Environmental Interpretations of Ideas by Beard, Parrington, Curtiz.doc

7/27/2019 Environmental Interpretations of Ideas by Beard, Parrington, Curtiz.doc

1/14

Environmental Interpretations of Ideas by Beard, Parrington, andCurti Author(s): Robert Allen Skotheim Source: The PacificHistorical Review, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Feb., 1964), pp. 35-44 Publishedby: University of California Press Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/3636377 Accessed: 16/10/2009 02:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance ofJSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's

Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless youhave obtained prior permission, you may not download an entireissue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may usecontent in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding anyfurther use of this work. Publisher contact information may beobtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?

publisherCode=ucal. Each copy of any part of a JSTORtransmission must contain the same copyright notice thatappears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers,and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use informationtechnology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate newforms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, pleasecontact [email protected]. University of California Press iscollaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access

to The Pacific Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org


2/14

Environmental Interpretations of Ideas by Beard, Parrington, andCurt ROBERT ALLEN SKOTHEIM Robert Alien Skotheim, formerlyof the University of Washington, now teaches at Wayne State Uni-versity.


3/14

A MERICAN HISTORIANS in the twentieth century who haveemphasized the environmental influences upon human thoughthave stimulated readers to look behind the word to the unseendeterminants. Ideas are creatures rather than creators, oc-cording to the environmental interpretations which have

deepened our appreciation for the fact that beliefs or values oropinions do not exist alone in space. An Economic Interpretationof the Consti- tution of the United States (1913) was written, saidCharles A. Beard, as a corrective to traditional historical accountslacking "analysis of determining forces" in the environment whichwere responsible for the ideas appearing in the Constitution. Heargued that since "the primary object" of any government was"the making of the rules which determine the property relationsof members of society, the dominant classes whose rights arethus to be determined must per- force obtain from the

government such rules as are consonant with the larger interestsnecessary to the continuance of their economic processes." Thus,wrote Beard at the outset of his examination of economic factorsbehind the ideas which went into the Constitution, it followedthat: "The social structure by which one type of legislation issecured 35


4/14

36 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW and another prevented-that is,the constitution-is a secondary or derivative feature arising fromthe nature of the economic groups seeking positive action andnegative restraint."' He then attempted to show a correlationbetween property holding and political beliefs, or more precisely,

certain types of property holding and certain kinds of politicalbeliefs. One chapter out of eleven, roughly 8 per cent of the totalpages, was devoted to "The Political Doctrines of the Members ofthe Convention," and the purpose of the entire volume was to"explain" the brief chapter on political beliefs. Beard's con-clusion, as he later expressed it, was that "the contest over theCon- stitution was not primarily a war over abstract politicalideals," but was "a struggle between capitalistic and agrarianinterests."2 After pushing his economic interpretation of theConstitution's formation into the period culminating with the

Jeffersonian election victory of 1800, in Economic Origins ofJeffersonian Democracy (1915), Beard applied social andeconomic interpretations to the entire sweep of American historyin The Rise of American Civiliza- tion (1927). While discussing theGlorious Revolution of 1688, for example, he wrote that religiousideas were brought into the seven- teenth-century controversy asa "defense mechanism" by "men who were engaged in resistingtaxes." "All that was reasonable enough," he added, "but thehistorian need not tarry long with the logical devices of men inaction."8 Again, describing an argument defending the economic

status quo during the late 1800's, Beard interpreted theargument as little more than rationalizing environmental eco-nomic pressures: "The capitalist system, in which the plutocracyflourished, like every other social organism, had to evolve ascheme of defense and, as things turned out, the task of

justifying to man his own handiwork fell mainly to the economistin the universities that sprang up like mushrooms as the gildedage advanced."' These familiar interpretations by Beard illustratewhy he is re- garded as a leading spokesman for anenvironmental explanation of the development of thought. What

has not received sufficient atten- tion, however, is that Beard didnot interpret all ideas as creatures 1Charles A. Beard, AnEconomic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States(New York, 1913, 1935), 10, 13. Citations refer to 1935 edition.Beard, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York,1915, 1943), p. 3 in 1943 edition. 8Beard, The Rise of American


5/14

Civilization (New York, 1927, 1930), I, 31. Citations refer to 1930one-volume edition. 'Ibid., II, 429.


6/14

Beard, Parrington, and Curti of their environments. When hediscussed the reformist arguments which assailed the economicstatus quo of the late nineteenth century, for instance, noreference was made to environmental factors; rather thesereform ideas were simply signs that "social criticism had crept

into scholarship. Indeed, university teachers were openly pro-claiming that science had nothing to do with bolstering up orassail- ing any social order; its business, they said, was thesearch for truth."6 The "abstract" idea of truth was thedeterminant behind these reform beliefs, according to Beard,rather than environmental pressures. Similarly, the one idea towhich he gave extended treatment (over seven pages) in TheRise was the belief in progress, and to it he attributed greatcausal power. Synthesizing modern scientific thought anddemocratic reform belief, the idea of progress was called by

Beard "the most dynamic social theory ever shaped in the historyof thought."6 Beard's occasional celebration, in The Rise, of thecreative causal force of reform ideas and modern scientificthought, was joined during the 1930's by a more generalemphasis upon ideas. Accompanying the emergence oftotalitarianism in Europe, ideas came to be given greater causalpower in Beard's writings. "Interests, both psychologi- cal andmaterial, change under the impacts of ideas," he wrote in 1937:"To employ a figure, ideas march, divide, and come into conflictwith themselves, with or without relation to the world of external

events."7 Introducing J. B. Bury's The Idea of Progress, Beard saidthat the "world is largely ruled by ideas, true and false." An "ideacontains within itself a dynamic power to move individuals andnations, to drive them in the direction of effecting the ends andinstitutions implicit in it."8 One reason why ideas had to beaccorded an importance, continued Beard, was because of thenecessity for preserving constitutional government:Constitutional and democratic government is impossible unlessthe significance of ideas is recognized. It is founded on theassumption that all social conflicts will be fought out within the

framework set by the fundamental law through the exchange ofideas. To government by 6 bid., II, 430-431. 6 Ibid., I, 443. 7Beardand Alfred Vagts, "Currents of Thought in Historiography,"American Historical Review, XLII (1937), 479, 461. 8"Introduction," to J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (New York,1932), pp. ix and x. 37


7/14

38 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW opinion there is no otheralternative except government by violence.' In addition toexplicitly arguing here that ideas are important because theyare the means by which differences are resolved constitu-tionally, Beard was also celebrating thought by his implicit

commit- ment to an idea or value-that of constitutional anddemocratic government. This emphasis in 1932 contrasteddramatically with his statement in 1913 that "the rules offundamental law" embodied in the Constitution were designedsimply "to secure the property of one group against the assaultsof another," even if the contrast of emphasis does not amount toan explicit contradiction. At least to some extent, then, CharlesBeard qualified his environmental interpretation of thought. Hiscelebration of the idea of progress in the 1920's, as well as hischampioning of non-totalitarian beliefs during the era of

totalitarianism, suggest that he had a dual interpretation of ideas,and this dualism continued during and after the 1930's. Beard'stwo major histories of ideas, published in the 1930's and 1940's,expressed his view of the role of ideas. The Idea of NationalInterest (1934) investigated one concept in the history ofAmerican foreign relations, Beard presented two conflictingpolicies of national interest, one an agrarian Jeffersonian belief,and the other a commercial Hamiltonian concept. It was clear, toBeard, that this conflict of interest (mainly economic) provokedthe conflict of policies. "Public policies," he wrote, "are not

abstractions": "They are the products of concrete experienceswith concrete economic phe- nomena, such as the production andexchange of American com- modities, the acquisition of materialsources and markets abroad."10 By contrast, The AmericanSpirit: A Study of the Idea of Civiliza- tion in the United States(1942) was essentially a celebration of do- mestic reformthought: This idea of civilization . . . embraces a conception ofhistory as a struggle of human beings in the world for individualand social perfec- tion-for the good, the true, the beautiful-against ignorance, disease, the harshness of physical nature, the

forces of barbarism in individuals and in society." 9 Ibid., p. x. 10Beard, The Idea of National Interest (New York, 1934), 112. uBeard, The American Spirit: A Study of the Idea of Civilization inthe United States (New York, 1942), 672.


8/14

Beard, Parrington, and Curti To this idea of civilization Beardattributed significant causal influ- ence. One component of theidea of civilization, for example, the belief in individual freedom,"was a creed of seasoned strength," which "had been one of themajor forces in American civilization as fact."" In this volume,

when Beard applied environmental interpretations to specificbeliefs, the ideas were usually ones for which he had littlesympathy. So Beard's famous environmental explanations ofhuman thought were joined with his willingness to attribute greatforce to certain ideas. Further, one cannot fail to notice thatBeard's powerful ideas were invariably ideas for which he hadparticular sympathy. Beard's two-sided view of the role of ideasin history was revealed also in the writings of Vernon LouisParrington. The author of Main Currents in American Thought(two volumes in 1927; incom- plete, posthumously published

third volume in 1930) ordinarily phrased his concept of humanthought in terms of environmental pressure. Explaining his theoryof the "origin and significance" of ideas, in a little-known essay of1917, Parrington wrote that "ideas are not godlings that springperfect-winged from the head of Jove." "To love ideas isexcellent," he said, "but to understand how ideas are conditionedby social forces, is better still." Men "fashion themselves ideasfor swords to fight with. To consider the sword apart from thestruggle is to turn dilettante and a frequenter of museums." Themost important aspects of what "we call vaguely social forces"

were, according to Parrington, the economic: "To understandthose forces is the economist's first business; for such knowledge,he is con- fident, will explain many things which have gone toolong unchal- lenged."" The economist was not the only one whocould profit from such investigations, in Parrington's mind, for hewrote in 1918 to his former Harvard classmates that: "The pastfive years I have spent in study and writing, up to my ears in theeconomic interpretation of American history and literature,getting the last lingering Har- vard prejudices out of my system."'A decade later, in the "Introduction" to Main Currents of Ameri- "

Ibid., 333. Written in 1917, this essay was not published until1953 by his son. See "Vernon Parrington's View: Economics andCriticism," Vernon Louis Parrington, Jr., ed., Pacific NorthwestQuarterly, XLIV (1953), 99. 1 Quoted by Thomas J. Pressly,"Vernon L. Parrington and the Writing of American LiteraryHistory," MS (Widener Library, Harvard University, 1946), 1, from


9/14

Secretary's Sixth Report Harvard College Class of 1893(Cambridge, 1918), 220. 39


10/14

40 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW can Thought, he repeated theview that the "political, economic and social development of thecountry" comprised the determining environment from whichideas were formed." Many of Parrington's famous biographicalsketches, through which he traced intellectual currents,

expressed this environmental interpretation of ideas. SamuelSewall's beliefs, for instance, "were little more than prejudices"because he merely rationalized the economic and political statusquo, being "content with a world that justified itself by theprosperity which it brought him.""' Increase Mather's ideas, too,were shaped by "personal loyalties and interests," according toParrington: As a beneficiary of things as they were, certain to losein prestige and power with any relaxing of the theocracy, it wouldbe asking too much of human nature to expect him to questionthe sufficiency of the estab- lished system ... as well demand that

pig iron turn molten again after it comes from the matrix.7Similarly, the later development of "the optimistic, speculativepsy- chology of the new West" was due to "the determiningfactors . . . of abundant wild lands, rapid increase in population,and an elastic credit."' But Parrington did not always describe theorigin and development of ideas in terms of social and economicenvironmental influences. He treated some beliefs as virtuallyautonomous agents. Roger Williams' thought, for example, wasdescribed without reference to environmental origins. Williams"lived in the realm of ideas, of inquiry and discussion; and his

actions were creatively determined by principles the bases ofwhich he examined with critical insight."19 Benjamin Franklin,despite origins which "were narrowly provincial," had an "openand free mind," with the result that he freed himself from "theprejudice of custom" and displayed "unbiased intelligence."'Similarly, Wendell Phillips resisted "the diverse Toryisms fromwhich he and his class had hitherto prospered," because "aninstinc- tive love of justice held him back."" These few examplessuggest that "'Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents of American

Thought (New York, 1927, 1930), I, p. iii. Citations refer to 1930

one-volume edition. 16 Ibid., 92,94. 7 Ibid., 99-100. "8 Ibid., II,140. " Ibid., I, 64. 0o Ibid., 165. n Ibid., III, 141.


11/14

Beard, Parrington, and Curti Parrington, as Beard, sometimesfailed to apply environmental interpretations to ideas whichwere particularly attractive to the historian." Merle Curti'shistories have revealed interpretations of ideas simi- lar to thoseof Beard and Parrington. Curti's early scholarship con- cerned the

history of pacifist beliefs and peace movements in the UnitedStates, the failure of which he attributed to environmentalconditions. By 1936, he came to place stress upon the economicfactor in particular: peacemakers have not adequately fought theeconomic forces that make for war. Some aspects of thecapitalistic order have undoubtedly pro- moted peace. But by itsvery structure this system, based on a profit- making economy,has also favored the forces of war.... In short, while individualcapitalists have sincerely desired peace, war has been func-tional to the capitalistic system itself." Referring specifically to

World War I, Curti concluded that "by and large friends of peacefailed to appreciate the importance of economic interests incommitting nations to war."" In other words, economic conditionscreated the dominant non-pacifist beliefs. Curti's environmentalexplanation of the non-pacifist opinion was not extended topacifist ideas, however. "The vision of the time when swords shallbe beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks hasremained since Biblical times vividly in the minds of lovers ofhumanity," he wrote. The peace movement developed "a body ofbrilliant arguments against war," and "the most logical

arguments."' Pacifist ideas were thus described not as functionsof environmental conditions, but as independent "wakingdreams . . . likely to stimulate the dreamers to action."' Theindependent pacifist beliefs were potentially causally significant,but were unsuccessful due to environmental factors. Thecharacteristic trademark of Curti's writings nevertheless has s2For a fuller treatment of Parrington, including a discussion of theliterary style by which he implemented his view of the role ofideas, see R. A. Skotheim and Kermit Vanderbilt, "Vernon LouisParrington: The Mind and Art of a Historian of Ideas," Pacific

Northwest Quarterly, LIII (1962), 100-113. 2 Merle Curti, Peace orWar: The American Struggle (New York, 1936), 307-308. Curti'sother early work included The American Peace Crusade, 1815-1860 (Durham, N.C., 1929), and Bryan and World Peace(Northampton, Mass., 1931). "Peace or War, 231. 2 The AmericanPeace Crusade, 3, 225, 227. a Ibid., 3. 41


12/14

42 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW been an environmentalinterpretation of thought. "The doctrine that men seek ideas to

justify their activities and to promote their interests," Curtiwrote in 1937, "is hardly startling. ... If this is true," he continued,"it should follow that the vitality of ideas depends at least in part

upon the effectiveness with which they function, on theirusefulness to the interests which they serve."' Curti's The Growthof American Thought (1943) emphasized environmentalinfluences upon thought more consistently than had the writingsof Beard or Parrington. Curti's treatment of the colonists' idea ofthe Indian, or the belief in white supremacy and Indian inferiority,exemplified his view of the formation of thought in response toenvironmental pressures: The fact that the Atlantic seaboardsettlers pushed westward in search of farms jeopardized theIndians' hunting grounds and made conflict inevitable. When the

conflict became particularly bloody, when the white men,hysterically fearful for their lives and for those of their womenand children, indulged in brutal recriminations and even inmassacres, they found it necessary to justify their actions onmoral and rational grounds. In their efforts to enslave the Indiansthe whites had already elaborated a rationale of whitesuperiority. This rationale was now extended: the Indian wascondemned as a savage incapable of becoming civilized andChristianized.' Similarly, Curti explained the functional nature ofthe Puritan idea of children. Puritans "imbued the child with all

the qualities of mature adults," a conception of the child which"favored appeals to emulation in the training of youth": "In asociety that was marked by a hard struggle for existence if not byan increasing competitive- ness, emulation in character trainingwas useful in promoting a suc- cessful adjustment to socialenvironment."' In the same way, Curti told how "virtually allconservatives" sup- ported the common law during the early1800's, because "it met so well the needs of the directors of anexpanding commercial and industrial society."30 The latenineteenth-century "conservatives" 27Curti, "The Great Mr.

Locke, America's Philosopher, 1783-1861," reprinted fromHuntington Library Quarterly (1937), in Curti, Probing Our Past(New York, 1955), 72. 2 Curti, The Growth of American Thought(New York, 1943, 1951), 20. Citations refer to 1951 edition. aIbid., 61-62. so Ibid., 237.


13/14

Beard, Parrington, and Curti opposed reform in part because, asCurti approvingly quoted E. A. Ross, "Those who have the sunnyrooms in the social edifice have ... a powerful ally in thesuggestion of Things-as-they-are."' "Gradu- ally," Curti wrote ofthe spokesmen for the status quo, "they came to use the slogans,

symbols, and ideas in the general cultural heritage whichpromised to be the most suitable to their needs."8 It was not onlythese ideas to which he was not especially attracted that Curtiexplained environmentally, however. He was more apt thanBeard or Parrington to press an environmental explanation ofideas he admired as well as those to which he was unsympatheticor indiffer- ent. "The ideas of the Enlightenment answered newneeds resulting from new ways of life," wrote Curti: The risingmiddle classes needed ideas quite different from those that hadserved the priestly and feudal classes. Natural science was a

more useful instrument in guiding them in their mercantileenterprise than the revealed word. The pursuit of commercecalled for religious tolera- tion, the civil liberties, respect forproperty, and security of property from arbitrary taxation .... Thusthe doctrines of the Enlightenment provided these classes,especially the trading folk, with ideas congenial to theirinterests." Even the rise of modem learning was due toenvironmental factors, according to Curti: Scholars would nothave organized and zealously attended their annual meetings oftheir learned societies or published their technical mono- graphs

had not the new urban and industrial civilization made all thisspecialization and professionalization possible. Money would nothave poured into institutions for the advancement of knowledgehad not the economy of the nation developed to the point whichpermitted it and made it seem necessary and good." Curti'senvironmental interpretation of ideas was remarkablythoroughgoing, but he did at times attribute independent causalforces to ideas in The Growth of American Thought. While notignoring the environmental factors supporting the developmentof modern science, for example, Curti also placed great stress

upon the autonomy of the detached intellect. In the nineteenthcentury, 1 Ibid., 633. 2 Ibid., 634. S8 Ibid., 104. 84 Ibid., 581. 4344 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW he wrote, "sheer curiosity anddisinterested love of truth for the sake of truth exerted a powerfulsway over scientific investigators."" Similarly, the eighteenth-century humanitarian beliefs opposed to slavery received someimpetus from environmental conditions, but "there was also a


14/14

widespread conviction that slavery was uncongenial if notcontradictory to republican principles, that it stood in the way ofrealizing the rights of man."" Again, Curti made no environmentalexplanation of early nineteenth-century "radicals" who, appealingto the "eighteenth-century concept of rationally made legal codes

corresponding to natural rights, favored the rejection of commonlaw and the establishment of an American law based on naturalrights."' In these instances, ideas were traced not to origins insocial and economic conditions, but in a quest for truth ormorality-in ideas, or values. It would seem that the writings ofthese three important American historians express anenvironmental interpretation of ideas, as is generally recognized,but they also reveal a celebration of certain ideas whose causalpower does not derive solely from environmental factors. Further,in the works of Beard, Parrington, and Curti, the ideas to which

independent causal power is attributed are those ideasparticularly favored by these historians. Ibid., 322. m Ibid., 170.37Ibid., 237.

Documents

Environmental Interpretations of Ideas by Beard, Parrington, Curtiz.doc