THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
The Sceptical Age. David Hume. History of England. Metaphysics. Essay
on Miracles. Robertson. Histories. Gibbon. The Decline and Fall.
THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
History presents itself to the student in two forms: The first is
_chronicle_, or a simple relation of facts and statistics; and the second,
_philosophical history_, in which we use these facts and statistics in the
consideration of cause and effect, and endeavor to extract a moral from
the actions and events recorded. From pregnant causes the philosophic
historian traces, at long distances, the important results; or,
conversely, from the present condition of things--the good and evil around
him--he runs back, sometimes remotely, to the causes from which they have
sprung. Chronicle is very pleasing to read, and the reader may be, to some
extent, his own philosopher; but the importance of history as a study is
found in its philosophy.
As far down as the eighteenth century, almost everything in history
partakes of the nature of chronicle. In that century, in obedience to the
law of human progress, there sprang up in England and on the Continent the
men who first made chronicle material for philosophy, and used philosophy
to teach by example what to imitate and what to shun.
What were the circumstances which led, in the eighteenth century, to the
simultaneous appearance of Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, as the originators
of a new school of history? Some of them have been already mentioned in
treating of the antiquarian age. We have endeavored to show how the
English literati--novelists, essayists, and poets--have been in part
unconscious historians. It will also appear that the professed historians
themselves have been, in a great measure, the creatures of English
history. The _fifteenth_ century was the period when the revival of
letters took place, and a great spur was given to mental activity; but the
world, like a child, was again learning rudiments, and finding out what it
was, and what it possessed at that present time: it received the new
classical culture presented to it at the fall of the lower empire, and was
content to learn the existing, without endeavoring to create the new, or
even to recompose the scattered fragments of the past. The _eighteenth_
century saw a new revival: the world had become a man; great progress was
reported in arts, in inventions, and in discoveries; science began to
labor at the arduous but important task of classification; new theories of
government and laws were propounded; the past was consulted that its
experience might be applied; the partisan chronicles needed to be united
and compared that truth might be elicited; the philosophic historian was
required, and the people were ready to learn, and to criticize, what he
produced.
I have ventured to call this the Sceptical Age. It had other
characteristics: this was one. We use the word sceptical in its
etymological sense: it was an age of inquiry, of doubt to be resolved.
Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot had founded a new
school of universal inquiry, and from their bold investigations and
startling theories sprang the society of the _illuminati_, and the race of
thinkers. They went too far: they stabbed the truth as it lay in the grasp
of error. From thinkers they became free-thinkers: from philosophers they
became infidels, and some of them atheists. This was the age which
produced "the triumvirate of British historians who," in the words of
Montgomery, "exemplified in their very dissimilar styles the triple
contrast of simplicity, elegance, and splendor."
Imbued with this spirit of the time, Hume undertook to write a _History of
England_, which, with all its errors and faults, still ranks among the
best efforts of English historians. Like the French philosophers, Hume was
an infidel, and his scepticism appears in his writings; but, unlike
them--for they were stanch reformers in government as well as infidels in
faith--he who was an infidel was also an aristocrat in sentiment, and a
consistent Tory his life long. In his history, with all the artifices of a
philosopher, he takes the Jacobite side in the civil war.
HUME.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711.
His life was without many vicissitudes of interest, but his efforts to
achieve an enduring reputation on the most solid grounds, mark him as a
notable example of patient industry, study, and economy. He led a
studious, systematic, and consistent life.
Although of good family,--being a descendant of the Earl of Home,--he was
in poor circumstances, and after some study of the law, and some
unsuccessful literary ventures, he was obliged to seek employment as a
means of livelihood. Thus he became tutor or keeper to the young Marquis
of Annandale, who was insane. Abandoning this position in disgust, he was
appointed secretary to General St. Clair in various embassies,--to Paris,
Vienna, and Turin; everywhere hoarding his pay, until he became
independent, "though," he says, "most of my friends were inclined to smile
when I said so; in short, I was master of a thousand pounds."
His earliest work was a _Treatise on Human Nature_, published in 1738,
which met with no success. Nothing discouraged thereat, in 1741 he issued
a volume of _Essays Moral and Political_, the success of which emboldened
him to publish, in 1748, his _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_.
These and other works were preparing his pen for its greater task, the
material for which he was soon to find.
In 1752 he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, not for
the emolument, but with the real purpose of having entire control of the
books and material in the library; and then he determined to write the
_History of England_.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He began with the accession of the Stuarts, in 1603,
the period when the popular element, so long kept tranquil by the power
and sex of Queen Elizabeth, was ready first to break out into open
assertion. Hume's self-deception must have been rudely discovered to him;
for he tells us, in an autobiography fortunately preserved, that he
expected so dispassionately to steer clear of all existent parties, or,
rather, to be so just to all, that he should gain universal approbation.
"Miserable," he adds, "was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of
reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. English, Scotch, Irish,
Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free-thinker and religionist,
patriot and courtier, united, in their rage, against the man who had
presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl
of Strafford." How far, too, this was ignorant invective, may be judged
from the fact that in twelve months only forty-five copies of his work
were sold.
However, he patiently continued his labor. The first volume, containing
the reigns of James I. and Charles I, had been issued in 1754; his second,
published in 1756, and containing the later history of the Commonwealth,
of Charles II., and James II., and concluding with the revolution of 1688,
was received with more favor, and "helped to buoy up its unfortunate
brother." Then he worked backward: in 1759 he produced the reigns of the
house of Tudor; and in 1761, the earlier history, completing his work,
from the earliest times to 1688. The tide had now turned in his favor; the
sales were large, and his pecuniary rewards greater than any historian had
yet received.
The Tory character of his work is very decided: he not only sheds a
generous tear for the fate of Charles I., but conceals or glosses the
villanies of Stuarts far worse than Charles. The liberties of England
consist, in his eyes, of wise concessions made by the sovereign, rather
than as the inalienable birthright of the English man.
He has also been charged with want of industry and honesty in the use of
his materials--taking things at second-hand, without consulting original
authorities which were within his reach, and thus falling into many
mistakes, while placing in his marginal notes the names of the original
authors. This charge is particularly just with reference to the
Anglo-Saxon period, since so picturesquely described by Sharon Turner.
The first in order of the philosophical historians, he is rather a
collector of facts than a skilful diviner with them. His style is sonorous
and fluent, but not idiomatic. Dr. Johnson said, "His style is not
English; the structure of his sentences is French,"--an opinion concurred
in by the eminent critic, Lord Jeffrey.
But whatever the criticism, the _History_ of Hume is a great work. He did
what was never done before. For a long time his work stood alone; and even
now it has the charm of a clear, connected narrative, which is still
largely consulted by many who are forewarned of its errors and faults. And
however unidiomatic his style, it is very graceful and flowing, and lends
a peculiar charm to his narrative.
METAPHYSICS.--Of Hume as a philosopher, we need not here say much. He was
acute, intelligent, and subtle; he was, in metaphysical language, "a
sceptical nihilist." And here a distinction must be made between his
religious tenets and his philosophical views,--a distinction so happily
stated by Sir William Hamilton, that we present it in his words: "Though
decidedly opposed to one and all of Hume's theological conclusions, I have
no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical scepticism, that this was
not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circumstances of the
period, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards
Truth." And again he says, "To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and
therefore also, in general, the later philosophy of Germany." "To Hume, in
like manner, we owe the philosophy of Reid, and, consequently, what is now
distinctively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School."
Great praise this from one of the greatest Christian philosophers of this
century, and it shows Hume to have been more original as a philosopher
than as an historian.
He is also greatly commended by Lord Brougham as a political economist.
"His _Political Discourses_," says his lordship, "combine almost every
excellence which can belong to such a performance.... Their great merit is
their originality, and the new system of politics and political economy
which they unfold."
MIRACLES.--The work in which is most fairly set forth his religious
scepticism is his _Essay on Miracles_. In it he adopts the position of
Locke, who had declared "that men should not believe any proposition that
is contrary to reason, on the authority either of inspiration or of
miracle; for the reality of the inspiration or of the miracle can only be
established by reason." Before Hume, assaults on the miracles recorded in
Scripture were numerous and varied. Spinoza and the Pantheistic School had
started the question, "Are miracles possible?" and had taken the negative.
Hume's question is, "Are miracles credible?" And as they are contrary to
human experience, his answer is essentially that it must be always more
probable that a miracle is false than that it is true; since it is not
contrary to experience that witnesses are false or deceived. With him it
is, therefore, a question of the preponderance of evidence, which he
declares to be always against the miracle. This is not the place to
discuss these topics. Archbishop Whately has practically illustrated the
fallacy of Hume's reasoning, in a little book called _Historic Doubts,
relative to Napoleon Bonaparte_, in which, with Hume's logic, he has
proved, that the great emperor never lived; and Whately's successor in the
archbishopric of Dublin, Dr. Trench, has given us some thoughtful words on
the subject: "So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and
improbable, miraculous and incredible may be allowed to remain convertible
terms; but once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once
acknowledge aught higher than nature--_a kingdom of God_, and men the
intended denizens of it--and the whole argument loses its strength and the
force of its conclusions."
Hume's death occurred on the 25th of August, 1776. His scepticism, or
philosophy as he called it, remained with him to the end. He even diverted
himself with the prospect of the excuses he would make to Charon as he
reached the fatal river, and is among the few doubters who have calmly
approached the grave without that concern which the Christian's hope alone
is generally able to dispel.
WILLIAM ROBERTSON.--the second of the great historians of the eighteenth
century, although very different from the others in his personal life and
in his creed,--was, like them, a representative and creature of the age.
They form, indeed, a trio in literary character as well as in period; and
we have letters from each to the others on the appearance of their works,
showing that they form also what in the present day is called a "Mutual
Admiration Society." They were above common envy: they recognized each
other's excellence, and forbore to speak of each other's faults. As a
philosopher, Hume was the greatest of the three; as an historian, the palm
must be awarded to Gibbon. But Robertson surprises us most from the fact
that a quiet Scotch pastor, who never travelled, should have attempted,
and so gracefully treated, subjects of such general interest as those he
handled.
William Robertson was the son of a Scottish minister, and was born at
Borthwick, in Scotland, on September 19th, in the year 1721. He was a
precocious child, and, after attending school at Dalkeith, he entered the
University of Edinburgh at the age of twelve. At the age of twenty he was
licensed to preach. He published, in 1755, a sermon on _The Situation of
the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance_, which attracted attention;
but he astonished the world by issuing, in 1759, his _History of Scotland
During the Reigns of Queen Mary, and of James VI. until his Accession to
the Crown of England_. This is undoubtedly his best work, but not of such
general interest as his others. His materials were scanty, and he did not
consult such as were in his reach with much assiduity. The invaluable
records of the archives of Simancas were not then opened to the world, but
he lived among the scenes of his narrative, and had the advantage of
knowing all the traditions and of hearing all the vehement opinions _pro_
and _con_ upon the subjects of which he treated. The character of Queen
Mary is drawn with a just but sympathetic hand, and his verdict is not so
utterly denunciatory as that of Mr. Froude. Such was the popularity of
this work, that in 1764 its author was appointed to the honorable office
of Historiographer to His Majesty for Scotland. In 1769 he published his
_History of Charles V._ Here was a new surprise. Whatever its faults, as
afterwards discerned by the critics, it opened a new and brilliant page to
the uninitiated reader, and increased his reputation very greatly. The
history is preceded by a _View of the Progress of Society in Europe from
the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth
Century_. The best praise that can be given to this _View_ is, that
students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind
existing. Of the history itself it may be said that, while it is greatly
wanting in historic material in the interest of the narrative and the
splendor of the pageantry of the imperial court, it marked a new era in
historical delineations.
HISTORY OF AMERICA.--In 1777 appeared the first eight books of his
_History of America_, to which, in 1778, he appended additions and
corrections. The concluding books, the ninth and tenth, did not appear
until 1796, when, three years after his death, they were issued by his
son. As a connected narrative of so great an event in the world's history
as the discovery of America, it stood quite alone. If, since that time,
far better and fuller histories have appeared, we should not withhold our
meed of praise from this excellent forerunner of them all. One great
defect of this and the preceding work was his want of knowledge of the
German and Spanish historians, and of the original papers then locked up
in the archives of Simancas; later access to which has given such great
value to the researches of Irving and Prescott and Sterling. Besides,
Robertson lacked the life-giving power which is the property of true
genius. His characters are automata gorgeously arrayed, but without
breath; his style is fluent and sometimes sparkling, but in all respects
he has been superseded, and his works remain only as curious
representatives of the age to the literary student. One other work remains
to be mentioned, and that is his _Historical Disquisition Concerning the
Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and the Progress of Trade with
that Country Prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of
Good Hope_. This is chiefly of value as it indicates the interest felt in
England at the rise of the English Empire in India; but for real facts it
has no value at all.
GIBBON.--Last in order of time, though far superior as an historian to
Hume and Robertson, stands Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian England
has produced, whether we regard the dignity of his style--antithetic and
sonorous; the range of his subject--the history of a thousand years; the
astonishing fidelity of his research in every department which contains
historic materials; or the symmetry and completeness of his colossal work.
Like Hume, he has left us a sketch of his own life and labors, simple and
dispassionate, from which it appears that he was born in London on the
27th of April, 1737; and, being of a good family, he had every advantage
of education. Passing a short time at the University of Oxford, he stands
in a small minority of those who can find no good in their _Alma Mater_.
"To the University of Oxford," he says, "I acknowledge no obligation, and
she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim
her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College. They proved
to be fourteen of the most idle and unprofitable months of my whole life."
This singular experience may be contrasted with that of hundreds, but may
be most fittingly illustrated by stating that of Dr. Lowth, a venerable
contemporary of the historian. He speaks enthusiastically of the place
where the student is able "to breathe the same atmosphere that had been
breathed by Hooker and Chillingworth and Locke; to revel in its grand and
well-ordered libraries; to form part of that academic society where
emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without
animosity, incited industry and awakened genius."
Gibbon, while still in his boyhood, had read with avidity ancient and
modern history, and had written a juvenile paper on _The Age of
Sesostris_, which was, at least, suggested by Voltaire's _Siècle de Louis
XIV_.
Early interested, too, in the history of Christianity, his studies led him
to become a Roman Catholic; but his belief was by no means stable. Sent by
his father to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to be under the religious training
of a Protestant minister, he changed his opinions, and became again a
Protestant. His convictions, however, were once more shaken, and, at the
last, he became a man of no creed, a sceptic of the school of Voltaire, a
creature of the age of illumination. Many passages of his history display
a sneering unbelief, which moves some persons more powerfully than the
subtlest argument. This modern Platonist, beginning with sensation,
evolves his philosophy from within,--from the finite mind; whereas human
history can only be explained in the light of revelation, which gives to
humanity faith, but which educes all science from the infinite--the mind
of God.
The history written by Gibbon, called _The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, begins with that empire in its best days, under Hadrian, and
extends to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, under Mohammed II.,
in 1453.
And this marvellous scope he has treated with a wonderful equality of
research and power;--the world-absorbing empire, the origin and movements
of the northern tribes and the Scythian marauders, the fall of the Western
Empire, the history of the civil law, the establishment of the Gothic
monarchies, the rise and spread of Mohammedanism, the obscurity of the
middle age deepening into gloom, the crusades, the dawning of letters, and
the inauguration of the modern era after the fall of Constantinople,--the
detailed history of a thousand years. It is difficult to conceive that any
one should suggest such a task to himself; it is astonishing to think
that, with a dignified, self-reliant tenacity of purpose, it should have
been completely achieved. It was an historic period, in which, in the
words of Corneille, "_Un grand destin commence un grand destin s'achève_."
In many respects Gibbon's work stands alone; the general student must
refer to Gibbon, because there is no other work to which he can refer. It
was translated by Guizot into French, the first volume by Wenck into
German (he died before completing it); and it was edited by Dean Milman in
England.
The style of Gibbon is elegant and powerful; at first it is singularly
pleasing, but as one reads it becomes too sonorous, and fatigues, as the
crashing notes of a grand march tire the ear. His periods are antithetic;
each contains a surprise and a witty point. His first two volumes have
less of this stately magnificence, but in his later ones, in seeking to
vindicate popular applause, he aims to shine, and perpetually labors for
effect. Although not such a philosopher as Hume, his work is quite as
philosophical as Hume's history, and he has been more faithful in the use
of his materials. Guizot, while pointing out his errors, says he was
struck, after "a second and attentive perusal," with "the immensity of his
researches, the variety of his knowledge, and, above all, with that truly
philosophical discrimination which judges the past as it would judge the
present."
The danger to the unwary reader is from the sceptical bias of the author,
which, while he states every important fact, leads him, by its manner of
presentation, to warp it, or put it in a false light. Thus, for example,
he has praise for paganism, and easy absolution for its sins; Mohammed
walks the stage with a stately stride; Alaric overruns Europe to a grand
quickstep; but Christianity awakens no enthusiasm, and receives no
eulogium, although he describes its early struggles, its martyrdoms, its
triumphs under Constantine, its gentle radiance during the dark ages, and
its powerful awakening. Because he cannot believe, he cannot even be just.
In his special chapter on the rise and spread of Christianity, he gives a
valuable summary of its history, and of the claims of the papacy, with
perhaps a leaning towards the Latin Church. Gibbon finished his work at
Lausanne on the 27th of June, 1787.
Its conception had come to his mind as he sat one evening amid the ruins
of the Capitol at Rome, and heard the barefooted friars singing vespers in
the Temple of Jupiter. He had then thought of writing the decline and fall
of the city of Rome, but soon expanded his view to the empire. This was in
1764. Nearly thirteen years afterwards, he wrote the last line of the last
page in his garden-house at Lausanne, and reflected joyfully upon his
recovered freedom and his permanent fame. His second thought, however,
will fitly close this notice with a moral from his own lips: "My pride was
soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea
that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion,
and that whatever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the
historian must be short and precarious."
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS TO HISTORY.
_James Boswell_, 1740-1795: he was the son of a Scottish judge called Lord
Auchinleck, from his estate. He studied law, and travelled, publishing, on
his return, _Journal of a Tour in Corsica_. He appears to us a
simple-hearted and amiable man, inquisitive, and exact in details. He
became acquainted with Dr. Johnson in 1763, and conceived an immense
admiration for him. In numerous visits to London, and in their tour to the
Hebrides together, he noted Johnson's speech and actions, and, in 1791,
published his life, which has already been characterized as the greatest
biography ever written. Its value is manifold; not only is it a faithful
portrait of the great writer, but, in the detailed record of his life, we
have the wit, dogmatism, and learning of his hero, as expressing and
illustrating the history of the age, quite as fully as the published works
of Johnson. In return for this most valuable contribution to history and
literature, the critics, one and all, have taxed their ingenuity to find
strong words of ridicule and contempt for Boswell, and have done him great
injustice. Because he bowed before the genius of Johnson, he was not a
toady, nor a fool; at the worst, he was a fanatic, and a not always wise
champion. Johnson was his king, and his loyalty was unqualified.
_Horace Walpole_, the Right Honorable, and afterwards Earl of Orford,
1717-1797: he was a wit, a satirist, and a most accomplished writer, who,
notwithstanding, affected to despise literary fame. His paternity was
doubted; but he enjoyed wealth and honors, and, by the possession of three
sinecures, he lived a life of elegant leisure. He transformed a small
house on the bank of the Thames, at Twickenham, into a miniature castle,
called _Strawberry Hill_, which he filled with curiosities. He held a very
versatile pen, and wrote much on many subjects. Among his desultory works
are: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, and _Ædes Walpoliana_, a
description of the pictures at Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
Walpole. He also ranks among the novelists, as the author of _The Castle
of Otranto_, in which he deviates from the path of preceding writers of
fiction--a sort of individual reaction from their portraitures of existing
society to the marvellous and sensational. This work has been variously
criticized; by some it has been considered a great flight of the
imagination, but by most it is regarded as unnatural and full of
"pasteboard machinery." He had immediate followers in this vein, among
whom are Mrs. Aphra Behn, in her _Old English Baron_; and Ann Radcliffe,
in _The Romance of the Forest_, and _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. Walpole
also wrote a work entitled _Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of
Richard III_. But his great value as a writer is to be found in his
_Memoirs_ and varied _Correspondence_, in which he presents photographs of
the society in which he lives. Scott calls him "the best letter-writer in
the language." Among the series of his letters, those of the greatest
historical importance are those addressed to Sir Horace Mann, between 1760
and 1785. Of this series, Macaulay, who is his severest critic, says: "It
forms a connected whole--a regular journal of what appeared to Walpole the
most important transactions of the last twenty years of George II.'s
reign. It contains much new information concerning the history of that
time, the portion of English history of which common readers know the
least."
_John Lord Hervey_, 1696-1743: he is known for his attempts in poetry, and
for a large correspondence, since published; but his chief title to rank
among the contributors to history is found in his _Memoirs of the Court of
George II. and Queen Caroline_, which were not published until 1848. They
give an unrivalled view of the court and of the royal household; and the
variety of the topics, combined with the excellence of description, render
them admirable as aids to understanding the history.
_Sir William Blackstone_, 1723-1780: a distinguished lawyer, he was an
unwearied student of the history of the English statute law, and was on
that account made Professor of Law in the University of Oxford. Some time
a member of Parliament, he was afterwards appointed a judge. He edited
_Magna Charta_ and _The Forest Charter_ of King John and Henry III. But
his great work, one that has made his name famous, is _The Commentaries on
the Laws of England_. Notwithstanding much envious criticism, it has
maintained its place as a standard work. It has been again and again
edited, and perhaps never better than by the Hon. George Sharswood, one of
the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
_Adam Smith_, 1723-1790: this distinguished writer on political economy,
the intelligent precursor of a system based upon the modern usage of
nations, was educated at Glasgow and Oxford, and became in turn Professor
of Logic and of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. His lecture
courses in Moral Science contain the germs of his two principal works: 1.
_The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and 2. _An Enquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. The theory of the first has been
superseded by the sounder views of later writers; but the second has
conferred upon him enduring honor. In it he establishes as a principle
that _labor_ is the source of national wealth, and displays the value of
division of labor. This work--written in clear, simple language, with
copious illustrations--has had a wonderful influence upon the legislation
and the commercial system of all civilized states since its issue, and has
greatly conduced to the happiness of the human race. He wrote it in
retirement, during a period of ten years. He astonished and instructed his
period by presenting it with a new and necessary science.