Part 539

William H. Seward, speaking in the Senate of the United States, March 11, 1850, on the question of the admission of California into the Union as a Free State, used the following language: "'The Constitution,' he said, 'regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are His stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.' This public recognition by a Senator of the United States that the laws of the Creator were 'higher' than those of human enactment excited much astonishment and indignation, and called forth, in Congress and out of it, measureless abuse upon its author."

_H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, pages 262-263._

In the agitations that followed upon the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the other compromise measures attending the admission of California, this Higher Law Doctrine was much talked about.

HIGHLAND CLANS.

See CLANS.

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

See SCOTCH HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND.

HIKENILDE—STRETE.

See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

HILDEBRAND (Pope Gregory VII.), and the Papacy.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122; GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122; and CANOSSA.

HILDEBRAND, KING OF THE LOMBARDS, A. D. 743-744.

HILL, Isaac, in the "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Jackson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.

HILL, Rowland, and the adoption of penny-postage.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.

HILTON HEAD, The capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).

HIMATION, The.

An article of dress in the nature of a cloak, worn by both men and women among the ancient Greeks. It "was arranged so that the one corner was thrown over the left shoulder in front, so as to be attached to the body by means of the left arm. On the back the dress was pulled toward the right side, so as to cover it completely up to the right shoulder, or, at least, to the armpit, in which latter case the right shoulder remained uncovered. Finally, the himation was again thrown over the left shoulder, so that the ends fell over the back. … A second way of arranging the himation, which left the right arm free, was more picturesque, and is therefore usually found in pictures."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 42._

HIMERA: Start--------

HIMERA, Battle of.

See SICILY: B. C. 480.

HIMERA: Destroyed by Hannibal.

See SICILY: B. C. 409-405.

HIMERA: End--------

HIMYARITES, The.

See ARABIA.

HIN, The.

See EPHAH.

HINDMAN, Fort, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JANUARY: ARKANSAS).

{1647}

HINDOO KOOSH, The Name of the.

See CAUCASUS, THE INDIAN.

HINDUISM.

See INDIA: THE IMMIGRATION AND CONQUESTS OF THE ARYAS.

HINDUSTAN.

See INDIA: THE NAME.

HINKSTON'S FORK, Battle of (1782).

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1775-1784.

HIONG-NU, The.

See TURKS: 6TH CENTURY.

HIPPARCH.

A commander of cavalry in the military organization of the ancient Athenians.

_G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3._

HIPPEIS.

Among the Spartans, the honorary title of Hippeis, or Knights, was given to the members of a chosen body of three hundred young men, the flower of the Spartan youth, who had not reached thirty years of age. "Their three leaders were called Hippagretæ, although in war they served not as cavalry but as hoplites. The name may possibly have survived from times in which they actually served on horseback." At Athens the term Hippeis was applied to the second of the four property classes into which Solon divided the population,—their property obliging them to serve as cavalry.

_G. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece, The State, part 3, chapters 1 and 3._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 594.

HIPPIS, Battle of the.

Fought, A. D. 550, in what was known as the Lazic War, between the Persians on one side and the Romans and the Lazi on the other. The latter were the victors.

_G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 20._

HIPPO: Start--------

HIPPO, OR HIPPO REGIUS.

An ancient city of north Africa, on the Numidian coast.

See NUMIDIANS; and CARTHAGE: DOMINION OF.

HIPPO: A. D. 430-431. Siege by the Vandals.

See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

HIPPO: End--------

HIPPOBOTÆ, The.

See EUBŒA.

HIPPODROME. STADION. THEATER.

"The arts practised in the gymnasia were publicly displayed at the festivals. The buildings in which these displays took place were modified according to their varieties. The races both on horseback and in chariots took place in the hippodrome; for the gymnastic games of the pentathlon served the stadion; while for the acme of the festivals, the musical and dramatic performances, theatres were erected."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans (translated by Hueffer), sections 28-30._

HIPPOTOXOTÆ, The.

See SCYTHIANS, OR SCYTHÆ, OF ATHENS.

HIRA.

"The historians of the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long quarrel of the East [between the Romans and Persians—3rd to 7th century]: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on the Syrian territory; the princes of Hira were permitted to form a city about 40 miles to the southward of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see and to despise the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 50 (volume 5)._

"The dynasty of Palmyra and the western tribes embraced Christianity in the time of Constantine; to the east of the desert the religion was later of gaining ground, and indeed was not adopted by the court of Hira till near the end of the 6th century. Early in the 7th, Hira fell from its dignity as an independent power, and became a satrapy of Persia."

_Sir William Muir, Life of Mahomet, introduction, chapter 1._

In 633 Hira was overwhelmed by the Mahometan conquest, and the greater city of Kufa was built only 3 miles distant from it.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651; also, BUSSORAH AND KUFA.

HISPALIS.

The name of Seville under the Romans.

See SEVILLE.

HISPANIA CITERIOR AND HISPANIA ULTERIOR.

See SPAIN: B. C. 218-25.

HISPANIOLA.

The name given by Columbus to the island now divided between the Republics of Hayti and San Domingo.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492; 1493-1496, and after; and HAYTI.

HISSARLIK.

The site of ancient Troy, as supposed to be identified by the excavations of Dr. Schliemann.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES; also, TROJA, and HOMER.

HISTORY: Start--------

HISTORY: Definitions.

"With us the word 'history,' like its equivalents in all modern languages, signifies either a form of literary composition or the appropriate subject or matter of such composition—either a narrative of events, or events which may be narrated. It is impossible to free the term from this doubleness and ambiguity of meaning. Nor is it, on the whole, to be desired. The advantages of having one term which may, with ordinary caution, be innocuously applied to two things so related, more than counterbalances the dangers involved in two things so distinct having the same name. … Since the word history has two very different meanings, it obviously cannot have merely one definition. To define an order of facts and a form of literature in the same terms—to suppose that when either of them is defined the other is defined—is so absurd that one would probably not believe it could be seriously done were it not so often done. But to do so has been the rule rather than the exception. The majority of so-called definitions of history are definitions only of the records of history. They relate to history as narrated and written, not to history as evolved and acted; in other words, although given as the only definitions of history needed, they do not apply to history itself, but merely to accounts of history. They may tell us what constitutes a book of history, but they cannot tell us what the history is with which all books of history are occupied. It is, however, with history in this latter sense that a student of the science or philosophy of history is mainly concerned. … If by history be meant history in its widest sense, the best definition of history as a form of literature is, perhaps, either the very old one, 'the narration of events,' or W. von Humboldt's, 'the exhibition of what has happened' (die Darstellung des Geschehenen). {1648} The excellence of these definitions lies in their clear and explicit indication of what history as effectuated or transacted is. It consists of events; it is das Geschehene. It is the entire course of events in time. It is all that has happened precisely as it happened. Whatever happens is history. Eternal and unchanging being has no history. Things or phenomena considered as existent, connected, and comprehended in space, compose what is called nature as distinguished from history. … Probably Droysen has found a neater and terser formula for it in German than any which the English language could supply. Nature he describes as 'das Nebeneinander des Seienden,' and history as 'das Nacheinander des Gewordenen.' … The only kind of history with which we have here directly to deal is that kind of it to which the name is generally restricted, history par excellence, human history, what has happened within the sphere of human agency and interests, the actions and creations of men, events which have affected the lives and destinies of men, or which have been produced by men. This is the ordinary sense of the word history. … To attempt further to define it would be worse than useless. It would be unduly to limit, and to distort and pervert, its meaning. In proof of this a few brief remarks on certain typical or celebrated definitions of history may perhaps be of service. The definition given in the Dictionary of the French Academy—'l'histoire est le récit des choses dignes de mémoire' [Transcriber: "the story of things worth remembering"]—is a specimen of a very numerous species. According to such definitions history consists of exceptional things, of celebrated or notorious events, of the lives and actions of great and exalted men, of conspicuous achievements in war and politics, in science and art, in religion and literature. But this is a narrow and superficial conception of history. History is made up of what is little as well as of what is great, of what is common as well as of what is strange, of what is counted mean as well as of what is counted noble. … Dr. Arnold's definition—'history is the biography of a society'—has been often praised. Nor altogether undeservedly. For it directs attention to the fact that all history accords with biography in supposing in its subject a certain unity of life, work, and end. … It does not follow, however, that biography is a more general notion than history, and history only a species of biography. In fact, it is not only as true and intelligible to say that biography is the history of an individual as to say that history is the biography of a society, but more so. It is the word biography in the latter case which is used in a secondary and analogical sense, not the word history in the former case. … According to Mr. Freeman, 'history is past politics and politics are present history.' This is not a mode of definition which any logician will be found to sanction. It is equivalent to saying that politics and history are the same, and may both be divided into past and present; but it does not tell us what either is. To affirm that this was that and that is this is not a definition of this or that, but only an assertion that something may be called either this or that. Besides, the identification of history with politics proceeds, as has been already indicated, on a view of history which is at once narrow and arbitrary. Further, it is just as true that mathematical history is past mathematics and mathematics are present history, as that political history is past politics and politics are present history. … The whole of man's past was once present thought, feeling, and action. There is nothing peculiar to politics in this respect."

_R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc., pages 5-10._

HISTORY: The subjects and objects of History.

"The position for which I have always striven is this, that history is past politics, that politics are present history. The true subject of history, of any history that deserves the name, is man in his political capacity, man as the member of an organized society, governed according to law. History, in any other aspect, hardly rises above antiquarianism, though I am far from holding that even simple antiquarianism, even the merest scraping together of local and genealogical detail, is necessarily antiquarian rubbish. I know not why the pursuits of the antiquary should be called rubbish, any more than the pursuits of the seeker after knowledge of any other kind. Still, the pursuits of the antiquary, the man of local and special detail, the man of buildings or coins or weapons or manuscripts, are not in themselves history, though they are constantly found to be most valuable helps to history. The collections of the antiquary are not history; but they are materials for history, materials of which the historian makes grateful use, and without which he would often be sore put to in doing his own work. … It is not too much to say that no kind of knowledge, of whatever kind, will be useless to the historian. There is none, however seemingly distant from his subject, which may not stand him in good stead at some pinch, sooner or later. But his immediate subject, that to which all other things are secondary, is man as the member of a political community. Rightly to understand man in that character, he must study him in all the forms, in all the developments, that political society has taken. Effects have to be traced up to their causes, causes have to be traced up to their effects; and we cannot go through either of those needful processes if we confine our studies either to the political societies of our own day or to political societies on a great physical scale. The object of history is to watch the workings of one side, and that the highest side, of human nature in all its shapes; and we do not see human nature in all its shapes, unless we follow it into all times and all circumstances under which we have any means of studying it. … In one sense it is perfectly true that history is always repeating itself; in another sense it would be equally true to say that history never repeats itself at all. No historical position can be exactly the same as any earlier historical position, if only for the reason that the earlier position has gone before it. … Even where the reproduction is unconscious, where the likeness is simply the result of the working of like causes, still the two results can never be exactly the same, if only because the earlier result itself takes its place among the causes of the later result. Differences of this kind must always be borne in mind, and they are quite enough to hinder any two historical events from being exact doubles of one another. … We must carefully distinguish between causes and occasions. It is one of the oldest and one of the wisest remarks of political philosophy that great events commonly arise from great causes, but from small occasions. {1649} A certain turn of mind, one which is more concerned with gossip, old or new, than with real history, delights in telling us how the greatest events spring from the smallest causes, how the fates of nations and empires are determined by some sheer accident, or by the personal caprice or personal quarrel of some perhaps very insignificant person. A good deal of court-gossip, a good deal of political gossip, passes both in past and present times for real history. Now a great deal of this gossip is sheer gossip, and may be cast aside without notice; but a good deal of it often does contain truth of a certain kind. Only bear in mind the difference between causes and occasions, and we may accept a good many of the stories which tell us how very trifling incidents led to very great events. … When I speak of causes and occasions, when I speak of small personal caprices and quarrels, as being not the causes of great events, but merely the occasions, I wish it to be fully understood that I do not at all place the agency of really great men among mere occasions: I fully give it its place among determining causes. In any large view of history, we must always be on our guard against either underrating or overrating the actions of individual men. History is something more than biography; but biography is an essential and a most important part of history. We must not think, on the one hand, that great men, heroes, or whatever we please to call them, can direct the course of history according to their own will and pleasure, perhaps according to their mere caprice, with no danger of their will being thwarted, unless it should run counter to the will of some other great man or hero of equal or greater power. … On the other hand, we must not deem that the course of history is so governed by general laws, that it is so completely in bondage to almost mechanical powers, that there is no room for the free agency of great men and of small men too. For it is of no little importance that, while we talk of the influence of great men on the history of the world, we should not forget the influence of the small men. Every man has some influence on the course of history."

_E. A. Freeman, The Practical Bearings of European History (Lectures to American Audiences), pages 207-215._

HISTORY: The Philosophy of History

"The philosophy of history is not a something separate from the facts of history, but a something contained in them. The more a man gets into the meaning of them, the more he gets into it, and it into him; for it is simply the meaning, the rational interpretation, the knowledge of the true nature and essential relations of the facts. And this is true of whatever species or order the facts may be. Their philosophy is not something separate and distinct from, something over and above, their interpretation, but simply their interpretation. He who knows about any people, or epoch, or special development of human nature, how it has come to be what it is and what it tends to, what causes have given it the character it has, and what its relation is to the general development of humanity, has attained to the philosophy of the history of that people, epoch, or development. Philosophical history is sometimes spoken of as a kind of history, but the language is most inaccurate. Every kind of history is philosophical which is true and thorough; which goes closely and deeply enough to work; which shows the what, how, and why of events as far as reason and research can ascertain. History always participates in some measure of philosophy, for events are always connected according to some real or supposed principle either of efficient or final causation."

_R. Flint, Philosophy of History, introduction._

HISTORY: The possibility of a Science of History. Mr. Buckle's theory.

"The believer in the possibility of a science of history is not called upon to hold either the doctrine of predestined events, or that of freedom of the will; and the only positions which, in this stage of the inquiry, I shall expect him to concede are the following: That when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that those motives are the results of some antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents, and with all the laws of their movements, we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results. This, unless I am greatly mistaken, is the view which must be held by every man whose mind is unbiased by system, and who forms his opinions according to the evidence actually before him. … Rejecting, then, the metaphysical dogma of free will and, the theological dogma of predestined events, we are driven to the conclusion that the actions of men, being determined solely by their antecedents, must have a character of uniformity, that is to say, must, under precisely the same circumstances, always issue in precisely the same results. And as all antecedents are either in the mind or out of it, we clearly see that all the variations in the results—in other words, all the changes of which history is full, all the vicissitudes of the human race, their progress or their decay, their happiness or their misery—must be the fruit of a double action; an action of external phenomena upon the mind, and another action of the mind upon the phenomena. These are the materials out of which a philosophic history can alone be constructed. On the one hand, we have the human mind obeying the laws of its own existence, and, when uncontrolled by external agents, developing itself according to the conditions of its organization. On the other hand, we have what is called Nature, obeying likewise its laws; but incessantly coming into contact with the minds of men, exciting their passions, stimulating their intellect, and therefore giving to their actions a direction which they would not have taken without such disturbance. Thus we have man modifying nature, and nature modifying man; while out of this reciprocal modification all events must necessarily spring. The problem immediately before us is to ascertain the method of discovering the laws of this double modification."

_H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, chapter 1._