All divisions of history into periods are artificial in
proportion as they are precise. In history there is, strictly speaking, no end
and no beginning. Each event is the product of an infinite series of causes, the
starting-point of an infinite series of effects. Language and thought,
government and manners, transform themselves by imperceptible degrees; with the
result that every age is an age of transition, not fully intelligible unless
regarded as the child of a past and the parent of a future. Even so the species
of the animal and vegetable kingdoms shade 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 of the mind. Yet the biologist is prepared to defend the
idea of species; and in like manner the historian holds that the distinction
between one phase of culture and another is real enough to justify, and,
indeed, to demand, the use of distinguishing names.
In the development of
single communities and groups of communities there occurs now and again a moment
of equilibrium, when institutions are stable and adapted to the needs of those
who live under them; when the minds of men are filled with ideas which they
find completely satisfying; when the statesman, the artist, and the poet feel
that they are best fulfilling their several missions if they express in deed
and work and language the aspirations common to the whole society. Then for a
while man appears to be the master of his fate; and then the prevailing temper
is one of reasoned optimism, of noble exaltation, of content allied with hope.
The spectator feels that he is face to face with the maturity of a social system
and a creed. These moments are rare indeed; but it is for the sake of
understanding them that we read history. All the rest of human fortunes is in
the nature of an introduction or an epilogue. Now by a period of history we
mean the tract of years in which this balance of harmonious activities, this
reconciliation of the real with the ideal, is in course of preparing, is
actually subsisting, and is vanishing away.
