England lost the most truly cosmopolitan of her children, and Europe
lost one who was, by universal consent, in the foremost rank of her
men of learning. He belonged to an old Roman Catholic family of
Shropshire, a branch of which had gone to Southern Italy, where his
grandfather, General Acton, had been chief minister of the King of
Naples in the great war, at the time when the Bourbon dynasty
maintained itself in Sicily by the help of the British fleet, while
all Italy lay under the heel of Napoleon. His father, Sir Ferdinand
Acton, married a German lady, heiress of the ancient and famous house
of Dalberg, one of the great families of the middle Rhineland; so John
Edward Emerich Dalberg-Acton was born half a German, and connected by
blood with the highest aristocracy of Germany. He was educated at
Oscott, one of the two chief Roman Catholic colleges of England, under
Dr. Wiseman, afterwards Archbishop of Westminster and Cardinal; but
the most powerful influence on the development of his mind and
principles came from that glory of Catholic learning, a beautiful soul
as well as a capacious intellect, Dr. von Doellinger, with whom Acton
studied during some years at Munich. He sat for a short time in the
House of Commons as member for Carlow (1859); and was afterwards
elected for Bridgnorth (1865), but lost his seat (which he had gained
by one vote only) on a scrutiny. In those days it was not easy for a
Roman Catholic to find an English constituency, so in 1869 Mr.
Gladstone procured his elevation to the peerage. He made a successful
speech in the House of Lords in 1893, but took no prominent part in
parliamentary life in either House, feeling himself too much of a
student, and looking at current questions from a point of view unlike
that of English politicians. Neither as a philosopher, nor as a
historian, nor as a product of German training, could he find either
Lords or Commons a congenial audience. When he was asked soon after he
entered Parliament why he did not speak, he answered that he agreed
with nobody and nobody agreed with him. But since he regarded politics
as history in the course of making under his eyes, he continued to be
all his life keenly interested in public affairs, watching and judging
every move in the game. Mr. Gladstone, whose trusted friend he had
been for many years, was believed to have on one occasion wished to
place him in an important office; but political exigencies made this
impossible, and the only public post he ever held was that of
Lord-in-Waiting in the Ministry of 1892. In this capacity he was
brought into frequent contact with Queen Victoria, who felt the
warmest respect and admiration for him. He was one of the very few
persons surrounding her who was familiar with most of the courts of
Continental Europe, and could discuss with her from direct knowledge
the men who figured in those courts. At Windsor he spent in the
library of the Castle all the time during which he was not required to
be in actual attendance on the Queen, a singular phenomenon among
Lords-in-Waiting.
Unlike most English Roman Catholics, he was a strong Liberal, a
Liberal of that orthodox type, individualist, free-trade, and
peace-loving, which prevailed from 1846 till 1885. He was also a
convinced Home Ruler, and had, indeed, adopted the principle of Home
Rule for Ireland long before Mr. Gladstone himself was converted to
it. His faith in that principle rested on the value he attached to
self-government as a means of training and developing the political
aptitudes of a people, and to the recognition of national sentiment,
which he held to be, like other natural forces, useful when guided but
formidable when repressed. So too his Liberalism was based on the love
of freedom for its own sake, joined to the conviction that freedom is
the best foundation for the stability of a constitution and the
happiness of a people. Reliance on the power of freedom was, he used
to say, one of the broadest of all the lessons he had learned from
history. He applied it in ecclesiastical as well as in political
affairs. At the time of the Vatican Council of 1870 he was, though a
layman, prominent among those who constituted the opposition
maintained by the Liberal section of the Roman Catholic Church to the
affirmation of the dogma of papal infallibility. His full and accurate
knowledge of ecclesiastical history was placed at the disposal of the
prelates, such as Archbishop Dupanloup, Bishop Strossmayer, and
Archbishop Conolly (of Halifax, Nova Scotia), who combated the
Ultramontane party in the animated and protracted debates which
illumined that OEcumenical Council. One, at least, of the treatises,
and many of the letters in the press which the Council called forth
were written either by him or from materials which he supplied, and he
was recognised by the Ultramontanes, and in particular by Archbishop
Manning, as being, along with Doellinger, the most formidable of their
opponents behind the scenes. As every one knows, the Infallibilists
triumphed, and the schism which led to the formation of the Old
Catholic Church in Germany and Switzerland was the result. Doellinger
was excommunicated; but against Lord Acton no action was taken, and he
remained all his life a faithful member of the Roman communion, while
adhering to the views he had advocated in 1870.
With this close hold upon practical life and this constant interest in
the politics of the world, especially of England and the United
States, no one could be less like that cloistered student who is
commonly taken as the typical man of learning. But Lord Acton was a
miracle of learning. Of the sciences of nature and their practical
applications in the arts he had indeed no more knowledge than any
cultivated man of the world is expected to possess. But of all the
so-called "human subjects" his mastery was unequalled. Learning was
the business of his life. He was gifted with a singularly tenacious
memory. His industry was untiring. Wherever he was--in London, at
Cannes in winter, at Tegern See in summer, at Windsor or Osborne with
the Queen, latterly (till his health failed) at Cambridge during the
University terms--he never worked less than eight hours a day. Yet,
even after making every allowance for his memory and his industry, his
friends stood amazed at the range and exactness of his knowledge. It
was as various as it was profound, and much of it bore on recondite
matters which few men study to-day. Though less minute where it
touched the ancient and the early mediaeval world than as respected
more recent times, it might be said to cover the whole field of
history, both civil and ecclesiastical, and became wonderfully full
and exact when it reached the Renaissance and Reformation periods. It
included not only the older theology, but modern Biblical criticism.
It included metaphysics; and not only metaphysics in the more special
sense, but the abstract side of economics and that philosophy of law
on which the Germans set so much store. Most of the prominent figures
who have during the last half-century led the march of inquiry in
these subjects, men like Ranke and Fustel de Coulanges in history,
Wilhelm Roscher in economic science, Adolf Harnack in theology, were
his personal friends, and he could meet them as an equal on their own
ground. On one occasion I had invited to meet him at dinner the late
Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Creighton, who was then writing his _History
of the Popes_, and the late Professor Robertson Smith, the most
eminent Hebrew and Arabic scholar in Britain. The conversation turned
first upon the times of Pope Leo the Tenth, and then upon recent
controversies regarding the dates of the books of the Old Testament,
and it soon appeared that Lord Acton knew as much about the former as
Dr. Creighton, and as much about the latter as Robertson Smith. The
constitutional history of the United States is a topic far removed
from those philosophical and ecclesiastical or theological lines of
inquiry to which most of his time had been given; yet he knew it more
thoroughly than any other living European, at least in England and
France, for of the Germans I will not venture to speak, and he
continued to read most of the books of importance dealing with it
which from time to time were published. So, indeed, he kept abreast of
nearly all the literature of possible utility bearing on history
(especially ecclesiastical history) and political theory that appeared
in Europe or America, reading much which his less diligent or less
eager friends thought scarcely worthy of his perusal. And it need
hardly be said that his friends found him an invaluable guide to the
literature of any subject. In the sphere of history more especially,
one might safely assume that a book which he did not know was not
worth knowing, while he was often able to indicate, as being the right
book to consult, some work of which the person who consulted him,
albeit not unversed in the subject, had never heard. He had at one
time four libraries, the largest at his family seat, Aldenham in
Shropshire, others at Tegern See, at Cannes, and in London; and he
could usually tell in which of these the particular book he named was
to be found. Unlike most men who value their libraries, he was fond of
lending books, and would sometimes put a friend to shame by asking
some weeks afterwards what the latter thought of the volumes he had
almost forced on the borrower, and which the borrower had not found
time to read. After saying this, I need scarcely add that he was not a
book collector in the usual sense of the word. He did not care for
rare editions, and still less did he care about bindings.
His Aldenham library was itself a monument of learning and industry.[60]
In forming it he sought to bring together the books needed for
tracing and elucidating the growth of formative ideas and of
institutions in the sphere of ecclesiastical and civil polity, and to
attain this he made it include not only all the best treatises
handling these large and complex subjects, but a mass of original
records bearing as well on the local histories of the cities and
provinces of such countries as Italy and France as on the general
history of the great European States and of the Church. This
magnificent design he accomplished by his own efforts before he was
forty. What was still more surprising, he had found time to use the
books. Nearly all of them show by notes pencilled or marks placed in
them that he had read some part of them, and knew (so far as was needed
for his purpose) their contents.
Vast as his stores of knowledge were, they were opened only to his few
intimate friends. It was not merely that he, as Tennyson said of
Edmund Lushington, "bore all that weight of learning lightly, like a
flower." No one could have known in general society that he had any
weight of learning to bear. He seemed to be merely a cultivated and
agreeable man of the world, interested in letters and politics, but
disposed rather to listen than to talk. He was sometimes enigmatic
and "not incapable of casting a pearl of irony in the way of those
who would mistake it for pebbly fact."[61] A great capacity for
cynicism remained a capacity only, because joined to a greater
reverence for virtue. In a large company he seldom put forth the
fulness of his powers; it was in familiar converse with persons whose
tastes resembled his own that the extraordinary finesse and polish
of his mind revealed themselves. His critical taste was not only
delicate, but exacting; his judgments leaned to the side of severity.
No one applied a more stringent moral standard to the conduct of men
in public affairs, whether to-day or in past ages. He insisted upon
this, in his inaugural lecture at Cambridge, as the historian's first
duty. "It is," said he, "the office of historical science to maintain
morality as the sole impartial criterion of men and things." When he
came to estimate the value of literary work he seemed no less hard
to satisfy. His ideal, both as respected thoroughness in substance and
finish in form, was impossibly high, and he noted every failure to
reach it. No one appreciated merit more cordially. No one spoke
with warmer admiration of such distinguished historians and
theologians as the men whom I have just named. But the precision of
his thinking and the fastidiousness of his taste gave more than a
tinge of austerity to his judgment. His opinions were peculiarly
instructive and illuminative to Englishmen, because he was only
half an Englishman in blood, less than half an Englishman in his
training and mental habits. He was as much at home in Paris or Berlin
or Rome as he was in London, speaking the four great languages with
almost equal facility, and knowing the men who in each of these
capitals were best worth knowing. He viewed our insular literature
and politics with the detachment not only of a Roman Catholic
among Protestants, of a pupil of Doellinger and Roscher among Oxford
and Cambridge men, but also of a citizen of the world, whose mastery
of history and philosophy had given him an unusually wide outlook
over mankind at large.
His interest in the great things, so far from turning him away from
the small things, seemed to quicken his sense of their significance.
It was a noteworthy feature of his view of history that he should have
held that the explanation of most of what has passed in the light is
to be found in what has passed in the dark. He was always hunting for
the key to secret chambers, preferring to believe that the grand
staircase is only for show, and meant to impose upon the multitude,
while the real action goes on in hidden passages behind. No one knew
so much of the gossip of the past; no one was more intensely curious
about the gossip of the present, though in his hands it ceased to be
gossip and became unwritten history. One was sometimes disposed to
wonder whether he did not think too much about the backstairs. But he
had seen a great deal of history in the making.
The passion for acquiring knowledge which his German education had
fostered ended by becoming a snare to him, because it checked his
productive powers. Not that learning burdened him, or clogged the
soaring pinions of his mind. He was master of all he knew. But
acquisition absorbed so much of his time that little was left for
literary composition. (Doellinger saw the danger, for he observed that
if Acton did not write a great book before he reached the age of
forty, he would never do so.) It made him think that he could not
write on a subject till he had read everything, or nearly everything,
that others had written about it. It developed the habit of making
extracts from the books he read, a habit which took the form of
accumulating small slips of paper on which these extracts were written
in his exquisitely neat and regular hand, the slips being arranged in
cardboard boxes according to their subjects. He had hundreds of these
boxes; and though much of their contents must no doubt be valuable,
the time spent in distilling and bottling the essence of the books
whence they came, might have been better spent in giving to the world
the ideas which they had helped to evoke in his own mind. If one may
take the quotations appended to his inaugural lecture as a sample of
those he had collected, many of them were not exceptionally valuable,
and did little more than show how the same idea, perhaps no recondite
one, might be expressed in different words by different persons. When
one read some article he had written, garnished and even overloaded
with citations, one often felt that his own part was better, both in
substance and in form, than the passages which he had culled from his
predecessors. It becomes daily more than ever true that the secret of
historical composition is to know what to neglect, since in our time
it has become impossible to exhaust the literature of most subjects,
and, as respects the last two centuries, to exhaust even the original
authorities. Yet how shall one know what to neglect without at least a
glance of inspection? Acton was unwilling to neglect anything; and his
ardour for completeness drew him into a policy fit only for one who
could expect to live three lives of mortal men.
The love of knowledge grew upon him till it became a passion of the
intellect, a thirst like the thirst for water in a parching desert.
What he sought to know was not facts only, but facts in their
relations to principles, facts so disposed and fitly joined together
as to become the causeway over which the road to truth shall pass. For
this purpose events were in his view not more important than the
thoughts of men, because discursive and creative thought was to him
the ruling factor in history. Hence books must be known--books of
philosophic creation, books of philosophic reflection, no less than
those which record what has happened. The danger of this conception is
that everything men have said or written, as well as everything they
have done, becomes a possibly significant fact; and thus the search
for truth becomes endless because the materials are inexhaustible.
He expressed in striking words, prefixed to a list of books suggested
for a young man's perusal, his view of the aim of a course of
historical reading. It is "to give force and fulness and clearness and
sincerity and independence and elevation and generosity and serenity
to his mind, that he may know the method and law of the process by
which error is conquered and truth is won, discerning knowledge from
probability and prejudice from belief, that he may learn to master
what he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he may understand the
origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems and the better
motive of men who are wrong ... and to steel him against the charm of
literary beauty and talent."[62]
Neither his passion for facts nor his appreciation of style and form
made him decline to the right hand or to the left from the true
position of a historian. He set little store upon what is called
literary excellence, and would often reply, when questioned as to the
merits of some book bearing an eminent name, "You need not read it: it
adds nothing to what we knew." He valued facts only so far as they
went to establish a principle or explained the course of events. It
was really not so much in the range of his knowledge as in the
profundity and precision of his thought that his greatness lay.
His somewhat overstrained conscientiousness, coupled with the
practically unattainable ideal of finish and form which he set before
himself, made him less and less disposed to literary production. No
man of first-rate powers has in our time left so little by which
posterity may judge those powers. In his early life, when for a time
he edited the _Home and Foreign Review_, and when he was connected
with the _Rambler_ and the _North British Review_, he wrote
frequently; and even between 1868 and 1890 he contributed to the press
some few historical essays and a number of anonymous letters. But the
aversion to creative work seemed to grow on him. About 1890 he so far
yielded to the urgency of a few friends as to promise to reissue a
number of his essays in a volume, but, after rewriting and polishing
these essays during several years, he abandoned the scheme altogether.
In 1882 he had already drawn out a plan for a comprehensive history of
Liberty. But this plan also he dropped, because the more he read with
a view to undertaking it the more he wished to read, and the vaster
did the enterprise seem to loom up before him. With him, as with many
men who cherish high literary ideals, the Better proved to be the
enemy of the Good.
Twenty years ago, late at night, in his library at Cannes, he
expounded to me his view of how such a history of Liberty might be
written, and in what wise it might be made the central thread of all
history. He spoke for six or seven minutes only; but he spoke like a
man inspired, seeming as if, from some mountain summit high in air, he
saw beneath him the far-winding path of human progress from dim
Cimmerian shores of prehistoric shadow into the fuller yet broken and
fitful light of the modern time. The eloquence was splendid, but
greater than the eloquence was the penetrating vision which discerned
through all events and in all ages the play of those moral forces, now
creating, now destroying, always transmuting, which had moulded and
remoulded institutions, and had given to the human spirit its
ceaselessly-changing forms of energy. It was as if the whole landscape
of history had been suddenly lit up by a burst of sunlight. I have
never heard from any other lips any discourse like this, nor from his
did I ever hear the like again.
His style suffered in his later days from the abundance of the
interspersed citations, and from the overfulness and subtlety of the
thought, which occasionally led to obscurity. But when he handled a
topic in which learning was not required, his style was clear, pointed
and incisive, sometimes epigrammatic. Several years ago he wrote in a
monthly magazine a short article upon a biography of one of his
contemporaries which showed how admirable a master he was of polished
diction and penetrating analysis, and made one wish that he had more
frequently consented to dash off light work in a quick unstudied way.
To the work of a University professor he came too late to acquire the
art of fluent and forcible oral discourse, nor was the character of
his mind, with its striving after a flawless exactitude of statement,
altogether fitted for the function of presenting broad summaries of
facts to a youthful audience. His predecessor in the Cambridge chair
of history, Sir John Seeley, with less knowledge, less subtlety, and
less originality, had in larger measure the gift of oral exposition
and the power of putting points, whether by speech or by writing, in
a clear and telling way. No one, indeed, since Macaulay has been a
better point-putter than Seeley was. But Acton's lectures (read from
MS.) were models of lucid and stately narrative informed by fulness of
thought; and they were so delivered as to express the feeling which
each event had evoked in his own mind. That sternness of character
which revealed itself in his judgments of men and books never affected
his relations to his pupils. Precious as his time was, he gave it
generously, encouraging them to come to him for help and counsel. They
were awed by the majesty of his learning. Said one of them to me,
"When Lord Acton answers a question put to him, I feel as if I were
looking at a pyramid. I see the point of it clear and sharp, but I see
also the vast subjacent mass of solid knowledge." They perceived,
moreover, that to him History and Philosophy were not two things but
one, and perceived that of History as well as of divine Philosophy it
may be said that she too is "charming, and musical as is Apollo's
lute." Thus the impression produced in the University by the amplitude
of Lord Acton's views, by the range of his learning, by the liberality
of his spirit and his unfailing devotion to truth and to truth alone,
was deep and fruitful.
When they wished that he had given to the world more of his wisdom,
his friends did not undervalue a life which was in itself a rare and
exquisite product of favouring nature and unwearied diligence. They
only regretted that the influence of his ideas, of his methods, and of
his spirit, had not been more widely diffused in an enduring form. It
was as when a plant unknown elsewhere grows on some remote isle where
ships seldom touch. Few see the beauty of the flower, and here death
came before the seed could be gathered to be scattered in receptive
soil.
To most men Lord Acton seemed reserved as well as remote, presenting a
smooth and shining surface beneath which it was hard to penetrate. He
avoided publicity and popularity with the tranquil dignity of one for
whom the world of knowledge and speculation was more than sufficient.
But he was a loyal friend, affectionate to his intimates, gracious in
his manners, blameless in all the relations of life. Comparatively few
of his countrymen knew his name, and those who did thought of him
chiefly as the confidant of Mr. Gladstone, and as the most remarkable
instance of a sincere and steadfast Roman Catholic who was a Liberal
alike in politics and in theology. But those who had been admitted to
his friendship recognised him as one of the finest intelligences of
his generation, an unsurpassed, and indeed a scarcely rivalled, master
of every subject which he touched.
-----
[60] This library, bought by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, was presented by him
to Mr. John Morley, and by the latter to the University of
Cambridge.
[61] The phrase is Professor Maitland's.
[62] I owe this quotation to a letter of Sir M. E. Grant Duff's
published soon after Lord Acton's death.
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE