theological, philosophical, materialistic, and economic interpretations of history, and have found that none of these, stated in their extremest forms, meets the situation. Pure theology or metaphysics omits or distorts the history it is supposed to explain; history is not its proper business. Materialism and economics, while more promising because more earthly, cannot be pressed beyond a certain point. Life itself escapes their analysis. The conclusion is this: that we have two main elements in our problem which must be brought together the psychic on the one hand, the material on the other. Not until psychology and the natural and economic sciences shall have been turned upon the problem, working in co-operation as allies, not as rivals, will history be able to give an intelligent account of itself. They will need more data than we have at present. The only economics which can promise scientific results is that based upon the statistical method, for, in spite of Bergson, brilliant guesses can hardly satisfy unless they are verified. The natural sciences are only beginning to show the intimate relation of life to its environment, and psychology has hardly begun the study of the group. But one sees already a growing appreciation of common interests, a desire on the part of economists to know the nature of the mechanism of the universe whose working they attempt to describe; an inquiry from the biologist as to the validity of un-eugenic social reform.

Now the interpretation of history lies here, with these co-operative workers upon the mystery of life and of its environment, and their interplay. That does not mean that history is to be explained from the outside. More economics means more history-if it is good economics. Marx, for instance, attempted to state both facts and processes of industrial history, Malthus of population, Ricardo of wages, etc. Both facts and processes are the stuff of history. The statement of a process may be glorified into a "law", but a "law" merely means a general fact of history. It holds good under certain conditions, which are either historical or purely imaginary, and it is only in the latter case that it lies outside the field of history. It is the same with psychology as with economics. It supplies an analysis of action, and action is history. Explanation is more knove edge of the same thing. All inductive study of society is historical

The interpretations of history are historical in another sense. Looking back over the way we have come, from Greek philosophers to modern economists and psychologists, one can see in every case that the interpretation was but the reflex of the local environment the expression of the dominant interest of the time. History be came critical in that meeting place of East and West, the Imman coast of Asia Minor, where divergent civilizations were opened op

for contrast with each new trireme from the south and west and where travellers destroyed credulity. In the same way, as we have traced it, the isolated landed society of the Middle Ages, with its absence of business and its simple relationships, could rest complacent with an Augustinian world-view. Nothing else was demanding explanation. When business produced a Florence and Florence a Machiavelli, we have a gleam of newer things, just as Voltaire and Hume mirror the influences of Galileo, and the voyages to China. With the nineteenth century the situation becomes more complicated, and yet one can see the interpretation of history merely projecting into the past or drawing out of it-the meaning of each present major interest. Kant and Hegel fit into the era of ideologues and nationalist romanticists; and their implications are developed under the reaction following the French Revolution. Buckle draws his inspiration from the trend of science which produced-in the same year-the Origin of Species. Marx is the interpreter of the Industrial Revolution.

But this does not mean that interpretations of history are nothing. more than the injection into it of successive prejudices. It means progressive clarification. Each new theory that forces itself upon the attention of historians brings up new data for their consideration. and so widens the field of investigation. The greater knowledge of our world to-day reveals the smallness of our knowledge of the past, and from every side scholars are hastening to make the content of history more worthy of comparison with the content of science. From this point of view, therefore, interpretation, instead of assuming the position of a final judge of conduct or an absolute law, becomes only a suggestive stimulus for further research.

We have, therefore, an historical interpretation of interpretations. themselves. It accepts two main factors, material and psychical, not concerning itself about the ultimate reality of either. It is not its business to consider ultimate realities, though it may be grateful for any light upon the subject. Less ambitious than theological, philosophical, or even economic theories, it views itself as part of the very process which it attempts to understand. If it has no ecstatic glimpses of finality, it shares at least to the full the exhilaration of the scientific quest. It risks no premature fate in the delusive security of an inner consciousness. When you ask it "Why?" it answers "What?"

J. T. SHOTWELL.

ANENT THE MIDDLE AGES1 1a

THE Calvin quatercentenary has come and gone. Those of us who shrank from jarring by a discordant note the chorus of eulogy for a man we too revere may speak again. Even while it lasted it is gratifying to note-and to note here-that the recent book most singled out for recognition was that noble biography, by an American scholar, which most unflinchingly records the great man's aggressions against liberty. And in the meantime a flood of fresh research has made the clearer how tenuous as a whole is that old claim of Protestantism to the paternity of tolerance. If certain of these studies-like those of Nicolaus Paulus-are somewhat discredited to the cautious by their Catholic authorship, we have at length, since last spring, a careful monograph from the pen of a Protestant theologian-Karl Völker-on Tolerance and Intolerance in the Age of the Reformation. Its author indeed seeks to vindicate for Protestant thought (and with reason, if still with exaggeration) an essential part in the rise of tolerance; but not only does he lay bare the divergence of the two movements and relentlessly trace the rise, in theory and practice, of Protestant intolerance, from its beginnings under Luther to its culmination under Calvin, he also frankly undermines the old assumption that all this was only survival from the Middle Ages by illustrating the more tolerant attitude of the age just preceding the Reformation.

Yet there has escaped his notice-or, at least, his use-what seems to me the most startling illustration of all. May I here add it, and make it the text for a discussion of the Middle Ages as a whole?

In the year 1453, a full century before the burning of Servetus on that hillside by Geneva, a prince of the Church, a legate of the pope, Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, was stirred to write a booklet on Peace between Faiths, or the Harmony of Religions-for so, perhaps, we may best translate his title of De Pace seu Concordantia Fidei. Moved, he says, by tidings of the cruelties of the Turks at

1a A paper read at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, December 30, 1912.

1 The dialogue is to be found in all the editions of his works: I have used that published at Paris in 1514 by the French reformer Lefèvre d'Étaples. Twice it has even appeared in German translation-once at Leipzig in 1787, with comments by the rationalist Semler, and again in the collection of the "weightiest writings" of Nicolas of Cusa published in 1862 by Scharpff. But it has sur(710)

Constantinople (then just fallen into their hands), a devout man who had once seen those regions (the devout man was of course himself, who a few years before had visited Constantinople as the envoy of the Latin Church to escort the Greek delegates to the Council at Ferrara) had in grief besought the Creator to set a limit to the persecution, and had been consoled by a vision which led him. to hope that through a union of the wise there might be brought about a perpetual peace between the religions of earth. In his vision. he had beheld, as it were, a council as to this matter among the departed in the presence of God. Sad tidings, announced the Almighty, had come to him from the realm of earth of those who had taken up arms against each other for religion's sake and were compelling one another to choose between death and the surrender of a long-practised faith. Great was the number of them that brought such complaints, and the celestials recognized them as they whom from the beginning the King of Heaven had set over the several regions and faiths of earth. And now, at the bidding of the King, through their spokesman, an Archangel, they laid before the assembly of the saints their plea: . . . "Thou knowest, O Lord, that a great multitude can not be without much diversity, and that almost all are obliged to lead a toilsome life, filled with cares and anxieties, wherefore few have the leisure in independent research to arrive at knowledge of themselves or to seek out thee, the hidden God. Therefore hast thou given to thy people kings and prophets, and these in thy name have set up religions and laws. . . . Now, it lieth in the earthly estate of man that long custom, becoming a second nature, is cherished as truth. Thus arise no slight dissensions; since every community setteth its own faith above another's. Haste, then, to their aid, thou who alone canst help; for this strife. is for thy sake, whom alone they all venerate in whatsoever each may seem to worship. For... it is thou who in the various religions in varying wise art sought and by varying names art called on, because in thy true being thou remainest to all unknown and inexpressible. . . . Hide thyself no longer, then, O Lord . . . and, if this diversity in rites can not be ended, or if this be inexpedient inasmuch as diversity causeth devotion the more to abound through the rival zeal of the several lands, yet at least let there be, even as

prisingly escaped the attention of the students of tolerance. Even Moriz Carrière, who almost certainly used it in formulating the views of Cusa for his Die Philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit, has oddly failed to enumerate it among his sources. That it was completed and in circulation before February of 1454 is known from the letter of a friend who then copied and returned it.

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XVIII.-48.

thou art one, but one religion and one divine worship (una sit religio, et unus latriae cultus)."

But the King made answer and said: "Have I not created man free, and through freedom capable of fellowship with myself? And when he walked not after the inner man, did I not send my prophets to call him back from his errors? And when even the prophets could not baffle the Prince of Ignorance, I sent my Word to put on humanity. . . . What more can be done?" Then the Word that was made flesh, highest of the celestials, made answer for all: "Father of mercies, perfect are all thy works yet, since from the beginning thou didst ordain that man be free, and hence in the unstable world of sense his views and guesses must change with every age, even as his tongues and their interpretations, therefore hath human nature need of frequent visitation, that . . . the truth may constantly shine forth, and, since truth is one and can not but be discerned by every free intelligence, may lead all the differing religions into the one true faith."

...

So the angels were bidden to return each to the nation and the speech over which he was set, that each might bring back to the Word that was made flesh one man wise above his fellows. And when the sages had been brought, the Word showed unto them how the King of heaven and earth had heard the cry of them that were slain and imprisoned and enslaved because of difference in religion, and how all that do or suffer this persecution are moved thereto by naught save their belief that this is needful unto salvation and pleaseth their creator; wherefore the Lord hath taken pity on his people and willeth that by the common consent of men all religions be harmonized into one.

Then spake, one after another, the Greek and the Italian, the Arab and the Hindu, the Chaldaean, the Jew, and the Scythian, the Gaul and the Persian, the Syrian and the Spaniard, the Turk also and the German, the Tartar and the Armenian, the Bohemian and the Englishman, asking how, then, this oneness of faith may be sought and illustrating each the differing attitude of his people. And with them debated the Word, and likewise Peter the Apostle, expounding unto them how at bottom all religions are one. But last spake Paul, the teacher of the nations. The commands of God, urged he, are very brief, and are known to all peoples; nay, the light that reveals them is created a part of our souls. Love is the fulfilling of the law of God: all laws reduce themselves to this. "Leave, then, to the nations, if only there be faith and peace ", said he, “their devotions and ceremonies, in case there be found no way to harmonize these: devotion will gain, perchance, by a certain diversity . . .'