The Ifs of History

Whether or not we believe that events are consciously ordered before their occurrence, we are compelled to admit the importance of Contingency in human affairs.

If we believe in such an orderly and predetermined arrangement, the small circumstance upon which a great event may hinge becomes, in our view, but the instrumentality by means of which the great plan is operated. It by no means sets aside the vital influence of chance to assume that "all chance is but direction which we cannot see."

For instance, the believer in special providences regards as clearly providential the flight of the flocks of birds which diverted the course of Columbus from our shores to those of the West Indies; but it is none the less true that this trivial circumstance caused the great navigator to turn his prow.

Those who, on the other hand, reject the idea of special providences, and treat history as a sequence of occurrences emerging mechanically from the relations of men with one another, must admit that causes forever contend with causes, and that the nice balance of action and reaction may sometimes be influenced radically by even so small a circumstance as the cackling of the geese of Rome. It is true that the evolutionist is apt to become a believer in necessity to an extent which appears unlikely to the mind of the other. Events, in his view, inhere in the nature and character of men, these in their turn being the result of the physical circumstances that differentiate the nations. This view seems at first to reduce the probability that accident will at any time sensibly alter the course of affairs.

But if we take historical action and reaction at their moments of equilibrium, we see that the tide of affairs may sometimes appear to follow the drift of a feather. Consider, for instance, the declaration of the Duke of Wellington that the issue of the battle of Waterloo turned upon the closing of the gates of Hugomont Castle by the hand of one man. Wellington was certainly in a position to know if this was true; and in the light of the tremendous events that depended upon the trifling act, does it not appear that accident for one moment outweighed in consequence any necessity that inhered in the character of the French people or that of the nations arrayed against them at Waterloo? It may be the function of Contingency to correct the overconfidence of the evolutionist.

At all events, we cannot dismiss the "if"; there is, as Touchstone says, much virtue in it.

J. E. C.

THE IFS OF HISTORY

CHAPTER I

IF THEMISTOCLES HAD NOT BEATEN ARISTIDES IN AN ATHENIAN ELECTION

Mithra instead of Jesus! The western world Zoroastrian, not Christian! The Persian Redeemer, always called the Light of the World in their scriptures; the helper of Ahura-Mazda, the Almighty, in his warfare with Ahriman, or Satan; the intercessor for men with the Creator; the Saviour of humanity; he, Mithra, might have been the central person of the dominant religion of Europe and modern times, but for certain developments in Athenian politics in the years between 490 and 480 B. C. For it is true that in the first three of four centuries of the Christian era the western world seemed to hesitate between the religion of Mithra and that of Christ; and if the Persians had completed the conquest of Greece in the fifth century B. C., Mithra might have so strengthened his hold upon Europe that the scale would have been turned forever in his direction.

What was it that enabled the Greeks, in the crucial test, the ultimate contingency, to turn back the Persians and maintain their independence? History says that it was the result of the battles of Marathon and Salamis, in which the Greeks were triumphant over the Persians. This is true only in a limited sense. The battle of Marathon, in 490 B. C., did not save Greece, for the Persians came back again more powerful than ever. At Thermopylae, Leonidas and his band died vainly, for the hosts of Xerxes overran all Greece north of the isthmus of Corinth. They took Athens, and burned the temples on the Acropolis. They were triumphant on the land.

But at Salamis, in the narrow channel between the horseshoe-shaped island and the Attican mainland, Themistocles, on the 20th day of September, 480 B. C., adroitly led the great Persian fleet of six hundred vessels into a trap and defeated it in as heroic a fight as ever the men of the West fought against the men of the East. Seated on his "throne," or rather his silver-footed chair, on a hilltop overlooking the scene, Xerxes, the master of the world, beheld the destruction of his ships, one by one, by the leagued Greeks. When the battle was over he saw that the escape of his victorious army from the mainland was imperiled, and while there was yet time, he led his Persian horde in a wild flight across his bridge of boats over the Hellespont. The field of Plataea completed the check, and the Persian invasions of Europe were over forever.