The "Ifs" of Life and History

by Frank Boreham

Frank Boreham was ordained a Baptist Minister but had preached from Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational and Church of England pulpits for many years in Australia. He was the author of forty-eight books and a regular columnist for The Melbourne Age from 1936 to his death in 1959. This article is reprinted from The Melbourne Age, November 30, 1947.

Man is the only creature on the planet that can freely indulge in the pleasures of the hypothetical. It is here that we immortals differ radically and fundamentally from the brute creation. The beasts of the field never contrast their present comfort with a less desirable set of conditions that might have been nor with some idyllic set of conditions that may yet await them. They are incapable of idealism. The mouse never conjures up glorious visions of the things he would have done if he had been a lion: the sparrow never contemplates the magnificent flights that he would have taken if he had been an eagle. Herein lies their stolidity.

No man in his senses would envy them. An animal lives in today; thick mists envelop yesterday. Tomorrow is without existence for him. Man is infinitely superior. He possesses horizon; and, possessing horizon, can speculate on its latent possibilities. He gives rein to the instinct of the hypothetical. It is, indeed, by means of this prerogative that he forges his way to the grandeur of his destiny. He proposes to himself a variety of courses, and visualizes the state of things to which each will lead. If-he says to himself-if I pass this examination! If I win this girl! If I obtain that position! His unique power of uttering the magic "if" enables him, whilst fully appreciating the privileges that are his today, to aspire toward a rose-tinted dream that he cherishes to tomorrow.

A man may, of course, abuse this sublime prerogative. He may make it the vehicle of a morbid and gloomy temper. If, he says, I should lose my health, my position, my money, my wife! His faculty for depressing hypotheses may scourge him through seven days of torture every week. Or he may transmute the same sense into a flight of fantasy. If, he chuckles, I inherit a million pounds! If I become Prime Minister! If all my dreams come true! But, as against all this, he may make his hypothetical faculty an instrument for the promotion of his own happiness and the happiness of his fellows. If, he soliloquises, if I work hard, I may win for myself a good position! If I do my duty as a citizen, and if I encourage others to do theirs, I may secure my country's safety and prosperity! If I live a genuine Christian life, and use my influence to the best purpose, I may earn a divine "Well done" at the end of the day! That is the point of Kipling's "If." It portrays the sublime triumph of the hypothetical.

Few of our great historians have been able to complete their work to their own satisfaction without some resort to the hypothetical. If, says Gibbon, the Saracens had been triumphant at Tours, England would now be the center of Moslem culture and authority; if, declares Sidney Low, a fair wind had been blowing down the English Channel during the last week in July in 1588, the Armada must have been successful, and Great Britain would now be a Spanish province; if, avers Dr. Fitchett, Nelson had lost Trafalgar, France would have become mistress of the world; and if, Lord Rosebery declares, Pitt had declined the peerage, his command of the Commons would have averted the break with America, and all history would have pursued a different course in consequence. The list of such hypothetical flights on the part of our classical historians is almost limitless.

Such historical hypotheses inevitably recall the story that the ancients tell of Philip of Macedon. On a notable occasion, they affirm, Philip received a defiant letter from one of the numerous enemies. "If," it said, "I enter your city, I will destroy everything and kill everybody in it!" Phillip read the letter, smiled, and contemptuously tore it to pieces. He was careful, however, not to destroy the fragment that bore the opening word-the word "If." The scrap of paper containing that significant word he returned to his boastful foe.

The record somehow associates itself with the story that Daniel O'Toole tells of two of the countrymen. Having heard the most astounding descriptions of the railway trains that were then being introduced into Ireland, they resolved to walk as far as the nearest railway line, in order to witness the prodigy for themselves. After a long wait, they at length beheld a speck emerge from infinity, grow rapidly larger, thunder past them at what seemed a terrifying speed, and, a few hundred yards from them, plunge into the mouth of a tunnel. After staring at each other for some time in dumb amazement, the one solemnly exclaimed to the other, "My, what a smash there would have been if the train had missed that hole!" Therein, crudely, but clearly, is reflected the essential philosophy of the hypothetical.

If the train had missed the tunnel! If the Saracens had been victorious at Tours! If Nelson had lost Trafalgar! The point is that the Irishmen had failed to notice the vital significance of the rails. There are forces at work guiding the train to the tunnel. Similarly, there are tremendous forces at work directing the impressive pageant of events. Nations do not rise and fall by chance. Battles are not decided by the big battalions. Like the stars in their orbits, the mighty movements of men are marshalled and directed. The chariots of history are not running wild, the reins trailing loosely over the backs of the horses. They are driven, firmly driven, skillfully driven, and driven by a divine hand. Among the ingredients that compose the hypothetical element in life, chance may play some small part, but its part is never a formative or decisive one.