estimation of men. Had India been the forum for the appear- ance of Hebrew and Christian religion, and had Greek culture flourished in the geographical position of Spain, the dialectic of the spirit would have suffered — at least — postponement. In the 5-i University of California Publications in Pliilosopliy. L^o'- 2 writing of history there is always some exultation that at this point the great event did happen; a warming of the heart sim- ilar to that which Kant describes in the discovery of beauty in Nature, — as if by some design the configuration of inanimate things had been set into harmony with our powers of apprehen- sion. In the matter of the resistances to the development of Spirit, then, there are problems which universal considerations can do no justice to. It seems indeed, at times, that Hegel is content to ignore the particular in the strength of his belief that freedom is the most powerful thing in the world; for he allows no promise of success to the conscious aims of individual men — the irrational chances of the world he seems complacently to see thwarting hopes, crushing passions, and, as it were, spending themselves in bringing to naught the particular purposes of men — while (in the List der Vernunft) the universal essence of Spirit rides above the hurly-burly and the risk, furthered by all that befalls the individual for weal or woe. But such a philos- ophy can only become a philosophy of human history by leave of certain unacknowledged presuppositions. These presuppositions are taken from the traditional idea of Providence. God's will establishes configurations as well as laws, and the divine drama itself is recorded, not deduced. The alleged laws of history re- duce themselves to laws of tendency; and we wait the event to show whether or not freedom is destined to accomplish a defini- tive and self-conscious triumph among men. The permanent and essential surprise of history is not removed : " It was so, ' ' is not by any philosophy thus far transmuted into ' ' It must have been so." But is the Hegelian principle sufficient even as a law of ten- dency ? II. THE LAW OF HISTORY AS A CAUSAL LAW. To Hegel the whole of history is the history of freedom ; and political freedom is an institutional recognition of the pervasive spiritual mover. If we compare Hegel's account of political his- tory with, let us say, the essays on the "History of Freedom" in the papers of the late Lord Acton, or with Mackinnon 's treatise 1909] Hocl-ing: On the Law of History. 55 on the "History of Modern Liberty," we are struck with the immensely greater wealth of root in Hegel's treatment. Having sounded the nature of his object, Hegel could discern it under obscure names and high disguises : Acton perceives that Rome had more liberty under the empire than under the republic; Hegel is able to perceive that despotism is freer than savagery, that Rome is freer than Greece, and the Ploly Roman Empire freer than Rome. Freedom being the final cause of all that hap- pens in the world, every step in the dialectic of history will be seen as a step toward greater freedom if we can discern what is at the heart of it. But for Hegel also, it is through the material of human passions that the divine dialectic is realized. If our law of history must consist in declaring the necessary success of some real tendency, then it may be a phase of this law that men become freer ; but if we wish our law to state the accomplishment of history in terms of the actual agencies or prime movers in the process, it might seem more to the point to say that they become wealthier, that they master nature, divide their labor, and extend the arts of communication in continually greater degree. This is certainly the most readily verifiable and measurable aspect of the historical movement ; and it is moreover that aspect which is in immediate contact with the ultimate resistance to all expan- sion, material and spiritual. In the continuous combat with physical history, the heavy and applicable weapons, those which must be depended upon to force their way in spite of nature's worst, if any can, are the physical, political, and economic pas- sions. These way-making engines may indeed make way for liberty; but our law of history is fundamental only when stated in terms of verae causae, and of such of these valid forces as have to deal with the strategic obstacles to our human development. Add to this the conviction that the peculiar shapes taken by our spiritual possessions in the course of history can be understood as functions of this fundamental movement, — and we have, some- what generalized, the position of the "economic interpretation" of history, in no wise opposed to Hegel's law, as a description of phenomena, but presenting the description in language per- haps more cognate to these phenomena. This interpretation, like Buckle's physical theory, has passed 56 University of California Publications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 into disrepute among wise sociologists as being "one-sided." It is recognized that while economics has slain its thousands re- ligion has slain its tens of thousands. Many therefore prefer to speak impartially of the "factors" of progress, and to include the economic factors in a list with "physical, psychical, and social" factors which coordinately conspire to make history what it is. But perchance these factors seem coordinate, as things now are, mainly because in times of peace and comparative ease all ends tend to set up as ends-in-themselves ; the various heads of progress, relieved from discipline, disperse like soldiers, each his o^\Ti master and with his own way. Still, at the edges of society, where the waters of wealth run shallow and grind the shore, we can see the economic factor conditioning the rise of the rest. And through the web of social structure we can see the Right of Na- tions continually distilling itself over into might and capital, as if through this medium were to be won the next vantage in the things of the spirit. Indeed the economic factor tends to assume the role which Hegel attributed to the spirit of freedom : for while freedom, no longer invisible, becomes an end consciously pursued together with the other goods of the soul, — wealth, judged irrelevant and forgotten, holds a secret control of destiny. Beside the "List der Vernunft" which works its way through the passions of men, we must recognize the List der Materie which works its way through the medium of the ideals of men. Not only does the level of energy' and material advantage limit the general expansion of art, reflection, and sympathy ; but these spiritual values in turn establish themselves in the social fabric by contributing to economic and political potential. The cycle is created in both senses. For as the spirit contrib- utes to economic and political energj-, it is contributing to its own further progress. At the front of our economic life lie the beginnings of new virtues; for there is the hotbed of the newer sin. And as this sin takes its shape from the remoter and more impersonal dealings between man and man, so must the newer virtue lie in a new type of association, a more virile and distinterested expression of loyalty. As from the beginning, the economic advance marks the opportunity, nay, the necessity, for deeper human communication. It may be truly said that 1909] Hocking: On the Law of History. 57 man is from the first endowed with the "social instinct," as well as with instincts to live and eat. But an attraction between one mind and another without some subject-matter of mutual interest is incomprehensible. As there is no psychical life with- out sensation, so there is no absolute and empty "attraction" between souls — still less between men. It is the common object that reveals them to each other in the order of history, thus allowing the social instinct to display itself. The temporally presupposed common object has naturally been the common work in all the material provisions for living. Further, loyalty, pure and simple, is no source of variety and change in experiences. Abstractly it is a fit object for martyrdom ; its death is often more glorious than its life. That is the true morality which knows how to root itself in power, rising from it, and returning to it as unto Casar, the things that are Caesar's. Whatever impulse, and go, and development there is in the moral life, seems thus, in so far as a cursory view of this cycle of forces can show, to be due historically to economic impulses; or, let us rather say, to that great congeries of kindred impulses which the economic impulse undertakes to measure and represent. If among the forces which are making history, there be any independent variable of a strictly causal and temporal sort, of which the other factors may be understood as functions, we might well look for it in this quasi-material power, this power which extends itself gradually over nature, sends the roots of our whole existence deeper into the earth, and delivers to human life its necessary increment of stuff, as well as imposing upon this stuff its first transformations. The work of this power is essentially independent of, because irrelevant to, moral considera- tions. More mastery over things is neither moral nor immoral per se. The consent of the spirit need not be asked when it is a pure question of extending economic conquest, because the con- cerns of the spirit are not immediately affected. The economic interpretation of history has gained some ill- odor because it has been used cynically, as if morality were made by interest, and the like. But this is no part of the doctrine: indeed the economic truth about history is the handmaid of all genuine idealism. The economic level is a line of force, — but 58 University of California Publications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 force is not intrinsically vulgar and sordid. It implies only that progress has as one element a quantum, a rising totality of some sort of living substance, of spiritual substance, which by this fixed force-level is dammed off from mixing meaninglessly with the plain. III. THE LAW OF HISTORY AS A FORMAL LAW. But while the fact of exploitation involves no moral questions, and is essentially a spiritual feat, putting man in the rightful position of master over things less than human, moral and other interests do indeed stand guard over the method of exploitation. There are conditions for the force-level which are not simply energetic, but regulative. Of these conditions we can most easily ascertain the negative aspect, namely, that nothing unfair, un- just, oppressive, may be done or established in the zest of power- addition. Power, in truth, has not its face-value in history, unless in adding to its mass certain structural relations are ob- served: hence the "economic" force envisages this set of condi- tions also. Thus it has come about that human progress, just because of the increase of material, has been necessarily charac- terized by concomitant formal developments. The materials have disposed themselves not alone according to certain laws, but according to increasing sensitivity within these laws. The histoiy of institutions will thus present a two-fold aspect; and the law of history must give, and may give, consideration to the mode in which structure changes as well as to the change in the stuff. Indeed, when we speak generally of the "material" with which history, and so historic law, has to deal, it is such formed- stuff, and never the raw materials alone which we have in mind. This, in the abstract, is no unperceived truth. The more famous of the recent formulae for progress are efforts to express its direction in terms of some structural or formal change of given materials. Of these attempts, Herbert Spencer's descrip- tion of evolution in terms of differentiation and integration is the prototype. Neither Spencer nor his followers were probably aware of the intimate kinship between this "differentiation" and that Hegelian "negation," which always involved a plural- izing and splitting; nor between this "integration" and the 1909] Hocking: On the Lmv of History. 59 "synthesis" of the dialectic. The correspondence is sufficient to show the relative place that a formula like Spencer's would hold in a philosophy of history — how partial a solution of the problem of history any such formula by itself can offer. A better or woi-se, a ground for preference, a significant goal, can- not be found in differentiations and integrations alone. Neither morality nor desire appears interested in the process thus de- scribed. Some formulae of this sort may, however, have the great merit of being true. And if we can add the material, the interest may begin to appear. Morality we know has been tra- ditionally associated with the idea of the perfection of some sort of integration, — the solidarity of the species, the " conseiousne&s kind"; and Durkheim- has shown, I think, conclusively, that it is quite as much concerned in the perfection of some sort of differentiation, — specialization, individuation. Morality may be interested, then, that the evolutionary process thus described go on. But can any other interest adequate to the whole phenom- enon be alleged? What is the driving power of this tendency to divide and unite incessantly? Are there any materials of human passion at work here? Could these questions be an- swered, and the answers incorporated with our abstract formulge for progress in terms of increase of power and concomitant structural change, we should have within our grasp, I believe, the fragments of a concrete law of history. IV. THE LAW OF HISTOEY AS A LAW OF VALUE. To say that men strive for happiness is somewhat ditTerent from saying that the passions of mankind make the surface of history. Happiness is no definite object; nor is it attained by the attainment of any definite object. Nevertheless, it is what men strive for at the same time that they are striving for other things. It is a cause having the same order of reality as the several desires of men, and yet set above them as a regulative idea in the pursuit of the several satisfactions of desire. Happi- ness is a general condition of well-being of soul, body, and estate, 2 Division du travail social. 60 University of California Puhlications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 which men know of more by the direction in which it lies from where they are than by its present aspect. It signifies to us, however, at least this, that all of a man's numerous desires are desires of the same person, must all drink from the same well of that individual's energies, and must come to terms with each other in that person's ideas. The various desires of man are, in fact, more centralized than those of any other animal. They bear on each other more. Each enjoyment requires the whole of a man's attention, no matter how trivial it may be. This means that his entire stock of ideas is more or less involved in the process of enjoyment. I empha- size the fact that the ideas are involved ; for they are commonly supposed to have little or nothing to do with pleasures. On the contrary, they constitute a most important dimension of every pleasure, in such wise that the more vigorous and extensive a man's ideas are, the greater will be each one of his pleasures. It can be readily seen, if this statement is granted, that what- ever affects the vigor of any idea will affect all of the pleasures in that mind, and not one of them alone; since the idea will be more or less operative in every pleasure. And the vigor of a man's ideas, in turn, is deeply affected by the number and range of his pleasures. The necessity for choice between satisfaction now or later, between being here or there at a given moment, makes keen the ideas of duration and distance. The conscious- ness which is capable of many satisfactions, will find (other things being equal) that each satisfaction is enhanced by the others, and in proportion to their number; and this mutual en- hancement may occur largely through the medium of the vivid ideas which the conflict and satisfaction of desires create. The evidence for these assertions cannot be given here.^ The point to be made is this: that the happiness of a man, or let us say the general height of his life, will have two distinct measures: the number of things to which he can devote him.self with in- terest, and the range of his ideas, especially the ideas of duration, distance, personality, and the "whole of things" in whatever shape this may present itself to him. 3 See Psychological Bulletin for May, 1908, for the theory of values here sketched. 1909] Hocking: On the Law of History. 61 This doctrine of value has corollaries of immediate bearing upon the law of history. Suppose that an early man, remember- ing the pinch of hunger in a past season, begins for the first time to lay up stores against the hard time of year. The eco- nomic motive is at work in stretching his idea of duration. His personality acquires a time-vista which it never had before. This stretching of the idea will, if we are right, enliven every one of that individual's satisfactions, particularly those wherein the idea of time has come up. This is an uncontemplated effect. And it is for that man an unnoticed effect; he is simply more alive than before, and however alive a mind is, this degree of life always seems the normal condition. Nevertheless, the effect has taken place as an incident to the economic advance. And with this further result : that the resistance to slipping back into old habits of drifting will be greater than the simple inconven- ience of going hungry would account for, — greater by this un- earned increment of value. The same is true of the development of association ; men associate for defense and for business of various sorts ; they stay associated for these, and in addition for new-found personal reasons, and, still further in addition, for that heightening of their whole scale of life which has come, in a way quite beyond their power of explicit cognizance, through the growth of their ideas. Their idea of personality has been enlarged, and thereby each several interest multiplied in worth. So with each higher form of association. "The state comes into existence," said Aristotle, "originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life." It is this additional resistance to going back which is the security of human progress, and which marks the historical relation between economic and moral forces. For while early man is totally un- able to construe to himself the nature of this new subjective resistance to the diminishing of his ideas, expressing it in his religious fantasy by all manner of weird objective symbols, this resistance is, in fact, the incipient conscience of mankind. Con- science, we may say, is an organic resistance to the diminution of the amount of acquired life. The bearing of the formula of differentiation and integration (as of those other more special formulas, Bagehot's custom 62 JJniversitxj of California PuMications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 and the dissolution of custom, Tarde's imitation and initiation) upon human interest may now become apparent. The economic motive is admittedly the pioneer in promoting specialization and efficient connection among human beings. But this means that every human being is called upon to differentiate and integrate his thought of his world, in order to hold his special place in it, to enlarge to the limit of his perspective the number of his interests and the scope of his ideas. By a more or less forcibly imposed enlargement of both dimensions of his happiness, the quantum of his spiritual substance is enlarged ; and this is done for each member of the social order according to his capacity, without competition, since it is the same further differentiated and integrated world which is the necessary object of each such mind. We may therefore say that the law of history, in so far as it deals with the material of human passions, is this: the con- tinuous increase of value or of the quantity of spiritual exist- ence. To the process as thus stated there is no limit. The eco- nomic enlargement never achieves its last conquest. This law I would set in direct contrast with the law of the "conservation of value, ' ' proposed by Professor Hoffding. The apparently formal law of Spencer thus turns out to evolve a law of the very substance of value. But what is the relation of this law to such interpretations of history as we find in Fichte and Hegel? The relation is direct and intimate. The idealistic reading of this process does not follow the order of time, but sees the motive power of history in that which turns out to be, rather than in that which is active in the beginning. The enlargement of the economic horizon means at the same time the retreat of the limiting non-ego, and the unending increase of its antagonism to the ego. But this is indeed as it should be. For if the "ego sets over against itself a divisible non-ego", the measure of the ego is none other than the measure of the non-ego which is over against it. The thesis itself, however, con- tains no principle of measure, and nothing explains why at any time there should be just so much life, and no more — nothing except the supposition that the ego does in fact, in its temporal career, run through the whole infinite scale of measure. From the point of view of time, we should say that the ego is contin- 1909] Hocking: On the Lmv of History. 63 ually positing its non-ego ; the deed is an infinite one, and in a temporal order eternally unfinished. Ideally, also, the law of history may be read as an increase of freedom. The only definitive freedom of the soul is to be infinite ; and this goal is never accomplished. Freedom, indeed, is too attributive a term to tell the whole truth as to the substance of progress. What grows, through history, is reality itself. And freedom grows, derivatively, because to be more real is to be more free. The chief objection to Hegel's law, however, is in the conception of the unfolding germ which, present in the beginning, acts as with a temporal desire for what is beyond it in point of time ; free- dom is rather the face of Deity, whom the process of history gradually reveals. The being into which we grow is a communi- cated being, our enlargement is the gift of God. Liberty in the narrower sense, however, is not merely a goal of history, and not altogether that; for here the process is one of alternate liberty and bondage. Politically, liberty is a status, which appears as a stage in an alternating process. The political force which alternately constrains men (and which we have in- cluded with the ''economic motive" in the general category of power) is set from time to time by the strong man, the authority, as the mark is set to which when they have grown they shall again be free. Liberty is the state of having digested a meal, of having awakened from sleep. Men must sleep yet again, and again. "While the Germanic peoples were living in external con- tact with Rome, between the times of Tacitus and the invasions they gradually adopted Roman titles of dignity, aped the habits of authority, and let their ancient liberal customs of election and assembly fall into desuetude. Were they growing in free- dom ? or were they entering into the shadow of the great bondage from which they were to emerge transformed ? They were, even then, enlarging their souls, and in this sense were becoming more free; but specifically they were entering into the antithesis of freedom. Could we regard freedom in the wider sense as a synthesis of this more specific freedom and its opposite, then we might say with truth that history presents the recurrent dia- lectic of freedom, as the shape of the process through which the enhancement of values takes place. 64 University of California Publications in Philosophy. [Vol. 2 The law of history, as we now see it, is a law of the per- sistent increase of value, through the thrust of power and the regaining of liberty. It is true that the process is of the nature of a dialectic; it is also true that it is an advance in "differen- tiation and integration." The motive force of the process, re- garded temporally, is indeed the passion for power of all sorts ; whereas, regarded ideally, it is the passion of the soul for in- finitude, for the fulness of its own being. But looking at the process still from the strictly temporal and causal point of view, is it true that all the original work of exploring, annexing, and difference-making is done by the love of power in the last analysis; while the love of men, the love of God, and the love of general liberty do but accompany and follow, to regulate the process and assimilate its fruits? Can these latter motives, which united we may call, with Hegel, the love of freedom, create no original differences in history? They can, and do. The love of freedom, especially as fostered by religion, takes the form, first of all, of a desire for release from the inconveniences of the world as it is; and since these inconveniences are thoroughgoing, it may become a fairly pure and wholesale passion for retreat : in such forms it does no work. But if it takes the form, not simply of repudiating what is, but of imagining a better, it is beginning to be creative ; and the essential historical office of religion is to encourage and make valid these deepest, timidest, most original outputs of dif- ference within the human will. Religion causes men to believe, not so much in their dreams as in the dreaming process. It reaches what is most subjective in men and makes it objectively valid by declaring the absolute worth of human creativeness. It protects man, the seer of visions. In so doing, it sustains many sentiments and fancies which are obviously without utility to the state, if not detrimental; but in the vast cloud of worthless dreams there is some dreaming w^hich can make good, and this is the most precious product which the human spirit deposits. Making good means, to be sure, taking shape as a power; the dream remains unhistorical until it attracts visible forces to itself. And since men have often clung more passionately to their visions than to their material realities, the death of loy- 1909] Hocking: On the Law of History. 65 alty has been a necessary feature of the historical ordeal, the judgment of God. Loyalty has taken its choice between two things, both of which were necessary; it has chosen the better part, and it cheerfully takes the consequences, but it is not yet a history-making factor. But chiefly through its death it at- tracts that power to itself which establishes its place in history; and it must be noticed that the power thus commanded is not simply the quantum of force otherwise existing in the world — but because the world has suddenly become more worth while on account of the militant presence of this idea in it, there is a genuine creation of power, and this is indeed the chief of all contributions to human value. We may finally state our law of history thus : Value is per- sistently increased (1) through the original extension of power and the consequent regaining of liberty; and (2) through the original extension of liberty and the consequent accession of power. In this bifactorial growth, neither variable can be re- garded as absolutely prior in time, nor as absolutely independ- ent of the other in time. Which is more fundamentally real may be left for metaphysics to determine. This is not a satisfactory law. No law of indefinite quan- titative increase can be satisfactory. We must know more of the nature of the goal to which it tends. Further, it is but a law of tendency, and, like all such laws, calls upon our faith in the configuration of things for its actuality: it is a law of history only by the grace of God. And finally, it is not able to explain the concrete forms which history assumes. It is a law of values, and should give some insight into the sense of advance from savagery to statedom through family and village com- munities, but it cannot show the necessity of the family or the village or the state. These shapes stand in simple vivid natural- ness, the gift of nature, the despair of our philosophy. Let us not flatter ourselves that we have fathomed even their "essence." 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