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history began to be fashioned by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans
before they set foot even in England. We study history mainly to
deduce its laws; and that knowing them we may from the past forecast
the future, prepare for its emergencies, and avoid or wisely meet,
its dangers. And we rely on these laws of history because they are
the embodiment of ages of human experience.

Whatever be our system of philosophy we all practically rely on past
experience and observation. Fire burns and water drowns. This we
know, and this knowledge governs our daily lives, whatever be our
theories, or even our ignorance, of the laws of heat and
respiration. Now human history is the embodiment of the experience
of the race; and we study it in the full confidence that, if we can
deduce its laws, we can rely on racial experience certainly as
safely as on that of the individual. Furthermore, if we can discover
certain great movements or currents of human action or progress
moving steadily on through past centuries, we have full confidence
that these movements will continue in the future. The study of
history should make us seers.

But the line of human progress is like a mountain road, veering and
twisting, and often appearing to turn back upon itself, and having
many by-roads, which lead us astray. If we know but a few miles of
it we cannot tell whether it leads north or south or due west. But
if from any mountain-top we can gain a clear bird's-eye view of its
whole course, we easily distinguish the main road, its turns become
quite insignificant, we see that it leads as directly as any
engineering skill could locate it through the mountains to the
fertile plains and rich harvests beyond.

Now our knowledge of the history of man covers so brief a period
that we can scarcely more than hazard a guess as to the trend of
human progress. Many of the most promising social movements are like
by-roads which, at first less steep and difficult, end sooner or
later against impassable obstacles. And even if there be a main line
of march, advance seems to alternate with retreat, progress with
retrogression. To illustrate further, the great waves rush onward
only to fall back again, and we can hardly tell whether the tide is
flowing or ebbing.

Yet already certain tendencies appear fairly clear. Governments tend
to become democratic, if we define democracy as "any form of
government in which the will of the people finds sovereign
expression." T