Since I have accepted, at the request of your Warden, the honour of
delivering an inaugural address on this occasion, it has appeared to
me appropriate to choose, for such an audience, some literary subject.
And I propose, with some diffidence, to offer a few observations on
the reading of history, because in these latter days, when education
has come in upon us like a flood, rising higher and spreading wider
every year among our people, no part of literature is more sedulously
studied than the field of history. On the other hand, this field is
being very rapidly enlarged. It has been said that the output of
histories during the nineteenth century has exceeded in bulk and
volume the production of all previous centuries. And in all the
countries now standing in the forefront of civilisation, the chief
product of their serious literature is at this time historical and
biographical--for I take authentic biography to be a kind of handmaid
of history. It has been reported that during the ten years ending 1907
there were published in England 5498 books under the head of history,
and 1059 biographies. Moreover, of those who are not actually writing
history, an important number are occupied in criticising the
historians.
Now the first observation that I submit to you is that the production
of all history has been almost entirely the work of Europeans, among
whom I reckon the American writers, as belonging by language and
culture to Europe. So far as the African continent has any trustworthy
history, it is in some European language. In Asia there have been
annalists, chroniclers, and genealogists, mostly Mohammedan, who
narrate the wars and exploits of great conquerors, the succession of
kings, and the rise and fall of dynasties. And I believe that in China
official record of public events and transactions has been kept up
from very early ages. But if we measure these Asiatic narratives by
the standard of literary merit and the demand for authentication of
facts, I fear that they will be found wanting; though they may be
relied upon to give the general course of important events, and an
outline of the result of battles and the upsetting of thrones.
When these Asiatic chroniclers wrote of the times in and near which
they were living, they were fairly trustworthy. But whenever they
attempted to write of times long past and of countries unknown to them
personally, their narratives became for the most part fabulous and
romantic, confused and improbable, with some grains of truth here and
there. Our best information regarding the earlier ages of Asia is
derived, I think, from Greek and Latin literature, and latterly from
the researches of quite modern scholars and archaeologists. So that it
may be affirmed that authentic history began in Europe, and that to
Europe it has ever since been practically confined. At this day the
history of all parts of the world is being written by Europeans. The
result has been that for the last 2500 years historical material,
collected from and relating to all parts of the world, has been
accumulating in Europe.
Such masses of records and monuments necessarily require methodical
treatment by men of trained intelligence and of untiring industry,
learned, and accurate. Their systematic labours, their acute and
intelligent criticism, have created what is now usually termed the
Science of History, which abstracts general conclusions from the mass
of particulars. And so, I think, we may agree with Renan, who has
declared that to the nineteenth century may be accorded the title of
the Age of Historians, and that this has been the special distinction
of that century's literature.
Now I believe that the question, whether history is an art or a
science, is not yet universally settled. But whatever may be the case
in these modern days, I submit that in earlier times, and certainly
when history began to be written, it was mainly an art. Indeed, it
could hardly have been otherwise. In all ages and countries, from the
time when men first attained to some stage of elementary culture, they
have been curious about the past, they have enjoyed hearing of the
deeds and fame of their ancestors, of far-off things and battles long
ago. But the primitive chronicler had very slight material for his
stories of bygone times--he had few, if any, documents--he was himself
creating the documentary evidence for those who came after him; he
could only compile his narratives from tradition, legends, anecdotes
of heroic ancestors, from information picked up by travel to famous
places, and so on. Yet from sources of this kind he composed tales of
inestimable value as representing the ideas, habits, and social
condition of preceding generations that were very like his own.
Herodotus, who is our best example of the class, reconstructs,
revives, and relates conversations that neither he nor his informants
could have actually heard; but he does this in order to give a
dramatic version of great events. In the opening sentence of his first
book he says that he has written in order that the actions of men may
not be effaced by time, nor great and wondrous deeds be deprived of
renown. And one may notice the same style and method in the
historical books of the Old Testament. In both these ancient histories
the narratives represent life, action, speech, situations.
It is futile, I may suggest, to subject work of this sort to critical
analysis by attempting to sift out what is probably true from what is
certainly false. You only break up the picture, you destroy the
artistic effect, which is at least a true reflection of real life.
Moreover, it is dangerous for learned men sitting in libraries to
regard as incredible facts stated by these old writers. The legend of
Romulus and Remus having been suckled by a wolf has been dismissed as
a childish fable. Yet it is certain that this very thing has happened
more than once in the forests of India within the memory of living
men. You cannot be particular about details, you must take the story
as a whole.
From this standpoint we may agree, I think, that in illiterate times,
and, indeed, throughout the middle ages of Europe, history-writing was
practised as an art. The unlearned chronicler wrote in no fear of
critics or sceptics; he drew striking scenes and portraits; he
described warlike exploits; he related characteristic sayings and
dialogues which completely satisfied his audience or his readers. The
society in which he lived was not far different, in morals and
manners, from that which he portrayed, so that he can have committed
very few anachronisms or incongruities; and in sentiments and
character-drawing he could not go far astray. He produced, at any
rate, vivid impressions of reality, just as Shakespeare's historical
plays have stamped upon the English mind the figures of Hotspur or
Richard III., which have been thus set up in permanent type for all
subsequent ages. At any rate portraits of this kind have not been
modernised to suit the taste of a later age, as has been done with
King Arthur in Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King.' And when work of this
sort has been finely executed, the question whether the details are
untrustworthy or even fictitious is immaterial, particularly in cases
where the precise facts can never be recovered. We do not know exactly
how the battle of Marathon, or, indeed, the battle of Hastings, was
fought, but we have in the chronicles something of great value--a true
outline of the general situation, and some stirring narratives of the
clash and wrestling of armed men, compiled either at first hand from
the recollections of those who were actually on the field, or else
taken at second hand from others who made notes of what had been told
them by those present at the battles. This, then, is what I meant when
I said that in early times history was an art. Its method was
picturesque.
Now my next observation is that, although the science of history has
since been invented, we have, among quite modern English writers, men
of singular genius, who have to some extent followed the example,
adopted the manner, of the ancient annalist. Like him, they are
artists, their aim has been to depict famous men, to reproduce
striking incidents and scenes dramatically. Their technical methods,
so to speak, are entirely different from those of the old chronicler,
who sketched with a free hand, and trusted largely to his
inspirations, to his own experience of what was likely to have been
said or done, or to popular tradition, which is always animated and
distinct. The modern historian, of what I may call the school of
impressionists, has no such experience, he knows nothing personally of
violent scenes or fierce deeds; he composes his picture of things that
happened long ago from a mass of papers, books, memoirs, that have
come down to us. Yet although style and substance are quite different,
the chief aim, the design, of the ancient and modern artist in
history is the same. They both strive to set before their reader a
vision of certain scenes and figures at moments of energetic
action--not only to tell him a story, but to make him see it. Let me
give an example. Every one here may remember the story in the Old
Testament (2nd Book of Kings) of Jehu driving furiously into Jezreel,
how on his way he smote Ahaziah, king of Judah, with an arrow, and how
Jezebel, the Phoenician Queen, was hurled down out of her palace
window to be devoured by dogs in the street. And some of you may have
read in Froude's _History of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth_ his
description of the murder of David Rizzio by the fierce Scotch nobles,
how he was killed clinging to Queen Mary's knees in her chamber in
Holyrood Palace. Now the manner, the artistic presentation of
ferocious action, are in both cases alike; we have the words spoken
and the deeds done; we can look on at the bloody tragedy; we have a
dramatic version of the story. The ancient writer of the Old Testament
probably did his work naturally, instinctively; he tells the story as
he received it by word of mouth, briefly--laying stress only on the
things that cut into the imagination of an eye-witness, and remain in
the memory of those to whom they were related. He troubles us with no
moral reflections, but goes on quietly to the next chapter of
incidents. The modern historian has composed his picture from details
collected by study of documents; he puts in adjectives as a painter
lays on colour; yet the effect, the impression, is of the same
quality: it is artistic.
Now the principal English historians of the modern school, who revived
what one may call the dramatic presentation of history, I take to be
Macaulay, Froude, and Carlyle. They all worked upon genuine material,
upon authentic records of the period which they were writing about.
Lord Acton mentions that Froude spoke of having consulted 100,000
papers in manuscript, at home and abroad, for one of his histories.
Macaulay was industrious and indefatigable. Yet Ranke, the great
German historian, said of Macaulay that he could hardly be called a
historian at all, judged by the strict tests of German criticism. And
Freeman, the English historian, brought violent charges against Froude
of deliberately twisting his facts and misquoting his authorities;
though I believe that Freeman's bitter jealousies led him into grave
exaggerations. Then take Carlyle. His Cromwell is a fine portrait by
an eminent literary artist. But is it a genuine delineation of the man
himself, of his motives, of the working of his mind in speech and
action? Later investigation, minute scrutiny of old and new material,
suggest doubts, different interpretations of conduct and character.
Take, again, his description of the battle of Dunbar, Cromwell's great
victory. Carlyle explains to us the nature of the ground, the
movements of the troops, the tactics, the points of attack, with
admirable force and clearness--it is a marvellous specimen of literary
execution. Yet recent and very careful examination of the locality,
and a comparison of the evidence of eye-witnesses, have proved beyond
doubt that Carlyle had not studied the ground, had made some important
errors. He was, in fact, giving a dramatic representation of the
battle, which, if it had come down to us from some mediaeval annalist,
would have been universally accepted as genuine. In short, these three
artists have all suffered damage under scientific treatment.
Now I am not here to disparage Macaulay, Froude, or Carlyle. They were
all, in my opinion, authors of rare genius, whose places in the
forefront of the literature of the nineteenth century are permanently
secure. Yet I fear that the tendency of the twentieth century is
unfavourable to the artistic historian. It seems to me probable, much
to my personal regret, that the scientific writing of history, based
upon exhaustive research, accumulation and minute sifting of all
available details, relentless verification of every statement, will
gradually discourage and supersede the art of picturesque composition.
In the first place the spirit of doubt and distrust is abroad, every
statement is scrutinised and tested. The imaginative historian cannot
lay on his colours, or fill up his canvas, by effective and lively
touches without finding his work placed under the microscope of
erudite analysts, some of whom, like Iago, are nothing if not
critical, are not only exact but very exacting. In these days a writer
who endeavours to illuminate some scene of ages past, to show us, as
by a magic lantern, the moving figures brought out in relief against
the surrounding darkness, is liable to be set down as an illusionist,
possibly even as a charlatan or conjurer. Yet one feels the charm of
the splendid vision, though it may fade into the light of common day
when it falls under relentless scrutiny, and one is haunted by the
doubt whether the scientific historian, with all his conscientious
accuracy, is after all much nearer the reality than the literary
artist. For it is seriously questionable whether the precise truth
about bygone events and men long dead can ever actually be discovered,
whether, by piecing together what has come down to us in documents, we
can resuscitate from the dust-heap of records the state of society
many centuries ago. And in regard to historical portrait painting Lord
Acton has warned intending historians to seek no unity of
character--to remember that allowance must always be made for human
inconsistencies; that a man is never all of one piece. But cautious
conclusions, nice weighing of evidence, do not satisfy the ordinary
reader. The vivid impressions that are stamped on his mind by the
power of style are what he mostly requires and retains; and these we
are all reluctant to lose. We must concede to the writer, as to the
painter, some indulgence of his imaginative faculty. Otherwise we must
leave the battle scenes and the national portrait gallery to the poets
and romancers of genius--to Shakespeare and Walter Scott, whose art
had nothing to gain from accuracy, who have only to give us the types,
the right colouring and strong outline of life and character in days
bygone.
However, I think we shall be compelled to accept the change from the
artistic to the scientific school of historians, though we may regret
it as unavoidable. It is the vast enlargement of the field of
historical study, the strong critical searchlight that is turned on
all the dark corners and outlying tracts of this field, that is
irresistibly affecting the work of writers, enforcing the need of
caution, of scrutinising every point, of weighing evidence in the
finest scales, of assaying its precise value. The contemporary writer
has to deal with the huge accumulation of material to which I have
already referred; he must ransack archives, hunt through records piled
up, public and private, must decipher ancient manuscript, must follow
the labours of the wandering collector of inscriptions and the
excavator of old tombs. He has to make extracts from correspondence,
diaries, and notes of travel which are coming for the first time to
the light; he must keep abreast of foreign literature and criticism.
The mass and multiplicity of documentary evidence now at his disposal,
most of which may not have been available to his predecessors, is
enormous. Some twelve years ago Lord Acton wrote: 'The honest student
has to hew his way through multitudinous transactions, periodicals
and official publications, where it is difficult to sweep the horizon
or to keep abreast. The result has been that the classics of
historical literature are found inadequate, are being re-written, and
the student has to be warned that they have been superseded by later
discoveries.'
What has been the effect of this altered situation upon the writer of
history at the present time? On such an extensive field of operations,
which has to be cultivated so intensely, he finds himself compelled to
contract the scope of his operations; he can only take up very narrow
ground. So in many instances he limits himself to a period, or even to
a single reign, to a particular class of historical personage, or to
some special department of human activity. He looks about for a plot
that he can work thoroughly; he concentrates his attention upon some
line or aspect of a subject in which he may hope that he has not been
anticipated by others. Lord Acton has laid down that 'every student
ought to know that mastery is acquired by acknowledged limitation'--he
must peg out his small holding and keep within its bounds. Histories
are now written by many and various hands--as in the case of the
Cambridge Modern History, which already counts numerous volumes--and
so the general area is divided and subdivided among experts, each of
whom dips deeply into his particular allotment, and takes heavy crops
off his ground. Yet the productiveness of the field at large seems
still inexhaustible, for there is always some new theory to be
established, some fresh vein of facts to be opened, some corrections
or additions to be made. Moreover, the experts, while they toil at
their own special work, while they attack a difficult problem from
different sides, must nevertheless co-operate with each other. Sir
William Ramsay, a noted archaeologist, tells us that for a new study
of history there is needed a group of scholars working in unison; that
the solitary historian is doomed to failure. He adds that the history
of the Roman empire has still to be re-written. The late Lord Acton,
when as Professor of Modern History at Cambridge he drew out his plan
for a modern history that would satisfy the scientific demand for
completeness and exactitude, proposed to distribute the work among
more than a hundred writers. He observed that the entire bulk of new
matter which the last forty years have supplied amounts to many
thousand volumes. When history becomes the product of many hands and
various minds the artistic element is likely to disappear.
One obvious result of this state of things is that we hear no more of
the old-fashioned histories embracing vast subjects, the work of a
single author--of histories of the world, or a history of Europe like
Alison's in thirty volumes. Indeed it is not long since Buckle found
his _History of European Civilisation_ unmanageable; he died before he
could finish it. At the present time historical subjects are divided
and subdivided by classes, periods, or even single events. Art,
literature, philosophy, war, diplomacy, receive separate treatment. We
have colonial histories in numerous thick volumes; though no English
colony has a long past. We have histories of the queens who have
reigned in their own right, like Queen Elizabeth, and of Queens
Consort: we have even a book on the bachelor kings of England, written
by a lady who proves undeniably that these unlucky bachelors--there
were only three of them--all came to a bad or sad end. As to military
historians, Kinglake's _History of the Crimean War_ takes up, I think,
some eight volumes. The whole course of the recent Boer War has been
related in five substantial volumes. Neither of these wars lasted
more than two years, yet both histories are many times larger than
Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War in Germany. The only
edition of Schiller's work that I have found in the library of this
University is in four small volumes.
Now, the drawback to the composition of histories on this ample and
elaborate scale is obviously this--that the ordinary man or woman can
hardly be expected to read them, or at most to read more than two or
three of them. So there has sprung up a natural demand for something
lighter and shorter; the amplification has produced a supply of
abbreviation. The massive volumes, the heaps of material, are taken in
hand by very capable writers with a clear eye for the main points, for
striking incidents and personalities. The big books are sliced up into
convenient portions, and served up in attractive form and manageable
quantities. The work is often done with admirable skill and judgment.
You thus obtain a bird's-eye view of the past; you have the loftier
prominences and bold outlines of the historic landscape.
In these serials, which are deservedly popular, you can read short
biographies, for example, of English Men of Letters, of English Men of
Action, of famous Scotsmen, Rulers of India, Heroes of the Nation. You
have also a story of all the nations in series, and thus you can limit
your mental survey to separate periods, events, countries, and
figures. You are carried swiftly and adroitly over the dry interspaces
which lie between startling incidents or between supremely interesting
epochs.
Now I have no doubt that these series, which contain much sound
information very skilfully condensed, have been of real service in the
propagation of historical knowledge. On the other hand, we have to
consider that this kind of reading is disconnected in style and
subject. The reader can make a long jump from one period to another,
or from the statesman of one century to another who flourished in a
very different country and age. And the handling of these diverse
subjects is not uniform; the points of view or lines of thought are
various, and may be contradictory. It may be expedient to warn those
who use these excellent summaries against the habit of neglecting the
great English classics for short biographies or compendious sketches
of periods and personages, as if one could learn enough of Edmund
Burke, or Milton, or Oliver Cromwell, or master the events of some
important period, from a well-written serial in some two hundred
pages.
The demand for these historical handbooks has evidently been created
by the spread of general education, which stimulates the laudable
desire to learn something about subjects of which it is hardly
respectable, in these days, to be ignorant. Such knowledge is very
useful to those who have no leisure for more; and it is far superior
to mere desultory reading, to the habit of picking out amusing bits
here and there. Yet I hope it is unnecessary to impress on earnest
students of history that they must go further; must push up as near as
possible to the fountain heads of the rivers of knowledge; must make
acquaintance with the masterpieces of literature--that their reading
must be continuous and consecutive.
Now those among you who are studying for University honours have no
need for any advice from me; they are well aware that the wide
expansion, in these days, of the field of history has raised the
standard of examinations, and that they must be prepared for questions
testing a candidate's critical acumen, the breadth and depth of his
reading, much more closely than was required formerly. But there must
also be many here present who have no examinations in front of them,
who have no ardent inclination or even leisure for abstruse labours.
And I presume that all of you read history for a clear understanding
of past ages, of the acts and thoughts of the great men who illustrate
those times. You all desire to comprehend the sequence and
significance of events. You feel the intellectual pleasure of
appreciating rightly the character and motive of the men and women who
stand in the foreground of our country's annals, and also of those who
are famous in other countries, to know how and why they rose or fell,
whether they deserved the success that they won, or won it without
deserving it. Moreover, for us English folk, who live at the centre of
an empire containing races and communities in various stages of
political development, the lessons of history have a special value.
They teach us to judge leniently of acts and opinions that appear to
us irrational and even iniquitous as we see them in other backward
countries at the present day. We learn that manners and morals may not
be unchangeable in a nation; that fallacies and prejudices are not
ineradicable; that even cruelty, tyranny, reckless bloodshed, are not
incurable vices. For history tells us that some of the nations now
foremost in the ranks of civilisation have passed through the stages
of society in which such things are possible. And thus we can study
the circumstances and conditions of political existence which have
retarded the upward progress of certain nations and accelerated the
advance of others. Such inquiries belong to the philosophy of history.
When we read, for example, the history of England in the fifteenth or
sixteenth century, we find that our ancestors, born and bred in this
same island, kindly men in private life and sincerely religious,
intellectually not our inferiors, yet, when they took sides in
politics or Church questions, did things which appear to us utterly
cruel, against reason, justice, and humanity. To remember this helps
us to realise the difficulty of passing fair judgment not only on the
conduct of our forefathers, but upon the actions and character of
other peoples and governments that are doing very similar things at
the present time in other parts of the world. We shall find it an
arduous task to assign motives, to weigh considerations, to acquit or
condemn. So that, to the politician of to-day, history ought to be an
invaluable guide and monitor for taking an impartial measure of the
difficulties of government in troubled or perilous circumstances. Yet
one sometimes wishes that the record of the fierce and bitter
struggles of former days had been forgotten, for it still breeds
rancour and resentment among the descendants of the people that fought
for lost causes, and suffered the penalty of defeat. The remembrance
keeps alive grievances, and the ancient tale of wrongs that have long
been remedied survives to perpetuate national antipathies. Moreover,
in some of the most celebrated cases known to our own annals, we are
never sure that we have the whole case before us, for the historians
give doubtful help, since the best authorities often take opposite
views, as, for instance, on the question whether Mary Queen of Scots
was her husband's murderess, or a much injured and calumniated lady.
The admitted facts are valued differently, interpreted variously, and
made to support contradictory conclusions. The latest historian of
Rome, Signor Ferrero, sums up a long and elaborate dissertation on the
acts and character of Julius Caesar by a judgment which differs
emphatically from the views of all preceding historians. On some of
these disputed questions we may make up our minds after studying the
evidence; but many historical problems are in truth insoluble; the
evidence is imperfect and untrustworthy.
These, then, are some of the warnings we may take from history. We
must not be hasty about condemning misdeeds of past generations,
whether of the rulers or their people. The times were hard, so were
the men; they were encompassed by dangers, while we who criticise them
live in ease and safety. And when we hear at the present day of
misrule and strife and bloodshed among other races--in Asia, for
example--we may remember our own story, and we may trust that they
also will work their way upward to peace and concord.
But the truth is that, as our knowledge of the past is very imperfect,
so also our predictions of the future are very fallible. The best
observers can see only a very short way ahead. History shows us how
frequently the course of affairs has taken quite unexpected turns, for
good or for ill, forward or backward. On the whole, we may believe
that the main direction is certainly toward the gradual betterment of
the world at large, though the theory of progress is quite modern, for
the ancients looked behind them for the Golden Age. Nowadays we
trumpet the glory of our British empire; yet at intervals our
confidence in its fortunes is shaken by some sharp panic; the decline
and fall of England is predicted. It is, indeed, perilous to be
overconfident, to live in a fool's paradise, for some of us have seen
in our lifetime the sudden catastrophes that have overtaken great
empires. But history may comfort us when we read how often the
downfall of England has been predicted, how we have been on the brink
of shooting down Niagara, as Carlyle declared, or threatened with
imminent invasion, with total loss of commerce and colonies, with
defeat abroad and bankruptcy at home. And yet our country is still
fairly prosperous and free, and as for invasions, we may still trust
that, as Coleridge has written:
'Ocean 'mid the uproar wild
Speaks safety to his island child.'
But on the whole history gives political prophets little
encouragement--we cannot foretell the future from the past.
Nevertheless, there is some truth in the saying that history is like
an old almanac, if we may take this to mean that, although the same
events never happen again in the same way, yet in the great movements
of the tide of the world's affairs a sort of periodical recurrence, an
ebb and flow, may be noticed. For example, we know that from the
fifteenth until near the end of the seventeenth century the Asiatic
armies of the Turkish Sultans were invading and conquering
South-Eastern Europe--they reached the gates of Vienna. Then followed
a swing backward of the pendulum, and from the eighteenth to the end
of the nineteenth century the European Powers, Russia and England,
were each extending a great dominion over Asia. Again, up to a few
years ago, the Turkish empire was a barbarous despotism, and we all
believed that it must break up and be extinguished. Yet it has now
revived in a new form, which may possibly restore its power and
prosperity. To search for and distinguish the operating causes, the
powers that underlie these incalculable changes, is a task for the
student of history.
There must be many of you for whom these high problems have a strong
attraction, who enjoy rapid flights over the broad surface of history,
wide outlooks over the past and future. Now, I admit that bold
generalisations are hazardous, unless founded upon very solid
knowledge; but in historical as well as in physical science they are
needed to sum up results, to bring facts into focus. They enable us,
so the late Lord Acton has said, to fasten on abiding issues, to
distinguish the temporary from the transient.
The late Lord Acton, who, as you may remember, was Professor of Modern
History at Cambridge, is reckoned by general consent to have surpassed
all his contemporaries, at least in England, by his encyclopaedic,
accurate, and profound knowledge of history. His reading was vast, his
learning prodigious, his industry never slackened. Yet the literary
production of his life is contained in three volumes of essays,
lectures, and articles; he has left us no complete book. Indeed, his
writing is so disproportionate to his reading that one is tempted to
liken his luminous intellect to a fire on which too much fuel had been
heaped; the ardent mind glowed and shot up its streaks of radiance
through the weight of erudition that overlaid it. Among Lord Acton's
published papers is a 'Note of Advice to Persons about to Write
History,' of which the first word is _Don't_. But he then proceeds to
jot down some hints and maxims, brief and caustic, for the benefit of
those who nevertheless persist in writing; and to some of these I
commend the attention of readers, since upon readers as well as upon
writers lies the duty of forming careful opinions, of judging
impartially, in working out their conclusions upon the events and
personages of past times. For Lord Acton was an indefatigable
researcher after truth; his standard of public morality was austere,
lofty, and uncompromising. I myself venture to think that he was too
rigid; he admitted no excuse for breaches of the moral law on the
pretext, however urgent, of political necessity; he refused to allow
extenuation of violence or bloodshed even in times of great emergency.
'The inflexible integrity of the moral code,' he said, 'is to me the
secret of the authority, the dignity, the utility of history.' Now
this is hard doctrine for most of us to follow when we set ourselves,
as students, to condemn or acquit, to blame or to praise the prominent
actors in the drama of our national history. On that stage, as we all
know, the real tragedies that stand on record were sanguinary enough,
and the parts occasionally played in them by our ancestors were of a
sort that now appear most unnatural and indefensible to their
descendants. Yet most of us are disposed to regard with some leniency
even the crimes of a violent and lawless age.
But however this may be, some of Lord Acton's counsels are undoubtedly
valuable as warnings or for guidance, either as lamps to show the
right road, or as lighthouses to keep us from going wrong. His
inaugural lecture at Cambridge on the Study of History is full of
precepts, maxims, warnings, injunctions, all of which may be pondered
by students with advantage. We are enjoined, for example, to beware of
permitting our historic judgment to be warped by influences, whether
of Country, Class, Church, College, or Party; and it is said, by way
of driving home the warning, that the most respectable of these
influences is the most dangerous. But very few writers, and, I
suspect, not many readers, can hold their mental balance quite
steadily, can weigh testimony on either side of a question quite
dispassionately, when our Church, or our Country, perhaps even our
University, is concerned. Nor is it easy for students to find
historians who are entirely unmoved by bias of these kinds, who have
neither a theory to prove, nor a cause to support, nor a hero to be
exalted, nor a sinner to be whitewashed. Indeed, the wicked men of
history have always found some ingenious advocate to defend them by
attempting to justify bad acts on the ground of excellent motives and
intentions, of the exigencies of the situation, or other excuses and
explanations. It is certain that some of the worst crimes on record,
assassinations and savage persecutions, have been defended on pretexts
of this kind, by allegations of patriotism or devotion to a faith. Not
many weeks have passed since a dastardly murder was perpetrated in
London, close to this spot, by a crazy wretch who declared himself a
patriot.
So we may profitably lay to mind Lord Acton's stern denunciation, not
only of criminals in high places, but of all, high or low, who pretend
that foul deeds may be justified by asserting pure motives. Let me
quote again from Lord Acton. He has said: 'Of killing, from private
motives or from public, _eadem est ratio_, there is no difference.
Morally, the worst is the last; the fanatic assassin, the cruel
inquisitor, are the worst of all; they are more, not less, infamous,
because they use religion or political expediency as a cloak for their
crimes.' He affirms elsewhere that crimes by constitutional
authorities--by Popes and Kings--are more indefensible than those
committed by private malefactors. And he holds that the theorist is
more guilty than the actual assassin; that the worst use of theory is
to make men insensible to fact, to the real complexion and true
quality of conduct. He would probably have insisted that journalists
and others who instigate political crimes are at least quite as bad as
the actual criminal. Herein, at any rate, we may thoroughly agree with
him, though the question whether the intercourse of nations and their
Governments can be strictly regulated by the same moral standard which
rules among individuals, does raise difficult points for the
conscientious student of history. We have to remember that no power
exists to enforce international laws or police, so that every
Government has to rely upon its own strength for the defence of its
people and the preservation of its rights.
On the whole, I do not know any recent works that may be more
profitable for advice and guidance in reading history than these three
volumes of Lord Acton's. They contain the essence of his unceasing
labours in collecting, comparing, and testing an immense quantity of
historic material. They are particularly valuable for the flashes of
insight into the deeper relations of events, for brief, sententious
observations in which he sums up his judgments upon men and their
doings. They are not to be taken lightly; they demand all your
attention, for the style is compressed and packed with meaning; and
the author seems to expect his readers to be prepared with more
knowledge than, I think, most of us possess. His allusions take for
granted so much learning that they occasionally puzzle the average
man. For example, in one of his essays he makes a passing reference to
'those who in the year 1348 shared the worst crimes that Christian
nations have committed.' What these crimes were he does not say; and
how many of us could answer the question off-hand? Certainly I could
not. But the lectures and essays abound in far-ranging ideas, and show
profound penetration into historic causes and consequences. Some of
the essays, written in comparative youth, betray here and there a
natural leaning towards the Church of Rome, in which he was born, and
against Protestantism; yet his hatred of intolerance and despotism,
spiritual or temporal, was sincere and intense. In politics he was a
Liberal, yet he saw that Liberal institutions, representative
government, are by no means a sure and speedy remedy for misrule in
all times and countries, as in our day simple folk are apt to suppose.
In writing of the condition of Europe during the earlier middle ages
he observes: 'To bring order out of chaotic mire, to rear a new
civilisation and blend hostile and unequal races into a nation, the
thing wanted was not Liberty, but Force.'
Here is a bold and clear-sighted deduction from the lessons of
history, which revolutionary politicians in Asia, where no
nationalities have yet been formed, may well take to heart.
Parliamentary institutions, as Lord Acton has well said, presuppose
unity of a people.
Scattered through these volumes may be found, indeed, certain brief
paragraphs which, as they contain the essence of much learning and
deep thought, may well set us all thinking. In a remarkable essay on
the historical relations of Church and State Lord Acton observes: 'The
State is so closely linked with religion, that no nation that has
changed its religion has ever survived in its old political form.'
Here again is a striking generalisation which a student might set
himself to verify by careful examination of the facts.
And now I will make an end of my address by quoting one more remark of
Lord Acton, in which he gives his definition of history taken as a
whole. 'By universal history,' he says, 'I understand that which is
distinct from the combined history of all countries, which is not a
rope of sand, but a continuous development, and is not a burden on the
memory, but an illumination of the soul. It moves in a succession to
which the nations are subsidiary. Their story will be told, not for
their own sake, but in subordination to a higher series, according to
the time and the degree in which they contribute to the common
fortunes of mankind.'