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diff --git a/25720-0.txt b/25720-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5e0d12 --- /dev/null +++ b/25720-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3229 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Lecture on the Study of History, by Lord Acton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Lecture on the Study of History + +Author: Lord Acton + +Release Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #25720] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LECTURE ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + A LECTURE ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO + ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + + + + A LECTURE + ON + THE STUDY OF HISTORY + + _DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, + JUNE 11, 1895_ + + BY + + LORD ACTON + LL.D., D.C.L. + REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON + 1911 + + + RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, + BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S. E., + AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK + + _First Edition, October, 1895. + Second Edition, January, 1896. + Reprinted, 1905, 1911._ + + + + +FELLOW STUDENTS, + +I look back to-day to a time before the middle of the century, when I +was reading at Edinburgh, and fervently wishing to come to this +University. At three colleges I applied for admission, and, as things +then were, I was refused by all. Here, from the first, I vainly fixed +my hopes, and here, in a happier hour, after five-and-forty years, +they are at last fulfilled. + +[Sidenote: UNITY OF MODERN HISTORY] + +I desire first to speak to you of that which I may reasonably call the +Unity of Modern History, as an easy approach to questions necessary +to be met on the threshold by any one occupying this place, which my +predecessor has made so formidable to me by the reflected lustre of +his name. + +You have often heard it said that Modern History is a subject to which +neither beginning nor end can be assigned. No beginning, because the +dense web of the fortunes of man is woven without a void; because, in +society as in nature, the structure is continuous, and we can trace +things back uninterruptedly, until we dimly descry the Declaration of +Independence in the forests of Germany. No end, because, on the same +principle, history made and history making are scientifically +inseparable and separately unmeaning. + +[Sidenote: LINK BETWEEN HISTORY AND POLITICS] + +“Politics,” said Sir John Seeley, “are vulgar when they are not +liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when +it loses sight of its relation to practical politics.” Everybody +perceives the sense in which this is true. For the science of politics +is the one science that is deposited by the stream of history, like +grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, +the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, +as an instrument of action, and a power that goes to the making of the +future.[1] In France, such is the weight attached to the study of our +own time, that there is an appointed course of contemporary history, +with appropriate textbooks.[2] That is a chair which, in the +progressive division of labour by which both science and government +prosper,[3] may some day be founded in this country. Meantime, we do +well to acknowledge the points at which the two epochs diverge. For +the contemporary differs from the modern in this, that many of its +facts cannot by us be definitely ascertained. The living do not give +up their secrets with the candour of the dead; one key is always +excepted, and a generation passes before we can ensure accuracy. +Common report and outward seeming are bad copies of the reality, as +the initiated know it. Even of a thing so memorable as the war of +1870, the true cause is still obscure; much that we believed has been +scattered to the winds in the last six months, and further revelations +by important witnesses are about to appear. The use of history turns +far more on certainty than on abundance of acquired information. + +Beyond the question of certainty is the question of detachment. The +process by which principles are discovered and appropriated is other +than that by which, in practice, they are applied; and our most sacred +and disinterested convictions ought to take shape in the tranquil +regions of the air, above the tumult and the tempest of active +life.[4] For a man is justly despised who has one opinion in history +and another in politics, one for abroad and another at home, one for +opposition and another for office. History compels us to fasten on +abiding issues, and rescues us from the temporary and transient. +Politics and history are interwoven, but are not commensurate. Ours is +a domain that reaches farther than affairs of state, and is not +subject to the jurisdiction of governments. It is our function to keep +in view and to command the movement of ideas, which are not the +effect but the cause of public events;[5] and even to allow some +priority to ecclesiastical history over civil, since, by reason of the +graver issues concerned, and the vital consequences of error, it +opened the way in research, and was the first to be treated by close +reasoners and scholars of the higher rank.[6] + +[Sidenote: NOT GOVERNED BY NATIONAL CAUSES] + +In the same manner, there is wisdom and depth in the philosophy which +always considers the origin and the germ, and glories in history as +one consistent epic.[7] Yet every student ought to know that mastery +is acquired by resolved limitation. And confusion ensues from the +theory of Montesquieu and of his school, who, adapting the same term +to things unlike, insist that freedom is the primitive condition of +the race from which we are sprung.[8] If we are to account mind not +matter, ideas not force, the spiritual property that gives dignity, +and grace, and intellectual value to history, and its action on the +ascending life of man, then we shall not be prone to explain the +universal by the national, and civilisation by custom.[9] A speech of +Antigone, a single sentence of Socrates, a few lines that were +inscribed on an Indian rock before the Second Punic War, the footsteps +of a silent yet prophetic people who dwelt by the Dead Sea, and +perished in the fall of Jerusalem, come nearer to our lives than the +ancestral wisdom of barbarians who fed their swine on the Hercynian +acorns. + +[Sidenote: MEDIÆVAL LIMIT OF MODERN HISTORY] + +For our present purpose, then, I describe as modern history that which +begins four hundred years ago, which is marked off by an evident and +intelligible line from the time immediately preceding, and displays +in its course specific and distinctive characteristics of its own.[10] +The modern age did not proceed from the mediæval by normal succession, +with outward tokens of legitimate descent. Unheralded, it founded a +new order of things, under a law of innovation, sapping the ancient +reign of continuity. In those days Columbus subverted the notions of +the world, and reversed the conditions of production, wealth and +power; in those days, Machiavelli released government from the +restraint of law; Erasmus diverted the current of ancient learning +from profane into Christian channels; Luther broke the chain of +authority and tradition at the strongest link; and Copernicus erected +an invincible power that set for ever the mark of progress upon the +time that was to come. There is the same unbound originality and +disregard for inherited sanctions in the rare philosophers as in the +discovery of Divine Right, and the intruding Imperialism of Rome. The +like effects are visible everywhere, and one generation beheld them +all. It was an awakening of new life; the world revolved in a +different orbit, determined by influences unknown before. After many +ages persuaded of the headlong decline and impending dissolution of +society,[11] and governed by usage and the will of masters who were in +their graves, the sixteenth century went forth armed for untried +experience, and ready to watch with hopefulness a prospect of +incalculable change. + +[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE ON MODERN HISTORY] + +That forward movement divides it broadly from the older world; and the +unity of the new is manifest in the universal spirit of investigation +and discovery which did not cease to operate, and withstood the +recurring efforts of reaction, until, by the advent of the reign of +general ideas which we call the Revolution, it at length +prevailed.[12] This successive deliverance and gradual passage, for +good and evil, from subordination to independence is a phenomenon of +primary import to us, because historical science has been one of its +instruments.[13] If the Past has been an obstacle and a burden, +knowledge of the Past is the safest and the surest emancipation. And +the earnest search for it is one of the signs that distinguish the +four centuries of which I speak from those that went before. The +middle ages, which possessed good writers of contemporary narrative, +were careless and impatient of older fact. They became content to be +deceived, to live in a twilight of fiction, under clouds of false +witness, inventing according to convenience, and glad to welcome the +forger and the cheat.[14] As time went on, the atmosphere of +accredited mendacity thickened, until, in the Renaissance, the art of +exposing falsehood dawned upon keen Italian minds. It was then that +history as we understand it began to be understood, and the +illustrious dynasty of scholars arose to whom we still look both for +method and material. Unlike the dreaming prehistoric world, ours knows +the need and the duty to make itself master of the earlier times, and +to forfeit nothing of their wisdom or their warnings,[15] and has +devoted its best energy and treasure to the sovereign purpose of +detecting error and vindicating entrusted truth.[16] + +[Sidenote: INTERNATIONAL IDEAS] + +[Sidenote: MEMORABLE MEN] + +[Sidenote: INDEPENDENT MINDS] + +In this epoch of full-grown history men have not acquiesced in the +given conditions of their lives. Taking little for granted they have +sought to know the ground they stand on, and the road they travel, and +the reason why. Over them, therefore, the historian has obtained an +increasing ascendancy.[17] The law of stability was overcome by the +power of ideas, constantly varied and rapidly renewed;[18] ideas that +give life and motion, that take wing and traverse seas and frontiers, +making it futile to pursue the consecutive order of events in the +seclusion of a separate nationality.[19] They compel us to share the +existence of societies wider than our own, to be familiar with distant +and exotic types, to hold our march upon the loftier summits, along +the central range, to live in the company of heroes, and saints, and +men of genius, that no single country could produce. We cannot afford +wantonly to lose sight of great men and memorable lives, and are bound +to store up objects for admiration as far as may be;[20] for the +effect of implacable research is constantly to reduce their number. No +intellectual exercise, for instance, can be more invigorating than to +watch the working of the mind of Napoleon, the most entirely known as +well as the ablest of historic men. In another sphere, it is the +vision of a higher world to be intimate with the character of Fénelon, +the cherished model of politicians, ecclesiastics, and men of letters, +the witness against one century and precursor of another, the advocate +of the poor against oppression, of liberty in an age of arbitrary +power, of tolerance in an age of persecution, of the humane virtues +among men accustomed to sacrifice them to authority, the man of whom +one enemy says that his cleverness was enough to strike terror, and +another, that genius poured in torrents from his eyes. For the minds +that are greatest and best alone furnish the instructive examples. A +man of ordinary proportion or inferior metal knows not how to think +out the rounded circle of his thought, how to divest his will of its +surroundings and to rise above the pressure of time and race and +circumstance,[21] to choose the star that guides his course, to +correct, and test, and assay his convictions by the light within,[22] +and, with a resolute conscience and ideal courage, to re-model and +reconstitute the character which birth and education gave him.[23] + +[Sidenote: FOREIGN CONSTITUTIONS] + +For ourselves, if it were not the quest of the higher level and the +extended horizon, international history would be imposed by the +exclusive and insular reason that parliamentary reporting is younger +than parliaments. The foreigner has no mystic fabric in his +government, and no _arcanum imperii_. For him, the foundations have +been laid bare; every motive and function of the mechanism is +accounted for as distinctly as the works of a watch. But with our +indigenous constitution, not made with hands or written upon paper, +but claiming to develope by a law of organic growth; with our +disbelief in the virtue of definitions and general principles and our +reliance on relative truths, we can have nothing equivalent to the +vivid and prolonged debates in which other communities have displayed +the inmost secrets of political science to every man who can read. +And the discussions of constituent assemblies, at Philadelphia, +Versailles and Paris, at Cadiz and Brussels, at Geneva, Frankfort and +Berlin, above nearly all, those of the most enlightened States in the +American Union, when they have recast their institutions, are +paramount in the literature of politics, and proffer treasures which +at home we have never enjoyed. + +[Sidenote: RESOURCES OF MODERN HISTORY] + +[Sidenote: BEGINNING OF THE DOCUMENTARY AGE] + +To historians the later part of their enormous subject is precious +because it is inexhaustible. It is the best to know because it is the +best known and the most explicit. Earlier scenes stand out from a +background of obscurity. We soon reach the sphere of hopeless +ignorance and unprofitable doubt. But hundreds and even thousands of +the moderns have borne testimony against themselves, and may be +studied in their private correspondence and sentenced on their own +confession. Their deeds are done in the daylight. Every country opens +its archives and invites us to penetrate the mysteries of State. When +Hallam wrote his chapter on James II., France was the only Power whose +reports were available. Rome followed, and the Hague; and then came +the stores of the Italian States, and at last the Prussian and the +Austrian papers, and partly those of Spain. Where Hallam and Lingard +were dependent on Barillon, their successors consult the diplomacy of +ten governments. The topics indeed are few on which the resources have +been so employed that we can be content with the work done for us, and +never wish it to be done over again. Part of the lives of Luther and +Frederic, a little of the Thirty Years' War, much of the American +Revolution and the French Restoration, the early years of Richelieu +and Mazarin, and a few volumes of Mr. Gardiner, show here and there +like Pacific islands in the ocean. I should not even venture to claim +for Ranke, the real originator of the heroic study of records, and the +most prompt and fortunate of European pathfinders, that there is one +of his seventy volumes that has not been overtaken and in part +surpassed. It is through his accelerating influence mainly that our +branch of study has become progressive, so that the best master is +quickly distanced by the better pupil.[24] The Vatican archives alone, +now made accessible to the world, filled 3,239 cases when they were +sent to France; and they are not the richest. We are still at the +beginning of the documentary age, which will tend to make history +independent of historians, to develope learning at the expense of +writing, and to accomplish a revolution in other sciences as well.[25] + +[Sidenote: MODERN HISTORY] + +To men in general I would justify the stress I am laying on modern +history, neither by urging its varied wealth, nor the rupture with +precedent, nor the perpetuity of change and increase of pace, nor the +growing predominance of opinion over belief, and of knowledge over +opinion, but by the argument that it is a narrative told of ourselves, +the record of a life which is our own, of efforts not yet abandoned to +repose, of problems that still entangle the feet and vex the hearts of +men. Every part of it is weighty with inestimable lessons that we +must learn by experience and at a great price, if we know not how to +profit by the example and teaching of those who have gone before us, +in a society largely resembling the one we live in.[26] Its study +fulfils its purpose even if it only makes us wiser, without producing +books, and gives us the gift of historical thinking, which is better +than historical learning.[27] It is a most powerful ingredient in the +formation of character and the training of talent, and our historical +judgments have as much to do with hopes of heaven as public or private +conduct. Convictions that have been strained through the instances and +the comparisons of modern times differ immeasurably in solidity and +force from those which every new fact perturbs, and which are often +little better than illusions or unsifted prejudice.[28] + +[Sidenote: A SCHOOL OF OPINION] + +[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT] + +The first of human concerns is religion, and it is the salient feature +of the modern centuries. They are signalised as the scene of +Protestant developments. Starting from a time of extreme indifference, +ignorance, and decline, they were at once occupied with that conflict +which was to rage so long, and of which no man could imagine the +infinite consequences. Dogmatic conviction—for I shun to speak of +faith in connection with many characters of those days—dogmatic +conviction rose to be the centre of universal interest, and remained +down to Cromwell the supreme influence and motive of public policy. A +time came when the intensity of prolonged conflict, when even the +energy of antagonistic assurance, abated somewhat, and the +controversial spirit began to make room for the scientific; and as the +storm subsided, and the area of settled questions emerged, much of +the dispute was abandoned to the serene and soothing touch of +historians, invested as they are with the prerogative of redeeming the +cause of religion from many unjust reproaches, and from the graver +evil of reproaches that are just. Ranke used to say that Church +interests prevailed in politics until the Seven Years' War, and marked +a phase of society that ended when the hosts of Brandenburg went into +action at Leuthen, chanting their Lutheran hymns.[29] That bold +proposition would be disputed even if applied to the present age. +After Sir Robert Peel had broken up his party, the leaders who +followed him declared that no-popery was the only basis on which it +could be reconstructed.[30] On the other side may be urged that, in +July 1870, at the outbreak of the French war, the only government +that insisted on the abolition of the temporal power was Austria; and +since then we have witnessed the fall of Castelar, because he +attempted to reconcile Spain with Rome. + +[Sidenote: RELIGION] + +Soon after 1850 several of the most intelligent men in France, struck +by the arrested increase of their own population and by the telling +statistics from Further Britain, foretold the coming preponderance of +the English race. They did not foretell, what none could then foresee, +the still more sudden growth of Prussia, or that the three most +important countries of the globe would, by the end of the century, be +those that chiefly belonged to the conquests of the Reformation. So +that in Religion, as in so many things, the product of these +centuries has favoured the new elements; and the centre of gravity, +moving from the Mediterranean nations to the Oceanic, from the Latin +to the Teuton, has also passed from the Catholic to the +Protestant.[31] + +[Sidenote: THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY] + +[Sidenote: REVOLUTION] + +Out of these controversies proceeded political as well as historical +science. It was in the Puritan phase, before the restoration of the +Stuarts, that theology, blending with politics, effected a fundamental +change. The essentially English reformation of the seventeenth century +was less a struggle between churches than between sects, often +subdivided by questions of discipline and self-regulation rather than +by dogma. The sectaries cherished no purpose or prospect of prevailing +over the nations; and they were concerned with the individual more +than with the congregation, with conventicles, not with +state-churches. Their view was narrowed, but their sight was +sharpened. It appeared to them that governments and institutions are +made to pass away, like things of earth, whilst souls are immortal; +that there is no more proportion between liberty and power than +between eternity and time; that, therefore, the sphere of enforced +command ought to be restricted within fixed limits, and that which had +been done by authority, and outward discipline, and organised +violence, should be attempted by division of power, and committed to +the intellect and the conscience of free men.[32] Thus was exchanged +the dominion of will over will for the dominion of reason over reason. +The true apostles of toleration are not those who sought protection +for their own beliefs, or who had none to protect; but men to whom, +irrespective of their cause, it was a political, a moral, and a +theological dogma, a question of conscience, involving both religion +and policy.[33] Such a man was Socinus; and others arose in the +smaller sects—the Independent founder of the colony of Rhode Island, +and the Quaker patriarch of Pennsylvania. Much of the energy and zeal +which had laboured for authority of doctrine was employed for liberty +of prophesying. The air was filled with the enthusiasm of a new cry; +but the cause was still the same. It became a boast that religion was +the mother of freedom, that freedom was the lawful off spring of +religion; and this transmutation, this subversion of established forms +of political life by the development of religious thought, brings us +to the heart of my subject, to the significant and central feature of +the historic cycle before us. Beginning with the strongest religious +movement and the most refined despotism ever known, it has led to the +superiority of politics over divinity in the life of nations, and +terminates in the equal claim of every man to be unhindered by man in +the fulfilment of duty to God[34]—a doctrine laden with storm and +havoc, which is the secret essence of the Rights of Man, and the +indestructible soul of Revolution. + +[Sidenote: THE MODE OF LIBERTY] + +[Sidenote: PROGRESS] + +[Sidenote: THE MARK OF PROVIDENCE] + +When we consider what the adverse forces were, their sustained +resistance, their frequent recovery, the critical moments when the +struggle seemed for ever desperate, in 1685, in 1772, in 1808, it is +no hyperbole to say that the progress of the world towards +self-government would have been arrested but for the strength afforded +by the religious motive in the seventeenth century. And this +constancy of progress, of progress in the direction of organised and +assured freedom, is the characteristic fact of modern history, and its +tribute to the theory, of Providence.[35] Many persons, I am well +assured, would detect that this is a very old story, and a trivial +commonplace, and would challenge proof that the world is making +progress in aught but intellect, that it is gaining in freedom, or +that increase in freedom is either a progress or a gain. Ranke, who +was my own master, rejected the view that I have stated;[36] Comte, +the master of better men, believed that we drag a lengthening chain +under the gathered weight of the dead hand;[37] and many of our recent +classics, Carlyle, Newman, Froude, were persuaded that there is no +progress justifying the ways of God to man, and that the mere +consolidation of liberty is like the motion of creatures whose advance +is in the direction of their tails. They deem that anxious precaution +against bad government is an obstruction to good, and degrades +morality and mind by placing the capable at the mercy of the +incapable, dethroning enlightened virtue for the benefit of the +average man. They hold that great and salutary things are done for +mankind by power concentrated, not by power balanced and cancelled and +dispersed, and that the whig theory, sprung from decomposing sects, +the theory that authority is legitimate only by virtue of its checks, +and that the sovereign is dependent on the subject, is rebellion +against the divine will manifested all down the stream of time. + +[Sidenote: CERTAINTY] + +[Sidenote: DEPENDENT ON RESERVE] + +I state the objection not that we may plunge into the crucial +controversy of a science that is not identical with ours, but in order +to make my drift clear by the defining aid of express contradiction. +No political dogma is as serviceable to my purpose here as the +historian's maxim to do the best he can for the other side, and to +avoid pertinacity or emphasis on his own. Like the economic precept +_Laissez-faire_[38] which the eighteenth century derived from Colbert, +it has been an important, if not a final step in the making of method. +The strongest and most impressive personalities, it is true, like +Macaulay, Thiers, and the two greatest of living writers, Mommsen and +Treitschke, project their own broad shadow upon their pages. This is a +practice proper to great men, and a great man may be worth several +immaculate historians. Otherwise there is virtue in the saying that a +historian is seen at his best when he does not appear.[39] Better for +us is the example of the Bishop of Oxford, who never lets us know what +he thinks of anything but the matter before him; and of his +illustrious French rival, Fustel de Coulanges, who said to an excited +audience: “Do not imagine you are listening to me; it is history +itself that speaks.”[40] We can found no philosophy on the observation +of four hundred years, excluding three thousand. It would be an +imperfect and a fallacious induction. But I hope that even this narrow +and disedifying section of history will aid you to see that the action +of Christ who is risen on mankind whom he redeemed fails not, but +increases;[41] that the wisdom of divine rule appears not in the +perfection but in the improvement of the world;[42] and that achieved +liberty is the one ethical result that rests on the converging and +combined conditions of advancing civilisation.[43] Then you will +understand what a famous philosopher said, that History is the true +demonstration of Religion.[44] + +[Sidenote: MEANING OF LIBERTY] + +But what do people mean who proclaim that liberty is the palm, and the +prize, and the crown, seeing that it is an idea of which there are two +hundred definitions, and that this wealth of interpretation has caused +more bloodshed than anything, except theology? Is it Democracy as in +France, or Federalism as in America, or the national independence +which bounds the Italian view, or the reign of the fittest, which is +the ideal of Germans?[45] I know not whether it will ever fall within +my sphere of duty to trace the slow progress of that idea through the +chequered scenes of our history, and to describe how subtle +speculations touching the nature of conscience promoted a nobler and +more spiritual conception of the liberty that protects it,[46] until +the guardian of rights developed into the guardian of duties which are +the cause of rights,[47] and that which had been prized as the +material safeguard for treasures of earth became sacred as security +for things that are divine. All that we require is a workday key to +history, and our present need can be supplied without pausing to +satisfy philosophers. Without inquiring how far Sarasa or Butler, Kant +or Vinet, is right as to the infallible voice of God in man, we may +easily agree in this, that where absolutism reigned, by irresistible +arms, concentrated possessions, auxiliary churches, and inhuman laws, +it reigns no more; that commerce having risen against land, labour +against wealth, the state against the forces dominant in society,[48] +the division of power against the state, the thought of individuals +against the practice of ages, neither authorities, nor minorities, nor +majorities can command implicit obedience; and, where there has been +long and arduous experience, a rampart of tried conviction and +accumulated knowledge,[49] where there is a fair level of general +morality, education, courage, and self-restraint, there, if there +only, a society may be found that exhibits the condition of life +towards which, by elimination of failures, the world has been moving +through the allotted space.[50] You will know it by outward signs: +Representation, the extinction of slavery, the reign of opinion, and +the like; better still by less apparent evidences: the security of the +weaker groups[51] and the liberty of conscience, which, effectually +secured, secures the rest. + +[Sidenote: THE GROWTH OF REVOLUTION] + +[Sidenote: RENOVATION OF HISTORY BY REVOLUTION] + +Here we reach a point at which my argument threatens to abut on a +contradiction. If the supreme conquests of society are won more often +by violence than by lenient arts, if the trend and drift of things is +towards convulsions and catastrophes,[52] if the world owes religious +liberty to the Dutch Revolution, constitutional government to the +English, federal republicanism to the American, political equality to +the French and its successors,[53] what is to become of us, docile and +attentive students of the absorbing Past? The triumph of the +Revolutionist annuls the historian.[54] By its authentic exponents, +Jefferson and Sieyès, the Revolution of the last century repudiates +history. Their followers renounced acquaintance with it, and were +ready to destroy its records and to abolish its inoffensive +professors. But the unexpected truth, stranger than fiction, is that +this was not the ruin but the renovation of history. Directly and +indirectly, by process of development and by process of reaction, an +impulse was given which made it infinitely more effectual as a factor +of civilisation than ever before, and a movement began in the world of +minds which was deeper and more serious than the revival of ancient +learning.[55] The dispensation under which we live and labour consists +first in the recoil from the negative spirit that rejected the law of +growth, and partly in the endeavour to classify and adjust the +revolution, and to account for it by the natural working of historic +causes. The Conservative line of writers, under the name of the +Romantic or Historical School, had its seat in Germany, looked upon +the Revolution as an alien episode, the error of an age, a disease to +be treated by the investigation of its origin, and strove to unite the +broken threads and to restore the normal conditions of organic +evolution. The Liberal School, whose home was France, explained and +justified the Revolution as a true development, and the ripened fruit +of all history.[56] These are the two main arguments of the generation +to which we owe the notion and the scientific methods that make +history so unlike what it was to the survivors of the last century. +Severally, the innovators were not superior to the men of old. +Muratori was as widely read, Tillemont as accurate, Leibniz as able, +Fréret as acute, Gibbon as masterly in the craft of composite +construction. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of this century, a +new era began for historians. + +[Sidenote: USE OF UNPUBLISHED SOURCES] + +[Sidenote: INSUFFICIENCY OF BOOKS] + +I would point to three things in particular, out of many, which +constitute the amended order. Of the incessant deluge of new and +unsuspected matter I need say little. For some years, the secret +archives of the papacy were accessible at Paris; but the time was not +ripe, and almost the only man whom they availed was the archivist +himself.[57] Towards 1830 the documentary studies began on a large +scale, Austria leading the way. Michelet, who claims, towards 1836, +to have been the pioneer,[58] was preceded by such rivals as +Mackintosh, Bucholtz, and Mignet. A new and more productive period +began thirty years later, when the war of 1859 laid open the spoils of +Italy. Every country in succession has now allowed the exploration of +its records, and there is more fear of drowning than of drought. The +result has been that a lifetime spent in the largest collection of +printed books would not suffice to train a real master of modern +history. After he had turned from literature to sources, from Burnet +to Pocock, from Macaulay to Madame Campana, from Thiers to the +interminable correspondence of the Bonapartes, he would still feel +instant need of inquiry at Venice or Naples, in the Ossuna library or +at the Hermitage.[59] + +[Sidenote: HISTORY RENEWED BY CRITICISM] + +These matters do not now concern us. For our purpose, the main thing +to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art +of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood, and certainty +from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude +of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens, +and extends the mind.[60] And the accession of the critic in the place +of the indefatigable compiler, of the artist in coloured narrative, +the skilled limner of character, the persuasive advocate of good, or +other, causes, amounts to a transfer of government, to a change of +dynasty, in the historic realm. For the critic is one who, when he +lights on an interesting statement, begins by suspecting it. He +remains in suspense until he has subjected his authority to three +operations. First, he asks whether he has read the passage as the +author wrote it. For the transcriber, and the editor, and the official +or officious censor on the top of the editor, have played strange +tricks, and have much to answer for. And if they are not to blame, it +may turn out that the author wrote his book twice over, that you can +discover the first jet, the progressive variations, things added, and +things struck out. Next is the question where the writer got his +information. If from a previous writer, it can be ascertained, and the +inquiry has to be repeated. If from unpublished papers, they must be +traced, and when the fountain head is reached, or the track +disappears, the question of veracity arises. The responsible writer's +character, his position, antecedents, and probable motives have to be +examined into; and this is what, in a different and adapted sense of +the word, may be called the higher criticism, in comparison with the +servile and often mechanical work of pursuing statements to their +root. For a historian has to be treated as a witness, and not believed +unless his sincerity is established.[61] The maxim that a man must be +presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proved, was not made for +him. + +[Sidenote: CRITICAL STUDY OF EARLIER TIMES] + +For us then the estimate of authorities, the weighing of testimony, is +more meritorious than the potential discovery of new matter.[62] And +modern history, which is the widest field of application, is not the +best to learn our business in; for it is too wide, and the harvest has +not been winnowed as in antiquity, and further on to the Crusades. It +is better to examine what has been done for questions that are +compact and circumscribed, such as the sources of Plutarch's +_Pericles_, the two tracts on Athenian government, the origin of the +epistle to Diognetus, the date of the life of St. Antony; and to learn +from Schwegler how this analytical work began. More satisfying because +more decisive has been the critical treatment of the mediæval writers, +parallel with the new editions, on which incredible labour has been +lavished, and of which we have no better examples than the prefaces of +Bishop Stubbs. An important event in this series was the attack on +Dino Compagni, which, for the sake of Dante, roused the best Italian +scholars to a not unequal contest. When we are told that England is +behind the Continent in critical faculty, we must admit that this is +true as to quantity, not as to quality of work. As they are no longer +living, I will say of two Cambridge professors, Lightfoot and Hort, +that they were critical scholars whom neither Frenchman nor German has +surpassed. + +[Sidenote: DEGREES OF IMPARTIALITY] + +The third distinctive note of the generation of writers who dug so +deep a trench between history as known to our grandfathers and as it +appears to us, is their dogma of impartiality. To an ordinary man the +word means no more than justice. He considers that he may proclaim the +merits of his own religion, of his prosperous and enlightened country, +of his political persuasion, whether democracy, or liberal monarchy, +or historic conservatism, without transgression or offence, so long as +he is fair to the relative, though inferior merits of others, and +never treats men as saints or as rogues for the side they take. There +is no impartiality, he would say, like that of a hanging judge. The +men who, with the compass of criticism in their hands, sailed the +uncharted sea of original research, proposed a different view. +History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not +on opinions. They had their own notion of truthfulness, based on the +exceeding difficulty of finding truth, and the still greater +difficulty of impressing it when found. They thought it possible to +write, with so much scruple, and simplicity, and insight, as to carry +along with them every man of good will, and, whatever his feelings, to +compel his assent. Ideas which, in religion and in politics, are +truths, in history are forces. They must be respected; they must not +be affirmed. By dint of a supreme reserve, by much self-control, by a +timely and discreet indifference, by secrecy in the matter of the +black cap, history might be lifted above contention, and made an +accepted tribunal, and the same for all.[63] If men were truly +sincere, and delivered judgment by no canons but those of evident +morality, then Julian would be described in the same terms by +Christian and pagan, Luther by Catholic and Protestant, Washington by +Whig and Tory, Napoleon by patriotic Frenchman and patriotic +German.[64] + +[Sidenote: MORALITY THE SOLE RULE OF JUDGMENT] + +I speak of this school with reverence, for the good it has done, by +the assertion of historic truth and of its legitimate authority over +the minds of men. It provides a discipline which every one of us does +well to undergo, and perhaps also well to relinquish. For it is not +the whole truth. Lanfrey's essay on Carnot, Chuquet's wars of the +Revolution, Ropes's military histories, Roget's Geneva in the time of +Calvin, will supply you with examples of a more robust impartiality +than I have described. Renan calls it the luxury of an opulent and +aristocratic society, doomed to vanish in an age of fierce and sordid +striving. In our universities it has a magnificent and appointed +refuge; and to serve its cause, which is sacred, because it is the +cause of truth and honour, we may import a profitable lesson from the +highly unscientific region of public life. There a man does not take +long to find out that he is opposed by some who are abler and better +than himself. And, in order to understand the cosmic force and the +true connection of ideas, it is a source of power, and an excellent +school of principle, not to rest until, by excluding the fallacies, +the prejudices, the exaggerations which perpetual contention and the +consequent precautions breed, we have made out for our opponents a +stronger and more impressive case than they present themselves.[65] +Excepting one to which we are coming before I release you, there is no +precept less faithfully observed by historians. + +[Sidenote: EXAMPLE OF RANKE] + +Ranke is the representative of the age which instituted the modern +study of history. He taught it to be critical, to be colourless, and +to be new. We meet him at every step, and he has done more for us than +any other man. There are stronger books than any one of his, and some +may have surpassed him in political, religious, philosophic insight, +in vividness of the creative imagination, in originality, elevation, +and depth of thought; but by the extent of important work well +executed, by his influence on able men, and by the amount of knowledge +which mankind receives and employs with the stamp of his mind upon it, +he stands without a rival. I saw him last in 1877, when he was feeble, +sunken, and almost blind, and scarcely able to read or write. He +uttered his farewell with kindly emotion, and I feared that the next I +should hear of him would be the news of his death. Two years later he +began a Universal History which is not without traces of weakness, but +which, composed after the age of eighty-three, and carried, in +seventeen volumes, far into the Middle Ages, brings to a close the +most astonishing career in literature. + +[Sidenote: SUPPRESSION OF OPINION] + +His course had been determined, in early life, by _Quentin Durward_. +The shock of the discovery that Scott's Lewis the Eleventh was +inconsistent with the original in Commynes made him resolve that his +object thenceforth should be above all things to follow, without +swerving, and in stern subordination and surrender, the lead of his +authorities. He decided effectually to repress the poet, the patriot, +the religious or political partisan, to sustain no cause, to banish +himself from his books, and to write nothing that would gratify his +own feelings or disclose his private convictions.[66] When a strenuous +divine who, like him, had written on the Reformation, hailed him as a +comrade, Ranke repelled his advances. “You,” he said, “are in the +first place a Christian: I am in the first place a historian. There is +a gulf between us.”[67] He was the first eminent writer who exhibited +what Michelet calls _le désintéressement des morts_. It was a moral +triumph for him when he could refrain from judging, show that much +might be said on both sides, and leave the rest to Providence.[68] He +would have felt sympathy with the two famous London physicians of our +day, of whom it is told that they could not make up their minds on a +case and reported dubiously. The head of the family insisted on a +positive opinion. They answered that they were unable to give one, but +he might easily find fifty doctors who could. + +[Sidenote: CRITICISM OF MODERN SOURCES] + +Niebuhr had pointed out that chroniclers who wrote before the +invention of printing generally copied one predecessor at a time, and +knew little about sifting or combining authorities. The suggestion +became luminous in Ranke's hands, and with his light and dexterous +touch he scrutinised and dissected the principal historians, from +Machiavelli to the _Mémoires d'un Homme d'État_, with a rigour never +before applied to moderns. But whilst Niebuhr dismissed the +traditional story, replacing it with a construction of his own, it was +Ranke's mission to preserve, not to undermine, and to set up masters +whom, in their proper sphere, he could obey. The many excellent +dissertations in which he displayed this art, though his successors in +the next generation matched his skill and did still more thorough +work, are the best introduction from which we can learn the technical +process by which within living memory the study of modern history has +been renewed. Ranke's contemporaries, weary of his neutrality and +suspense, and of the useful but subordinate work that was done by +beginners who borrowed his wand, thought that too much was made of +these obscure preliminaries which a man may accomplish for himself, in +the silence of his chamber, with less demand on the attention of the +public.[69] That may be reasonable in men who are practised in these +fundamental technicalities. We who have to learn them, must immerse +ourselves in the study of the great examples. + +[Sidenote: METHOD TO BE LEARNT FROM SCIENCES] + +Apart from what is technical, method is only the reduplication of +common sense, and is best acquired by observing its use by the ablest +men in every variety of intellectual employment.[70] Bentham +acknowledged that he learned less from his own profession than from +writers like Linnæus and Cullen; and Brougham advised the student of +Law to begin with Dante. Liebig described his _Organic Chemistry_ as +an application of ideas found in Mill's _Logic_, and a distinguished +physician, not to be named lest he should overhear me, read three +books to enlarge his medical mind; and they were Gibbon, Grote, and +Mill. He goes on to say, “An educated man cannot become so on one +study alone, but must be brought under the influence of natural, +civil, and moral modes of thought.”[71] I quote my colleague's golden +words in order to reciprocate them. If men of science owe anything to +us, we may learn much from them that is essential.[72] For they can +show how to test proof, how to secure fulness and soundness in +induction, how to restrain and to employ with safety hypothesis and +analogy. It is they who hold the secret of the mysterious property of +the mind by which error ministers to truth, and truth slowly but +irrevocably prevails.[73] Theirs is the logic of discovery,[74] the +demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of +ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost +unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark in +history. And they often give us invaluable counsel when they attend to +their own subjects and address their own people. Remember Darwin, +taking note only of those passages that raised difficulties in his +way; the French philosopher complaining that his work stood still, +because he found no more contradicting facts; Baer, who thinks error +treated thoroughly, nearly as remunerative as truth, by the discovery +of new objections; for, as Sir Robert Ball warns us, it is by +considering objections that we often learn.[75] Faraday declares that +“in knowledge, that man only is to be condemned and despised who is +not in a state of transition.” And John Hunter spoke for all of us, +when he said: “Never ask me what I have said or what I have written; +but if you will ask me what my present opinions are, I will tell you.” + +[Sidenote: ALL ADOPT THE HISTORIC METHOD] + +From the first years of the century we have been quickened and +enriched by contributors from every quarter. The jurists brought us +that law of continuous growth which has transformed history from a +chronicle of casual occurrences into the likeness of something +organic.[76] Towards 1820 divines began to recast their doctrines on +the lines of development, of which Newman said, long after, that +evolution had come to confirm it.[77] Even the Economists, who were +practical men, dissolved their science into liquid history, affirming +that it is not an auxiliary, but the actual subject-matter of their +inquiry.[78] Philosophers claim that, as early as 1804, they began to +bow the metaphysical neck beneath the historical yoke. They taught +that philosophy is only the amended sum of all philosophies, that +systems pass with the age whose impress they bear,[79] that the +problem is to focus the rays of wandering but extant truth, and that +history is the source of philosophy, if not quite a substitute for +it.[80] Comte begins a volume with the words that the preponderance of +history over philosophy was the characteristic of the time he lived +in.[81] Since Cuvier first recognised the conjunction between the +course of inductive discovery and the course of civilization,[82] +science had its share in saturating the age with historic ways of +thought, and subjecting all things to that influence for which the +depressing names historicism and historical-mindedness have been +devised. + +[Sidenote: DANGER OF OBLIVION] + +[Sidenote: PROPHECY OF PITT] + +There are certain faults which are corrigible mental defects on which +I ought to say a few denouncing words, because they are common to us +all. First: the want of an energetic understanding of the sequence and +real significance of events, which would be fatal to a practical +politician, is ruin to a student of history who is the politician with +his face turned backwards.[83] It is playing at study, to see nothing +but the unmeaning and unsuggestive surface, as we generally do. Then +we have a curious proclivity to neglect, and by degrees to forget, +what has been certainly known. An instance or two will explain my +idea. The most popular English writer relates how it happened in his +presence that the title of Tory was conferred upon the Conservative +party. For it was an opprobrious name at the time, applied to men for +whom the Irish Government offered head-money; so that if I have made +too sure of progress, I may at least complacently point to this +instance of our mended manners. One day, Titus Oates lost his temper +with the men who refused to believe him, and after looking about for a +scorching imprecation, he began to call them Tories.[84] The name +remained; but its origin, attested by Defoe, dropped out of common +memory, as if one party were ashamed of their godfather, and the other +did not care to be identified with his cause and character. You all +know, I am sure, the story of the news of Trafalgar, and how, two +days after it had arrived, Mr. Pitt, drawn by an enthusiastic crowd, +went to dine in the city. When they drank the health of the minister +who had saved his country, he declined the praise. “England,” he said, +“has saved herself by her own energy; and I hope that after having +saved herself by her energy, she will save Europe by her example.” In +1814, when this hope had been realised, the last speech of the great +orator was remembered, and a medal was struck upon which the whole +sentence was engraved, in four words of compressed Latin: “_Seipsam +virtute, Europam exemplo._” Now it was just at the time of his last +appearance in public that Mr. Pitt heard of the overwhelming success +of the French in Germany, and of the Austrian surrender at Ulm. His +friends concluded that the contest on land was hopeless, and that it +was time to abandon the Continent to the conqueror, and to fall back +upon our new empire of the sea. Pitt did not agree with them. He said +that Napoleon would meet with a check whenever he encountered a +national resistance; and he declared that Spain was the place for it, +and that then England would intervene.[85] General Wellesley, fresh +from India, was present. Ten years later, when he had accomplished +that which Pitt had seen in the lucid prescience of his last days, he +related at Paris what I scarcely hesitate to call the most astounding +and profound prediction in all political history, where such things +have not been rare. + +[Sidenote: RULES FOR THE STUDY OF HISTORY] + +I shall never again enjoy the opportunity of speaking my thoughts to +such an audience as this, and on so privileged an occasion a lecturer +may well be tempted to bethink himself whether he knows of any +neglected truth, any cardinal proposition, that might serve as his +selected epigraph, as a last signal, perhaps even as a target. I am +not thinking of those shining precepts which are the registered +property of every school; that is to say—Learn as much by writing as +by reading; be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from +the others; have no favourites; keep men and things apart; guard +against the prestige of great names;[86] see that your judgments are +your own, and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without +testing; be more severe to ideas than to actions;[87] do not overlook +the strength of the bad cause or the weakness of the good;[88] never +be surprised by the crumbling of an idol or the disclosure of a +skeleton; judge talent at its best and character at its worst; suspect +power more than vice,[89] and study problems in preference to periods; +for instance: the derivation of Luther, the scientific influence of +Bacon, the predecessors of Adam Smith, the mediæval masters of +Rousseau, the consistency of Burke, the identity of the first Whig. +Most of this, I suppose, is undisputed, and calls for no enlargement. +But the weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never to +debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but +to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to +suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history +has the power to inflict on wrong.[90] The plea in extenuation of +guilt and mitigation of punishment is perpetual. At every step we are +met by arguments which go to excuse, to palliate, to confound right +and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level of the reprobate. The +men who plot to baffle and resist us are, first of all, those who made +history what it has become. They set up the principle that only a +foolish Conservative judges the present time with the ideas of the +Past; that only a foolish Liberal judges the Past with the ideas of +the Present.[91] + +[Sidenote: JUSTIFICATION OF THE PAST] + +The mission of that school was to make distant times, and especially +the middle ages, then most distant of all, intelligible and acceptable +to a society issuing from the eighteenth century. There were +difficulties in the way; and among others this, that, in the first +fervour of the Crusades, the men who took the Cross, after receiving +communion, heartily devoted the day to the extermination of Jews. To +judge them by a fixed standard, to call them sacrilegious fanatics or +furious hypocrites, was to yield a gratuitous victory to Voltaire. It +became a rule of policy to praise the spirit when you could not defend +the deed. So that we have no common code; our moral notions are always +fluid; and you must consider the times, the class from which men +sprang, the surrounding influences, the masters in their schools, the +preachers in their pulpits, the movement they obscurely obeyed, and so +on, until responsibility is merged in numbers, and not a culprit is +left for execution.[92] A murderer was no criminal if he followed +local custom, if neighbours approved, if he was encouraged by +official advisers or prompted by just authority, if he acted for the +reason of state or the pure love of religion, or if he sheltered +himself behind the complicity of the Law. The depression of morality +was flagrant; but the motives were those which have enabled us to +contemplate with distressing complacency the secret of unhallowed +lives. The code that is greatly modified by time and place, will vary +according to the cause. The amnesty is an artifice that enables us to +make exceptions, to tamper with weights and measures, to deal unequal +justice to friends and enemies. + +[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHIES OF HISTORY] + +It is associated with that philosophy which Cato attributes to the +gods. For we have a theory which justifies Providence by the event, +and holds nothing so deserving as success, to which there can be no +victory in a bad cause, prescription and duration legitimate,[93] and +whatever exists is right and reasonable; and as God manifests His will +by that which He tolerates, we must conform to the divine decree by +living to shape the Future after the ratified image of the Past.[94] +Another theory, less confidently urged, regards History as our guide, +as much by showing errors to evade as examples to pursue. It is +suspicious of illusions in success, and, though there may be hope of +ultimate triumph for what is true, if not by its own attraction, by +the gradual exhaustion of error, it admits no corresponding promise +for what is ethically right. It deems the canonisation of the historic +Past more perilous than ignorance or denial, because it would +perpetuate the reign of sin and acknowledge the sovereignty of wrong, +and conceives it the part of real greatness to know how to stand and +fall alone, stemming, for a lifetime, the contemporary flood.[95] + +[Sidenote: DEBASING THE CURRENCY] + +Ranke relates, without adornment, that William III. ordered the +extirpation of a Catholic clan, and scouts the faltering excuse of his +defenders. But when he comes to the death and character of the +international deliverer, Glencoe is forgotten, the imputation of +murder drops, like a thing unworthy of notice.[96] Johannes Mueller, a +great Swiss celebrity, writes that the British Constitution occurred +to somebody, perhaps to Halifax. This artless statement might not be +approved by rigid lawyers as a faithful and felicitous indication of +the manner of that mysterious growth of ages, from occult beginnings, +that was never profaned by the invading wit of man;[97] but it is +less grotesque than it appears. Lord Halifax was the most original +writer of political tracts in the pamphleteering crowd between +Harrington and Bolingbroke; and in the Exclusion struggle he produced +a scheme of limitations which, in substance, if not in form, +foreshadowed the position of the monarchy in the later Hanoverian +reigns. Although Halifax did not believe in the Plot,[98] he insisted +that innocent victims should be sacrificed to content the multitude. +Sir William Temple writes:—“We only disagreed in one point, which was +the leaving some priests to the law upon the accusation of being +priests only, as the House of Commons had desired; which I thought +wholly unjust. Upon this point Lord Halifax and I had so sharp a +debate at Lord Sunderland's lodgings, that he told me, if I would not +concur in points which were so necessary for the people's +satisfaction, he would tell everybody I was a Papist. And upon his +affirming that the plot must be handled as if it were true, whether it +were so or no, in those points that were so generally believed.” In +spite of this accusing passage Macaulay, who prefers Halifax to all +the statesmen of his age, praises him for his mercy: “His dislike of +extremes, and a forgiving and compassionate temper which seems to have +been natural to him, preserved him from all participation in the worst +crimes of his time.” + +[Sidenote: SINFULNESS OF HISTORY] + +[Sidenote: SOVEREIGNTY OF THE MORAL CODE] + +If, in our uncertainty, we must often err, it may be sometimes better +to risk excess in rigour than in indulgence, for then at least we do +no injury by loss of principle. As Bayle has said, it is more probable +that the secret motives of an indifferent action are bad than +good;[99] and this discouraging conclusion does not depend upon +theology, for James Mozley supports the sceptic from the other flank, +with all the artillery of Tractarian Oxford. “A Christian,” he says, +“is bound by his very creed to suspect evil, and cannot release +himself.... He sees it where others do not; his instinct is divinely +strengthened; his eye is supernaturally keen; he has a spiritual +insight, and senses exercised to discern.... He owns the doctrine of +original sin; that doctrine puts him necessarily on his guard against +appearances, sustains his apprehension under perplexity, and prepares +him for recognising anywhere what he knows to be everywhere.”[100] +There is a popular saying of Madame de Staël, that we forgive whatever +we really understand. The paradox has been judiciously pruned by her +descendant, the Duke de Broglie, in the words: “Beware of too much +explaining, lest we end by too much excusing.”[101] History, says +Froude, does teach that right and wrong are real distinctions. +Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral +law is written on the tablets of eternity.[102] And if there are +moments when we may resist the teaching of Froude, we have seldom the +chance of resisting when he is supported by Mr. Goldwin Smith: “A +sound historical morality will sanction strong measures in evil times; +selfish ambition, treachery, murder, perjury, it will never sanction +in the worst of times, for these are the things that make times +evil.—Justice has been justice, mercy has been mercy, honour has been +honour, good faith has been good faith, truthfulness has been +truthfulness from the beginning.” The doctrine that, as Sir Thomas +Browne says, morality is not ambulatory,[103] is expressed as follows +by Burke, who, when true to himself, is the most intelligent of our +instructors: “My principles enable me to form my judgment upon men and +actions in history, just as they do in common life; and are not formed +out of events and characters, either present or past. History is a +preceptor of prudence, not of principles. The principles of true +politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor +ever will admit of any other.”[104] + +[Sidenote: HISTORY AND CHARACTER] + +Whatever a man's notions of these later centuries are, such, in the +main, the man himself will be. Under the name of History, they cover +the articles of his philosophic, his religious, and his political +creed.[105] They give his measure; they denote his character: and, as +praise is the shipwreck of historians, his preferences betray him more +than his aversions. Modern history touches us so nearly, it is so deep +a question of life and death, that we are bound to find our own way +through it, and to owe our insight to ourselves. The historians of +former ages, unapproachable for us in knowledge and in talent, cannot +be our limit. We have the power to be more rigidly impersonal, +disinterested and just than they; and to learn from undisguised and +genuine records to look with remorse upon the past, and to the future +with assured hope of better things; bearing this in mind, that if we +lower our standard in history, we cannot uphold it in Church or +State. + + + + + NOTES + + +[1] No political conclusions of any value for practice can be +arrived at by direct experience. All true political science is, in one +sense of the phrase, _a priori_, being deduced from the tendencies of +things, tendencies known either through our general experience of +human nature, or as the result of an analysis of the course of +history, considered as a progressive evolution.—MILL, _Inaugural +Address_, 51. + +[2] Contemporary history is, in Dr. Arnold's opinion, more +important than either ancient or modern; and in fact superior to it by +all the superiority of the end to the means.—SEELEY, _Lectures and +Essays_, 306. + +[3] The law of all progress is one and the same, the +evolution of the simple into the complex by successive +differentiations.—_Edinburgh Review_, clvii. 428. Die Entwickelung +der Völker vollzieht sich nach zwei Gesetzen. Das erste Gesetz ist das +der Differenzierung. Die primitiven Einrichtungen sind einfach und +einheitlich, die der Civilisation zusammengesetzt und geteilt, und die +Arbeitsteilung nimmt beständig zu.—SICKEL, _Goettingen Gelehrte +Anzeigen_, 1890, 563. + +[4] Nous risquons toujours d'être influencés par les +préjugés de notre époque; mais nous sommes libres des préjugés +particuliers aux époques antérieures.—E. NAVILLE, _Christianisme de +Fénelon_, 9. + +[5] La nature n'est qu'un écho de l'esprit. L'idée est la +mère du fait, elle façonne graduellement le monde à son +image.—FEUCHTERSLEBEN, _in_ CARO, _Nouvelles Études Morales_, 132. Il +n'est pas d'étude morale qui vaille l'histoire d'une idée.—LABOULAYE, +_Liberté Religieuse_, 25. + +[6] Il y a des savants qui raillent le sentiment religieux. +Ils ne savent pas que c'est à ce sentiment, et par son moyen, que la +science historique doit d'avoir pu sortir de l'enfance.... Depuis des +siècles les âmes indépendantes discutaient les textes et les +traditions de l'église, quand les lettrés n'avaient pas encore eu +l'idée de porter un regard critique sur les textes de l'antiquité +mondaine.—_La France Protestante_, ii. 17. + +[7] In our own history, above all, every step in advance has +been at the same time a step backwards. It has often been shown how +our latest constitution is, amidst all external differences, +essentially the same as our earliest, how every struggle for right and +freedom, from the thirteenth century onwards, has simply been a +struggle for recovering something old.—FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_, +iv. 253. Nothing but a thorough knowledge of the social system, based +upon a regular study of its growth, can give us the power we require +to affect it.—HARRISON, _Meaning of History_, 19. Eine Sache wird nur +völlig auf dem Wege verstanden, wie sie selbst entsteht.—In dem +genetischen Verfahren sind die Gründe der Sache, auch die Gründe des +Erkennens.—TRENDELENBURG, _Logische Untersuchungen_, ii. 395, 388. + +[8] Une telle liberté ... n'a rien de commun avec le savant +système de garanties qui fait libres les peuples modernes.—BOUTMY, +_Annales des Sciences Politiques_, i. 157. Les trois grandes réformes +qui ont renouvelé l'Angleterre, la liberté religieuse, la réforme +parlementaire, et la liberté économique, ont été obtenues sous la +pression des organisations extra-constitutionnelles.—OSTROGORSKI, +_Revue Historique_, lii. 272. + +[9] The question which is at the bottom of all constitutional +struggles, the question between the national will and the national +law.—GARDINER, _Documents_, xviii. Religion, considered simply as the +principle which balances the power of human opinion, which takes man +out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and teaches him to refer +himself to a higher tribunal, is an infinite aid to moral strength and +elevation.—CHANNING, _Works_, iv. 83. Je tiens que le passé ne suffit +jamais au présent. Personne n'est plus disposé que moi à profiter de +ses leçons; mais en même temps, je le demande, le présent ne +fournit-il pas toujours les indications qui lui sont propres?—MOLÉ, +_in_ FALLOUX, _Études et Souvenirs_, 130. Admirons la sagesse de nos +pères, et tachons de l'imiter, en faisant ce qui convient à notre +siècle.—GALIANI, _Dialogues_, 40. + +[10] Ceterum in legendis Historiis malim te ductum animi, +quam anxias leges sequi. Nullae sunt, quae non magnas habeant +utilitates; et melius haerent, quae libenter legimus. In universum +tamen, non incipere ab antiquissimis, sed ab his, quae nostris +temporibus nostraeque notitiae propius cohaerent, ac paulatim deinde +in remotiora eniti, magis è re arbitror.—GROTIUS, _Epistolæ_, 18. + +[11] The older idea of a law of degeneracy, of a “fatal drift +towards the worse,” is as obsolete as astrology or the belief in +witchcraft. The human race has become hopeful, sanguine.—SEELEY, +_Rede Lecture_, 1887. _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1887, 124. + +[12] Formuler des idées générales, c'est changer le salpêtre +en poudre.—A. DE MUSSET, _Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle_, 15. Les +révolutions c'est l'avènement des idées libérales. C'est presque +toujours par les révolutions qu'elles prévalent et se fondent, et +quand les idées libérales en sont véritablement le principe et le but, +quand elles leur ont donné naissance, et quand elles les couronnent à +leur dernier jour, alors ces révolutions sont légitimes.—RÉMUSAT, +1839, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1875, vi. 335. Il y a même des +personnes de piété qui prouvent par raison qu'il faut renoncer à la +raison; que ce n'est point la lumière, mais la foi seule qui doit nous +conduire, et que l'obéissance aveugle est la principale vertu des +chrétiens. La paresse des inférieurs et leur esprit flatteur +s'accommode souvent de cette vertu prétendue, et l'orgueil de ceux qui +commandent en est toujours très content. De sorte qu'il se trouvera +peut-être des gens qui seront scandalisés que je fasse cet honneur à +la raison, de l'élever au-dessus de toutes les puissances, et qui +s'imagineront que je me révolte contre les autorités légitimes à cause +que je prends son parti et que je soutiens que c'est à elle à décider +et à regner.—MALEBRANCHE, _Morale_, i. 2, 13. That great statesman +(Mr. Pitt) distinctly avowed that the application of philosophy to +politics was at that time an innovation, and that it was an innovation +worthy to be adopted. He was ready to make the same avowal in the +present day which Mr. Pitt had made in 1792.—CANNING, June 1, 1827. +_Parliamentary Review_, 1828, 71. American history knows but one +avenue of success in American legislation, freedom from ancient +prejudice. The best lawgivers in our colonies first became as little +children.—BANCROFT, _History of the United States_, i. 494.—Every +American, from Jefferson and Gallatin down to the poorest squatter, +seemed to nourish an idea that he was doing what he could to overthrow +the tyranny which the past had fastened on the human mind.—ADAMS, +_History of the United States_, i. 175. + +[13] The greatest changes of which we have had experience as +yet are due to our increasing knowledge of history and nature. They +have been produced by a few minds appearing in three or four favoured +nations, in comparatively a short period of time. May we be allowed to +imagine the minds of men everywhere working together during many ages +for the completion of our knowledge? May not the increase of knowledge +transfigure the world?—JOWETT, _Plato_, i. 414. Nothing, I believe, +is so likely to beget in us a spirit of enlightened liberality, of +Christian forbearance, of large-hearted moderation, as the careful study +of the history of doctrine and the history of interpretation.—PEROWNE, +_Psalms_, i. p. xxxi. + +[14] Ce n'est guère avant la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle +qu'il devint impossible de soutenir l'authenticité des fausses +décrétales, des Constitutions apostoliques, des Récognitions +Clémentines, du faux Ignace, du pseudo-Dionys, et de l'immense fatras +d'œuvres anonymes ou pseudonymes qui grossissait souvent du tiers +ou de la moitié l'héritage littéraire des auteurs les plus +considérables.—DUCHESNE, _Témoins anténicéens de la Trinité_, 1883, +36. + +[15] A man who does not know what has been thought by those +who have gone before him is sure to set an undue value upon his own +ideas.—M. PATTISON, _Memoirs_, 78. + +[16] Travailler à discerner, dans cette discipline, le solide +d'avec le frivole, le vrai d'avec le vraisemblable, la science d'avec +l'opinion, ce qui forme le jugement d'avec ce qui ne fait que charger +la mémoire.—LAMY, _Connoissance de soi-même_, v. 459. + +[17] All our hopes of the future depend on a sound +understanding of the past.—HARRISON, _The Meaning of History_, 6. + +[18] The real history of mankind is that of the slow advance +of resolved deed following laboriously just thought; and all the +greatest men live in their purpose and effort more than it is possible +for them to live in reality.—The things that actually happened were +of small consequence—the thoughts that were developed are of infinite +consequence.—RUSKIN. Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from +the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among +them like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its value.—MACAULAY, +_Works_, v. 131. + +[19] Die Gesetze der Geschichte sind eben die Gesetze der +ganzen Menschheit, gehen nicht in die Geschicke eines Volkes, einer +Generation oder gar eines Einzelnen auf. Individuen und Geschlechter, +Staaten und Nationen, können zerstäuben, die Menschheit bleibt.—A. +SCHMIDT, _Züricher Monatschrift_. i. 45. + +[20] Le grand péril des âges démocratiques, soyez-en sûr, +c'est la destruction ou l'affaiblissement excessif des parties du +corps social en présence du tout. Tout ce qui relève de nos jours +l'idée de l'individu est sain.—TOCQUEVILLE, Jan. 3, 1840, +_Œuvres_, vii. 97. En France, il n'y a plus d'hommes. On a +systématiquement tué l'homme au profit du peuple, des masses, comme +disent nos législateurs écervelés. Puis un beau jour, on s'est aperçu +que ce peuple n'avait jamais existé qu'en projet, que ces masses +étaient un troupeau mi-partie de moutons et de tigres. C'est une +triste histoire. Nous avons à relever l'âme humaine contre l'aveugle +et brutale tyrannie des multitudes.—LANFREY, March 23, 1855. M. DU +CAMP, _Souvenirs Littéraires_, ii. 273. C'est le propre de la vertu +d'être invisible, même dans l'histoire, à tout autre œil que celui +de la conscience.—VACHEROT, _Comptes Rendus de l'Institut_, lxix. +319. Dans l'histoire où la bonté est la perle rare, qui a été bon +passe presque avant qui a été grand.—V. HUGO, _Les Misérables_, vii. +46. Grosser Maenner Leben und Tod der Wahrheit gemaess mit Liebe zu +schildern, ist zu allen Zeiten herzerhebend; am meisten aber dann, +wenn im Kreislauf der irdischen Dinge die Sterne wieder aehnlich +stehen wie damals als sie unter uns lebten.—LASAULX, _Sokrates_, 3. +Instead of saying that the history of mankind is the history of the +masses, it would be much more true to say that the history of mankind +is the history of its great men.—KINGSLEY, _Lectures_, 329. + +[21] Le génie n'est que la plus complète émancipation de +toutes les influences de temps, de mœurs, et de pays.—NISARD, +_Souvenirs_, ii. 43. + +[22] Meine kritische Richtung zieht mich in der Wissenschaft +durchaus zur Kritik meiner eigenen Gedanken hin, nicht zu der der +Gedanken Anderer.—ROTHE, _Ethik_, i., p. xi. + +[23] When you are in young years the whole mind is, as it +were, fluid, and is capable of forming itself into any shape that the +owner of the mind pleases to order it to form itself into.—CARLYLE, +_On the Choice of Books_, 131. Nach allem erscheint es somit +unzweifelhaft als eine der psychologischen Voraussetzungen des +Strafrechts, ohne welche der Zurechnungsbegriff nicht haltbar wäre, +dass der Mensch für seinen Charakter verantwortlich ist und ihn muss +abändern können.—RÜMELIN, _Reden und Aufsätze_, ii., 60. An der +tiefen und verborgenen Quelle, woraus der Wille entspringt, an diesem +Punkt, nur hier steht die Freiheit, und führt das Steuer und lenkt den +Willen. Wer nicht bis zu dieser Tiefe in sich einkehren und seinen +natürlichen Charakter von hier aus bemeistern kann, der hat nicht den +Gebrauch seiner Freiheit, der ist nicht frei, sondern unterworfen dem +Triebwerk seiner Interessen, und dadurch in der Gewalt des Weltlaufs, +worin jede Begebenheit und jede Handlung eine nothwendige Folge ist +aller vorhergehenden.—FISCHER, _Problem der Freiheit_, 27. + +[24] I must regard the main duty of a Professor to consist, +not simply in communicating information, but in doing this in such a +manner, and with such an accompaniment of subsidiary means, that the +information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to +a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties.—SIR W. HAMILTON, +_Lectures_, i. 14. No great man really does his work by imposing his +maxims on his disciples, he evokes their life. The pupil may become +much wiser than his instructor, he may not accept his conclusions, but +he will own, “You awakened me to be myself, for that I thank +you.”—MAURICE, _The Conscience_, 7, 8. + +[25] Ich sehe die Zeit kommen, wo wir die neuere Geschichte +nicht mehr auf die Berichte selbst nicht der gleichzeitigen +Historiker, ausser in so weit ihnen neue originale Kenntniss +beiwohnte, geschweige denn auf die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen +zu gründen haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen und der +ächten und unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE, +_Reformation_, _Preface_, 1838. Ce qu'on a trouvé et mis en œuvre +est considérable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste à +trouver et à mettre en œuvre.—AULARD, _Études sur la Révolution_, +21. + +[26] N'attendez donc pas les leçons de l'expérience; elles +coûtent trop cher aux nations.—O. BARROT, _Mémoires_, ii. 435. Il y a +des leçons dans tous les temps, pour tous les temps; et celles qu'on +emprunte à des ennemis ne sont pas les moins précieuses.—LANFREY, +_Napoléon_, v. p. ii. Old facts may always be fresh, and may give out +a fresh meaning for each generation.—MAURICE, _Lectures_, 62. The +object is to lead the student to attend to them; to make him take +interest in history not as a mere narrative, but as a chain of causes +and effects still unwinding itself before our eyes, and full of +momentous consequences to himself and his descendants—an unremitting +conflict between good and evil powers, of which every act done by any +one of us, insignificant as we are, forms one of the incidents; a +conflict in which even the smallest of us cannot escape from taking +part, in which whoever does not help the right side is helping the +wrong.—MILL, _Inaugural Address_, 59. + +[27] I hold that the degree in which Poets dwell in sympathy +with the Past, marks exactly the degree of their poetical +faculty.—WORDSWORTH in C. FOX, _Memoirs_, June, 1842. In all +political, all social, all human questions whatever, history is the +main resource of the inquirer.—HARRISON, _Meaning of History_, 15. +There are no truths which more readily gain the assent of mankind, or +are more firmly retained by them, than those of an historical nature, +depending upon the testimony of others.—PRIESTLEY, _Letters to French +Philosophers_, 9. Improvement consists in bringing our opinions into +nearer agreement with facts; and we shall not be likely to do this +while we look at facts only through glasses coloured by those very +opinions.—MILL, _Inaugural Address_, 25. + +[28] He who has learnt to understand the true character and +tendency of many succeeding ages is not likely to go very far wrong in +estimating his own.—LECKY, _Value of History_, 21. C'est à l'histoire +qu'il faut se prendre, c'est le fait que nous devons interroger, quand +l'idée vacille et fuit à nos yeux.—MICHELET, _Disc. d'Ouverture_, +263. C'est la loi des faits telle qu'elle se manifeste dans leur +succession. C'est la règle de conduite donnée par la nature humaine et +indiquée par l'histoire. C'est la logique, mais cette logique qui ne +fait qu'un avec l'enchaînement des choses. C'est l'enseignement de +l'expérience.—SCHERER, _Mélanges_, 558. Wer seine Vergangenheit nicht +als seine Geschichte hat und weiss wird und ist characterlos Wem ein +Ereigniss sein Sonst plötzlich abreisst von seinem Jetzt wird leicht +wurzellos.—KLIEFOTH, _Rheinwalds Repertorium_, xliv. 20. La politique +est une des meilleures écoles pour l'esprit. Elle force à chercher la +raison de toutes choses, et ne permet pas cependant de la chercher +hors des faits.—RÉMUSAT, _Le Temps Passé_, i. 31. It is an unsafe +partition that divides opinions without principle from unprincipled +opinions.—COLERIDGE, _Lay Sermon_, 373. + + Wer nicht von drei tausend Jahren sich weiss Rechenschaft zu geben, + Bleib' im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag zu Tage leben! + + GOETHE. + +What can be rationally required of the student of philosophy is not a +preliminary and absolute, but a gradual and progressive, abrogation of +prejudices.—SIR W. HAMILTON, _Lectures_, iv. 92. + +[29] Die Schlacht bei Leuthen ist wohl die letzte, in welcher +diese religiösen Gegensätze entscheidend eingewirkt haben.—RANKE, +_Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_, vii. 70. + +[30] The only real cry in the country is the proper and just +old No Popery cry.—_Major Beresford_, July, 1847. Unfortunately the +strongest bond of union amongst them is an apprehension of +Popery.—_Stanley_, September 12, 1847. The great Protectionist party +having degenerated into a No Popery, No Jew Party, I am still more +unfit now than I was in 1846 to lead it.—_G. Bentinck_, December 26, +1847. _Croker's Memoirs_, iii. 116, 132, 157. + +[31] In the case of Protestantism, this constitutional +instability is now a simple matter of fact, which has become too plain +to be denied. The system is not fixed, but in motion; and the motion +is for the time in the direction of complete self-dissolution.—We +take it for a transitory scheme, whose breaking up is to make room in +due time for another and far more perfect state of the Church.—The +new order in which Protestantism is to become thus complete cannot be +reached without the co-operation and help of Romanism.—NEVIN, +_Mercersburg Review_, iv. 48. + +[32] Diese Heiligen waren es, die aus dem unmittelbaren +Glaubensleben und den Grundgedanken der christlichen Freiheit zuerst +die Idee allgemeiner Menschenrechte abgeleitet und rein von +Selbstsucht vertheidigt haben.—WEINGARTEN, _Revolutionskirchen_, 447. +Wie selbst die Idee allgemeiner Menschenrechte, die in dem gemeinsamen +Character der Ebenbildlichkeit Gottes gegründet sind, erst durch das +Christenthum zum Bewusstsein gebracht werden, während jeder andere +Eifer für politische Freiheit als ein mehr oder weniger +selbstsüchtiger und beschränkter sich erwiesen hat.—NEANDER, _Pref. +to Uhden's Wilberforce_, p. v. The rights of individuals and the +justice due to them are as dear and precious as those of states; +indeed the latter are founded on the former, and the great end and +object of them must be to secure and support the rights of +individuals, or else vain is government.—CUSHING in CONWAY, _Life of +Paine_, i. 217. As it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not +yet understood; so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the +restitution of all things, and without miraculous interpositions, it +must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at—by the +continuance and progress of learning and liberty.—BUTLER, _Analogy_, +ii. 3. + +[33] Comme les lois elles-mêmes sont faillibles, et qu'il +peut y avoir une autre justice que la justice écrite, les sociétés +modernes ont voulu garantir les droits de la conscience à la poursuite +d'une justice meilleure que celle qui existe; et là est le fondement +de ce qu'on appelle liberté de conscience, liberté d'écrire, liberté +de pensée.—JANET, _Philosophie Contemporaine_, 308. Si la force +matérielle a toujours fini par céder à l'opinion, combien plus ne +sera-t-elle pas contrainte de céder à la conscience? Car la +conscience, c'est l'opinion renforcée par le sentiment de +l'obligation.—VINET, _Liberté Religieuse_, 3. + +[34] Après la volonté d'un homme, la raison d'état; après la +raison d'état, la religion; après la religion, la liberté. Voilà toute +la philosophie de l'histoire.—FLOTTES, _La Souveraineté du Peuple_, +1851, 192. La répartition plus égale des biens et des droits dans ce +monde est le plus grand objet que doivent se proposer ceux qui mènent +les affaires humaines. Je veux seulement que l'égalité en politique +consiste à être également libre.—TOCQUEVILLE, September 10, 1856. +_Mme. Swetchine_, i. 455. On peut concevoir une législation très +simple, lorsqu'on voudra en écarter tout ce qui est arbitraire, ne +consulter que les deux premières lois de la liberté et de la +propriété, et ne point admettre de lois positives qui ne tirent leur +raison de ces deux lois souveraines de la justice essentielle et +absolue.—LETROSNE, _Vues sur la Justice Criminelle_, 16. Summa enim +libertas est, ad optimum recta ratione cogi.—Nemo optat sibi hanc +libertatem, volendi quae velit, sed potius volendi optima.—LEIBNIZ, +_De Fato_. TRENDELENBURG, _Beiträge zur Philosophie_, ii. 190. + +[35] All the world is, by the very law of its creation, in +eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world may be +traced to that natural, but most deadly error of human indolence and +corruption, that our business is to preserve and not to +improve.—ARNOLD, _Life_, i. 259. In whatever state of knowledge we +may conceive man to be placed, his progress towards a yet higher state +need never fear a check, but must continue till the last existence of +society.—HERSCHEL, _Prel. Dis._, 360. It is in the development of +thought as in every other development; the present suffers from the +past, and the future struggles hard in escaping from the +present.—MAX MÜLLER, _Science of Thought_, 617. Most of the great +positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if +human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow +limits. Poverty in any sense implying suffering may be completely +extinguished by the wisdom of society combined with the good sense and +providence of individuals.—All the grand sources, in short, of human +suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, +conquerable by human care and effort.—J. S. MILL, _Utilitarianism_, +21, 22. The ultimate standard of worth is personal worth, and the only +progress that is worth striving after, the only acquisition that is +truly good and enduring, is the growth of the soul.—BIXBY, _Crisis of +Morals_, 210. La science, et l'industrie qu'elle produit, ont, parmi +tous les autres enfants du génie de l'homme, ce privilège particulier, +que leur vol non-seulement ne peut pas s'interrompre, mais qu'il +s'accélère sans cesse.—CUVIER, _Discours sur la Marche des Sciences_, +24 Avril, 1816. Aucune idée parmi celles qui se réfèrent à l'ordre des +faits naturels, ne tient de plus près à la famille des idées +religieuses que l'idée du progrès, et n'est plus propre à devenir le +principe d'une sorte de foi religieuse pour ceux qui n'en ont pas +d'autres. Elle a, comme la foi religieuse, la vertu de relever les +âmes et les caractères.—COURNOT, _Marche des Idées_, ii. 425. Dans le +spectacle de l'humanité errante, souffrante et travaillant toujours à +mieux voir, à mieux penser, à mieux agir, à diminuer l'infirmité de +l'être humain, à apaiser l'inquiétude de son cœur, la science +découvre une direction et un progrès.—A. SOREL, _Discours de +Réception_, 14. Le jeune homme qui commence son éducation quinze ans +après son père, à une époque où celui-ci, engagé dans une profession +spéciale et active, ne peut que suivre les anciens principes, acquiert +une supériorité théorique dont on doit tenir compte dans la hiérarchie +sociale. Le plus souvent le père n'est-il pas pénétré de l'esprit de +routine, tandis que le fils représente et défend la science +progressive? En diminuant l'écart qui existait entre l'influence des +jeunes générations et celle de la vieillesse ou de l'âge mûr, les +peuples modernes n'auraient donc fait que reproduire dans leur ordre +social un changement de rapports qui s'était déjà accompli dans la +nature intime des choses.—BOUTMY, _Revue Nationale_, xxi. 393. Il y a +dans l'homme individuel des principes de progrès viager; il y a, en +toute société, des causes constantes qui transforment ce progrès +viager en progrès héréditaire. Une société quelconque tend à +progresser tant que les circonstances ne touchent pas aux causes de +progrès que nous avons reconnues, l'imitation des dévanciers par les +successeurs, des étrangers par les indigènes.—LACOMBE, _L'Histoire +comme Science_, 292. Veram creatæ mentis beatitudinem consistere in +non impedito progressu ad bona majora.—LEIBNIZ to WOLF, February 21, +1705. In cumulum etiam pulchritudinis perfectionisque universalis +operum divinorum progressus quidam perpetuus liberrimusque totius +universi est agnoscendus, ita ut ad majorem semper cultum +procedat.—LEIBNIZ ed. Erdmann, 150_a_. Der Creaturen und also auch +unsere Vollkommenheit bestehet in einem ungehinderten starken +Forttrieb zu neuen und neuen Vollkommenheiten.—LEIBNIZ, _Deutsche +Schriften_, ii. 36. Hegel, welcher annahm, der Fortschritt der Neuzeit +gegen das Mittelalter sei dieser, dass die Principien der Tugend und +des Christenthums, welche im Mittelalter sich allein im Privatleben +und der Kirche zur Geltung gebracht hätten, nun auch anfingen, das +politische Leben zu durchdringen.—FORTLAGE, _Allg. Monatschrift_, +1853, 777. Wir Slawen wissen, dass die Geister einzelner Menschen und +ganzer Völker sich nur durch die Stufe ihrer Entwicklung +unterscheiden.—MICKIEWICZ, _Slawische Literatur_, ii. 436. Le progrès +ne disparait jamais, mais il se déplace souvent. Il va des gouvernants +aux gouvernés. La tendance des révolutions est de le ramener toujours +parmi les gouvernants. Lorsqu'il est à la tête des sociétés, il marche +hardiment, car il conduit. Lorsqu'il est dans la masse, il marche à +pas lents, car il lutte.—NAPOLEON III., _Des Idées Napoléoniennes_. +La loi du progrès avait jadis l'inexorable rigueur du destin; elle +prend maintenant de jour en jour la douce puissance de la Providence. +C'est l'erreur, c'est l'iniquité, c'est le vice, que la civilisation +tend à emporter dans sa marche irrésistible; mais la vie des individus +et des peuples est devenue pour elle une chose sacrée. Elle transforme +plutôt qu'elle ne détruit les choses qui s'opposent à son +développement; elle procède par absorption graduelle plutôt que par +brusque exécution; elle aime à conquérir par l'influence des idées +plutôt que par la force des armes, un peuple, une classe, une +institution qui résiste au progrès.—VACHEROT, _Essais de Philosophie +Critique_, 443. Peu à peu l'homme intellectuel finit par effacer +l'homme physique.—QUETELET, _De l'Homme_, ii. 285. In dem Fortschritt +der ethischen Anschauungen liegt daher der Kern des geschichtlichen +Fortschritts überhaupt.—SCHÄFER, _Arbeitsgebiet der Geschichte_, 24. +Si l'homme a plus de devoirs à mesure qu'il avance en âge, ce qui est +mélancolique, mais ce qui est vrai, de même aussi l'humanité est tenue +d'avoir une morale plus sévère à mesure qu'elle prend plus de +siècles.—FAGUET, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1894, iii. 871. Si donc il +y a une loi de progrès, elle se confond avec la loi morale, et la +condition fondamentale du progrès, c'est la pratique de cette +loi.—CARRAU, _Ib._, 1875, v. 585. L'idée du progrès, du +développement, me paraît être l'idée fondamentale contenue sous le mot +de civilisation.—GUIZOT, _Cours d'Histoire_, 1828, 15. Le progrès +n'est sous un autre nom, que la liberté en action.—BROGLIE, _Journal +des Débats_, January 28, 1869. Le progrès social est continu. Il a ses +périodes de fièvre ou d'atonie, de surexcitation ou de léthargie; il a +ses soubresauts et ses haltes, mais il avance toujours.—DE DECKER, +_La Providence_, 174. Ce n'est pas au bonheur seul, c'est au +perfectionnement que notre destin nous appelle; et la liberté +politique est le plus puissant, le plus énergique moyen de +perfectionnement que le ciel nous ait donné.—B. CONSTANT, _Cours de +Politique_, ii. 559. To explode error, on whichever side it lies, is +certainly to secure progress.—MARTINEAU, _Essays_, i. 114. Die +sämmtlichen Freiheitsrechte, welche der heutigen Menschheit so theuer sind, +sind im Grunde nur Anwendungen des Rechts der Entwickelung.—BLUNTSCHLI, +_Kleine Schriften_, i. 51. Geistiges Leben ist auf Freiheit beruhende +Entwicklung, mit Freiheit vollzogene That und geschichtlicher +Fortschritt.—_Münchner Gel. Anzeigen_ 1849, ii. 83. Wie das Denken +erst nach und nach reift, so wird auch der freie Wille nicht fertig +geboren, sondern in der Entwickelung erworben.—TRENDELENBURG, +_Logische Untersuchungen_, ii. 94. Das Liberum Arbitrium im vollen +Sinne (die vollständig aktuelle Macht der Selbstbestimmung) lässt sich +seinem Begriff zufolge schlechterdings nicht unmittelbar geben; es +kann nur erworben werden durch das Subjekt selbst, in sich moralisch +hervorgebracht werden kraft seiner eigenen Entwickelung.—ROTHE, +_Ethik_, i. 360. So gewaltig sei der Andrang der Erfindungen und +Entdeckungen, dass “Entwicklungsperioden, die in früheren Zeiten erst +in Jahrhunderten durchlaufen wurden, die im Beginn unserer Zeitperiode +noch der Jahrzehnte bedurften, sich heute in Jahren volienden, häufig +schon in voller Ausbildung ins Dasein treten.”—PHILIPPOVICH, +_Fortschritt und Kulturentwicklung_, 1892, i. quoting SIEMENS, 1886. +Wir erkennen dass dem Menschen die schwere körperliche Arbeit, von der +er in seinem Kampfe um's Dasein stets schwer niedergedrückt war und +grossenteils noch ist, mehr und mehr durch die wachsende Benutzung der +Naturkräfte zur mechanischen Arbeitsleistung abgenommen wird, dass +die ihm zufallende Arbeit immer mehr eine intellektuelle +wird.—SIEMENS, 1886, _Ib._ 6. + +[36] Once, however, he wrote:—Darin könnte man den idealen +Kern der Geschichte des menschlichen Geschlechtes überhaupt sehen, +dass in den Kämpfen, die sich in den gegenseitigen Interessen der +Staaten und Völker vollziehen, doch immer höhere Potenzen emporkommen, +die das Allgemeine demgemäss umgestalten und ihm wieder einen anderen +Charakter verleihen.—RANKE, _Weltgeschichte_, iii. 1, 6. + +[37] Toujours et partout, les hommes furent de plus en plus +dominés par l'ensemble de leurs prédécesseurs, dont ils purent +seulement modifier l'empire nécessaire.—COMTE, _Politique Positive_, +iii. 621. + +[38] La liberté est l'âme du commerce.—Il faut laisser faire +les hommes qui s'appliquent sans peine à ce qui convient le mieux; +c'est ce qui apporte le plus d'avantage.—COLBERT, in _Comptes Rendus +de l'Institut_, xxxix. 93. + +[39] Il n'y a que les choses humaines exposées dans leur +vérité, c'est-à-dire avec leur grandeur, leur variété, leur +inépuisable fécondité, qui aient le droit de retenir le lecteur et qui +le retiennent en effet. Si l'écrivain paraît une fois, il ennuie ou +fait sourire de pitié les lecteurs sérieux.—THIERS to STE. BEUVE, +_Lundis_, iii. 195. Comme l'a dit Taine, la disparition du style, +c'est la perfection du style.—FAGUET, _Revue Politique_, lii. 67. + +[40] Ne m'applaudissez pas; ce n'est pas moi qui vous parle; +c'est l'histoire qui parle par ma bouche.—_Revue Historique_, xli. +278. + +[41] Das Evangelium trat als Geschichte in die Welt, nicht +als Dogma—wurde als Geschichte in der christlichen Kirche +deponirt.—ROTHE, _Kirchengeschichte_, ii. p. x. Das Christenthum ist +nicht der Herr Christus, sondern dieser macht es. Es ist sein Werk, +und zwar ein Werk das er stets unter der Arbeit hat.—Er selbst, +Christus der Herr, bleibt der er ist in alle Zukunft, dagegen liegt es +ausdrücklich im Begriffe seines Werks, des Christenthums, dass es +nicht so bleibt wie es anhebt.—ROTHE, _Allgemeine kirchliche +Zeitschrift_, 1864, 299. Diess Werk, weil es dem Wesen der Geschichte +zufolge eine Entwickelung ist, muss über Stufen hinweggehen, die +einander ablösen, und von denen jede folgende neue immer nur unter der +Zertrümmerung der ihr vorangehenden Platz greifen kann.—ROTHE, _Ib._ +April 19, 1865. Je grösser ein geschichtliches Princip ist, desto +langsamer und über mehr Stufen hinweg entfaltet es seinen Gehalt; +desto langlebiger ist es aber ebendeshalb auch in diesen seinen +unaufhörlichen Abwandelungen.—ROTHE, _Stille Stunden_, 301. Der +christliche Glaube geht nicht von der Anerkennung abstracter +Lehrwahrheiten aus, sondern von der Anerkennung einer Reihe von +Thatsachen, die in der Erscheinung Jesu ihren Mittelpunkt +haben.—NITZSCH, _Dogmengeschichte_, i. 17. Der Gedankengang der +evangelischen Erzählung gibt darum auch eine vollständige Darstellung +der christlichen Lehre in ihren wesentlichen Grundzügen; aber er gibt +sie im allseitigen lebendigen Zusammenhange mit der Geschichte der +christlichen Offenbarung, und nicht in einer theoretisch +zusammenhängenden Folgenreihe von ethischen und dogmatischen +Lehrsätzen.—DEUTINGER, _Reich Gottes_, i. p. v. + +[42] L'Univers ne doit pas estre considéré seulement dans ce +qu'il est; pour le bien connoître, il faut le voir aussi dans ce qu'il +doit estre. C'est cet avenir surtout qui a été le grand objet de Dieu +dans la création, et c'est pour cet avenir seul que le présent +existe.—D'HOUTEVILLE, _Essai sur la Providence_, 273. La Providence +emploie les siècles à élever toujours un plus grand nombre de familles +et d'individus à ces biens de la liberté et de l'égalité légitimes +que, dans l'enfance des sociétés, la force avait rendus le privilège +de quelques-uns.—GUIZOT, _Gouvernement de la France_, 1820, 9. La +marche de la Providence n'est pas assujettie à d'étroites limites; +elle ne s'inquiète pas de tirer aujourd'hui la conséquence du principe +qu'elle a posé hier; elle la tirera dans des siècles, quand l'heure +sera venue; et pour raisonner lentement selon nous, sa logique n'est +pas moins sûre.—GUIZOT, _Histoire de la Civilisation_, 20. Der Keim +fortschreitender Entwicklung ist, auch auf göttlichem Geheisse, der +Menschheit eingepflanzt. Die Weltgeschichte ist der blosse Ausdruck +einer vorbestimmten Entwicklung.—A. HUMBOLDT, January 2, 1842, _Im +Neuen Reich_, 1872, i. 197. Das historisch grosse ist religiös gross; +es ist die Gottheit selbst, die sich offenbart.—RAUMER, April 1807, +_Erinnerungen_, i. 85. + +[43] Je suis arrivé à l'âge où je suis, à travers bien des +évènements différents, mais avec une seule cause, celle de la liberté +régulière.—TOCQUEVILLE, May 1, 1852, _Œuvres Inédites_, ii. 185. +Me trouvant dans un pays où la religion et le libéralisme sont +d'accord, j'avais respiré.—J'exprimais ce sentiment, il y a plus de +vingt ans, dans l'avant-propos de la _Démocratie_. Je l'éprouve +aujourd'hui aussi vivement que si j'étais encore jeune, et je ne sais +s'il y a une seule pensée qui ait été plus constamment présente à mon +esprit.—August 5, 1857, _Œuvres_, vi. 395. Il n'y a que la liberté +(j'entends la modérée et la régulière) et la religion, qui, par un +effort combiné, puissent soulever les hommes au-dessus du bourbier où +l'égalité démocratique les plonge naturellement.—December 1, 1852, +_Œuvres_, vii. 295. L'un de mes rêves, le principal en entrant dans +la vie politique, était de travailler à concilier l'esprit libéral et +l'esprit de religion, la société nouvelle et l'église.—November 15, +1843, _Œuvres Inédites_, ii. 121. La véritable grandeur de l'homme +n'est que dans l'accord du sentiment libéral et du sentiment +religieux.—September 17, 1853, _Œuvres Inédites_, ii. 228. Qui +cherche dans la liberté autre chose qu'elle-même est fait pour +servir.—_Ancien Régime_, 248. Je regarde, ainsi que je l'ai toujours +fait, la liberté comme le premier des biens; je vois toujours en elle +l'une des sources les plus fécondes des vertus mâles et des actions +grandes. Il n'y a pas de tranquillité ni de bien-être qui puisse me +tenir lieu d'elle.—January 7, 1856, _Mme. Swetchine_, i. 452. La +liberté a un faux air d'aristocratie; en donnant pleine carrière aux +facultés humaines, en encourageant le travail et l'économie, elle fait +ressortir les supériorités naturelles ou acquises.—LABOULAYE, _L'État +et ses Limites_, 154. Dire que la liberté n'est point par elle-même, +qu'elle dépend d'une situation, d'une opportunité, c'est lui assigner +une valeur négative. La liberté n'est pas dès qu'on la subordonne. +Elle n'est pas un principe purement négatif, un simple élément de +contrôle et de critique. Elle est le principe actif, créateur +organisateur par excellence. Elle est le moteur et la règle, la source +de toute vie, et le principe de l'ordre. Elle est, en un mot, le nom +que prend la conscience souveraine, lorsque, se posant en face du +monde social et politique, elle émerge du moi pour modeler les +sociétés sur les données de la raison.—BRISSON, _Revue Nationale_, +xxiii. 214. Le droit, dans l'histoire, est le développement progressif +de la liberté, sous la loi de la raison.—LERMINIER, _Philosophie du +Droit_, i. 211. En prouvant par les leçons de l'histoire que la +liberté fait vivre les peuples et que le despotisme les tue, en +montrant que l'expiation suit la faute et que la fortune finit +d'ordinaire par se ranger du côté de la vertu, Montesquieu n'est ni +moins moral ni moins religieux que Bossuet.—LABOULAYE, _Œuvres de +Montesquieu_, ii. 109. Je ne comprendrais pas qu'une nation ne plaçât +pas les libertés politiques au premier rang, parce que c'est des +libertés politiques que doivent découler toutes les autres.—THIERS, +_Discours_, x. 8, _March_ 28, 1865. Nous sommes arrivés à une époque +où la liberté est le but sérieux de tous, où le reste n'est plus +qu'une question de moyens.—J. LEBEAU, _Observations sur le Pouvoir +Royal_: Liége, 1830, p. 10. Le libéralisme, ayant la prétention de se +fonder uniquement sur les principes de la raison, croit d'ordinaire +n'avoir pas besoin de tradition. Là est son erreur. L'erreur de +l'école libérale est d'avoir trop cru qu'il est facile de créer la +liberté par la réflexion, et de n'avoir pas vu qu'un établissement +n'est solide que quand il a des racines historiques.—RENAN, 1858, +_Nouvelle Revue_, lxxix. 596. Le respect des individus et des droits +existants est autant au-dessus du bonheur de tous, qu'un intérêt moral +surpasse un intérêt purement temporel.—RENAN, 1858, _Ib._ lxxix. 597. +Die Rechte gelten nichts, wo es sich handelt um das Recht, und das +Recht der Freiheit kann nie verjähren, weil es die Quelle alles +Rechtes selbst ist.—C. FRANTZ, _Ueber die Freiheit_, 110. Wir +erfahren hienieden nie die ganze Wahrheit: wir geniessen nie die ganze +Freiheit.—REUSS, _Reden_, 56. Le gouvernement constitutionnel, comme +tout gouvernement libre, présente et doit présenter un état de lutte +permanent. La liberté est la perpétuité de la lutte.—DE SERRE. +BROGLIE, _Nouvelles Études_, 243. The experiment of free government is +not one which can be tried once for all. Every generation must try it +for itself. As each new generation starts up to the responsibilities +of manhood, there is, as it were, a new launch of Liberty, and its +voyage of experiment begins afresh.—WINTHROP, _Addresses_, 163. +L'histoire perd son véritable caractère du moment que la liberté en a +disparu; elle devient une sorte de physique sociale. C'est l'élément +personnel de l'histoire qui en fait la réalité.—VACHEROT, _Revue des +Deux Mondes_, 1869, iv. 215. Demander la liberté pour soi et la +refuser aux autres, c'est la définition du despotisme.—LABOULAYE, +December 4, 1874. Les causes justes profitent de tout, des bonnes +intentions comme des mauvaises, des calculs personnels comme des +dévouemens courageux, de la démence, enfin, comme de la raison.—B. +CONSTANT, _Les Cent Jours_, ii. 29. Sie ist die Kunst, das Gute der +schon weit gediehenen Civilisation zu sichern.—BALTISCH, _Politische +Freiheit_, 9. In einem Volke, welches sich zur bürgerlichen +Gesellschaft, überhaupt zum Bewusstseyn der Unendlichkeit des +Freien—entwickelt hat, ist nur die constitutionelle Monarchie +möglich.—HEGEL'S _Philosophie des Rechts_, § 137, _Hegel und +Preussen_, 1841, 31. Freiheit ist das höchste Gut. Alles andere ist +nur das Mittel dazu: gut falls es ein Mittel dazu ist, übel falls es +dieselbe hemmt.—FICHTE, _Werke_, iv. 403. You are not to inquire how +your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and +powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured. For liberty +ought to be the direct end of your government.—PATRICK HENRY, 1788. +WIRT, _Life of Henry_, 272. + +[44] Historiæ ipsius præter delectationem utilitas nulla est, +quam ut religionis Christianæ veritas demonstretur, quod aliter quam +per historiam fieri non potest.—LEIBNIZ, _Opera_, ed. Dutens, vi. +297. The study of Modern History is, next to Theology itself, and only +next in so far as Theology rests on a divine revelation, the most +thoroughly religious training that the mind can receive. It is no +paradox to say that Modern History, including Medieval History in the +term, is co-extensive in its field of view, in its habits of +criticism, in the persons of its most famous students, with +Ecclesiastical History.—STUBBS, _Lectures_, 9. Je regarde donc +l'étude de l'histoire comme l'étude de la providence.—L'histoire est +vraiment une seconde philosophie.—Si Dieu ne parle pas toujours, il +agit toujours en Dieu.—D'AGUESSEAU, _Œuvres_, xv. 34, 31, 35. Für +diejenigen, welche das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit erkannt haben, +bildet die denkende Betrachtung der Weltgeschichte, besonders des +christlichen Weltalters, die höchste, und umfassendste Theodicee.—VATKE, +_Die Menschliche Freiheit_, 1841, 516. La théologie, que l'on regarde +volontiers comme la plus étroite et la plus stérile des sciences, en +est, au contraire, la plus étendue et la plus féconde. Elle confine à +toutes les études et touche à toutes les questions. Elle renferme tous +les éléments d'une instruction libérale.—SCHERER, _Mélanges_, 522. The +belief that the course of events and the agency of man are subject to +the laws of a divine order, which it is alike impossible for any one +either fully to comprehend or effectually to resist—this belief is the +ground of all our hope for the future destinies of mankind.—THIRLWALL, +_Remains_, iii. 282. A true religion must consist of ideas and facts +both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere +philosophy; nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are +the symbols, or out of which they are grounded; for then it would be +mere history.—COLERIDGE, _Table Talk_, 144. It certainly appears +strange that the men most conversant with the order of the visible +universe should soonest suspect it empty of directing mind; and, on +the other hand, that humanistic, moral and historical studies—which +first open the terrible problems of suffering and grief, and contain +all the reputed provocatives of denial and despair—should confirm, and +enlarge rather than disturb, the prepossessions of natural +piety.—MARTINEAU, _Essays_, i. 122. Die Religion hat nur dann eine +Bedeutung für den Menschen, wenn er in der Geschichte einen Punkt +findet, dem er sich völlig unbedingt hingeben kann.—STEFFENS, +_Christliche Religionsphilosophie_, 440, 1839. Wir erkennen darin nur +eine Thätigkeit des zu seinem ächten und wahren Leben, zu seinem +verlornen, objectiven Selbstverständnisse sich zurücksehnenden +christlichen Geistes unserer Zeit, einen Ausdruck für das Bedürfniss +desselben, sich aus den unwahren und unächten Verkleidungen, womit ihn +der moderne, subjective Geschmack der letzten Entwicklungsphase des +theologischen Bewusstseyns umhüllt hat, zu seiner historischen allein +wahren und ursprünglichen Gestalt wiederzugebären, zu derjenigen +Bedeutung zurückzukehren, die ihm in dem Bewusstseyn der Geschichte +allein zukommt und deren Verständniss in dem wogenden luxuriösen Leben +der modernen Theologie längst untergegangen ist.—GEORGII, _Zeitschrift +für Hist. Theologie_, ix. 5, 1839. + +[45] Liberty, in fact, means just so far as it is realised, +the right man in the right place.—SEELEY, _Lectures and Essays_, +109. + +[46] In diesem Sinne ist Freiheit und sich entwickelnde +moralische Vernunft und Gewissen gleichbedeutend. In diesem Sinne ist +der Mensch frei, sobald sich das Gewissen in ihm entwickelt.—SCHEIDLER, +_Ersch und Gruber_, xlix. 20. Aus der unendlichen und ewigen Geltung +der menschlichen Persönlichkeit vor Gott, aus der Vorstellung von der +in Gott freien Persönlichkeit, folgt auch der Anspruch auf das Recht +derselben in der weltlichen Sphäre, auf bürgerliche und politische +Freiheit, auf Gewissen und Religionsfreiheit, auf freie +wissenschaftliche Forschung u.s.w., und namentlich die Forderung dass +niemand lediglich zum Mittel für andere diene.—MARTENSEN, _Christliche +Ethik_, i. 50. + +[47] Es giebt angeborne Menschenrechte, weil es angeborne +Menschenpflichten giebt.—WOLFF, _Naturrecht_; LŒPER, _Einleitung +zu Faust_, lvii. + +[48] La constitution de l'état reste jusqu'à un certain point +à notre discrétion. La constitution de la société ne dépend pas de +nous; elle est donnée par la force des choses, et si l'on veut élever +le langage, elle est l'œuvre de la Providence.—RÉMUSAT, _Revue des +Deux Mondes_, 1861, v. 795. + +[49] Die Freiheit ist bekanntlich kein Geschenk der Götter, +sondern ein Gut das jedes Volk sich selbst verdankt und das nur bei +dem erforderlichen Mass moralischer Kraft und Würdigkeit +gedeiht.—IHERING, _Geist des Römischen Rechts_, ii. 290. Liberty, in +the very nature of it, absolutely requires and even supposes, that +people be able to govern themselves in those respects in which they +are free; otherwise their wickedness will be in proportion to their +liberty, and this greatest of blessings will become a curse.—BUTLER, +_Sermons_, 331. In each degree and each variety of public development +there are corresponding institutions, best answering the public needs; +and what is meat to one is poison to another. Freedom is for those who +are fit for it.—PARKMAN, _Canada_, 396. Die Freiheit ist die Wurzel +einer neuen Schöpfung in der Schöpfung.—SEDERHOLM, _Die ewigen +Thatsachen_, 86. + +[50] La liberté politique, qui n'est qu'une complexité plus +grande, de plus en plus grande, dans le gouvernement d'un peuple, à +mesure que le peuple lui-même contient un plus grand nombre de forces +diverses ayant droit et de vivre et de participer à la chose publique, +est un fait de civilisation qui s'impose lentement à une société +organisée, mais qui n'apparaît point comme un principe à une société +qui s'organise.—FAGUET, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1889, ii. 942. + +[51] Il y a bien un droit du plus sage, mais non pas un droit +du plus fort.—La justice est le droit du plus faible.—JOUBERT, +_Pensées_, i. 355, 358. + +[52] Nicht durch ein pflanzenähnliches Wachsthum, nicht aus +den dunklen Gründen der Volksempfindung, sondern durch den männlichen +Willen, durch die Ueberzeugung, durch die That, durch den Kampf +entsteht, behauptet, entwickelt sich das Recht. Sein historisches +Werden ist ein bewusstes, im hellen Mittagslicht der Erkenntniss und +der Gesetzgebung.—_Rundschau_, Nov. 1893, 313. Nicht das Normale, +Zahme, sondern das Abnorme, Wilde, bildet überall die Grundlage und +den Anfang einer neuen Ordnung.—LASAULX, _Philosophie der +Geschichte_, 143. + +[53] Um den Sieg zu vervollständigen, erübrigte das zweite +Stadium oder die Aufgabe: die Berechtigung der Mehrheit nach allen +Seiten hin zur gleichen Berechtigung aller zu erweitern, d.h. bis zur +Gleichstellung aller Bekenntnisse im Kirchenrecht, aller Völker im +Völkerrecht, aller Staatsbürger im Staatsrecht und aller socialen +Interessen im Gesellschaftsrecht fortzuführen.—A. SCHMIDT, _Züricher +Monatschrift_, i. 68. + +[54] Notre histoire ne nous enseignait nullement la liberté. +Le jour où la France voulut être libre, elle eut tout à créer, tout à +inventer dans cet ordre de faits.—Cependant il faut marcher, l'avenir +appelle les peuples. Quand on n'a point pour cela l'impulsion du +passé, il faut bien se confier à la raison.—DUPONT WHITE, _Revue des +Deux Mondes_, 1861, vi. 191. Le peuple français a peu de goût pour le +développement graduel des institutions. Il ignore son histoire, il ne +s'y reconnaît pas, elle n'a pas laissé de trace dans sa +conscience.—SCHERER, _Études Critiques_, i. 100. Durch die Revolution +befreiten sich die Franzosen von ihrer Geschichte.—ROSENKRANZ, _Aus +einem Tagebuch_, 199. + +[55] The discovery of the comparative method in philology, in +mythology—let me add in politics and history and the whole range of +human thought—marks a stage in the progress of the human mind at +least as great and memorable as the revival of Greek and Latin +learning.—FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_, iv. 301. The diffusion of a +critical spirit in history and literature is affecting the criticism +of the Bible in our own day in a manner not unlike the burst of +intellectual life in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.—JOWETT, +_Essays and Reviews_, 346. As the revival of literature in the +sixteenth century produced the Reformation, so the growth of the +critical spirit, and the change that has come over mental science, and +the mere increase of knowledge of all kinds, threaten now a revolution +less external but not less profound.—HADDAN, _Replies_, 348. + +[56] In his just contempt and detestation of the crimes and +follies of the Revolutionists, he suffers himself to forget that the +revolution itself is a process of the Divine Providence, and that as +the folly of men is the wisdom of God, so are their iniquities +instruments of His goodness.—COLERIDGE, _Biographia Literaria_, ii. +240. In other parts of the world, the idea of revolutions in +government is, by a mournful and indissoluble association, connected +with the idea of wars, and all the calamities attendant on wars. But +happy experience teaches us to view such revolutions in a very +different light—to consider them only as progressive steps in +improving the knowledge of government, and increasing the happiness of +society and mankind.—J. WILSON, November 26, 1787, _Works_, iii. 293. +La Révolution, c'est-à-dire l'œuvre des siècles, ou, si vous +voulez, le renouvellement progressif de la société, ou encore, sa +nouvelle constitution.—RÉMUSAT, _Correspondance_, October 11, 1818. A +ses yeux loin d'avoir rompu le cours naturel des évènements, ni la +Révolution d'Angleterre, ni la nôtre, n'ont rien dit, rien fait, qui +n'eût été dit, souhaité, fait, ou tenté cent fois avant leur +explosion. “Il faut en ceci,” dit-il, “tout accorder à leurs +adversaires, les surpasser même en sévérité, ne regarder à leurs +accusations que pour y ajouter, s'ils en oublient; et puis les sommer +de dresser, à leur tour, le compte des erreurs, des crimes, et des +maux de ces temps et de ces pouvoirs qu'ils ont pris sous leur +garde.”—_Revue de Paris_, xvi. 303, on Guizot. Quant aux nouveautés +mises en œuvre par la Révolution Française on les retrouve une à +une, en remontant d'âge en âge, chez les philosophes du XVIIIe +siècle, chez les grands penseurs du XVIe, chez certains Pères +d'Église et jusque dans la République de Platon.—En présence de cette +belle continuité de l'histoire, qui ne fait pas plus de sauts que la +nature, devant cette solidarité nécessaire des révolutions avec le +passé qu'elles brisent.—KRANTZ, _Revue Politique_, xxxiii. 264. +L'esprit du XIXe siècle est de comprendre et de juger les choses du +passé. Notre œuvre est d'expliquer ce que le XVIIIe siècle avait +mission de nier.—VACHEROT, _De la Démocratie_, pref., 28. + +[57] La commission recherchera, dans toutes les parties des +archives pontificales, les pièces relatives à l'abus que les papes ont +fait de leur ministère spirituel contre l'autorité des souverains et +la tranquillité des peuples.—DAUNOU, _Instructions_, Jan. 3, 1811. +LABORDE, _Inventaires_, p. cxii. + +[58] Aucun des historiens remarquables de cette époque +n'avait senti encore le besoin de chercher les faits hors des livres +imprimés, aux sources primitives, la plupart inédites alors, aux +manuscrits de nos bibliothèques, aux documents de nos archives.—MICHELET, +_Histoire de France_, 1869, i. 2. + +[59] Doch besteht eine Grenze, wo die Geschichte aufhört und +das Archiv anfängt, und die von der Geschichtschreibung nicht +überschritten werden sollte. _Unsere Zeit_, 1866, ii. 635. Il faut +avertir nos jeunes historiens à la fois de la nécessité inéluctable du +document et, d'autre part, du danger qu'il présente.—M. HANOTAUX. + +[60] This process consists in determining with documentary +proofs, and by minute investigations duly set forth, the literal, +precise, and positive inferences to be drawn at the present day from +every authentic statement, without regard to commonly received +notions, to sweeping generalities, or to possible consequences.—HARRISSE, +_Discovery of America_, 1892, p. vi. Perhaps the time has not yet come +for synthetic labours in the sphere of History. It may be that the +student of the Past must still content himself with critical +inquiries.—_Ib._ p. v. Few scholars are critics, few critics are +philosophers, and few philosophers look with equal care on both sides +of a question.—W. S. LANDOR in HOLYOAKE'S _Agitator's Life_, ii. 15. +Introduire dans l'histoire, et sans tenir compte des passions +politiques et religieuses, le doute méthodique que Descartes, le +premier, appliqua à l'étude de la philosophie, n'est-ce pas là une +excellente méthode? n'est-ce pas même la meilleure?—CHANTELAUZE, +_Correspondant_, 1883, i. 129. La critique historique ne sera jamais +populaire. Comme elle est de toutes les sciences la plus délicate, la +plus déliée, elle n'a de crédit qu'auprès des esprits cultivés.—CHERBULIEZ, +_Revue des Deux Mondes_, xcvii. 517. Nun liefert aber die Kritik, wenn +sie rechter Art ist, immer nur einzelne Data, gleichsam die Atome des +Thatbestandes, und jede Kombination, jede Zusammenfassung und +Schlussfolgerung, ohne die es doch einmal nicht abgeht, ist ein +subjektiver Akt des Forschers. Demnach blieb Waitz, bei der eigenen +Arbeit wie bei jener der anderen, immer höchst mistrauisch gegen jedes +Résumé, jede Definition, jedes abschliessende Wort.—SYBEL, +_Historische Zeitschrift_, lvi. 484. Mit blosser Kritik wird darin +nichts ausgerichtet, denn die ist nur eine Vorarbeit, welche da +aufhört wo die echte historische Kunst anfängt.—LASAULX, _Philosophie +der Künste_, 212. + +[61] The only case in which such extraneous matters can be +fairly called in is when facts are stated resting on testimony; then +it is not only just, but it is necessary for the sake of truth, to +inquire into the habits of mind of him by whom they are +adduced.—BABBAGE, _Bridgewater Treatise_, p. xiv. + +[62] There is no part of our knowledge which it is more +useful to obtain at first hand—to go to the fountain-head for—than +our knowledge of History.—J. S. MILL, _Inaugural Address_, 34. The +only sound intellects are those which, in the first instance, set +their standard of proof high.—J. S. MILL, _Examination of Hamilton's +Philosophy_, 525. + +[63] There are so few men mentally capable of seeing both +sides of a question; so few with consciences sensitively alive to the +obligation of seeing both sides; so few placed under conditions either +of circumstance or temper, which admit of their seeing both +sides.—GREG, _Political Problems_, 1870, 173. Il n'y a que les +Allemands qui sachent être aussi complètement objectifs. Ils se +dédoublent, pour ainsi dire, en deux hommes, l'un qui a des principes +très arrêtés et des passions très vives, l'autre qui sait voir et +observer comme s'il n'en avait point.—LAVELEYE, _Revue des Deux +Mondes_, 1868, i. 431. L'écrivain qui penche trop dans le sens où il +incline, et qui ne se défie pas de ses qualités presque autant que ses +défauts, cet écrivain tourne à la manière.—SCHERER, _Mélanges_, 484. +Il faut faire volte-face, et vivement, franchement, tourner le dos au +moyen âge, à ce passé morbide, qui, même quand il n'agit pas, influe +terriblement par la contagion de la mort. Il ne faut ni combattre, ni +critiquer, mais oublier. Oublions et marchons!—MICHELET, _La Bible de +l'Humanité_, 483. It has excited surprise that Thucydides should speak +of Antiphon, the traitor to the democracy, and the employer of +assassins, as “a man inferior in virtue to none of his +contemporaries.” But neither here nor elsewhere does Thucydides pass +moral judgments.—JOWETT, _Thucydides_, ii. 501. + +[64] Non theologi provinciam suscepimus; scimus enim quantum +hoc ingenii nostri tenuitatem superet: ideo sufficit nobis τὀ ὅτι +fideliter ex antiquis auctoribus retulisse.—MORINUS, _De +Pœnitentia_, ix. 10.—Il faut avouer que la religion chrétienne a +quelque chose d'étonnant! C'est parce que vous y êtes né, dira-t-on. +Tant s'en faut, je me roidis contre par cette raison-là même, de peur +que cette prévention ne me suborne.—PASCAL, _Pensées_, XVI., 7.—I +was fond of Fleury for a reason which I express in the advertisement; +because it presented a sort of photograph of ecclesiastical history +without any comment upon it. In the event, that simple representation +of the early centuries had a good deal to do with unsettling +me.—NEWMAN, _Apologia_, 152.—Nur was sich vor dem Richterstuhl einer +ächten, unbefangenen, nicht durch die Brille einer philosophischen +oder dogmatischen Schule stehenden Wissenschaft als wahr bewährt, kann +zur Erbauung, Belehrung und Warnung tüchtig seyn.—NEANDER, +_Kirchengeschichte_, i. p. vii. Wie weit bei katholischen Publicisten +bei der Annahme der Ansicht von der Staatsanstalt apologetische +Gesichtspunkte massgebend gewesen sind, mag dahingestellt bleiben. Der +Historiker darf sich jedoch nie durch apologetische Zwecke leiten +lassen; sein einziges Ziel soll die Ergründungder Wahrheit +sein.—PASTOR, _Geschichte der Päbste_, ii. 545. Church history +falsely written is a school of vainglory, hatred, and uncharitableness; +truly written, it is a discipline of humility, of charity, of mutual +love.—SIR W. HAMILTON, _Discussions_, 506. The more trophies and +crowns of honour the Church of former ages can be shown to have won in +the service of her adorable head, the more tokens her history can be +brought to furnish of his powerful presence in her midst, the more +will we be pleased and rejoice, Protestant though we be.—NEVIN, +_Mercersburg Review_, 1851, 168. S'il est une chose à laquelle j'ai +donné tous mes soins, c'est à ne pas laisser influencer mes jugements +par les opinions politiques ou religieuses; que si j'ai quelquefois +péché par quelque excès, c'est par la bienveillance pour les œuvres de +ceux qui pensent autrement que moi.—MONOD, _R. Hist._, xvi. 184. Nous +n'avons nul intérêt à faire parler l'histoire en faveur de nos +propres opinions. C'est son droit imprescriptible que le narrateur +reproduise tous les faits sans aucune réticence et range toutes les +évolutions dans leur ordre naturel. Notre récit restera complètement +en dehors des préoccupations de la dogmatique et des déclamations de +la polémique. Plus les questions auxquelles nous aurons à toucher +agitent et passionnent de nos jours les esprits, plus il est du devoir +de l'historien de s'effacer devant les faits qu'il veut faire +connaître.—REUSS, _Nouvelle Revue de Théologie_, vi. 193, 1860. To +love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection +in this world, and the seed plot of all other virtues.—LOCKE, _Letter +to Collins_. Il n'est plus possible aujourd'hui à l'historien d'être +national dans le sens étroit du mot. Son patriotisme à lui c'est +l'amour de la vérité. Il n'est pas l'homme d'une race ou d'un pays, il +est l'homme de tous les pays, il parle au nom de la civilisation +générale.—LANFREY, _Hist. de Nap._, iii. 2, 1870. Juger avec les +parties de soi-même qui sont le moins des formes du tempérament, et le +plus des facultés pénétrées et modelées par l'expérience, par l'étude, +par l'investigation, par le non-moi.—FAGUET, _R. de Paris_, i. 151. +Aucun critique n'est aussi impersonnel que lui, aussi libre de parti +pris et d'opinions préconçues, aussi objectif.—Il ne mêle ou parait +mêler à ses appréciations ni inclinations personnelles de goût ou +d'humeur, ou théories d'aucune sorte.—G. MONOD, of Faguet, _Revue +Historique_, xlii. 417. On dirait qu'il a peur, en généralisant ses +observations, en systématisant ses connaissances, de mêler de lui-même +aux choses.—Je lis tout un volume de M. Faguet, sans penser une fois +à M. Faguet: je ne vois que les originaux qu'il montre.—J'envisage +toujours une réalité objective, jamais l'idée de M. Faguet, jamais la +doctrine de M. Faguet.—LANSON, _Revue Politique_, 1894, i. 98. + +[65] It should teach us to disentangle principles first from +parties, and again from one another; first of all as showing how +imperfectly all parties represent their own principles, and then how +the principles themselves are a mingled tissue.—ARNOLD, _Modern +History_, 184. I find it a good rule, when I am contemplating a person +from whom I want to learn, always to look out for his strength, being +confident that the weakness will discover itself.—MAURICE, _Essays_, +305. We may seek for agreement somewhere with our neighbours, using +that as a point of departure for the sake of argument. It is this +latter course that I wish here to explain and defend. The method is +simple enough, though not yet very familiar.—It aims at conciliation; +it proceeds by making the best of our opponent's case, instead of +taking him at his worst.—The most interesting part of every disputed +question only begins to appear when the rival ideals admit each +other's right to exist.—A. SIDGWICK, _Distinction and the Criticism +of Beliefs_, 1892, 211. That cruel reticence in the breasts of wise +men which makes them always hide their deeper thought.—RUSKIN, +_Sesame and Lilies_, i. 16. Je offener wir die einzelnen Wahrheiten +des Sozialismus anerkennen, desto erfolgreicher können wir seine +fundamentalen Unwahrheiten widerlegen.—ROSCHER, _Deutsche +Vierteljahrschrift_, 1849, i. 177. + +[66] Dann habe ihn die Wahrnehmung, dass manche Angaben in +den historischen Romanen Walter Scott's, mit den gleichzeitigen +Quellen im Widerspruch standen, “mit Erstaunen” erfüllt, und ihn zu +dem Entschlusse gebracht, auf das Gewissenhafteste an der +Ueberlieferung der Quellen festzuhalten.—SYBEL, _Gedächtnissrede auf +Ranke_. _Akad. der Wissenschaften_, 1887, p. 6. Sich frei zu halten +von allem Widerschein der Gegenwart, sogar, soweit das menschenmöglich, +von dem der eignen subjectiven Meinung in den Dingen des Staates, der +Kirche und der Gesellschaft.—A. DOVE, _Im Neuen Reich_, 1875, ii. 967. +Wir sind durchaus nicht für die leblose und schemenartige +Darstellungsweise der Ranke'schen Schule eingenommen; es wird uns +immer kühl bis ans Herz heran, wenn wir derartige Schilderungen der +Reformation und der Revolution lesen, welche so ganz im kühlen Element +des Pragmatismus sich bewegen und dabei so ganz Undinenhaft sind und +keine Seele haben.—Wir lassen es uns lieber gefallen, dass die Männer +der Geschichte hier und dort gehofmeistert werden, als dass sie uns +mit Glasaugen ansehen, so meisterhaft immer die Kunst sein mag die sie +ihnen eingesetzt hat.—GOTTSCHALL, _Unsere Zeit_, 1866, ii. 636, 637. A +vivre avec des diplomates, il leur a pris des qualités qui sont un +défaut chez un historien. L'historien n'est pas un témoin, c'est un +juge; c'est à lui d'accuser et de condamner au nom du passé opprimé et +dans l'intérêt de l'avenir.—LABOULAYE on RANKE. _Débats_, January 12, +1852. + +[67] Un théologien qui a composé une éloquente histoire de la +Réformation, rencontrant à Berlin un illustre historien qui, lui +aussi, a raconté Luther et le XVIe siècle, l'embrassa avec effusion +en le traitant de confrère. “Ah! permettez,” lui répondit l'autre en +se dégageant, “il y a une grande différence entre nous: vous êtes +avant tout chrétien, et je suis avant tout historien.”—CHERBULIEZ, +_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1872, i. 537. + +[68] Nackte Wahrheit ohne allen Schmuck; gründliche +Erforschung des Einzelnen; das Uebrige, Gott befohlen.—_Werke_, +xxxiv. 24. Ce ne sont pas les théories qui doivent nous servir de base +dans la recherche des faits, mais ce sont les faits qui doivent nous +servir de base pour la composition des théories.—VINCENT, _Nouvelle +Revue de Théologie_, 1859, ii. 252. + +[69] Die zwanglose Anordnungs—die leichte und leise +Andeutungskunst des grossen Historikers voll zu würdigen, hinderte ihn +in früherer Zeit sein Bedürfniss nach scharfer begrifflicher Ordnung +und Ausführung, später, und in immer zunehmenden Grade, sein Sinn für +strenge Sachlichkeit, und genaue Erforschung der ursächlichen +Zusammenhänge, noch mehr aber regte sich seine geradherzige Offenheit +seine männliche Ehrlichkeit, wenn er hinter den fein verstrichenen +Farben der Rankeschen Erzählungsbilder die gedeckte Haltung des klugen +Diplomaten zu entdecken glaubte.—HAYM, _Duncker's Leben_, 437. The +ground of criticism is indeed, in my opinion, nothing else but +distinct attention, which every reader should endeavour to be master +of.—HARE, _Dec._, 1736, _Warburton's Works_, xiv. 98. Wenn die +Quellenkritik so verstanden wird, als sei sie der Nachweis, wie ein +Autor den andern benutzt hat, so ist das nur ein gelegentliches +Mittel—eins unter anderen—ihre Aufgabe, den Nachweis der Richtigkeit +zu lösen oder vorzubereiten.—DROYSEN, _Historik_, 18. + +[70] L'esprit scientifique n'est autre en soi que l'instinct +du travail et de la patience, le sentiment de l'ordre, de la réalité +et de la mesure.—PAPILLON, _R. des Deux Mondes_, 1873, v. 704. Non +seulement les sciences, mais toutes les institutions humaines s'organisent +de même, et sous l'empire des mêmes idées régulatrices.—COURNOT, +_Idées Fondamentales_, i. 4. There is no branch of human work whose +constant laws have not close analogy with those which govern every +other mode of man's exertion. But more than this, exactly as we reduce +to greater simplicity and surety any one group of these practical +laws, we shall find them passing the mere condition of connection or +analogy, and becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or +fibre of the mighty laws which govern the moral world.—RUSKIN, _Seven +Lamps_, 4. The sum total of all intellectual excellence is good sense +and method. When these have passed into the instinctive readiness of +habit, when the wheel revolves so rapidly that we cannot see it +revolve at all, then we call the combination genius. But in all modes +alike, and in all professions, the two sole component parts, even of +genius, are good sense and method.—COLERIDGE, _June_, 1814, _Mem. of +Coleorton_, ii. 172. Si l'exercice d'un art nous empêche d'en +apprendre un autre, il n'en est pas ainsi dans les sciences: la +connoissance d'une vérité nous aide à en decouvrir une autre.—Toutes +les sciences sont tellement liées ensemble qu'il est bien plus facile +de les apprendre toutes à la fois que d'en apprendre une seule en la +détachant des autres.—Il ne doit songer qu'à augmenter les lumières +naturelles de sa raison, non pour résoudre telle ou telle difficulté +de l'école, mais pour que dans chaque circonstance de la vie son +intelligence montre d'avance à sa volonté le parti qu'elle doit +prendre.—DESCARTES, _Œuvres Choisies_, 300, 301. _Règles pour la +Direction de l'Esprit._ La connaissance de la méthode qui a guidé +l'homme de génie n'est pas moins utile au progrès de la science et +même à sa propre gloire, que ses découvertes.—LAPLACE, _Système du +Monde_, ii. 371. On ne fait rien sans idées préconçues, il faut avoir +seulement la sagesse de ne croire à leurs déductions qu'autant que +l'expérience les confirme. Les idées préconçues, soumises au contrôle +sévère de l'expérimentation, sont la flamme vivante des sciences +d'observation; les idées fixes en sont le danger.—PASTEUR, in +_Histoire d'un Savant_, 284. Douter des vérités humaines, c'est ouvrir +la porte aux découvertes; en faire des articles de foi, c'est la +fermer.—DUMAS, _Discours_, i. 123. + +[71] We should not only become familiar with the laws of +phenomena within our own pursuit, but also with the modes of thought +of men engaged in other discussions and researches, and even with the +laws of knowledge itself, that highest philosophy.—Above all things, +know that we call you not here to run your minds into our moulds. We +call you here on an excursion, on an adventure, on a voyage of +discovery into space as yet uncharted.—ALLBUTT, _Introductory Address +at St. George's_, October 1889. Consistency in regard to opinions is +the slow poison of intellectual life.—DAVY, _Memoirs_, 68. + +[72] Ce sont vous autres physiologistes des corps vivants, +qui avez appris à nous autres physiologistes de la société (qui est +aussi un corps vivant) la manière de l'observer et de tirer des +conséquences de nos observations.—J. B. SAY to DE CANDOLLE, June 1, +1827.—DE CANDOLLE, _Mémoires_, 567. + +[73] Success is certain to the pure and true: success to +falsehood and corruption, tyranny and aggression, is only the prelude +to a greater and an irremediable fall.—STUBBS, _Seventeen Lectures_, +20. The Carlylean faith, that the cause we fight for, so far as it is +true, is sure of victory, is the necessary basis of all effective +activity for good.—CAIRD, _Evolution of Religion_, ii. 43. It is the +property of truth to be fearless, and to prove victorious over every +adversary. Sound reasoning and truth, when adequately communicated, +must always be victorious over error.—GODWIN, _Political Justice_ +(Conclusion). Vice was obliged to retire and give place to virtue. +This will always be the consequence when truth has fair play. +Falsehood only dreads the attack, and cries out for auxiliaries. Truth +never fears the encounter; she scorns the aid of the secular arm, and +triumphs by her natural strength.—FRANKLIN, _Works_, ii. 292. It is a +condition of our race that we must ever wade through error in our +advance towards truth: and it may even be said that in many cases we +exhaust almost every variety of error before we attain the desired +goal.—BABBAGE, _Bridgewater Treatise_, 27. Les hommes ne peuvent, en +quelque genre que ce soit, arriver à quelque chose de raisonnable +qu'après avoir, en ce même genre, épuisé toutes les sottises +imaginables. Que de sottises ne dirions-nous pas maintenant, si les +anciens ne les avaient pas déjà dites avant nous, et ne nous les +avaient, pour ainsi dire, enlevées!—FONTENELLE. Without premature +generalisations the true generalisation would never be arrived at.—H. +SPENCER, _Essays_, ii. 57. The more important the subject of +difference, the greater, not the less, will be the indulgence of him +who has learned to trace the sources of human error,—of error, that +has its origin not in our weakness and imperfection merely, but often +in the most virtuous affections of the heart.—BROWN, _Philosophy of +the Human Mind_, i. 48, 1824. Parmi les châtiments du crime qui ne lui +manquent jamais, à côté de celui que lui inflige la conscience, +l'histoire lui en inflige un autre encore, éclatant et manifeste, +l'impuissance.—COUSIN, _Phil. Mod._ ii. 24. L'avenir de la science +est garanti; car dans le grand livre scientifique tout s'ajoute et +rien ne se perd. L'erreur ne fonde pas; aucune erreur ne dure très +longtemps.—RENAN, _Feuilles Détachées_, xiii. Toutes les fois que +deux hommes sont d'un avis contraire sur la même chose, à coup sûr, +l'un ou l'autre se trompe; bien plus, aucun ne semble posséder la +vérité; car si les raisons de l'un étoient certaines et évidentes, il +pourroit les exposer à l'autre de telle manière qu'il finiroit par le +convaincre également.—DESCARTES, _Règles: Œuvres Choisies_, 302. +Le premier principe de la critique est qu'une doctrine ne captive ses +adhérents que par ce qu'elle a de légitime.—RENAN, _Essais de +Morale_, 184. Was dem Wahn solche Macht giebt ist wirklich nicht er +selbst, sondern die ihm zu Grunde liegende und darin nur verzerrte +Wahrheit.—FRANTZ, _Schelling's Philosophie_, i. 62. Quand les hommes +ont vu une fois la vérité dans son éclat, ils ne peuvent plus +l'oublier. Elle reste debout, et tôt ou tard elle triomphe, parce +qu'elle est la pensée de Dieu et le besoin du monde.—MIGNET, +_Portraits_, ii. 295. C'est toujours le sens commun inaperçu qui fait +la fortune des hypothèses auxquelles il se mêle.—COUSIN, _Fragments +Phil._ i. 51. Preface of 1826. Wer da sieht wie der Irrthum selbst ein +Träger mannigfaltigen und bleibenden Fortschritts wird, der wird auch +nicht so leicht aus dem thatsächlichen Fortschritt der Gegenwart auf +Unumstösslichkeit unserer Hypothesen schliessen.—Das richtigste +Resultat der geschichtlichen Betrachtung ist die akademische Ruhe, mit +welcher unsere Hypothesen und Theorieen ohne Feindschaft und ohne +Glauben als das betrachtet werden was sie sind; als Stufen in jener +unendlichen Annäherung an die Wahrheit, welche die Bestimmung unserer +intellectuellen Entwicklung zu sein scheint.—LANGE, _Geschichte des +Materialismus_, 502, 503. Hominum errores divina providentia reguntur, +ita ut sæpe male jacta bene cadant.—LEIBNIZ, ed. Klopp, i., p. lii. +Sainte-Beuve n'était même pas de la race des libéraux, c'est-à-dire +de ceux qui croient que, tout compte fait, et dans un état de +civilisation donné, le bien triomphe du mal à armes égales, et la +vérité de l'erreur.—D'HAUSSONVILLE, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1875, i. +567. In the progress of the human mind, a period of controversy +amongst the cultivators of any branch of science must necessarily +precede the period of unanimity.—TORRENS, _Essay on the Production of +Wealth_, 1821, p. xiii. Even the spread of an error is part of the +wide-world process by which we stumble into mere approximations to +truth.—L. STEPHEN, _Apology of an Agnostic_, 81. Errors, to be +dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them; it is +only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive +circulation.—S. SMITH, _Moral Philosophy_, 7. The admission of the +few errors of Newton himself is at least of as much importance to his +followers in science as the history of the progress of his real +discoveries.—YOUNG, _Works_, iii. 621. Error is almost always partial +truth, and so consists in the exaggeration or distortion of one verity +by the suppression of another, which qualifies and modifies the +former.—MIVART, _Genesis of Species_, 3. The attainment of scientific +truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific +errors.—HUXLEY: WARD, _Reign of Victoria_, ii. 337. Jede neue tief +eingreifende Wahrheit hat meiner Ansicht nach erst das Stadium der +Einseitigkeit durchzumachen.—IHERING, _Geist des R. Rechts_, ii. 22. +The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished +convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful +whatever is right in them will become.—RUSKIN, _Ethics of the Dust_, +225. They hardly grasp the plain truth unless they examine the error +which it cancels.—CORY, _Modern English History_, 1880, i. 109. Nur +durch Irrthum kommen wir, der eine kürzeren und glücklicheren +Schrittes, als der andere, zur Wahrheit; und die Geschichte darf +nirgends diese Verirrungen übergehen, wenn sie Lehrerin und Warnerin +für die nachfolgenden Geschlechter werden will.—_Münchner Gel. +Anzeigen_, 1840, i. 737. + +[74] Wie die Weltgeschichte das Weltgericht ist, so kann in +noch allgemeinerem Sinne gesagt werden, dass das gerechte Gericht, +d.h. die wahre Kritik einer Sache, nur in ihrer Geschichte liegen +kann. Insbesondere in der Hinsicht lehrt die Geschichte denjenigen, +der ihr folgt, ihre eigene Methode, dass ihr Fortschritt niemals ein +reines Vernichten, sondern nur ein Aufheben im philosophischen Sinne +ist.—STRAUSS, _Hallische Jahrbücher_, 1839, 120. + +[75] Dans tous les livres qu'il lit, et il en dévore des +quantités, Darwin ne note que les passages qui contrarient ses idées +systématiques.—Il collectionne les difficultés, les cas épineux, les +critiques possibles.—VERNIER, _Le Temps_, 6 Décembre, 1887. Je +demandais à un savant célèbre où il en était de ses recherches. “Cela +ne marche plus,” me dit-il, “je ne trouve plus de faits +contradictoires.” Ainsi le savant cherche à se contredire lui-même +pour faire avancer sa pensée.—JANET, _Journal des Savants_, 1892, 20. +Ein Umstand, der uns die Selbständigkeit des Ganges der Wissenschaft +anschaulich machen kann, ist auch der: dass der Irrthum, wenn er nur +gründlich behandelt wird, fast ebenso fördernd ist als das Finden der +Wahrheit, denn er erzeugt fortgesetzten Widerspruch.—BAER, _Blicke +auf die Entwicklung der Wissenschaft_, 120. It is only by virtue of +the opposition which it has surmounted that any truth can stand in the +human mind.—BISHOP TEMPLE; KINGLAKE, _Crimea_, _Winter Troubles_, +app. 104. I have for many years found it expedient to lay down a rule +for my own practice, to confine my reading mainly to those journals +the general line of opinions in which is adverse to my own.—HARE, +_Means of Unity_, i. 19. Kant had a harder struggle with himself than +he could possibly have had with any critic or opponent of his +philosophy.—CAIRD, _Philosophy of Kant_, 1889, i. p. ix. + +[76] The social body is no more liable to arbitrary changes +than the individual body.—A full perception of the truth that society +is not a mere aggregate, but an organic growth, that it forms a whole +the laws of whose growth can be studied apart from those of the +individual atom, supplies the most characteristic postulate of modern +speculation.—L. STEPHEN, _Science of Ethics_, 31. Wie in dem Leben +des Einzelnen Menschen kein Augenblick eines vollkommenen Stillstandes +wahrgenommen wird, sondern stete organische Entwicklung, so verhält es +sich auch in dem Leben der Völker, und in jedem einzelnen Element, +woraus dieses Gesammtleben besteht. So finden wir in der Sprache stete +Fortbildung und Entwicklung, und auf gleiche Weise in dem Recht. Und +auch diese Fortbildung steht unter demselben Gesetz der Erzeugung aus +innerer Kraft und Nothwendigkeit, unabhängig von Zufall und +individueller Willkür, wie die ursprüngliche Entstehung.—SAVIGNY, +_System_, i. 16, 17. Seine eigene Entdeckung, dass auch die geistige +Produktion, bis in einem gewissen Punkte wenigstens, unter dem Gesetze +der Kausalität steht, dass jedeiner nur geben kann was er hat, nur hat +was er irgendwoher bekommen, muss auch für ihn selber gelten.—BEKKER, +_Das Recht des Besitzes bei den Römern_, 3, 1880. Die geschichtliche +Wandlung des Rechts, in welcher vergangene Jahrhunderte halb ein Spiel +des Zufalls und halb ein Werk vernünftelnder Willkür sahen, als +gesetzmässige Entwickelung zu begreifen, war das unsterbliche +Verdienst der von Männern wie Savigny, Eichhorn und Jacob Grimm +geführten historischen Rechtsschule.—GIERKE, _Rundschau_, xviii. +205. + +[77] The only effective way of studying what is called the +philosophy of religion, or the philosophical criticism of religion, is +to study the history of religion. The true science of war is the +history of war, the true science of religion is, I believe, the +history of religion.—M. MÜLLER, _Theosophy_, 3, 4. La théologie ne +doit plus être que l'histoire des efforts spontanés tentés pour +résoudre le problème divin. L'histoire, en effet, est la forme +nécessaire de la science de tout ce qui est soumis aux lois de la vie +changeante et successive. La science de l'esprit humain, c'est de +même, l'histoire de l'esprit humain.—RENAN, _Averroës_, Pref. vi. + +[78] Political economy is not a science, in any strict sense, +but a body of systematic knowledge gathered from the study of common +processes, which have been practised all down the history of the human +race in the production and distribution of wealth.—BONAMY PRICE, +_Social Science Congress_, 1878. Such a study is in harmony with the +best intellectual tendencies of our age, which is, more than anything +else, characterized by the universal supremacy of the historical +spirit. To such a degree has this spirit permeated all our modes of +thinking, that with respect to every branch of knowledge, no less than +with respect to every institution and every form of human activity, we +almost instinctively ask, not merely what is its existing condition, +but what were its earliest discoverable germs, and what has been the +course of its development.—INGRAM, _History of Political Economy_, 2. +Wir dagegen stehen keinen Augenblick an, die Nationalökonomie für eine +reine Erfahrungswissenschaft zu erklären, und die Geschichte ist uns +daher nicht Hülfsmittel, sondern Gegenstand selber.—ROSCHER, +_Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift_, 1849, i. 182. Der bei weitem grösste +Theil menschlicher Irrthümer beruhet darauf, dass man zeitlich und +örtlich Wahres oder Heilsames für absolut wahr oder heilsam ausgiebt. +Für jede Stufe der Volksentwickelung passt eine besondere +Staatsverfassung, die mit allen übrigen Verhältnissen des Volks als +Ursache und Wirkung auf's Innigste verbunden ist; so passt auch für +jede Entwickelungsstufe eine besondere Landwirthschaftsverfassung.—ROSCHER, +_Archiv f. p. Oek._, viii., 2 Heft 1845. Seitdem vor allen Roscher, +Hildebrand und Knies den Werth, die Berechtigung und die +Nothwendigkeit derselben unwiderleglich dargethan, hat sich immer +allgemeiner der Gedanke Bahn gebrochen dass diese Wissenschaft, die +bis dahin nur auf die Gegenwart, auf die Erkenntniss der bestehenden +Verhältnisse und die in ihnen sichtbaren Gesetze den Blick gerichtet +hatte, auch in die Vergangenheit, in die Erforschung der bereits +hinter uns liegenden wirthschaftlichen Entwicklung der Völker sich +vertiefen müsse.—SCHÖNBERG, _Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie und +Statistik_, Neue Folge, 1867, i. 1. Schmoller, moins dogmatique et +mettant comme une sorte de coquetterie à être incertain, démontre, par +les faits, la fausseté ou l'arbitraire de tous ces postulats, et +laisse l'économie politique se dissoudre dans l'histoire.—BRETON, _R. +de Paris_, ix. 67. Wer die politische Oekonomie Feuerlands unter +dieselben Gesetze bringen wollte mit der des heutigen Englands, würde +damit augenscheinlich nichts zu Tage fördern als den allerbanalsten +Gemeinplatz. Die politische Oekonomie ist somit wesentlich eine +historische Wissenschaft. Sie behandelt einen geschichtlichen, das +heisst einen stets wechselnden Stoff. Sie untersucht zunächst die +besondern Gesetze jeder einzelnen Entwicklungsstufe der Produktion und +des Austausches, und wird erst am Schluss dieser Untersuchung die +wenigen, für Produktion und Austausch überhaupt geltenden, ganz +allgemeinen Gesetze aufstellen können.—ENGELS, _Dührings Umwälzung der +Wissenschaft_, 1878, 121. + +[79] History preserves the student from being led astray by a +too servile adherence to any system.—WOLOWSKI. No system can be +anything more than a history, not in the order of impression, but in +the order of arrangement by analogy.—DAVY, _Memoirs_, 68. Avec des +matériaux si nombreux et si importants, il fallait bien du courage +pour résister à la tentation de faire un système. De Saussure eut ce +courage, et nous en ferons le dernier trait et le trait principal de +son éloge.—CUVIER, _Éloge de Saussure_, 1810. + +[80] C'était, en 1804, une idée heureuse et nouvelle, +d'appeler l'histoire au secours de la science, d'interroger les deux +grandes écoles rivales au profit de la vérité.—COUSIN, _Fragments +Littéraires_, 1843, 95, on Dégerando. No branch of philosophical +doctrine, indeed, can be fairly investigated or apprehended apart from +its history. All our systems of politics, morals, and metaphysics +would be different if we knew exactly how they grew up, and what +transformations they have undergone; if we knew, in short, the true +history of human ideas.—CLIFFE LESLIE, _Essays in Political and Moral +Philosophy_, 1879, 149. The history of philosophy must be rational and +philosophic. It must be philosophy itself, with all its elements, in +all their relations, and under all their laws represented in striking +characters by the hands of time and of history, in the manifested +progress of the human mind.—SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, _Edin. Rev._ l. +200, 1829. Il n'est point d'étude plus instructive, plus utile que +l'étude de l'histoire de la philosophie; car on y apprend à se +désabuser des philosophes, et l'on y désapprend la fausse science de +leurs systèmes.—ROYER COLLARD, _Œuvres de Reid_, iv. 426. On ne +peut guère échapper à la conviction que toutes les solutions des +questions philosophiques n'aient été développées ou indiquées avant le +commencement du dix-neuvième siècle, et que par conséquent il ne soit +très difficile, pour ne pas dire impossible, de tomber, en pareille +matière, sur une idée neuve de quelque importance. Or si cette +conviction est fondée, il s'ensuit que la science est faite.—JOUFFROY, +in DAMIRON, _Philosophie du XIXe Siècle_, 363. Le but dernier de tous +mes efforts, l'âme de mes écrits et de tout mon enseignement, c'est +l'identité de la philosophie et de son histoire.—COUSIN, _Cours de +1829_. Ma route est historique, il est vrai, mais mon but est +dogmatique; je tends à une théorie, et cette théorie je la demande à +l'histoire.—COUSIN, _Ph. du XVIIIe Siècle_, 15. L'histoire de la +philosophie est contrainte d'emprunter d'abord à la philosophie la +lumière qu'elle doit lui rendre un jour avec usure.—COUSIN, _Du Vrai_, +1855, 14. M. Cousin, durant tout son professorat de 1816 à 1829, a +pensé que l'histoire de la philosophie était la source de la +philosophie même. Nous ne croyons pas exagérer en lui prêtant cette +opinion.—B. ST. HILAIRE, _Victor Cousin_, i. 302. Il se hâta de +convertir le fait en loi, et proclama que la philosophie, étant +identique à son histoire, ne pouvait avoir une loi différente, et +était vouée à jamais à l'évolution fatale des quatre systèmes, se +contredisant toujours, mais se limitant, et se modérant, par cela même +de manière à maintenir l'equilibre, sinon l'harmonie de la pensée +humaine.—VACHEROT, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1868, iii. 957. Er hat +überhaupt das unvergängliche Verdienst, zuerst in Frankreich zu der +Erkenntniss gelangt zu sein, dass die menschliche Vernunft nur durch +das Studium des Gesetzes ihrer Entwickelungen begriffen werden +kann.—LAUSER, _Unsere Zeit_, 1868, i. 459. Le philosophe en quête du +vrai en soi, n'est plus réduit à ses conceptions individuelles; il est +riche du trésor amassé par l'humanité.—BOUTROUX, _Revue Politique_, +xxxvii. 802. L'histoire, je veux dire l'histoire de l'esprit humain, +est en ce sens la vraie philosophie de notre temps.—RENAN, _Études de +Morale_, 83. Die Philosophie wurde eine höchst bedeutende +Hülfswissenschaft der Geschichte, sie hat ihre Richtung auf das +Allgemeine gefördert, ihren Blick für dasselbe geschärft, und sie, +wenigstens durch ihre Vermittlung, mit Gesichtspuncten, Ideen, +bereichert die sie aus ihrem eigenen Schoosse sobald noch nicht +erzeugt haben würde. Weit die fruchtbarste darunter war die aus der +Naturwissenschaft geschöpfte Idee des organischen Lebens, dieselbe auf +der die neueste Philosophie selbst beruht. Die seit zwei bis drei +Jahrzehnten in der Behandlung der Geschichte eingetretene +durchgreifende Veränderung, wie die völlige Umgestaltung so mancher +anderen Wissenschaft ... ist der Hauptsache nach ihr Werk.—HAUG, +_Allgemeine Geschichte_, 1841, i. 22. Eine Geschichte der Philosophie +in eigentlichen Sinne wurde erst möglich als man an die Stelle der +Philosophen deren Systeme setzte, den inneren Zusammenhang zwischen +diesen feststellte und—wie Dilthey sagt—mitten in Wechsel der +Philosophien ein siegreiches Fortschreiten zur Wahrheit nachwies. Die +Gesammtheit der Philosophie stellt sich also dar als eine +geschichtliche Einheit.—SAUL, _Rundschau_, Feb. 1894, 307. Warum die +Philosophie eine Geschichte habe und haben müsse, blieb unerörtert, ja +ungeahnt, dass die Philosophie am meisten von allen Wissenschaften +historisch sei, denn man hatte in der Geschichte den Begriff der +Entwicklung nicht entdeckt.—MARBACH, _Griechische Philosophie_, 15. +Was bei oberflächlicher Betrachtung nur ein Gewirre einzelner Personen +und Meinungen zu sein schien, zeigt sich bei genauerer und gründlicherer +Untersuchung als eine geschichtliche Entwicklung, in der alles, bald +näher, bald entfernter, mit allem anderen zusammenhängt.—ZELLER, +_Rundschau_, Feb. 1894, 307. Nur die Philosophie, die an die +geschichtliche Entwickelung anknüpft kann auf bleibenden Erfolg auch +für die Zukunft rechnen und fortschreiten zu dem, was in der +bisherigen philosophischen Entwickelung nur erst unvollkommen erreicht +oder angestrebt worden ist. Kann sich doch die Philosophie überhaupt +und insbesondere die Metaphysik ihrer eigenen geschichtlichen +Entwickelung nicht entschlagen, sondern hat eine Geschichte der +Philosophie als eigene und zwar zugleich historische und spekulative +Disziplin, in deren geschichtlichen Entwickelungsphasen und +geschichtlich aufeinanderfolgenden Systemen der Philosophen die neuere +Spekulation seit Schelling and Hegel zugleich die Philosophie selbst +als ein die verschiedenen geschichtlichen Systeme umfassendes ganzes +in seiner dialektischen Gliederung erkannt hat.—GLOATZ, _Spekulative +Theologie_, i. 23. Die heutige Philosophie führt uns auf einen +Standpunkt von dem aus die philosophische Idee als das innere Wesen +der Geschichte selbst erscheint. So trat an die Stelle einer abstrakt +philosophischen Richtung, welche das Geschichtliche verneinte, eine +abstrakt geschichtliche Richtung welche das Philosophische +verläugnete. Beide Richtungen sind als überschrittene und besiegte zu +betrachten.—BERNER, _Strafrecht_, 75. Die Geschichte der Philosophie +hat uns fast schon die Wissenschaft der Philosophie selbst +ersetzt.—HERMANN, _Phil. Monatshefte_, ii. 198, 1889. + +[81] Le siècle actuel sera principalement caractérisé par +l'irrévocable prépondérance de l'histoire, en philosophie, en +politique, et même en poésie.—COMTE, _Politique Positive_, iii. 1. + +[82] The historical or comparative method has revolutionized +not only the sciences of law, mythology, and language, of anthropology +and sociology, but it has forced its way even into the domain of +philosophy and natural science. For what is the theory of evolution +itself, with all its far-reaching consequences, but the achievement of +the historical method?—PROTHERO, _Inaugural_. _National Review_, +_Dec._ 1894, 461. To facilitate the advancement of all the branches of +useful science, two things seem to be principally requisite. The first +is, an historical account of their rise, progress, and present state. +Without the former of these helps, a person every way qualified for +extending the bounds of science labours under great disadvantages; +wanting the lights which have been struck out by others, and +perpetually running the risk of losing his labour, and finding himself +anticipated.—PRIESTLEY, _History of Vision_, 1772, i. Pref. i. +Cuvier se proposait de montrer l'enchaînement scientifique des +découvertes, leurs relations avec les grands évènements historiques, +et leur influence sur les progrès et le développement de la +civilisation.—DARESTE, _Biographie Générale_, xii. 685. Dans ses +éloquentes leçons, l'histoire des sciences est devenue l'histoire même +de l'esprit humain; car, remontant aux causes de leurs progrès et de +leurs erreurs, c'est toujours dans les bonnes ou mauvaises routes +suivies par l'esprit humain, qu'il trouve ces causes.—FLOURENS, +_Éloge de Cuvier_, xxxi. Wie keine fortlaufende Entwickelungsreihe von +nur Einem Punkte aus vollkommen aufzufassen ist, so wird auch keine +lebendige Wissenschaft nur aus der Gegenwart begriffen werden +können.—Deswegen ist aber eine solche Darstellung doch noch nicht der +gesammten Wissenschaft adäquat, und sie birgt, wenn sie damit +verwechselt wird, starke Gefahren der Einseitigkeit, des Dogmatismus +und damit der Stagnation in sich. Diesen Gefahren kann wirksam nur +begegnet werden durch die verständige Betrachtung der Geschichte der +Wissenschaften, welche diese selbst in stetem Flusse zeigt und die +Tendenz ihres Fortschreitens in offenbarer und sicherer Weise +klarlegt.—ROSENBERGER, _Geschichte der Physik_, iii., p. vi. Die +Continuität in der Ausbildung aller Auffassungen tritt um so +deutlicher hervor, je vollständiger man sich damit, wie sie zu +verschiedenen Zeiten waren, vertraut macht.—KOPP, _Entwickelung der +Chemie_, 814. + +[83] Die Geschichte und die Politik sind Ein und derselbe +Janus mit dem Doppelgesicht, das in der Geschichte in die +Vergangenheit, in der Politik in die Zukunft hinschaut.—GÜGLER'S +_Leben_, ii. 59. + +[84] The papers inclosed, which give an account of the +killing of two men in the county of Londonderry; if they prove to be +Tories, 'tis very well they are gone.—I think it will not only be +necessary to grant those a pardon who killed them, but also that they +have some reward for their own and others' encouragement.—ESSEX, +_Letters_, 10, _Jan._ 10, 1675. The author of this happened to be +present. There was a meeting of some honest people in the city, upon +the occasion of the discovery of some attempt to stifle the evidence +of the witnesses.—Bedloe said he had letters from Ireland, that there +were some Tories to be brought over hither, who were privately to +murder Dr. Oates and the said Bedloe. The doctor, whose zeal was very +hot, could never after this hear any man talk against the plot, or +against the witnesses, but he thought he was one of these Tories, and +called almost every man a Tory that opposed him in discourse; till at +last the word Tory became popular.—DEFOE, _Edinburgh Review_, l. +403. + +[85] La España será el primer pueblo en donde se encenderá +esta guerra patriotica que solo puede libertar á Europa.—Hemos oido +esto en Inglaterra á varios de los que estaban alli presentes. Muchas +veces ha oido lo mismo al duque de Wellington el general Don Miguel de +Alava, y dicho duque refirió el suceso en una comida diplomatica que +dió en Paris el duque de Richelieu en 1816.—TORENO, _Historia del +Levantamiento de España_, 1838, i. 508. + +[86] Nunquam propter auctoritatem illorum, quamvis magni sint +nominis (supponimus scilicet semper nos cum eo agere qui scientiam +historicam vult consequi), sententias quas secuti sunt ipse tamquam +certas admittet, sed solummodo ob vim testimoniorum et argumentorum +quibus eas confirmarunt.—DE SMEDT, _Introductio ad historiam critice +tractandam_, 1866, i. 5. + +[87] Hundert schwere Verbrechen wiegen nicht so schwer in der +Schale der Unsittlichkeit, als ein unsittliches Princip.—_Hallische +Jahrbücher_, 1839, 308. Il faut flétrir les crimes; mais il faut +aussi, et surtout, flétrir les doctrines et les systèmes qui tendent à +les justifier.—MORTIMER TERNAUX, _Histoire de la Terreur_. + +[88] We see how good and evil mingle in the best of men and +in the best of causes; we learn to see with patience the men whom we +like best often in the wrong, and the repulsive men often in the +right; we learn to bear with patience the knowledge that the cause +which we love best has suffered, from the awkwardness of its +defenders, so great disparagement, as in strict equity to justify the +men who were assaulting it.—STUBBS, _Seventeen Lectures_, 97. + +[89] Caeteris paribus, on trouvera tousjours que ceux qui ont +plus de puissance sont sujets à pécher davantage; et il n'y a point de +théorème de géométrie qui soit plus asseuré que cette proposition.—LEIBNIZ, +1688, ed. Rommel, ii. 197. Il y a toujours eu de la malignité dans la +grandeur, et de l'opposition à l'esprit de l'Évangile; mais maintenant +il y en a plus que jamais, et il semble que comme le monde va à sa +fin, celui qui est dans l'élévation fait tous ses efforts pour +dominer avec plus de tyrannie, et pour étouffer les maximes du +Christianisme et le règne de Jésus-Christ, voiant qu'il s'approche.—GODEAU, +_Lettres_, 423, March 27, 1667. There is, in fact, an unconquerable +tendency in all power, save that of knowledge, acting by and through +knowledge, to injure the mind of him by whom that power is +exercised.—WORDSWORTH, June 22, 1817. _Letters of Lake Poets_, 369. + +[90] I cieli han messo sulla terra due giudici delle umane +azioni, la coscienza e la storia.—COLLETTA. Wenn gerade die edelsten +Männer um des Nachruhmes willen gearbeitet haben, so soll die +Geschichte ihre Belohnung sein, sie auch die Strafe für die +Schlechten.—LASAULX, _Philosophie der Künste_, 211. Pour juger ce qui +est bon et juste dans la vie actuelle ou passée, il faut posséder un +criterium, qui ne soit pas tiré du passé ou du présent, mais de la +nature humaine.—AHRENS, _Cours de Droit Naturel_, i. 67. + +[91] L'homme de notre temps! La conscience moderne! Voilà +encore de ces termes qui nous ramènent la prétendue philosophie de +l'histoire et la doctrine du progrès, quand il s'agit de la justice, +c'est-à-dire de la conscience pure et de l'homme rationnel, que +d'autres siècles encore que le nôtre ont connu.—RENOUVIER, _Crit. +Phil._ 1873, ii. 55. + +[92] Il faut pardonner aux grands hommes le marchepied de +leur grandeur.—COUSIN, in J. SIMON, _Nos Hommes d'État_, 1887, 55. +L'esprit du XVIIIe siècle n'a pas besoin d'apologie: l'apologie d'un +siècle est dans son existence.—COUSIN, _Fragments_, iii. 1826. +Suspendus aux lèvres éloquentes de M. Cousin, nous l'entendîmes +s'écrier que la meilleure cause l'emportait toujours, que c'était la +loi de l'histoire, le rhythme immuable du progrès.—GASPARIN, _La +Liberté Morale_, ii. 63. Cousin verurtheilen heisst darum nichts +Anderes als jenen Geist historischer Betrachtung verdammen, durch +welchen das 19 Jahrhundert die revolutionäre Kritik des 18 +Jahrhunderts ergänzt, durch welchen insbesondere Deutschland die +geistigen Wohlthaten vergolten hat, welche es im Zeitalter der +Aufklärung von seinen westlichen Nachbarn empfangen.—IODL, _Gesch. +der Ethik_, ii. 295. Der Gang der Weltgeschichte steht ausserhalb der +Tugend, des Lasters, und der Gerechtigkeit.—HEGEL, _Werke_, viii. +425. Die Vermischung des Zufälligen im Individuum mit dem an ihm +Historischen führt zu unzähligen falschen Ansichten und Urtheilen. +Hierzu gehört namentlich alles Absprechen über die moralische +Tüchtigkeit der Individuen, und die Verwunderung, welche his zur +Verzweiflung an göttlicher Gerechtigkeit sich steigert, dass +historisch grosse Individuen moralisch nichtswürdig erscheinen können. +Die moralische Tüchtigkeit besteht in der Unterordnung alles dessen +was zufällig am Einzelnen unter das an ihm dem Allgemeinen +Angehörige.—MARBACH, _Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie_, 7. +Das Sittliche der Neuseeländer, der Mexikaner ist vielmehr ebenso +sittlich, wie das der Griechen, der Römer; und das Sittliche der +Christen des Mittelalters ist ebenso sittlich, wie das der +Gegenwart.—KIRCHMANN, _Grundbegriffe des Rechts_, 194. Die +Geschichtswissenschaft als solche kennt nur ein zeitliches und mithin +auch nur ein relatives Maass der Dinge. Alle Werthbeurtheilung der +Geschichte kann daher nur relativ und aus zeitlichen Momenten +fliessen, und wer sich nicht selbst täuschen und den Dingen nicht +Gewalt anthun will, muss ein für allemal in dieser Wissenschaft auf +absolute Werthe verzichten.—LORENZ, _Schlosser_, 80. Only according +to his faith is each man judged. Committed as this deed has been by a +pure-minded, pious youth, it is a beautiful sign of the time.—DE +WETTE to Sand's Mother, CHEYNE, _Founders of Criticism_, 44. The men +of each age must be judged by the ideal of their own age and country, +and not by the ideal of ours.—LECKY, _Value of History_, 50. + +[93] La durée ici-bas, c'est le droit, c'est la sanction de +Dieu.—GUIRAUD, _Philosophie Catholique de l'Histoire_. + +[94] Ceux qui ne sont pas contens de l'ordre des choses ne +sçauroient se vanter d'aimer Dieu comme il faut.—Il faut toujours +estre content de l'ordre du passé, parce qu'il est conforme à la +volonté de Dieu absolue, qu'on connoit par l'évènement. Il faut tâcher +de rendre l'avenir, autant qu'il dépend de nous, conforme à la volonté +de Dieu présomptive.—LEIBNIZ, _Werke_, ed. Gerhardt, ii. 136. Ich +habe damals bekannt und bekenne jetzt, dass die politische Wahrheit +aus denselben Quellen zu schöpfen ist, wie alle anderen, aus dem +göttlichen Willen und dessen Kundgebung in der Geschichte des +Menschengeschlechts.—RADOWITZ, _Neue Gespräche_, 65. + +[95] A man is great as he contends best with the +circumstances of his age.—FROUDE, _Short Studies_ i. 388. La +persuasion que l'homme est avant tout une personne morale et libre, et +qu'ayant conçu seul, dans sa conscience et devant Dieu, la règle de sa +conduite, il doit s'employer tout entier à l'appliquer en lui, hors de +lui, absolument, obstinément, inflexiblement, par une résistance +perpétuelle opposée aux autres; et par une contrainte perpétuelle +exercée sur soi, voilà la grande idée anglaise.—TAINE; SOREL, +_Discours de Réception_, 24. In jeder Zeit des Christenthums hat es +einzelne Männer gegeben, die über ihrer Zeit standen und von ihren +Gegensätzen nicht berührt wurden.—BACHMANN, _Hengstenberg_, i. 160. +Eorum enim qui de iisdem rebus mecum aliquid ediderunt, aut solus +insanio ego, aut solus non insanio; tertium enim non est, nisi (quod +dicet forte aliquis) insaniamus omnes.—HOBBES, quoted by DE MORGAN, +June 3, 1858, _Life of Sir W. R. Hamilton_, iii. 552. + +[96] I have now to exhibit a rare combination of good +qualities, and a steady perseverance in good conduct, which raised an +individual to be an object of admiration and love to all his +contemporaries, and have made him to be regarded by succeeding +generations as a model of public and private virtue.—The evidence +shows that upon this occasion he was not only under the influence of +the most vulgar credulity, but that he violated the plainest rules of +justice, and that he really was the murderer of two innocent +women.—Hale's motives were most laudable.—CAMPBELL'S _Lives of the +Chief Justices_, i. 512, 561, 566. It was not to be expected of the +colonists of New England that they should be the first to see through +a delusion which befooled the whole civilized world, and the gravest +and most knowing persons in it.—The people of New England believed +what the wisest men of the world believed at the end of the +seventeenth century.—PALFREY, _New England_, iv. 127, 129 (also +speaking of witchcraft). Il est donc bien étrange que sa sévérité +tardive s'exerce aujourd'hui sur un homme auquel elle n'a d'autre +reproche à faire que d'avoir trop bien servi l'état par des mesures +politiques, injustes peut-être, violentes, mais qui, en aucune +manière, n'avaient l'intérêt personnel du coupable pour objet.—M. +Hastings peut sans doute paraître répréhensible aux yeux des +étrangers, des particuliers même, mais il est assez extraordinaire +qu'une nation usurpatrice d'une partie de l'Indostan veuille mêler les +règles de la morale à celles d'une administration forcée, injuste et +violente par essence, et à laquelle il faudrait renoncer à jamais pour +être conséquent.—MALLET DU PAN, _Memories_, ed. Sayous, i. 102. + +[97] On parle volontiers de la stabilité de la constitution +anglaise. La vérité est que cette constitution est toujours en +mouvement et en oscillation et qu'elle se prête merveilleusement au +jeu de ses différentes parties. Sa solidité vient de sa souplesse; +elle plie et ne rompt pas.—BOUTMY, _Nouvelle Revue_, 1878, 49. + +[98] This is not an age for a man to follow the strict +morality of better times, yet sure mankind is not yet so debased but +that there will ever be found some few men who will scorn to join +concert with the public voice when it is not well grounded.—_Savile +Correspondence_, 173. + +[99] Cette proposition: L'homme est incomparablement plus +porté au mal qu'au bien, et il se fait dans le monde incomparablement +plus de mauvaises actions que de bonnes—est aussi certaine qu'aucun +principe de métaphysique. Il est donc incomparablement plus probable +qu'une action faite par un homme, est mauvaise, qu'il n'est probable +qu'elle soit bonne. Il est incomparablement plus probable que ces +secrets ressorts qui l'ont produite sont corrompus, qu'il n'est +probable qu'ils soient honnêtes. Je vous avertis que je parle d'une +action qui n'est point mauvaise extérieurement.—BAYLE, _Œuvres_, +ii. 248. + +[100] A Christian is bound by his very creed to suspect evil, +and cannot release himself.—His religion has brought evil to light in +a way in which it never was before; it has shown its depth, subtlety, +ubiquity; and a revelation, full of mercy on the one hand, is terrible +in its exposure of the world's real state on the other. The Gospel +fastens the sense of evil upon the mind; a Christian is enlightened, +hardened, sharpened, as to evil; he sees it where others do +not.—MOZLEY, _Essays_, i. 308. All satirists, of course, work in the +direction of Christian doctrine, by the support they give to the +doctrine of original sin, making a sort of meanness and badness a law +of society.—MOZLEY, _Letters_, 333. Les critiques, même malveillants, +sont plus près de la vérité dernière que les admirateurs.—NISARD, +_Lit. fr._, Conclusion. Les hommes supérieurs doivent nécessairement +passer pour méchants. Où les autres ne voient ni un défaut, ni un +ridicule, ni un vice, leur implacable œil l'aperçoit.—BARBEY +D'AUREVILLY, _Figaro_, March 31, 1888. + +[101] Prenons garde de ne pas trop expliquer, pour ne pas +fournir des arguments à ceux qui veulent tout excuser.—BROGLIE, +_Réception de Sorel_, 46. + +[102] The eternal truths and rights of things exist, +fortunately, independent of our thoughts or wishes, fixed as +mathematics, inherent in the nature of man and the world. They are no +more to be trifled with than gravitation.—FROUDE, _Inaugural Lecture +at St. Andrews_, 1869, 41. What have men to do with interests? There +is a right way and a wrong way. That is all we need think +about.—CARLYLE to FROUDE, _Longman's Magazine_, Dec. 1892, 151. As to +History, it is full of indirect but very effective moral teaching. It +is not only, as Bolingbroke called it, “Philosophy teaching by +examples,” but it is morality teaching by examples.—It is essentially +the study which best helps the student to conceive large thoughts.—It +is impossible to overvalue the moral teaching of History.—FITCH, +_Lectures on Teaching_, 432. Judging from the past history of our +race, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, war is a folly and a +crime.—Where it is so, it is the saddest and the wildest of all +follies, and the most heinous of all crimes.—GREG, _Essays on +Political and Social Science_, 1853, i. 562. La volonté de tout un +peuple ne peut rendre juste ce qui est injuste: les représentants +d'une nation n'ont pas le droit de faire ce que la nation n'a pas le +droit de faire elle-même.—B. CONSTANT, _Principes de Politique_, i. +15. + +[103] Think not that morality is ambulatory; that vices in +one age are not vices in another, or that virtues, which are under the +everlasting seal of right reason, may be stamped by opinion.—SIR +THOMAS BROWNE, _Works_, iv. 64. + +[104] Osons croire qu'il seroit plus à propos de mettre de +côté ces traditions, ces usages, et ces coutumes souvent si +imparfaites, si contradictoires, si incohérentes, ou de ne les +consulter que pour saisir les inconvéniens et les éviter; et qu'il +faudroit chercher non-seulement les éléments d'une nouvelle +législation, mais même ses derniers détails dans une étude approfondie +de la morale.—LETROSNE, _Réflexions sur la Législation Criminelle_, +137. M. Renan appartient à cette famille d'esprits qui ne croient pas +en réalité la raison, la conscience, le droit applicables à la +direction des sociétés humaines, et qui demandent à l'histoire, à la +tradition, non à la morale, les règles de la politique. Ces esprits +sont atteints de la maladie du siècle, le scepticisme moral.—PILLON, +_Critique Philosophique_, i. 49. + +[105] The subject of modern history is of all others, to my +mind, the most interesting, inasmuch as it includes all questions of +the deepest interest relating not to human things only, but to +divine.—ARNOLD, _Modern History_, 311. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Lecture on the Study of History, by Lord Acton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LECTURE ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 25720-0.txt or 25720-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/7/2/25720/ + +Produced by Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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