Page:The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind.djvu/18



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