Page:The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind.djvu/85



conquests and expansion of the French monarchy, commercial rivalry between the East India Companies, births of great men and rise of new ideas in Europe, desire for national self-assertion and idealistic self-sacrifice, progress of "enlightenment" and rationalism, as well as the sense of responsibility of pioneers that make up the several scenes of this complex drama.

This possibility of the transformation of the environment, again, can explain the revolution in ideas, manners, and sentiments that may take place in human society under the forms of Theism, Scepticism, Christianity, Islam, Imperialism, Commercialism, Democracy, and Socialism. This, again, is responsible for the failures of many political revolutions, and accounts for the fact that national regeneration and