# The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind/Chapter 1

SECTION I
MANY strange things have happened in the history of the world. There have been cases in which the efforts of individuals or societies have been directed towards the spread of a new religion, but the result has been the creation of a new state or the making of a powerful military community. Sometimes the ruling classes or the subjects have endeavoured to raise the status of their country by developing its secular and political interests, but a new religious system with its peculiar dogmas and doctrines has displaced the old mythology and renovated the ​spiritual life of the people. Many instances are recorded of conflicts between states which ensue through certain bones of contention, but which have been concluded by treaties settling quite different problems. The succession question owing to vacancy of the throne in one state has often been the occasion of a world-wide struggle and led to the alteration of the political boundaries of several states. There is a dynastic and political rivalry between two princes, but altogether new and unheard-of peoples slowly and silently acquire a place in the polity of nations.
While, again, philosophers and theorists have been engaged in the diffusion of a new thought or the devising of measures for the cultivation of the arts and sciences, the advancement of learning and the spread of ​education, the people have been blessed with the acquisition of the privileges of self-government, democracy, and free constitutional life. Or, perhaps, the politicians and statesmen have been actively agitating for introducing reforms into the Legislative Assemblies and National Councils, the wholehearted devotion of some of the ablest men of the country has been applied to the discussion of the best systems of election and representation, the study of the proper relations between the rulers and the ruled, or the determination of the duties of the governors and the rights and privileges of the governed, but in the meanwhile there has emerged a new consciousness among the people, the sign of a new life, through honest intellectual curiosity and scepticism, a taste for ​independent thought and discussion, and the rise of a new Literature and Science.
In fact, traces of the beginnings of movements are seldom to be met with at the close. There have been many movements which were started under the impulse of a hope of industrial improvement and commercial success, but which have ended in a new arrangement of social forces giving rise to modifications in the character and extent of the State. Political regeneration has often been the objective, but the result has been the development of national wealth. Or, again, the establishment of uniformity in religious life and thought has been the spring of an individual's action, but the annihilation of a whole people's industry and commerce has been the ​consequece. While sometimes patriots have confined their ambition solely to the mere establishment of a constitutional form of government by limiting the rights of the sovereign and extending the privileges of the subjects, they have been startled by more momentous results than were within their ken, viz., the declaration of an absolute autonomy and national independence. In one state the sovereign commits a political or a strategic blunder, but in another kingdom a political revolution is effected and a limited monarchy takes the place of the old regime of royal absolutism. Two states are measuring their strength against each other, but a third and an altogether independent state comes into the whirlpool of their politics and undergoes the fate of ​double or triple partitions among the neighbours.
Observers of such freaks of Nature in the phenomena of the human world are naturally expected to doubt if there be any law or definite principle governing man's progress and decay. If the affairs of man are very strange and have no natural and necessary connection between one another, if the rise and fall of nations, the propagation of religions or the extinction of industries, the loss of liberty or the foundation of a constitution are really the results of accidents and cannot be foreseen, what can possibly be the aims and ideals of human life, what the sources of inspiration that may encourage man in his struggle for existence? How would a nation that has been for some time a contributor to ​the world's culture and civilisation try to maintain its dignity and prestige? What are the means by which an infant or a degenerate community can hope to rise to the standing of advanced nations? Is there any good in the efforts and energies of agitators, martyrs, and missionaries? What is the value of the work and perseverance of religious preachers, and social reformers, patriots, and philanthropists?