of causal connection between the contemporary monarch and his reign. What legitimate ground is there for the assumption that the “prosperous conditions” of a country or its “decline” must be the result of the characteristics or decisions of the reigning monarch? The state of a country in a specific important respect may be the result of the actions of a preceding monarch in launching a policy whose consequences, for good or evil, unrolled themselves after he disappeared from the historical scene. Louis XV. and Louis XVI. of France (1731–93) were “weak” kings, and their eras were marked by miserable social and economic conditions; but these latter may more plausibly be attributed to the activities and policies of Louis XIV. (1661–1715), a “strong” king, whose reign was comparatively more prosperous than those of his descendants. The consequences of the industrial revolution in Great Britain were much more pervasive and manifest in the time of Queen Victoria than in the time of George III. Yet it would be absurd to credit her, or Disraeli or Gladstone, with the efflorescence of trade and commercial prosperity and their attendant circumstances. Nor, and this is a weighty consideration against all heroic interpretations, is there any justification for attributing the industrial revolution to George III. or any contemporary of the period in which it got started. The tremendous revolutionary impact of urbanization on modern culture, to mention only one of the consequences of the industrial revolution, would have taken place no matter what crowned heads and ministerial figures had flourished at the time.
Examining Wood’s synoptic tables from another standpoint, we find that the term “prosperity” is too inclusive, even if taken in a “materialistic” sense, to enable us to characterize a period with sufficient definiteness. For Wood the prosperity of a country is inferred from the composite statements of historians concerning its “finances, army, navy, commerce, agriculture, manufacture, public building, territorial changes, condition of law and order, general condition of the people as a whole, growth and decline of political liberty, and the diplomatic position of the nation, or its prestige when viewed internationally.” He does not indicate clearly whether a nation must show progress in one, most, or all of these respects to be classified as prosperous. He does not evaluate the relative weight of advances in different fields although he is aware of the fact that a nation rarely “progresses” all along the line. Is a period of great public
