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THE UNITY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Essays Arranged and Edited by

F. S. MARVIN

Sometime Senior Scholar of St. John's College, Oxford
Author of _The Living Past_

Humphrey Milford
Oxford University Press
London Edinburgh Glasgow New York
Toronto Melbourne Bombay

1915

PREFACE

The following essays are the substance of a course of lectures delivered
at a Summer School at the Woodbrooke Settlement, near Birmingham, in
August 1915. The general purpose of the course will be apparent from the
essays themselves. No forced or mechanical uniformity of view was aimed
at. The writers will be found, very naturally and properly, to differ in
detail and in the stress they lay on different aspects of the case. But
they agree in thinking that while our country's cause and the cause of
our Allies is just and necessary and must be prosecuted with the utmost
vigour, it is not inopportune to reflect on those common and
ineradicable elements in the civilization of the West which tend to form
a real commonwealth of nations and will survive even the most shattering
of conflicts. That we on the Allied side stand fundamentally for this
ideal is one of our most valuable assets.

The fact that the lectures were delivered at a settlement for training
persons for social work in a religious spirit, suggested to more than
one of those who took part in the course, how similar is the task which
now lies before us in international affairs to that which Canon Barnett
initiated thirty years ago for the treatment of the social question at
home. We need in both cases to associate ourselves mentally with others
in order to realize the common elements which underlie the seeming
diversity in the civilization of the West.

The method of the course was primarily historical, though certain essays
have been added of a more idealist type. It is hoped that the point of
view suggested, though prompted by current events, may be found to have
some permanent value. It could obviously be applied to many other
aspects of European life, e.g. morality and politics, to which
conditions of space have only permitted indirect reference to be made in
this volume.

F.S.M.

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTORY: THE GROUNDS OF UNITY
By F. S. MARVIN.

II. UNITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES
By J. L. MYRES, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, Oxford.

III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF GREECE AND ROME
By J. A. SMITH, Waynflete Professor of Mental and Moral
Philosophy, Oxford.

IV. UNITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES
By ERNEST BARKER, Fellow of New College, Oxford.

V. UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN LAW
By W. M. GELDART, Vinerian Professor of English Law, Oxford.

VI. THE COMMON ELEMENTS IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND ART
By the Rev. Dr. A. J. CARLYLE, University College, Oxford.

VII. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY AS UNIFYING FORCES
By L. T. HOBHOUSE, White Professor of Sociology,
University of London.

VIII. THE UNITY OF WESTERN EDUCATION
By J. W. HEADLAM, late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

IX. COMMERCE AND FINANCE AS INTERNATIONAL FORCES
By HARTLEY WITHERS.

X. INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL LEGISLATION
By CONSTANCE SMITH, sometime British Delegate on International
Bureau for Industrial Legislation.

XI. COMMON IDEALS OF SOCIAL REFORM
By C. DELISLE BURNS.

XII. THE POLITICAL BASES OF A WORLD-STATE
By J. A. HOBSON.

XIII. RELIGION AS A UNIFYING INFLUENCE IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION
By H. G. WOOD, late Fellow of Jesus College,
Cambridge.

XIV. THE GROWTH OF HUMANITY
By F. S. MARVIN.

ANALYSIS

CHAPTER I. THE GROUNDS OF UNITY

The appeal to history. Previous great schisms in Europe which have been
surmounted give hope for the present. The Reformation. The Napoleonic
Wars.

The two points of view, (1) Man's nature itself tending to unity through
conflict. (2) The stages in the process developed in history.

In pre-history conflict and diversity are predominant, though the
necessities of life prescribe certain uniformities. Consolidation comes
in favoured physical conditions, especially great river-basins like the
Nile and the Euphrates.

The possibility of a world-unity first consciously envisaged in the
Greco-Roman world. Greece gives unity in thought, Rome in practice.
Order with a solid intellectual foundation established with the Roman
Empire. In the mediaeval world a unity mainly spiritual is reached in
the same framework. The position of Germany in this development. The
break-up of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The enlargement of the
known world and the growth of wealth and knowledge. This crisis still
continues and has been recently accentuated by the birth-throes of
nationalities. The supreme problem for international unity is now the
reconciliation of national units with the interests of the whole.
Underneath the superficial turmoil the great unifying forces of science
and of common sentiments continue to grow and will ultimately prevail.

CHAPTER II. UNITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES

Retrospect of the search for unity in man's affairs, in its political
and scientific bearings.

The Unity of Man as an Animal Species. Ancient beliefs, doubts suggested
by the practice of slavery, their solution, and the modern conception of
a 'Human Family'.

The unity of man as a rational animal struggling against nature for
subsistence. Archaeological evidence as to the reasonableness of
primitive culture on its material side; doubts raised by man's
irrational 'barbarities' on the social plane. Levy Bruhl's hypothesis of
a 'savage logic' and the Greek analysis of wrongdoing as rooted in
ignorance.

Man's struggle with Nature in the N.W. Quadrant of the Old World. Unity
here not to be found in the Food Quest. Prehistoric Europe shows variety
of regimens, hoe-agriculture, pastoral nomadism. The wheel and the
plough and the composite bread and cheese culture.

Race, Language, and Culture as Factors of Unity. The spread of the
European Bread Culture is earlier than that of Indo-European Speech and
probably than that of the 'Alpine' type of man. Race in Europe has led
not to unity but to discord, and linguistic affinity does not ensure
mutual intelligibility.

CHAPTER III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF GREECE AND ROME

Contemporary history is the only genuine and important history, the
present is the only object of historical knowledge; what the present is
and how, properly conceived, it gives history its unity and justifies
the study of what is past (ancient history); all history is _our_
history, and otherwise without meaning or value to us. The history of
classical antiquity is the history of the youth of the modern world, of
the formation of the now latent but still potent hopes, fears, designs
and thoughts which constitute the substratum of the European mind; how
this still unites a divided Europe and affords a ground of hope for a
restored and deepened union. Our debt to the Greeks: (_a_) the very
notion of civilization, (_b_) the idea of its realization through
knowledge, (_c_) the ideal of freedom as the inner spirit of true
civilization. How the Greeks failed to work all this out in both theory
and practice, and how nevertheless they taught their lesson to the
world; the services of Greece to the world in the creation of Art, the
Sciences, and Philosophy; the Greek ideal of a life beyond 'civilized'
life, but rendered possible by it, and thus giving to civilized life a
new and higher value; defects and merits of this ideal.

The Romans are inheritors of all this; how, while making it more
prosaic, they rendered it more practical and more effectually realized
it. All this most visible in the Imperial period. The Roman ideal:
(_a_) world-wide peace, (_b_) secured and maintained by a centralized
system of laws issuing from and enforced by a single power. Influence of
this ideal on later and modern thought and practice. Causes of its
decline and fall: (_a_) ignorance of the economic substructure of
civilized life, (_b_) neglect of opportunities to extend and defend it,
(_c_) the rise of the idea of nationality. The Revolution as the last
great attempt to reinstate the full Roman ideal in its outworn form.

Lessons still to be learned by us from the study of both the success and
the failure of Greco-Roman civilization; how the consideration of these
may at once sober our expectations and inspire us with hope in the
present. The forces which created it still maintain it and show no signs
of exhaustion. But that they may continue in effect we must study these
forces and learn the lessons the ancient experience of their working
conveys, exerting ourselves first to understand Greco-Roman thought and
practice and then to better their instruction.

CHAPTER IV. THE MIDDLE AGES

I. The mediaeval world. Geographical extent. Economic structure: its
features of uniformity and isolation: the effect of the rise of a
national economy on mediaeval society. Linguistic basis. Mediaeval
scheme that of a general European system of estates rather than of a
balance of powers.

II. The unity of mediaeval civilization in its great period (1050-1300)
ecclesiastical. The attempt of the Church to achieve a general synthesis
of human life by the application of Christian principle. (1) The control
of war and peace and the feudal world: the Truce of God and the
Crusades: the papacy as an international authority: the mediaeval
conception of war. (2) The control of trade and commerce and the
economic world: just wages and prices: the mediaeval town. (3) The
control of learning and education and the world of thought:
reconciliation of Greek science and the Christian faith: allegorical
interpretation of the world and its effects on natural science.

III. The mediaeval theory of society. The organic conception of society:
mediaeval thought _naturaliter Platonica_. The one society of mankind.
Hence (1) little conception of the State or sovereignty or State law;
but the universal society has nevertheless to be reconciled in some way
with the existence of different kingdoms. Hence, again, (2) no
distinction of Church and State as two separate societies: these are
two separate authorities, _regnum_ and _sacerdotium_, but they govern
the same society. The one society of mankind an ecclesiastical scheme
uniting a great variety of personal groupings.

IV. The influence of law on the development of the kingdom into the
state--a process begun early in England and France, but only generally
achieved about 1500. The new conditions--geographical, economic,
linguistic--which prepare the way for the new world of the sixteenth
century. The gulf between that world and the old mediaeval world. The
hope of unity to-day.

CHAPTER V. UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN LAW

The Problem in the Ancient World. Law universal and supreme over mankind
(Sophocles, Antigone). Law arbitrary and varying from place to place
(Herodotus). Nature and convention. The 'rightlessness' of the stranger
in antiquity. The law was a 'law of citizens'. Admission of the
foreigner to legal protection. Rome develops a law of the men of all
nations (_ius gentium_), which reacts upon the law of citizens (_ius
civile_), and ultimately coalesces with it. The law of nature.

The break-up of the Ancient World; the Middle Ages. The invaders bring
their own law with them. In the kingdoms which they founded each man had
his 'personal law'. Local Law. Feudal Law. The beginnings of National
Law: England, France, Germany. Roman Law in the Middle Ages. The Canon
Law.

The Modern World. The reception of Roman Law. State Sovereignty. The
Modern Codes. Unity and diversity of law within the political unit. The
world divided into territories of the English Common Law and lands where
Roman Law conceptions prevail. Forces making for unity: the notion of a
'law of nature'; the pursuit of common ends. International law, private
and public.

CHAPTER VI. THE COMMON ELEMENTS IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND ART

The question of the place of nationality in art and literature. It has
little or no place in the Middle Ages. The mediaeval epic; its
character. The mediaeval romance. Modern European art and literature
transcends national conditions. The characteristics of the new European
literature of the fourteenth century: Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer. The
drama of England and Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Painting and sculpture from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.
The classical mind, and the principle of good taste and common sense.
The realism of Defoe and Hogarth, and the Spanish Picaresque novel.
Sentimentalism in the eighteenth century. The poetry and painting of
nature. The great revolution and the romantic movement. Great literature
and art are not national but human.

CHAPTER VII. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Western civilization possesses a certain unity (1) in the sense of unity
of character, (2) in the fact that it has a common origin, ultimately in
the Greco-Roman civilization but more immediately in mediaeval
Christendom, and (3) in the sense that its parts have maintained a
constant intercommunication of ideas. (4) The different qualities of
German, French, and English thinkers have in large measure complemented
one another, (5) and the history of science and of speculative
philosophy is largely a history of the interaction of distinct national
schools. (6) The same thing is true of political thought. (7) Thus the
world of thought forms a commonwealth which is superior to all national
differences and, in spite of the war, remains a foundation of a very
genuine unity.

CHAPTER VIII. UNITY IN EDUCATION

Distinction between Unity and Uniformity. Historical Unity; the origin
of the School and the University. Both instruments of the mediaeval
Church for maintaining a common system throughout Western Christendom.
Importance of Latin as the universal language of education. Suppression
of the vernacular and of national movements. The Reformation; a common
European movement. Erasmus. The new teaching based on classical
literature. Tendency to disunion; the influence of the Reformation and
the national Churches. Growth of national literature. Political
influences, the French Revolution, and the National State. The essential
Unity still preserved, not merely in the study of the natural sciences,
but in the historical unity given by Christianity and the spirit of
Greece.

CHAPTER IX. COMMERCE AND FINANCE

Commerce and finance practical expressions of the instinct of
self-preservation which is common not only to all men, but to all living
creatures. Early appearance of trading habit in boys. Early examples of
trade. Abraham's purchase of a burying-ground from Ephron the Hittite.
Solomon's trade with Hiram of Tyre. Herodotus, the first historian,
opens his history with an allusion to trade. Trade is based on
specialization, and is at once a cause of unity and of disunion. Its
extension from individuals to communities. Foreign trade stimulated by
variations of value in different communities. Specialization increases
efficiency, but makes the worker a machine, and a speculator on the
chance that others will want what he makes. International trade also
promotes both unity and friction. On the whole, commerce a great
promoter of unity. Likewise finance, or money-dealing. Its origin and
development. London's catholic taste in foreign securities: sometimes
prefers them to the home-made article. Effect of foreign investment on
home production and consumption. Foreign finance and productive
specialization.

CHAPTER X. INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL LEGISLATION

Interdependence true of countries as of classes. A fact brought home to
us by the European War. Importance of international action in relation
to the raising of social and industrial standards. This truth perceived
by Robert Owen a century ago. Work of Owen and his successors in the
direction of an international minimum of labour conditions. Action of
the Swiss Federal Council. The German Emperor calls the first Conference
on workmen's protection 1890. Formal failure and substantial achievement
of this Conference. Founding of International Association for Labour
Legislation and International Labour Office. Constitution and work of
these bodies. Biennial conferences of the association: subjects and
methods. International Conventions of 1906, their scope and value.
Subsequent labours of the Association. Its present position and future
hopes.

CHAPTER XI. COMMON IDEALS OF SOCIAL REFORM

Ideals arise from perceived social evils. They have caused in recent
years (_a_) Common action by European Governments and (_b_) action by
separate Governments influenced by foreign experience. There has also
been a growth of sentiment, not yet embodied in law or institutions,
with regard to (i) the position of women and children, (ii) social
caste, and (iii) the increase of common action for reform by civilized
states.

CHAPTER XII. THE POLITICAL BASES OF A WORLD-STATE

The nineteenth century has made three great contributions towards the
possibility of International Government, the political realization of
nationality, the growth in substance and method of international law,
and the progress of federalism. In other fields outside politics,
especially in commerce and finance, a network of international
co-operation has grown up. Closer political union is needed for three
purposes: first, the consolidation, extension, and improved sanctions of
existing international law; secondly, the settlement of differences
between nations; thirdly, positive co-operation for the common good.
This progress involves some further diminution of 'sovereignty' and
'independence'. But these concepts have no absolute validity. In the
Hague Conventions and other intergovernmental instruments the rudiments
of international government already exist. In order to establish
effective security for peace, what is needed is a general treaty
providing that all disputes be submitted to arbitration or conciliation,
with such guarantees for acceptance of the award as will establish
confidence. The test of confidence is the voluntary reduction of
armaments. Internationalists differ as to the nature and rigour of the
sanctions. Some rely entirely on a 'moratorium' and the pressure of
public opinion: others would compel the submission of all issues, but
not the acceptance of awards: others, again, would apply force,
diplomatic, economic, or military, to both processes.

Internationalism, to be effective, would require a machinery for dealing
with new issues before they ripened into disputes. How far will the
state of mind following this war assist this progress of
internationalism? Is a spiritual conversion, corresponding to the
process of biological mutatism, possible or probable?

CHAPTER XIII. RELIGION

The history of Europe suggests that, though the Church exerted a
considerable influence on the growth of a common type of civilization in
the West, in modern times religion has proved a divisive rather than a
unifying factor. During the last generation or two, however, there has
been a decline of the dogmatic and sectarian tempers. This change is
largely due to the growth of the scientific spirit, and, as in other
realms of inquiry so in the study of religion, international
co-operation has steadily developed. Both literary criticism and
psychological analysis have contributed to the widening of sympathy. The
better understanding of certain elements in the Christian ideal and the
Christian hope must also be taken into consideration as a factor making
for a new catholicism which finds expression in movements like the Adult
School Movement and the Student Christian Movement, and in the
ever-growing demand for closer co-operation in missionary work.

Beyond this, partly through the comparative study of religions, we are
conscious that religious thought in the West possesses some common
characteristics, notably, faith in the solidarity of mankind and in the
reality of progress. Of themselves, these two convictions do not
constitute any very close bond of union, and both beliefs need to be
defined and enforced by the sense of sin and the consciousness of God
which the West has learned from Jesus.

CHAPTER XIV. THE GROWTH OF HUMANITY

The need of a basis of right sentiments even greater than that of
improved political machinery to secure international union. We must
start from patriotism and enlighten and enlarge it. Of the three Western
nations which lead in the arts and sciences, France and England through
the war become closely allied in defence of a policy of the union of
free and pacific people throughout the world. The position of Italy,
Russia, and the United States. The increase of arbitral methods and the
formation of leagues of peace or even of a world-state are matters
calling for earnest thought; but the spread of the notion of humanity,
the co-operation of all mankind in a common work is more fundamental and
may be begun by any one at home. This idea, starting with the Stoics, is
fully developed with the advent of modern science. It shows itself in
many forms and the spread of exact science is its most powerful aid.
This is entirely independent of nationality and will be increasingly
concerned with the alleviation of human suffering and the improvement of
life.

The final test of a high international aim is the joint effort of the
stronger peoples to protect and assist the weaker and less advanced. The
case of Africa and the Brussels Conference of 1889. Analogy with the
treatment of the young at home.

I

THE GROUNDS OF UNITY

In face of the greatest tragedy in history, it is to history that we
make appeal. What does it teach us to expect as the issue of the
conflict? How far and in what form may we anticipate that the unity of
mankind, centring as it must round Europe, will emerge from the trial?

Only two occasions occur to the mind on which, since the break up of the
Roman Empire, a schism so serious as the present has threatened the
unity of the Western world. The first was the Reformation and the war
which it entailed down to the Peace of Westphalia. The second was the
struggle against Napoleon, terminated a hundred years ago. The latter
was in many respects a closer parallel. It was a struggle of the
independent nations of Europe against the overweening ambition and
aggression of one Power. It united them in an alliance which achieved
its purpose and survived the successful issue of the war for some years.
Some such course, with a comity of nations far wider and more enduring
than the Holy Alliance as its sequel, we hope and predict for the
present war.

The struggle at the Reformation was less like the present, either in its
causes or its course, but it has some features which make it a useful
point for a survey of the permanent unifying elements which hold and
will hold the West together in spite of occasional cataclysms and the
clash of rival interests and passion. A man like Erasmus, trembling
before the catastrophe, willing to make immense sacrifices to avoid an
open breach, uncertain of any final readjustment which might restore the
harmony of the world, was not unlike some among us who hoped against
hope that the enemy might be appeased, who thought that almost any peace
was better than any war, who still fear that the breach in unity is
vital or irreparable for generations.

And the issue three hundred years ago may also inspire us with a
cautious optimism, a strong though not unmeasured trust. The right cause
triumphed, fully in the end. Freedom was secured, both for churches and
for individuals, throughout the world. The evil features in the papal
system, against which the attack was really levelled, quietly but
completely disappeared, and the institution survived, itself reformed.
Before a hundred years were out the world had moved on to the conquest
of new vantage points and the establishment of a wider unity on a firmer
base.

Both previous occasions are therefore full of hope. The European system
is, as we shall see throughout these essays, the necessary nucleus of
any civilized order embracing the whole world; and the great convulsions
which have hitherto continued to occur in it from time to time are
moments of especial value for the study of the conditions under which it
exists. They are the pathological experiences which reveal the strength
and the weaknesses of the normal functions. We strive and hope for a
more lasting state of general health, and do not despair of the patient
even in this grave attack. He has survived even more serious illness.
For though the present war is the most gigantic that the world has ever
seen, its very greatness is the result of some of those modern
developments--scientific skill, improved communications, national
cohesion--on which ultimately the better organization of the whole
commonwealth of nations will be built. _Passi graviora_; we have
weathered the storms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when
the old Roman order and its sequel in the Catholic Church were at their
weakest and the recuperative power of science and social reform and
nationalism had hardly begun its work. We shall not fail with our
greater forces of the present to regain and create a Europe freer,
stronger, and more united than that which now seems to be shaken to the
depths.

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