RVIS.

In the April number of this magazine its Editor gave us a paper called
"The Man in History." Readers will not have failed to note the grand
width and depth it gave to ordinary views. The facts concerning the
human being, from the earliest records to those of the present day, were
marshalled in so masterly a way, and the mental grip on the whole mass
was so far-reaching and unique, that people must have perceived that
they were gaining the benefits of a lifetime study.

This article is therefore in no sense a reply to Dr. Ridpath's
masterpiece. On the contrary, I wish to refer to all the historical
events as he has introduced them, and can only regret that want of space
forbids a reprint which would enable the original to be read with these
comments. My endeavor is simply to bring forward for contemporaneous
consideration certain suggestions which seem to me to be of a highly
interesting character, and which were forced in upon my own thought by
the results of experiments upon the human being. After the long series
of articles published in THE ARENA about three years ago, many of my
readers will not require further explanation of these experiments; but
for others I will briefly refer, later on in this paper, to the
phenomena which greatly affect one's views regarding man's powers and
possibilities, together with the nature and extent of his agency in the
world's events.

Dr. Ridpath has brought forward as interesting a question as was ever
laid before a public, namely, how far, if at all, Man is the maker of
history. And by the word "history" the learned author does not mean
those records of events which any chance chronicler may choose to
present, but the events themselves, their causes, action, and results.
Here he presents both sides of the question, with the arguments which
may be alternately used in support of each. He cites two master
thinkers, Carlyle and Buckle, whose differences of opinion relative to
man's agency in history were distinctly defined: Carlyle seeking the
hero in each great event, and recognizing only one force, that of God,
behind the principal actor of the temporary drama, and never satisfied
until the _individual_ origins of history could be discovered. On the
other hand, Buckle, to whom man, including the part he played, appeared
"as the mere result of historical forces," and in the view of scientific
rationalism contemplating "only the lines of an infinite and unalterable
causation