III
THE INFLUENCE OF MONARCHS
Perhaps the most extreme proponent of the heroic interpretation of history, next to Carlyle, is an American scholar, Frederick Adams Wood, whose contributions have been comparatively neglected in the literature of the subject. What distinguishes Wood from Carlyle and all other followers of the dour Scotch prophet is his attempt to give an empirical grounding of his thesis that will withstand critical, scientific scrutiny. Wood’s empirical investigations are independent of his rather bizarre “gametic” interpretation of history as well as of his a priori construction of the rise of ancient dynasties. His work in general exhibits a curious mixture of shrewd insight, patient inventory, and wild exaggeration. It has its humorous side in his constant reiteration of freedom from bias, although in places he argues for his thesis like a lawyer defending a client, as in his declaration of an objectivity so entire that “it makes no assumption whatever, unless it be an assumption that a book is a book and a printed word is a printed word.”[1]
Wood’s procedure is very interesting, and an understanding of it is necessary in order to evaluate his findings. He has made a detailed study of 386 sovereigns in western Europe from the eleventh century until the time of the French Revolution. These sovereigns are drawn from the national histories of fourteen countries: France, England, Portugal, The Netherlands, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Scotland, Turkey, Castile, Aragon, United Spain. The period of world history covered by this survey is one in which monarchs as a group exercised more absolute power, as far as the data on hand indicate, than at any period before or since. At the same time, Wood strikes a balance of the conditions prevailing in the country during the time of each monarch’s reign. He then compares the personal qualities and characteristics of the rulers with the condition of their countries in order to determine whether there is any positive correlation between them. Rulers are classified into three groups—strong, weak, and mediocre, designated respectively by the signs “+,” “−,” “＝.” The
- ↑ The Influence of Monarchs, p. 3, New York, 1913.
