The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind/Chapter 9
SECTION IX
THE WORLD'S GREATEST MEN
BUT there is a fundamental difference between man and the lower organisms as regards the relations with the environment. Though, no doubt, it is the conditions in the surrounding world that mould and modify the life and form of every living organism, it is man alone of all created beings that can make his own environment and create the opportunities, or, at any rate, rearrange the forces of the world, according to needs of his own development. Even unfavourable circumstances may be converted into useful instruments of his proper growth and progress.
It is possible for man to realise "what is not," to extend an empire over the physical and elemental forces of the world, to transcend the limitations of time and space, and regulate them so as to make them conform to his own needs, and by elevating the status of society to bring about a millennium in religion and philosophy. The history of civilisation is the record of man's will-power that has achieved unexpected and almost impossible results, by transforming unfit and inefficient peoples into some of the strongest nations of the world. Idealists and men of strong will-power like Alfred the Great, Lorenzo de Medici, the preachers and prophets of new ideas, the Roman Catholic Jesuits, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Peter the Great and Catherine of Russia have succeeded in infusing a new spirit into the minds of their generations, and enabled them to rise in the scale of nations by adapting themselves to the circumstances of the times. Religion, industry, state, education, and literature have been consciously transformed by the heroic efforts of such great men of the world, and these conscious and artificial transformations of the several aspects of social life have been the constituents of a new environment and thus the seeds of Renaissance.
Thus it is not the forces and conditions of the existing world alone that govern human affairs and control the fortunes of movements, for these forces and conditions themselves may be modified, re-arranged, and regulated by man so as to give rise to new circumstances and situations. The causes of revolutions lie mostly in the power of transforming the surrounding conditions, e.g., that by which man can alter the relation of the world-forces with one another and bring about new international arrangements. It is such creations of circumstances and new conditions in the environment that are really responsible for the diversity of national fortunes during the same age, e.g., industrial revolution in one country but political decadence in another, or religious propagandism among one people and literary enthusiasm among another; as well as for the diversity of movements and agitations among the same people in different ages.
This creation of new circumstances and transformation of the existing conditions, again, explain the diversity of revolutions and the types of revolutionists in the history of the world, and account for the facts that the centre of gravity of civilisation has been at one time placed in India, at other times in China, Egypt, Greece, and so forth, and that Hindus, Musalmans, and Christians have been in diverse times the "chosen races" of God. The fact that modern Europe has witnessed successively the hegemony of Spain, France, and England, and is at present the theatre of international diplomacy and armed neutrality between Germany, Russia, and England, is to be explained by the diversities in world-politics that have been created by the series of facts of far-reaching consequence, such as the royal marriages of the Habsburgs, bigotry and intolerance of Philip II., protection and toleration of Elizabeth, 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 political advancement have in all places had a long and chequered course.
Ideals and phenomena of civilisation, then, are what man makes them to be, and not the chance-creations of fortuitous conjuncture of circumstances. They are the products of environments, in the making and regulation of which human will and intelligence, political rivalry and commercial jealousy, desire of self-assertion and amelioration of national condition, play a considerable part. Man is always utilising the forces and materials supplied by the physical and social environment, re-arranging the particles of the universe, creating new situations out of old, giving rise to new environments for new problems, and thus helping forward the opening up of new chapters of universal history.