Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/259

253 THE UNITY OF HISTORY. 253 do, all that we are, is the outcome of ages of labor. But while we venerate the past, we well may envy the future. Newton would have been delighted could he have read some trivial work on natural philosophy or cosmography written in the present day. Our children in the inter- mediate grades of our common schools are acquainted with truths to know which Aristotle or Archimedes would have laid down his life. What would we not give at this moment to be able to get a glimpse of some book that will be used as a school primer one hundred years hence? The use of history is obtained by finding the relation and the connection of the parts. We must learn how age develops into age, how country reacts upon country; how thought inspires action, and action modifies thought. I can not multiply instances, for the subject is too vast; I can indicate or point out only a few of the connecting links that mark the unity of history. Yet from these we may infer all the rest. Presented in this form, I fear they will appear but the commonplaces or dry bones of history, to which, however, one, though his imagination be not vivid, may supply intermediate matter for great successive pictures. Yet, though I can not in a discourse like this multiply instances and illustrations, there remains a word I must say. It relates to a contest upon which the atten- tion of the world is focused at the present time the con- test between Japan and Russia. Nothing is clearer than the fact that here is a new beginning in history; not positively new, for antecedents have led up to it, but new in its relations to the world at large. The causes have been accumulating silently during a long period, but have now only reached a stage or state where the world must take notice of them. All now see that transformation of the Orient has begun. The growth and aggression of Russia have awakened the energy and ambition of Japan illustrating once more the fact that