American historian, was Professor of American History at Washington University, St. Louis, at the time of his death. He had early been impressed by the theories and writings of Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, and his earliest works were able attempts to reconcile their doctrines with Christianity and to apply the results of evolution to the teaching of history, a philosophical method which he believed justified itself by reason of its reference to ultimate and universal principles. Most of Professor Fiske’s later works had reference chiefly to American History. Those of his books which were also published in England are as follows—“Myths and Myth-Makers” (1873); “Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy” (1874); “The Unseen World” (1876); “Darwinism” (1879); “Man’s Destiny Viewed in the Light of his Origin;” “Excursions of an Evolutionist” (1884); “The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge” (1885); American Political Ideas from the Standpoint of Universal History” (1885); “A Critical Period of American History, 1783–89” (1888); “The Beginnings of New England” (1889); “Civil Government in the United States with Reference to its Origins” (1890); “The American Revolution” (1891); “The Discovery of America” (1892); “School History of the United States” (1894); “Life and Letters of Edward L. Youmans” (1894);… “Old Virginia and her Neighbors” (1897); “Through Nature to God;” “Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America” (1899); “The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War;” and “A Century of Science, and other Essays” (1900).
Personal
Nothing could be simpler or more sincerely kind than this big-brained man’s reception of a visitor. He tells you how he selected his ground a score of years ago; how he added to it to prevent some too-neighborly house from rising; how a family of crows has for years maintained a home in the trees yonder unterrified by the building operations that have gone on in Berkeley Place, a charming little no-thoroughfare that runs by one side of his estate; how the other birds come and go, and what vines thrive best along the piazza. Then you perhaps take a quick, mental photograph of the man. He is big and tall and burly. His head is large, and his florid face is fittingly girt with a full brown beard, slightly touched with gray, rather long and rather careless. The whole make-up suggests the Norseman. But the calm and deliberate speech betrays the philosopher, the man who will not deliver an opinion in a rush. “I hate to go off half-cocked,” was the very characteristic remark in the course of some conversation on the Philippine question…. Prof. Fiske’s library and working place is … a large, high and raftered room, elegantly sombre in design and finish. Its pictures and ornaments are of dignity and value. Thousands of books line its walls from end to end and from floor to ceiling. Ponderous tomes are scattered about on tables and revolving cases, and everything has the air of research. Over the ample fireplace—a practical one, where big logs glow in Winter—is this motto, which has no idle meaning here: Disce ut semper victurus; vive ut eras moriturus. The historian’s writing place is an excellent example of household evolution. It is in a large square bay window, originally thrown out from the library as a means of observation and rest. But finding the light in the main room not exactly satisfactory, Prof. Fiske bethought himself of the aforesaid nook and moved all his literary paraphernalia into it with most excellent results. With great windows on three sides, the light is perfect, and in Summer a fine breeze is always wafted through.
Mr. Fiske did not commonly write out and read his historical lectures; he spoke without notes, his diction bubbling like an overflowing spring. Whatever the critical effect of silent and satisfied hearers, there is no additional stimulus in a course of lectures ten times delivered; while travel, interruption of the normal course of life, the physical demands of lectures often an hour and a half long, the effort to meet new people and places, was a heavy drain and a withdrawal of a part of Mr. Fiske’s possibilities as a literary man. His vital forces were lower, his year’s product was less, his prospect of long life was reduced. The criticism is that of one who wishes that John Fiske had been physically able to write more or rather to write less hastily. On the other hand, the lectures were of great consequence as an intellectual force in the community; and as a means of spreading abroad sound ideas on American history. Thousands of hearers caught the inspiration which few men can put into a printed page; throughout the land people took a more rational view of our history, because John Fiske was a lecturer. His hearers became his readers; his readers wished to hear their favorite author. No American historian has ever had such personal relations with the public; he was the last of the race of lyceum speakers who for two generations helped to make the public sentiment of America; he had no rival, he leaves no successor.
Nearly half a century ago, in a small New England town, lived a small boy, not yet into his “teens,” who wished a certain lexicon, supposed to be necessary only to boys much his senior in years and in experience, and which he could not afford to buy. The sympathetic vendor of second-hand books to whom he appealed, impressed by the unexpected desire of so immature-looking a student, sold the volume on the instalment plan, the boy collecting old bones in the streets and disposing of them to a dealer in such things for a cent or two a pound, until the necessary amount, only a dollar or two, was raised, and the account settled. The title of the work was Liddell and Scott’s “Greek-English lexicon” and the boy, a good many years later, told the story in Oxford once to one of its compilers, who said that he considered it the most touching compliment which he and his co-laborer had ever received. The book—well thumbed by more than one generation of young students—is still carefully preserved and cherished in a private library in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the name of the boy was John Fiske.
General
The book [“Myths and Myth-Makers”] in itself is not an uninteresting one. It is chockfull of mythical stories, or folk-lore, or whatever people may please to call what in our younger days we should have comprised under the one delicious head of fairy-tales. To be sure, the stories were all told before and by somebody else; but then, Mr. Fiske gives everybody due credit, and confines his own portion of the work to a running commentary with an undercurrent of foot-notes, and all sorts of quotations, from the Rig-Veda down to Jack and Jill. We cannot in justice say that Mr. Fiske’s portion is as interesting as the myths themselves, though partaking considerably of their character…. Mr. Fiske seems to think that he has struck a new vein, and opened up to the world a golden ore long hidden. His theory is as old as any other; and he has only given us a poor rehash of what much cleverer men than he have over-surfeited us with ages ago. Before attempting to handle the subjects he has touched upon, it would be advisable to go to school again, and he might thus be saved a lamentable display of childish ignorance on points known to all the world, save apparently to Mr. Fiske.
There is also one work of such pretension that it should not be omitted here, namely, “Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, based on the Doctrine of Evolution,” by John Fiske. It is mainly a lucid exposition of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, with the addition of original and critical matter. The breadth and strength of understanding, the fulness of information, the command of expression, in this book are worthy of all commendation. The curious thing in it is that the author thinks that a new religion is to be established on the co-ordination of the sciences; and of this religion, whose God is the “Unknowable,” he is a pious believer.
Mr. Fiske is an able advocate. His thought and his method of presentation are in harmony with those of Mr. Spencer. He states the positions of the philosophy clearly, combines them well, enforces them vigorously with new and old material. It may be rightly claimed that he does something more than this, and occasionally makes a fresh and cardinal point. We do think, however, that he has a little of the zeal of a proselyte, that he bandies too freely about the adjectives metaphysical and theological, in the restricted and abusive meaning they have acquired in a limited school, and that there is an assumption, unintended perhaps, but none the less real, of superiority in his philosophical attitude, that can hardly receive a milder epithet than offensive.
The work before us [“Excursions of an Evolutionist”], as its title indicates, is a collection of disconnected essays on a great variety of subjects, but all treated from the standpoint of evolution. It is truly a series of gems strung on this thread. The book is certainly one of the most fascinating imaginable…. The first two essays give an admirable and, on the whole, a reliable résumé of the history of primeval man in Europe. Some of the statements are indeed a little more positive than the facts warrant, but perhaps the essays are all the more readable on that account…. The book certainly deserves all the commendation we have given or can give it. It is admirable in its spirit and in its style. Yet some slight blemishes are detectable…. Some scientific statements are made with more positiveness than are warranted by the facts, and some supposed facts are too easily accepted when they fit in with cherished views.
If Mr. Fiske must bear the reproach of being a literary historian it is not because he is defective in thoroughness of method or in knowledge of his field, but because he fails to give his narrative the dryness of the documents out of which history is reconstructed. He cannot avoid being interesting and clear; he writes of the past as if it had once been alive, instead of peopled with phantoms and abstractions.
Among the most interesting books of the past year is Mr. John Fiske’s “Discovery of America.” It is a history of that fascinating kind which tells us, to be sure, little that was not known beforehand; but it shows us, so simply that we hardly realize we are being taught, where each scattered bit of knowledge belongs. Careful students of one period or another may find in Mr. Fiske’s work errors of detail: to write so comprehensive a book without minor errors were almost to transcend human frailty. But no one, I think, can read the book without a fresh and a lasting appreciation of that great process of human development whose most significant moment we celebrate to-day.
The current criticism of Mr. Fiske that he lacked original power, that he was primarily an assimilator and expositor, is in the main probably true, but both Darwin and Spencer have left it upon record that he was an expositor of the very highest order. Both give him cordial credit for something more than this…. He was among the first to understand the bearing of the new thought upon the whole of life. He was almost without a peer in restating the great problems with clear and penetrating power. Neither is it to be gainsaid that his interpretation of evolution, as the years passed, took on an even higher and more spiritual note. His learning was not more astonishing than were his sympathy and imagination. These qualities have rightly endeared him to one of the most splendid audiences that any American man of letters has yet won…. Extraordinary range of admirable scholarship, versatility, commanding power of clear and simple expression in narrative, together with exhaustless good-will toward all his fellows and the whole of life,—these were the gifts of this man of letters whom one does not know quite how to name. Philosopher? lecturer? religious teacher? historian? To many thousands he has become at the same time each and all.
Mr. Fiske was much more widely known through his historical work, which was the chief subject of his lectures, than through his scientific work. The latter was, however, extremely important. I am not competent to say how far it had original value, that is, how far it really threw new light on the very difficult and complex questions with which it dealt. But undoubtedly Mr. Fiske contributed, and largely, to the spread among us of those scientific truths which are included in the general term of “evolution,” and to the very great change in the mental attitude of thinking men which those truths demand.
John Fiske’s mind was powerful, but not originating. He knew what true learning was, and where it was; and it was his delight and highest function to go into the workshops of the great laborers in philosophy and in history, and come out to tell the world what they were doing. He was essentially a lecturer.
| “Child of an age that lectures, not creates,” |
In wealth and diversity of learning he stood unrivalled, and, thanks to a pellucid and limpid style, he was able to give the public the benefit of his vast knowledge in a highly attractive form. In these respects he was a type that America produces but sparingly, and which seems rather characteristic of English civilization. In breadth of mental activity in combination with a fine style, he reminds us forcibly of Lecky, of Goldwin Smith, of John Morley, and of many other prominent Englishmen…. Though a man of brilliant talents, of vast learning, Fiske’s name will never stand conspicuous in the list of American philosophers and historians.
When we speak of “John Fiske’s historical service” we necessarily mean his formal pre-constitutional history in nine volumes, which alone entitles him to the name of historian. The first exception to that work must be the haphazard method. Having written four of his volumes irregularly, he could not later arrange his scheme so as to include all that he would have treated; for instance the “neglected half-century” from 1700 to 1750 is still neglected. Some repetitions are also inevitable; the Andros episode is cut into two halves, though it had a grim unity. On the other hand, there is some gain in treating the three groups of colonies throughout as separate entities.
Nothing else in the domain of American history is so much needed to-day as a true and reasonably full account of the youthful years of the city of Manhattan. This is what we hoped that Mr. Fiske would write. He has never been one of those thorough investigators of fundamental data and ideas whose conclusions are accepted by historical scholars, even when unfamiliar and unwelcome. But the great popular vogue of his books has been based upon a belief that facts so well presented, with such clarity of statement and such attractiveness of style, must have been well considered. He has shown less narrowness of vision in dealing with New England than some of her other sons. And the knowledge that his new book [“History of New York”] was to form part of a comprehensive history of the antecedents and the formation of the Republic, supported the belief that it would be sympathetically approached and carefully prepared. But these expectations have been disappointed…. Evidently, he did not study those sources of knowledge which have not yet been incorporated into easily accessible books; and on scores of pages he shows that he was very careless even in the use of the narratives and documents that he did consult. His mistakes in matters of fact are frequent and sometimes very grave. Some of them are simple repetitions of current errors. Others are resurrections of errors long ago buried under a convincing weight of evidence. And others again are novelties. Moreover, although Mr. Fiske’s formally pronounced estimate of the significance of the tale he has to tell is more justly sympathetic than that of many writers on American history, it is but slenderly supported by the specific judgments and passing comments that one finds in the course of his narrative.
Some books are said to smell of the lamp; these books smack of the platform, and the flavor is excellent. We do not know anything in historical literature quite parallel in this respect to Mr. Fiske’s American histories…. Like Thackeray, Mr. Fiske talks to his readers and tells rather than writes his story. It is partly for this reason that his volumes are such fascinating material for reading aloud…. It is not, however, as a discoverer but as an interpreter that John Fiske is pre-eminent. His sympathies are unconcealedly and unreservedly democratic. His statement that Jefferson “was in his way a much more profound thinker than Hamilton, though he had not such a constructive genius as the latter,” sufficiently indicates his political point of view. The reader who compares Mr. Fiske’s account of the preliminary events which led up to the American Revolution with that furnished by Goldwin Smith in his “History of the United States,” or the portraits of Samuel Adams furnished by the two historians, will perhaps, think as we do, that Mr. Fiske overestimates the self-restraint of the New England colonists, if he does not overstate the wrongs which they suffered…. As a reader of men Mr. Fiske appears to us to be unsurpassed. He neither deifies George Washington nor vilifies Benedict Arnold. In all his portrayal of men he is himself intensely human.
Such an unwearying and wise absorber, recaster, and expounder we shall not soon see again. His earlier and later philosophic studies certainly helped to give his books on American history the broad perspective of Von Ranke’s school. But the chief task of the historian, begun somewhat late, doubtless remains a large and tantalizing fragment.
