THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS

Henry Adams

CONTENTSEDITOR'S PREFACE By Henry Cabot LodgePREFACEI. QUINCY (1838-1848)II. BOSTON (1848-1854)III. WASHINGTON (1850-1854)IV. HARVARD COLLEGE (1854-1858)V. BERLIN (1858-1859)VI. ROME (1859-1860)VII. TREASON (1860-1861)VIII. DIPLOMACY (1861)IX. FOES OR FRIENDS (1862)X. POLITICAL MORALITY (1862)XI. THE BATTLE OF THE RAMS (1863)XII. ECCENTRICITY (1863)XIII. THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY (1864)XIV. DILETTANTISM (1865-1866)XV. DARWINISM (1867-1868)XVI. THE PRESS (1868)XVII. PRESIDENT GRANT (1869)XVIII. FREE FIGHT (1869-1870)XIX. CHAOS (1870)XX. FAILURE (1871)XXI. TWENTY YEARS AFTER (1892)XXII. CHICAGO (1893)XXIII. SILENCE (1894-1898)XXIV. INDIAN SUMMER (1898-1899)XXV. THE DYNAMO AND THE VIRGIN (1900)XXVI. TWILIGHT (1901)XXVII. TEUFELSDRÖCKH (1901)XXVIII. THE HEIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE (1902)XXIX. THE ABYSS OF IGNORANCE (1902)XXX. VIS INERTIAE (1903)XXXI. THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE (1903)XXXII. VIS NOVA (1903-1904)XXXIII. A DYNAMIC THEORY OF HISTORY (1904)XXXIV. A LAW OF ACCELERATION (1904)XXXV. NUNC AGE (1905)

EDITOR'S PREFACE

THIS volume, written in 1905 as a sequelto the same author's "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres," wasprivately printed, to the number of one hundred copies, in 1906,and sent to the persons interested, for their assent, correction,or suggestion. The idea of the two books was thus explained atthe end of Chapter XXIX:--

"Any schoolboy could see that man as a force must be measured bymotion from a fixed point. Psychology helped here by suggesting aunit--the point of history when man held the highest idea ofhimself as a unit in a unified universe. Eight or ten years ofstudy had led Adams to think he might use the century 1150-1250,expressed in Amiens Cathedral and the Works of Thomas Aquinas, asthe unit from which he might measure motion down to his own time,without assuming anything as true or untrue, except relation. Themovement might be studied at once in philosophy and mechanics.Setting himself to the task, he began a volume which he mentallyknew as 'Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres: a Study ofThirteenth-Century Unity.' From that point he proposed to fix aposition for himself, which he could label: 'The Education ofHenry Adams: a Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity.' With thehelp of these two points of relation, he hoped to project hislines forward and backward indefinitely, subject to correctionfrom any one who should know better."

The "Chartres" was finished and privately printed in 1904. The"Education" proved to be more difficult. The point on which theauthor failed to please himself, and could get no light fromreaders or friends, was the usual one of literary form. Probablyhe saw it in advance, for he used to say, half in jest, that hisgreat ambition was to complete St. Augustine's "Confessions," butthat St. Augustine, like a great artist, had worked frommultiplicity to unity, while he, like a small one, had to reversethe method and work back from unity to multiplicity. The schemebecame unmanageable as he approached his end.

Probably he was, in fact, trying only to work into it hisfavorite theory of history, which now fills the last three orfour chapters of the "Education," and he could not satisfyhimself with his workmanship. At all events, he was stillpondering over the problem in 1910, when he tried to deal with itin another way which might be more intelligible to students. Heprinted a small volume called "A Letter to American Teachers,"which he sent