Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/591

 1^20 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 583 believer from seriously considering what his intellectual position would be if it came to be realized. Most of our contemporaries think of the condition of the world as advancing gradually, by the removal of successive obstacles, towards a state of greater general happiness : but, even though they may attach special importance to the removal of such obstacles as come prominently before them, and may use language which appears to suggest that such action as can be taken in their own time might, under favourable con- ditions, produce the ideal state, they do not really believe that any prac- ticable changes, however fortunate, can do more than bring us nearer to the goal. That goal is an ideal and remains unattainable. In this sense they have a belief in continuous and indefinite progress, a belief which is hard to accommodate to such a sense of harmony or proportion as would have satisfied a Greek moralist. Such a belief can be held in combination with many other beliefs : its form will vary with those beliefs, and there is indeed some absurdity in attempting to state it in terms sufficiently wide to cover all its variations. But it is not easy to see why Mr. Bury should regard it as inconsistent with the belief in Pro- vidence. That men living at certain epochs which believed in Providence held views inconsistent with a view of progress, is true enough : though, while Mr. Bury is justified in pointing out how some Christian conceptions (not the most important ones) have acted as barriers against advances, he does less than justice to Christianity as regards its influence on the doctrine in other ways. There are few theists who feel that there are no difficulties in theism : but the difficulty of reconciling theism with progress is not one of the greatest, and indeed many theists will be surprised at being told that there is any difficulty at all. On the other hand, while there are many believers in progress who reject design, and while none would wish to destroy the belief of those who are happy enough to hold it, the position of such believers is not strengthened by the absence of design. If it be replied that design can be held, and has been held, without theism or a belief in Providence, it is sufficient to notice at present that theism and progress cannot at any rate be assumed to be inconsistent, and that if Mr. Biiry holds them to be inconsistent, he ought to define both terms more closely. It is an inevitable defect of a work which attempts to trace the history of an idea without explaining exactly what that idea involves, that such criticisms as occur from time to time look like casual remarks and their bearing on the general position is not too clear. One illustration is afforded by the views expressed by Mr. Bury on the question of con- tingency, to which he considers that Comte paid too little attention. One set of causes produced the French Revolution, a wholly different set of causes produced Napoleon ; and, even if a military dictatorship was bound to follow on the French Revolution, the second set of causes was required in addition to the first set in order to produce the results that did actually follow. This is a puzzle of which Mr. Bury is fond, and it is a useful reminder to those who think that they know everything and can prophesy safely from past to future events. But those who agree with Mr. Bury in believing that history may, with proper qualifications, be