The Progress of Mankind (1854)

The Progress of Mankind (1854)

George Bancroft

Main Points

1. “The many are wiser than the few; the multitude than the philosopher; the race than the individual; and each successive generation that its predecessor…”

Here Bancroft is saying that the majority or the whole is better than the minority or the few. This is an odd statement since the Bill of Rights was written in order to protect the important view of the minority. If this statement was true, the Bill of Rights would never have been written. Emerson also contradicts Bancroft’s opinion in Self-Reliance because he speaks of Jesus Christ, Socrates, and so forth about how even though they were the individual in the group, they are revered to this day.

2. “How wonderful is it, then, that a being whose first condition was so weak, so humble, and so naked, and of whom no monument older than forty centuries can be found, should have accumulated such fruitful stores of intelligence, and have attained such perfection of culture!”

Bancroft believes that we, as a man, are no longer weak-minded and salvages. Instead man is the utmost intelligent creature, and has obtained a ‘perfection of culture’. This statement is quite ignorant considering he is only speaking about white males, and white males are the one who condemn African-Americans to slavery and an uneducated life, and also condemn white women as only being child-bearers and housewives.

3. “Yet progress of liberty, while it has made her less conspicuous, has redeemed her into the possession of the full dignity of her nature, has made her not man’s slave, but his companion, his counsellor, and fellow-martyr; and, for an occasional ascendancy in political affairs, has substituted the uniform enjoyment of domestic equality.”

Bancroft believes that in his society to date, that women have become liberated. Women walk side by side with their husbands. Women at this time had no voice at all, except for the occasional husband who may listen to what his wife says. Not until many years later did women have any say so in their government and who ran it.