Books
THE HISTORIAN AS MORALIST
A Generation of Materialism 1871-1900. By Carlton
J.
H. Hayes. Harper.
$3.75.
The aim of this book is to exhibit the final three decades of 19th cen·
tury Europe as the fulfillment of tendencies initiated by the 18th century
Enlightenment. In at least one respect Professor Hayes has successfully
achieved his aim: he has written a history of Europe, and not simply a
history of individual EurQpean nations; and he has indicated the sense of
intimate connection between the political, economic, and intellectual
events of the period under consideration. As a consequence, his book is
refreshing reading. Without fearing to trace the course of happenings
across national boundaries, it recounts the development of power politics,
the transformation of traditional liberalism, and the rise of neo-mercan·
tilism, imperialism, and various popular movements; and without keeping
them in separate water-tight compartments, it also examines the significant
shifts in religious thought, the trends in various technologies and arts, and
the impact upon all of these of the expansion and popularization of
science. To be sure, there are gaps and inadequacies in the tale, some of
them serious: for example, next to nothing is said of intellectual develop–
ments in Eastern Europe, the account of literary and artistic developments
is little more than an incomplete catalogue, the discussion of 19th century
science is both superficial and distorted, and the analysis of the actual
influence of movements such as Marxism is at best cavalier. Nevertheless,
Professor Hayes does supply at least the minimum information concerning
the various significant trends during a crucial period of European history,
and he does convey successfully some of its characteristic flavor.
As the title of the book suggests, Professor Hayes's survey is made
in
the light of a definitive interpretation. For according to him, the period
under discussion manifests two features which, however incompatible they
may appear, have a common source.
It
is a period during which the lib–
eral ideals of progress, democracy, and human betterment through scien·
tific control of nature were at the zenith of their influence ; but it is also a
period during which the ground was laid for the contemporary anti-demo–
cratic, authoritarian, and brutalized conceptions of the social order. Both
characteristics, according to the author, flow from the materialism of the
period: from its devotion to material concerns, and from its apotheosis of
"mechanical" science as the guide of life. It is upon this thread that Pro–
fessor Hayes strings the events of three decades of European history.
It must certainly be acknowledged that the generation under .consid–
eration was devoted to material concerns. Its members were heirs to the
this-worldly tradition which destroyed the social and intellectual founda–
tions of the middle ages. They accepted without question the seculariza-
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