Page 215 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1516 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived
forwards. • Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)

good thing to almost everyone.Accordingly, the idea that (1821–1862) explored a more open-ended liberal ver-
human society was destined to progress in desirable sion of progress in their articles and books.
directions soon took hold among these peoples. An In 1851, the reality of material progress was spectacu-
early champion of that idea was a French nobleman, the larly demonstrated when Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s
Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794), who wrote Sketch husband, organized a very successful Great Exhibition in
for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human the Crystal Palace, London. Beneath a specially con-
Mind in the year of his death. His confidence in human structed iron and glass structure, exhibitors from far and
progress toward perfection remains surprising, consider- wide displayed a vast array of new machines and prod-
ing the fact that he was in prison and about to have his ucts for public admiration and instruction. Thereafter,
head cut off by the French revolutionary government similar world’s fairs became quadrennial events, achiev-
when he wrote his sketch. ing a new peak of success in 1893, when Chicago hosted
In the next century, as desirable novelties multiplied, the World’s Columbian Exposition. That fair celebrated
the idea of progress took firm hold among Europeans. In four hundred years of progress since Columbus’ discov-
Germany, the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich ery of America, and met with altogether unusual success.
Hegel (1770–1831) made progress a universal principle A still new transcontinental railroad net made it possible
of reality, moving from thesis to antithesis and then to for more than twenty-one million persons to attend the
synthesis, which immediately became a new thesis to Fair; and at night, when incandescent electric bulbs lit up
keep the process going. Karl Marx (1818–1883) claimed plaster-covered temporary buildings, the dazzling white-
to have stood Hegel on his head by proving that class ness seemed like a preview of heaven to many of the Fair’s
struggle toward equality and freedom under Commu- visitors. Progress never seemed so certain and so obvious,
nism was the path of the future. Before that, in France before or since.
another nobleman, Count Henri de Saint Simon (1760– The success of the Columbian Exposition depended
1825), founded a different socialist movement aimed at partly, too, on the fact that the idea of progress had
hastening progress towards a similarly free and equal enlarged its scope and persuasiveness after 1867, when
future. One of his younger associates, Auguste Comte Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. Darwin
(1798–1857), founded what became the academic dis- argued that plants and animals had evolved through geo-
cipline of sociology with parallel aims. Meanwhile in logical time thanks to a process of natural selection; and
England the philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill in another book, The Descent of Man (1871), he specifi-
(1806–1873), and the historian Henry Thomas Buckle cally discussed human evolution from ape-like ancestors.
This challenged the biblical story of creation head on and
provoked intense and prolonged controversy. Accord-
ingly, one of the innovative features of the Columbian
Exposition was a World Parliament of Religions where
spokesmen for each of the world’s principal faiths had a
chance to come before an American public, looking for
shared principles and in some instances, even exploring
the plausibility of religious progress through time.
There had always been doubters who discounted the
desirability of all the tumultuous changes that beset
nineteenth-century societies; and in the course of the twen-
This Maoist Chinese proverb says: Greater, tieth century, doubts about human progress multiplied.
Faster, Better, More Economical. The long stalemate of trench warfare in World War I