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THE EVOLUTION OF STATES

AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH POLITICS


_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._

  ESSAYS TOWARDS A CRITICAL METHOD.
  NEW ESSAYS TOWARDS A CRITICAL METHOD.
  WINNOWINGS FROM WORDSWORTH.
  WALT WHITMAN: An Appreciation.
  MONTAIGNE AND SHAKESPEARE. (Second Edition, with additional Essays on
  cognate subjects.)
  BUCKLE AND HIS CRITICS: a Sociological Study.
  THE SAXON AND THE CELT: a Sociological Study.
  MODERN HUMANISTS: Essays on Carlyle, Mill, Emerson, Arnold, Ruskin, and
  Spencer. (Fourth Edition.)
  THE FALLACY OF SAVING: a Study in Economics.
  THE EIGHT HOURS QUESTION: a Study in Economics. (Second Edition.)
  THE DYNAMICS OF RELIGION: an Essay in English Culture-History.
  By "M.W. Wiseman."
  A SHORT HISTORY OF FREETHOUGHT, Ancient and Modern. (Second Edition:
  2 vols.)
  PATRIOTISM AND EMPIRE. (Third Edition.)
  STUDIES IN RELIGIOUS FALLACY.
  WRECKING THE EMPIRE.
  A SHORT HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.
  CHRISTIANITY AND MYTHOLOGY. (Second Edition.)
  CRITICISMS. 2 vols.
  TENNYSON AND BROWNING AS TEACHERS.
  ESSAYS IN ETHICS.
  ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY. 2 vols.
  LETTERS ON REASONING. (Second Edition.)
  DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE "TITUS ANDRONICUS"?
  PIONEER HUMANISTS: Essays on Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Spinoza,
  Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Gibbon, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
  TRADE AND TARIFFS.
  COURSES OF STUDY.
  CHAMBERLAIN: A STUDY.
  PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE.
  CHARLES BRADLAUGH. By Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner. Part II. by J.M.R.
  PAGAN CHRISTS: Studies in Comparative Hierology. (Second Edition,
  Revised and Expanded.)
  THE MEANING OF LIBERALISM.


THE

EVOLUTION OF STATES

AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH POLITICS

BY

J.M. ROBERTSON

 LONDON:
 WATTS & CO.,
 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
 1912




"The sociologist has three main quests--first, he must try to discover
the conditions that determine mere aggregation and concourse. Secondly,
he must try to discover the law that governs social choices--the law,
that is, of the subjective process. Thirdly, he must try to discover
also the law that governs the natural selection and the survival of
choices--the law, that is, of the objective process."

--_Professor Giddings._




CONTENTS


                                                                 PAGE

PREFACE                                                           vii


PART I.

POLITICAL FORCES IN ANCIENT HISTORY

CHAP. I.--THE SUBJECT-MATTER                                        1

II.--ROMAN POLITICAL EVOLUTION                                      8

III.--GREEK POLITICAL EVOLUTION                                    36

IV.--THE LAWS OF SOCIO-POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT                       54


PART II.

ECONOMIC FORCES IN ANCIENT HISTORY

CHAP. I.--ROMAN ECONOMIC EVOLUTION                                 75

II.--GREEK ECONOMIC EVOLUTION                                      98


PART III.

CULTURE FORCES IN ANTIQUITY

CHAP. I.--GREECE                                                  121

II.--THE SARACENS                                                 146

III.--ROME                                                        158

EPILOGUE--A GENERAL VIEW OF DECADENCE                             170


PART IV.

THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS

NOTE ON LITERATURE                                                181

CHAP. I.--THE BEGINNINGS                                          183

II.--THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EVOLUTION                           209

III.--THE POLITICAL COLLAPSE                                      233


PART V.

THE FORTUNES OF THE LESSER EUROPEAN STATES

CHAP. I.--IDEAS OF NATIONALITY AND NATIONAL GREATNESS             257

II.--THE SCANDINAVIAN PEOPLES                                     264

III.--THE HANSA                                                   286

IV.--HOLLAND                                                      291
Sec. 1. The Rise of the Netherlands                                  293
Sec. 2. The Revolt against Spain                                     301
Sec. 3. The Supremacy of Dutch Commerce                              310
Sec. 4. Home and Foreign Policy                                      318
Sec. 5. The Decline of Commercial Supremacy                          321
Sec. 6. The Culture Evolution                                        325
Sec. 7. The Modern Situation                                         328

V.--SWITZERLAND                                                   331
Sec. 1. The Beginnings of Union                                      332
Sec. 2. The Socio-Political Evolution                                338
Sec. 3. The Modern Renaissance                                       347

VI.--PORTUGAL                                                     355
Sec. 1. The Rise and Fall of Portuguese Empire                       355
Sec. 2. The Colonisation of Brazil                                   361


PART VI.

ENGLISH HISTORY TILL THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD

CHAP. I.--BEFORE THE GREAT REBELLION                              369

II.--THE REBELLION AND THE COMMONWEALTH                           414

III.--FROM THE RESTORATION TO ANNE                                436

IV.--INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION                                         458

CONCLUSION                                                        468


INDEX                                                             473




PREFACE


The following treatise is an expansion, under a new title, of one
originally published (1900) under the name of _An Introduction to
English Politics_. Several friendly reviewers of that work objected, not
unjustly, that its title was something of a misnomer, or at least an
imperfect indication of its contents. It had, as a matter of fact,
originated remotely in a lecture delivered as preliminary to a course on
"Modern English Politicians" (from Bolingbroke to Gladstone), the aim of
the prefatory address being to trace in older politics, home and
foreign, general laws which should partly serve as guides to modern
cases, or at least as preparation for their scientific study; while the
main course dealt with modern political problems as they have arisen in
the careers and been handled by the measures of modern English
statesmen. It was that opening exposition, developed into an essay, and
published as a series of magazine articles, that had been further
expanded into this treatise, by way of covering the ground more
usefully; and the original name is therefore retained as a sub-title.

It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the book makes no pretension
to being a complete or systematic treatment of political history, or of
political forms and theories. The object in view from the first has
been, not the technical anatomy or documentary history of institutions,
but the bringing into light of the ruling forces in all political life,
ancient and modern alike. It seeks to help the reader to fulfil the
precept of Montaigne: "_Qu'il ne luy apprenne pas tant les histoires
qu'a en juger._"

Since it was first written, there has been so much fresh sociological
study of history that I need not repeat the justification originally
offered for my undertaking. Alike as to ancient and modern history, the
effort of scholars is now more and more towards comprehension of
historic causation in terms of determining conditions, the economic
above all; so much so that I have profited somewhat in my revision from
various recent works, and might with more leisure have done so more
fully. Revised as it is, however, the book may serve to expound views of
history which are still not generally accepted, and to call in question
fallacious formulas which seem to me still unduly common.

On any view, much remains to be done before the statement of historic
causation can reach scientific thoroughness; and it may well be that
some of my theories will incur modification. All I claim for them is
that they are made in the light of a study of the concrete process; and
I am satisfied that fuller light is to be obtained only in that
direction. In the end, doubtless, conflicts of historical interpretation
will turn upon problems of psychology. A contemporary German expert of
distinction, Prof. Lamprecht, in his able lectures on the problem _What
is History?_ (Eng. trans. 1905), lays it down that the main problem of
every scientific history of mankind is the "deducing from the history of
the most important communities of men the evolution of the breadth of
consciousness"; and again that "the full historical comprehension of a
single change or of a single phenomenon, with their historical
significance, can only be acquired from the most general principles;
that is to say, from the application of the highest universal-historical
categories." If I understand Prof. Lamprecht aright, he here means
simply that we properly understand the motivation of men in the past in
terms of our own psychosis, conceived as in touch only with their data.
This seems to me substantially sound. But on the other hand I doubt the
utility of his apparent purpose of explaining modern historic
developments in terms of special psychic changes or movements in
communities, considered as forces. That way seems to lie reversion to
the old and vain device of explaining the course of nations in terms of
their "characters."

In any case, however, we have Prof. Lamprecht's avowal that "It would be
a study of great value to establish, by comparative work in universal
history, what are the constantly recurring economic factors of each
period which are so uniformly followed by the development of other
higher intellectual values." That is as full a recognition of the
"economic factor" as I am concerned to contend for, if it be understood
that economic motives are on the one hand recognised as affecting social
action in general, and on the other that varying forms of social
machinery react variously on intellectual life. Upon such hypotheses the
following inquiry proceeds; to such conclusions it leads.

Obviously all critical exposition, historical or other, is an attempt to
influence the psychic processes of the reader, to make him "feel" this
and "think" that; and in this sense any resulting change of conduct
means the play of "the psychic factor." But that is only another way of
saying that the psychic factor is conditioned by material circumstances,
by knowledge, and by ignorance. To insist on the perpetual social
significance of all three is the general aim of this book.

_September, 1912._




PART I

POLITICAL FORCES IN ANCIENT HISTORY




CHAPTER I

THE SUBJECT MATTER


Sec. 1

Politics, in its most general and fundamental character, is the strife
of wills on the ground of social action. As international politics is
the sum of the strifes and compromises of States, so home politics is
the sum of the strifes and compromises of classes, interests, factions,
sects, theorists, in all countries and in all ages. In studying it,
then, we study the evolution of an aggregate, a quasi-organism, in terms
of the clashing forces of its units and of their spontaneous
combinations.

This may seem too obvious and simple a truth to need formal telling; and
yet no truth is more often missed or set aside by writers who deal with
political history. The past course of nations, when it is sought to be
explained at all, is by two writers out of three accounted for by
certain supposed qualities of character in the given nation as a whole,
instead of by the specially conditioned play of forces common to all
peoples.[1] For instance, M. Taine, in the preface to the first volume
of his fascinating work, _Les origines de la France contemporaine_, goes
about to justify his own political indifferentism by stating that in
eighty years his country had thirteen times changed its constitution.
"_We_," he says, have done this; and "_we_ have not yet found that which
suits _us_."[2] It is here implied that a body of men