The enormous expansion of the printing industry and an emphasis on freedom of the press, which favoured the growth of monopolies, have intensified nationalism. Toynbee has suggested that prior to 1875 industrialism and nationalism worked together to build up great powers and thereafter industrialism became world wide and nationalism narrow and small.[326] Henry Adams has regarded 1870 as ‘the close of the literary epoch, when quarterlies gave way to monthlies, letter-press to illustration, volumes to pages’. The effects of printing on nationalism have been conspicuous in common-law countries. ‘Success of a representative system of government has been materially influenced by the invention of printing’,[327] but its limitations have again been largely a result of printing. The publication of debates implied an effective control over the manner and context of parliamentary speeches. Lord Somers ‘knew of no good law proposed and passed in his time to which the public papers had not directed his attention’.[328] The vicious circle is described by Dicey ‘Laws foster law-making opinion’. ‘The capital fact in the mechanism of modern states is the energy of legislation’[329] (Maine). ‘The present age appears to me to be approaching fast to a similar usurpation of the functions of religion by law’ (Coleridge). The position of lawyers has been strengthened. ‘In England, the profession of the law is that which seems to hold out the strongest attraction to talent, from the circumstance, that in it ability, coupled with execution even though unaided by patronage, cannot fail of attaining reward. It is frequently chosen as an introduction to public life. It also presents great advantages, from its being a qualification for many situations more or less remotely connected with it, as well as from the circumstances that several of the highest officers of the state must necessarily have sprung from its ranks.’[330] In the United States, ‘the profession of law is the only aristocratic element which can be amalgamated without violence with the natural elements of democracy, and be advantageously and permanently combined with them’.[331] The influence of the press on law has been tempered by the persistence of the oral tradition in the ‘spirit of a rational freedom diffused and become national in the consequent influence and control of public opinion and in its most precious organ, the jury’ (Coleridge). ‘In proportion as you introduce the jury into the business of the courts you are enabled to diminish the number of judges, which is a great advantage.’[332] ‘In whatever manner the jury be applied, it cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence upon the national character; but this influence is prodigiously increased when it is introduced into civil cases.’[333] As to Roman law ‘the basic difference between the two systems of jurisprudence is that the one accords privileges; while the other prohibits rights’.[334] ‘The English and American lawyers investigate what has been done; the French advocate inquires what should have been done; the former produce precedents; the latter, reasons.’[335]
In common-law countries particularly adapted to trade and emphasizing freedom of the press, monopoly of communication accentuates monopolistic tendencies in the publication of newspapers, periodicals, and books. Publishers exploit well-known authors and readers to check the appearance of new authors.[336] In turn reprints of established books weaken the position of writers. ‘Give me dead authors—they never keep you waiting for copy’ and it might be added, for copyright. ‘Originality is the greatest disadvantage to its possessor in the intellectual market.’[337] It becomes no longer possible to insist, following Montesquieu, that ‘the liberal theory of politics is a recurrent product of commerce’.[338]
These changes have profound implications for empire. The British Empire, which gained from a fusion of Roman law traditions and common-law traditions, has been exposed to the effects of increasing nationalization based to an important extent on language under the influence of mechanization of the printed and the spoken word as in the case of the French in Canada, the Dutch in South America, the languages of India and Pakistan, and the attempt to revive the Irish language in Eire. The common-law tradition tends to become more powerful and to reflect the influence of elements which have been decentralizing in character. ‘Under democratic control England must abandon all idea of influence upon the world's affairs’ (Lord Salisbury).
The United States, with systems of mechanized communication and organized force, has sponsored a new type of imperialism imposed on common law in which sovereignty is preserved de jure and used to expand imperialism de facto.[339] It has been able to exploit the tendencies toward imperialism which have emerged in members of the British Commonwealth. Canada has been used as a means of penetrating the British Commonwealth. Resistance to this influence can be made effective by adherence to common-law traditions and notably to the cultural heritage of Europe. The state and the Church have lost control in large areas of Europe as a result of successive periods of occupation, and survival in the West depends on their continual subordination and on a recognition of the cultural leadership and supremacy of Europe. States are destroyed by lack of culture[340] (Jaeger), and so too are empires and civilizations. Mass production and standardization are the enemies of the West. The limitations of mechanization of the printed and the spoken word must be emphasized and determined efforts to recapture the vitality of the oral tradition must be made.[341]
Large-scale political organization implies a solution of problems of space in terms of administrative efficiency and of problems of time in terms of continuity. Elasticity of structure involves a persistent interest in the search for ability and persistent attacks on monopolies of knowledge. Stability involves a concern with the limitations of instruments of government as well as with their possibilities.
Concentration on a medium of communication implies a bias in the cultural development of the civilization concerned either towards an emphasis on space and political organization or towards an emphasis on time and religious organization. Introduction of a second medium tends to check the bias of the first and to create conditions suited to the growth of empire. The Byzantine empire emerged from a fusion of a bias incidental to papyrus in relation to political organization and of parchment in relation to ecclesiastical organization. The dominance of parchment in the West gave a bias towards ecclesiastical organization which led to the introduction of a paper with its bias toward political organization. With printing, paper facilitated an effective development of the vernaculars and gave expression to their vitality in the growth of nationalism. The adaptability of the alphabet to large-scale machine industry became the basis of literacy, advertising, and trade. The book as a specialized product of printing and, in turn, the newspaper strengthened the position of language as a basis of nationalism. In the United States the dominance of the newspaper led to large-scale development of monopolies of communication in terms of space and implied a neglect of problems of time. Regional monopolies of metropolitan newspapers have been strengthened by monopolies of press associations. The bias of paper towards an emphasis on space and its monopolies of knowledge has been checked by the development of a new medium,[342] the radio. The results have been evident in an increasing concern with problems of time reflected in the growth of planning and the socialized state. The instability involved in dependence on the newspaper in the United States[343] and the Western world has facilitated an appeal to force as a possible stabilizing factor. The ability to develop a system of government in which the bias of communication can be checked and an appraisal of the significance of space and time can be reached remains a problem of empire and of the Western world.
FOOTNOTES:
[240] See Louis Radiguer, Maitres, imprimeurs, et ouvriers typographes 1470-1903 (Paris, 1903).
[241] W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Nationalism in Europe (London, 1913), p. 259.
[242] Deanesly, op. cit., pp. 124-5.
[243] ‘The invention of printing which placed within the reach of all inquirers who had a tincture of education the sacred writings for investigation and interpretation and enabled the thinker and innovator at once to command an audie
nce and disseminate his views in remote regions....’ H. C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church (London, 1907), ii, p. 31.
[244] Mark Pattison, Essays, i, p. 187.
[245] Ibid., ii, p. 227.
[246] Id., Isaac Casaubon (London, 1875), p. 511.
[247] Ibid., p. 175.
[248] Memoirs ... of Sir James Mackintosh (London, 1836), ii, p. 247.
[249] See Vernon Hall, Jun., Renaissance Literary Criticism, a Study of its Social Content (New York, 1945).
[250] See Mark Pattison, Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614) (London, 1875), pp. 42-3, 125-7.
[251] W. Cunningham, An Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects (Cambridge, 1898), p. 178.
[252] See J. A. Goris, Étude sur les colonies marchandes méridionales (Portugais, Espagnoles, Italiens) à Anvers de 1488 à 1567 (Louvain, 1925).
[253] A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England (London, 1915), p. 332.
[254] See Phoebe Sheavyn, The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age (Manchester, 1909); also M. A. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, 1476-1622 (Philadelphia, 1922).
[255] Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare (London, 1907), p. 105.
[256] ‘The abolition of saint-worship; the destruction of images; the sweeping-away of ceremonies, of absolutions, of fasts and penances; the free circulation of the Scriptures; the communion in prayer by the native tongue; the introduction, if not of a good, yet of a more energetic and attractive style of preaching than had existed before; and, besides, this, the eradication of monkery which they despised, the humiliation of ecclesiastical power which they hated, the immunity from exactions which they resented,—these are what the north of Europe deemed its gain by the public establishment of the Reformation, and to which the common name of Protestantism was given.’ Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1887), i, p. 377.
[257] See Albert Guerard, Literature and Society (Boston, 1935), pp. 107-8, on the failure of the Bible to take root in literary soil.
[258] On the limitations of the Bible as a basis of flexible political growth essential to empires see J. B. Crozier, History of Intellectual Development on the Lines of Modern Evolution (London, 1901), iii, pp. 204 ff.
[259] Mark Pattison, Essays, ii, p. 31. ‘Down to the present day the peculiar nature of this structure stamps the life of the Calvinistic peoples with a unique emphasis on the cultivation of independent personality, which leads to a power of initiative and a sense of responsibility for action, combined also with a very strong sense of unity for common, positive ends and values, which are invulnerable on account of their religious character. This explains the fact that all Calvinistic peoples are characterized by individualism and by democracy, combined with a strong bias towards authority and a sense of the unchangeable nature of law. It is this combination which makes a conservative democracy possible, whereas in Lutheran and Catholic countries, as a matter of course, democracy is forced into an aggressive and revolutionary attitude.’ Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (New York, 1931), p. 619. ‘It is certain that this substratum of law in Western theology lies exceedingly deep. A new set of Greek theories, the Aristotelian philosophy, made their way afterwards into the West, and almost entirely buried its indigenous doctrines. But when at the Reformation it partially shook itself free from their influence, it instantly supplied their place with Law. It is difficult to say whether the religious system of Calvin or the religious system of the Arminians has the more markedly legal character.’ H. S. Maine, op. cit., p. 372.
[260] See Ch. Enschede, Fonderies de caractères et leur matériel dans les Pays-Bas du XV au XIX siècle (Haarlem, 1908).
[261] G. H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (New York, 1937), p. 478.
[262] See Alexandre Beljame, Le public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au dix-huitième siècle, 1660-1774 (Paris, 1883).
[263] See Basil Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background (London, 1934), p. 268; also R. F. Jones, Ancients and Moderns, a Study of the Background of the Battle of the Books (Washington University Studies, January 1936), and R. K. Merton, ‘Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England’, Osiris IV, pp. 360 ff.
[264] Vernon Hall, Renaissance Literary Criticism (New York, 1945), p. 154.
[265] Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, iii, p. 363.
[266] C. K. Allen, Law in the Making (Oxford, 1939), p. 50.
[267] Ibid., p. 302.
[268] C. H. McIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West, p. 387.
[269] R. Ehrenberg, Capital and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance, a Study of the Fuggers and their Connections, translated by H. M. Lucas (London, 1928).
[270] Eugen Ehrlich, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law (Cambridge, 1936), pp. 96-8.
[271] J. E. Thorold Rogers, The Economic Interpretation of History (New York, 1888), p. 86.
[272] The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, ed. C. H. Hull (Cambridge, 1899), i, p. 263.
[273] J. M. Yinger, Religion in the Struggle for Power (Durham, 1946), p. 94.
[274] Lord King, The Life and Letters of John Locke (London, 1864), pp. 204-7.
[275] See B. H. Liddell Hart, The Revolution in Warfare (London, 1946). ‘Of all struggles the most appalling are the wars of religion, more especially those between religions in which the thought of a future life predominates, or in which morality is in other ways completely bound up with the existing form of religion, or in which a religion has taken on a strong national colouring and a people is defending itself in its religion. Among civilized peoples they are most terrible of all’ (Burckhardt).
[276] See F. P. G. Guizot, General History of Civilization in Europe from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution (New York, 1843), pp. 298-9.
[277] C. M. Briquet, Associations et grèves des ouvriers papetiers en France aux XVIIˆe et XVIIIˆe siècles (Paris, 1897).
[278] See A. Aspinall, ‘Statistical Accounts of the London Newspapers in the Eighteenth Century’ (English Historical Review, April 1948, pp. 201-32); also Stanley Morison, The English Newspaper (Cambridge, 1932).
[279] See H. A. Innis, ‘The English Publishing Trade in the Eighteenth Century’ (Manitoba Arts Review, iv, 1945, pp. 14-24).
[280] See W. T. Laprade, Public Opinion and Politics in Eighteenth Century England to the Fall of Walpole (New York, 1936), and Lawrence Hanson, Government and the Press, 1695-1763 (London, 1936).
[281] See F. J. Harvey Darton, Children's Books in England; Five Centuries of Social Life (Cambridge, 1932).
[282] John Buchan, Sir Walter Scott (Toronto, 1935), pp. 287-8.
[283] Amy Cruse, The Englishman and his Books in the Early Nineteenth Century (London, 1930), p. 229.
[284] See A. S. Collins, Authorship in the Days of Johnson, being a Study of the Relation between Author, Patron, Publisher and Public, 1726-1780 (London, 1928), also E. E. Kent, Goldsmith and his Booksellers (Ithaca, 1933).
[285] See Dorothy Blakey, The Minerva Press, 1790-1820 (London, 1939).
[286] Johnson's England, ed. A. S. Turberville (Oxford, 1933), p. 360.
[287] See C. A. Duniway, The Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts (New York, 1906).
[288] George Parker Winship, The Cambridge Press, 1638-1692 (Philadelphia, 1945); W. C. Ford, The Boston Book Market, 1679-1700 (Boston, 1917); L. C. Wroth, The Colonial Printer (Portland, 1938); Hellmuth Lehmann Haupt, The Book in America (New York, 1939).
[289] See Sidney Kobre, The Development of the Colonial Newspaper (Pittsburgh, 1944).
[290] See E. C. Cook, Literary Influences in Colonial Newspapers, 1704-1750 (New York, 1912).
[291] David Ramsay, History of the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1789), i, pp. 61-2, cited A. M. Schlesinger, ‘The Colonial Newspapers and the Stamp Act’ (New England Quarterly, viii, p. 65).
[292] Philip Davidson,
Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763-1783 (Chapel Hill, 1941).
[293] Cited W. G. Bleyer, Main Currents in the History of American Journalism (Boston, 1927).
[294] See Political Theories of the Middle Ages, by Dr. Otto Gierke, introduction by F. W. Maitland (Cambridge, 1900), p. xi.
[295] See Brooks Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts (Boston, 1919); also A. M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham, 1928).
[296] John Viscount Morley, Rousseau (London, 1921), ii, p. 46.
[297] Arthur Young, Travels during the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789 (London, 1792), pp. 146-7.
[298] John Viscount Morley, Diderot and the Encylopedists (London, 1921).
[299] Serge Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses, the Psychology of Totalitarian Propaganda (London, 1940), p. 142.
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