The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-07-24
THE THREE FACTORS OF HUMAN
HISTORY.


ial world and it certainly would make
history of some kind. The impulses
within and the demands without
would cause that soul to act and
these acts would create history.
Just what the history would be it
may be difficult to determine. Man
being free to determine it before
hand with accuracy sout of the ques-
ton, and our records of the Begin
nings of mans life on this planet are
so meager that we are not greatly
helped by the early experience OF
mankind. When our actual history
first finds man, he is evidently long
way from his first essays at living, and
all before that is blank. Histori-
cal darkness covers the long infancy
of our race. We may know, however,
that the earliest history of man, that
history which he made before any
history was written, would be busy
with the simplest things of life. 1t
would cover only his efforts to supply
the necessaries of existence. To
clothe, shelter and feed his body,
would occupy all of his time and
energy. Any thing like intellectual
and moral development must come
later. Like the child his first bust
ness would be to care for the house
he lived in; a consciousness of his
own life would dawn upon him after
many days. Not until he began to
think and reflect and exercise "a
tional choice would his intellectual
and moral life begin.
And these beginnings must have
been very infantile. In learning to
walk in the higher ways there must
have been many fall. From the
gardens of the higher life there must
have been many lapse. The pic
ture we have in the earliest records of
mans moral effort and moral failure
must be only a type Of a multitude
of such efforts and failures. His first
essays in social living, we are told,
were also failures. Primeval soci-
ETY. persisted from off the earth. Men
were, as yet too low and too wicked to
live together successfully.
All this is as we should expect. 1t
is the kind of history that primitive
man would be likely to make. Start
moral being in material environ
ment and his history must show all
sorts of ups and downs. Here, then, we
have the first factor in human history.
A human soul in physical body and
material world: moral being in a
material environment is the first fac
tor in the solution of the problem of
human history. The soul of man
working in his material environment
constitutes the first great element of
history. Evidently it is the founda-
ton and substance of history. 1t is
that WITH which history has to deal
primarily and which forms the great
body of history. Here we find the
material out of which history is made
and without them there could be no
such thing as history.
But it is a great mistake to assume
that this is the whole of history, that
man and his environment constitutes
all there is of history, and that the
whole problem Of history can he
solved with this data alone. Here,
for instance, is the matter of human
progress. On all hands it is admitted
that man has and does make progress;
that with all his ups and downs he
goes forward towards something bet
ter and still better. To solve this
problem man and his material en-
vironment are not sufficient. There is
nothing in either to answer the ques-
ton of human progress. Why man
makes progress cannot be determined
by his nature or environment. His
environment is material and so me-
chanical, and hence knows nothing
of moral advancement. His nature
has in it the element of freedom and,
hence, as we have seen in former
article, nothing can be affirmed as to
his moral advancement. This free
dom excludes rather than includes
that advancement. 1t accounts for
the ups and downs of history but not
for its continuous forward movement.
Hence the second element or fac.
tor in history, Divine Providence.
To account for this continuous for
ward movement we have a general
providence in history. God comes
into history as an overruling, guild
ing and controlling spirit. The Bible
everywhere recognizes and teaches,
the existence of this providence.
MAN deviseth his ways but the Lord
directeth his steps," "The wrath of
man shall praise thee, the remainder
of wrath shalt thou restrain" eye
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