"The languid pulse of England starts And bounds beneath your words of power." —WHITTIER.
Just here we might well stop to consider the true causes and effects of war. Seen in the largest way possible, from this side of life, certain forces of development are enabled to assert themselves only by outgrowing, outnumbering, outfighting their opposers. War is the conflict between ideas that are going to live and ideas that have passed their maturity and are going to die. Men possess themselves of a new truth, a clearer perception of the affairs of humanity; progress itself is made possible with its larger share of freedom for the individual or for nations only by a relentless overthrowing of outgrown opinions. It is only by new combinations of races, new assertions of the old unconquerable forces, that the spiritual kingdom gains or rather shows its power. When men claim that humanity can only move round in a circle, that the world has lost many things, that the experience of humanity is like the succession of the seasons, and that there is reproduction but not progression, it is well to take a [Pg256] closer look, to see how by combination, by stimulus of example, and power of spiritual forces and God's great purposes, this whole world is nearer every year to the highest level any fortunate part of it has ever gained. Wars may appear to delay, but in due time they surely raise whole nations of men to higher levels, whether by preparing for new growths or by mixing the new and old. Generals of battalions and unreckoned camp-followers alike are effects of some great change, not causes of it. And no war was ever fought that was not an evidence that one element in it had outgrown the other and was bound to get itself manifested and better understood. The first effect of war is incidental and temporary; the secondary effect makes a link in the grand chain of the spiritual education and development of the world.
We grow confused in trying to find our way through the intricate tangle of stories about the relation of Harold and William to each other, with their promises and oaths and understanding of each other's position in regard to the throne of England. Of course, William knew that Harold had a hope of succeeding the Confessor. There was nobody so fit for it in some respects as he—nobody who knew and loved England any better, or was more important to her welfare. He had fought for her; he was his father's son, and the eyes of many southern Englishmen would turn toward him if the question of the succession were publicly put in the Witanagemôt. He might have defamers and enviers, but the Earl of the West Saxons was the foremost man in England. [Pg257] He had a right to expect recognition from his countrymen. The kingship was not hereditary, and Eadward had no heirs if it had been. Eadward trusted him; perhaps he had let fall a hint that he meant to recommend his wise earl as successor, even though it were a repetition of another promise made to William when Harold was a banished man and the house of Godwine serving its term of disgrace and exile.