called moral. No one had higher ideals of purity. Yet he had little
desire to pry into the private morality of kings or politicians. It was
by the presence or absence of _political_ principles that he judged
them. He would have condemned Pope Paul the Fourth more than Rodrigo
Borgia, and the inventor of the "dragonnades" more than his
great-grandson. He did not view personal morality as relevant to
political judgment.
In this, if in nothing else, he agreed with Creighton. His
correspondence with the latter throws his principles into the strongest
light, and forms the best material for a judgment. For it must, we
think, be admitted that he applied these doctrines with a rigidity which
human affairs will not admit, and assumed a knowledge beyond our
capacity. To declare that no one could be in a state of grace who
praised S. Carlo Borromeo, because the latter followed the evil
principle of his day in the matter of persecution, is not merely to make
the historian a hanging judge, but to ignore the great truth that if
crime is always crime, degrees of temptation are widely variable. The
fact is, Acton's desire to maintain the view that "morality is not
ambulatory," led him at times to ignore the complementary doctrine that
it certainly develops, and that the difficulties of statesmen or
ecclesiastics, if they do not excuse, at least at times explain their
less admirable courses. At the very close of his life Acton came to this
view himself. In a pathetic conversation with his son, he lamented the
harshness of some of his judgments, and hoped the example would not be
followed.
Still, Acton, if he erred here, erred on the nobler side. The doctrine
of moral relativity had been overdone by historians, and the principles
of Machiavelli had become so common a cry of politicians, that severe
protest was necessary. The ethics of Nietzsche are the logical
expansion of Machiavelli, and his influence is proof that, in the
long-run, men cannot separate their international code from their
private one. We must remember that Acton lived in a time when, as he
said, the course of history had been "twenty-five times diverted by
actual or attempted crime," and when the old ideals of liberty seemed
swallowed up by the pursuit of gain. To all those who reflect on history
or politics, it was a gain of the highest order that at the very summit
of historical scholarship and profound political knowledge there should
be placed a leader who erred on the unfashionable side, who denied the
statesmen's claim to subject justice to expediency, and opposed the
partisan's attempt to palter with facts in the interest of his creed.
It is these principles which both explain Acton's work as a student, and
make it so difficult to understand. He believed, that as an investigator
of facts the historian must know no passion, save that of a desire to
sift evidence; and his notion of this sifting was of the remorseless
scientific school of Germany, which sometimes, perhaps, expects more in
the way of testimony than human life affords. At any rate, Acton
demanded that the historian must never misconceive the case of the
adversaries of his views, or leave in shade the faults of his own side.
But on the other hand, when he comes to interpret facts or to trace
their relation, his views and even his temperament will affect the
result. It is only the barest outline that can be quite objective. In
Acton's view the historian as investigator is one thing, the historian
as judge another. In an early essay on Doellinger he makes a distinction
of this kind. The reader must bear it in mind in considering Acton's own
writing. Some of the essays here printed, and still more the lectures,
are anything but colourless; they show very distinctly the predilections
of the writer, and it is hardly conceivable that they should have been
written by a defender of absolutism, or even by an old-fashioned Tory.
What Acton really demanded was not the academic aloofness of the pedant
who stands apart from the strife of principles, but the honesty of
purpose which "throws itself into the mind of one's opponents, and
accounts for their mistakes," giving their case the best possible
colouring. For, to be sure of one's ground, one must meet one's
adversaries' strongest arguments, and not be content with merely picking
holes in his armour. Otherwise one's own belief may be at the mercy of
the next clever opponent. The reader may doubt how far Acton succeeded
in his own aim, for there was a touch of intolerance in his hatred of
absolutism, and he believed himself to be divided from his
ecclesiastical and political foes by no mere intellectual difference but
by a moral cleavage. Further, his writing is never half-hearted. His
convictions were certitudes based on continual reading and reflection,
and admitting in his mind of no qualification. He was eminently a
Victorian in his confidence that he was right. He had none of the
invertebrate tendency of mind which thinks it is impartial, merely
because it is undecided, and regards the judicial attitude as that which
refrains from judging. Acton's was not a doubting mind. If he now and
then suspended his judgment, it was as an act of deliberate choice,
because he had made up his mind that the matter could not be decided,
not because he could not decide to make up his mind. Whether he was
right or wrong, he always knew what he thought, and his language was as
exact an expression of his meaning as he could make it. It was true that
his subtle and far-sighted intelligence makes his style now and then
like a boomerang, as when he says of Ranke's method "it is a discipline
we shall all do well to adopt, and also do well to relinquish." Indeed,
it is hardly possible to read a single essay without observing this
marked characteristic. He has been called a "Meredith turned historian,"
and that there is truth in this judgment, any one who sees at once the
difficulty and the suggestiveness of his reviews can bear witness. He
could hardly write the briefest note without stamping his personality
upon it and exhibiting the marks of a very complex culture. But the main
characteristic of his style is that it represents the ideals of a man to
whom every word was sacred. Its analogies are rather in sculpture than
painting. Each paragraph, almost every sentence is a perfectly chiselled
whole, impressive by no brilliance or outside polish, so much as by the
inward intensity of which it is the symbol. Thus his writing is never
fluent or easy, but it has a moral dignity rare and unfashionable.
Acton, indeed, was by no means without a gift of rhetoric, and in the
"Lecture on Mexico," here republished, there is ample evidence of a
power of handling words which should impress a popular audience. It is
in gravity of judgment and in the light he can draw from small details
that his power is most plainly shown. On the other hand, he had a little
of the scholar's love of clinging to the bank, and, as the notes to his
"Inaugural" show, he seems at times too much disposed to use the
crutches of quotation to prop up positions which need no such support.
It was of course the same habit--the desire not to speak before he had
read everything that was relevant, whether in print or manuscript--that
hindered so severely his output. His projected _History of Liberty_ was,
from the first, impossible of achievement. It would have required the
intellects of Napoleon and Julius Caesar combined, and the lifetime of
the patriarchs, to have executed that project as Acton appears to have
planned it. A _History of Liberty_, beginning with the ancient world and
carried down to our own day, to be based entirely upon original
sources, treating both of the institutions which secured it, the persons
who fought for it, and the ideas which expressed it, and taking note of
all that scholars had written about every several portion of the
subject, was and is beyond the reach of a single man. Probably towards
the close of his life Acton had felt this. The _Cambridge Modern
History_, which required the co-operation of so many specialists, was to
him really but a fragment of this great project.
Two other causes limited Acton's output. Towards the close of the
seventies he began to suspect, and eventually discovered, that he and
Doellinger were not so close together as he had believed. That is to say,
he found that in regard to the crimes of the past, Doellinger's position
was more like that of Creighton than his own--that, while he was willing
to say persecution was always wrong, he was not willing to go so far as
Acton in rejecting every kind of mitigating plea and with mediaeval
certainty consigning the persecutors to perdition. Acton, who had as he
thought, learnt all this from Doellinger, was distressed at what seemed
to him the weakness and the sacerdotal prejudice of his master, felt
that he was now indeed alone, and for the time surrendered, as he said,
all views of literary work. This was the time when he had been gathering
materials for a _History of the Council of Trent_. That this cleavage,
coming when it did, had a paralysing effect on Acton's productive energy
is most probable, for it made him feel that he was no longer one of a
school, and was without sympathy and support in the things that lay
nearest his heart.
Another cause retarded production--his determination to know all about
the work of others. Acton desired to be in touch with university life
all over Europe, to be aware, if possible through personal knowledge, of
the trend of investigation and thought of scholars working in all the
cognate branches of his subject. To keep up thoroughly with other
people's work, and do much original writing of one's own, is rarely
possible. At any rate we may say that the same man could not have
produced the essay on German schools of history, and written a _magnum
opus_ of his own.
His life marks what, in an age of minute specialism, must always be at
once the crown and the catastrophe of those who take all knowledge for
their province. His achievement is something different from any book.
Acton's life-work was, in fact, himself. Those who lament what he might
have written as a historian would do well to reflect on the unique
position which he held in the world of letters, and to ask themselves
how far he could have wielded the influence that was his, or held the
standard so high, had his own achievement been greater. Men such as
Acton and Hort give to the world, by their example and disposition, more
than any written volume could convey. In both cases a great part of
their published writings has had, at least in book form, to be
posthumous. But their influence on other workers is incalculable, and
has not yet determined.
To an age doubting on all things, and with the moral basis of its action
largely undermined, Acton gave the spectacle of a career which was as
moving as it was rare. He stood for a spirit of unwavering and even
childlike faith united to a passion for scientific inquiry, and a scorn
of consequences, which at times made him almost an iconoclast. His whole
life was dedicated to one high end, the aim of preaching the need of
principles based on the widest induction and the most penetrating
thought, as the only refuge amid the storm and welter of sophistical
philosophies and ecclesiastical intrigues. The union of faith with
knowledge, and the eternal supremacy of righteousness, this was the
message of Acton to mankind. It may be thought that he sometimes
exaggerated his thesis, that he preached it out of season, that he laid
himself open to the charge of being doctrinaire, and that in fighting
for it he failed to utter the resources of his vast learning. Enough,
however, is left to enable the world to judge what he was. No books ever
do more than that for any man. Those who are nice in comparisons may
weigh against the book lost the man gained. Those who loved him will
know no doubt.
* * * * *
The following document was found among Lord Acton's Papers. It records
in an imaginative form the ideals which he set before him. Perhaps it
forms the most fitting conclusion to this Introduction.
This day's post informed me of the death of Adrian, who was the best
of all men I have known. He loved retirement, and avoided company,
but you might sometimes meet him coming from scenes of sorrow, silent
and appalled, as if he had seen a ghost, or in the darkest corner of
churches, his dim eyes radiant with light from another world. In
youth he had gone through much anxiety and contention; but he lived
to be trusted and honoured. At last he dropped out of notice and the
memory of men, and that part of his life was the happiest.
Years ago, when I saw much of him, most people had not found him out.
There was something in his best qualities themselves that baffled
observation, and fell short of decided excellence. He looked absent
and preoccupied, as if thinking of things he cared not to speak of,
and seemed but little interested in the cares and events of the day.
Often it was hard to decide whether he had an opinion, and when he
showed it, he would defend it with more eagerness and obstinacy than
we liked. He did not mingle readily with others or co-operate in any
common undertaking, so that one could not rely on him socially, or
for practical objects. As he never spoke harshly of persons, so he
seldom praised them warmly, and there was some apparent indifference
and want of feeling. Ill success did not depress, but happy prospects
did not elate him, and though never impatient, he was not actively
hopeful. Facetious friends called him the weather-cock, or Mr.
Facingbothways, because there was no heartiness in his judgments, and
he satisfied nobody, and said things that were at first sight
grossly inconsistent, without attempting to reconcile them. He was
reserved about himself, and gave no explanations, so that he was
constantly misunderstood, and there was a sense of failure, of
disappointment, of perplexity about him.
These things struck me, as well as others, and at first repelled me.
I could see indeed, at the same time, that his conduct was remarkably
methodical, and was guided at every step by an inexhaustible
provision of maxims. He had meditated on every contingency in life,
and was prepared with rules and precepts, which he never disobeyed.
But I doubted whether all this was not artificial,--a contrivance to
satisfy the pride of intellect and establish a cold superiority. In
time I discovered that it was the perfection of a developed
character. He had disciplined his soul with such wisdom and energy as
to make it the obedient and spontaneous instrument of God's will, and
he moved in an orbit of thoughts beyond our reach.
It was part of his religion to live much in the past, to realise
every phase of thought, every crisis of controversy, every stage of
progress the Church has gone through. So that the events and ideas of
his own day lost much of their importance in comparison, were old
friends with new faces, and impressed him less than the multitude of
those that went before. This caused him to seem absent and
indifferent, rarely given to admire, or to expect. He respected other
men's opinions, fearing to give pain, or to tempt with anger by
contradiction, and when forced to defend his own he felt bound to
assume that every one would look sincerely for the truth, and would
gladly recognise it. But he could not easily enter into their motives
when they were mixed, and finding them generally mixed, he avoided
contention by holding much aloof. Being quite sincere, he was quite
impartial, and pleaded with equal zeal for what seemed true, whether
it was on one side or on the other. He would have felt dishonest if
he had unduly favoured people of his own country, his own religion,
or his own party, or if he had entertained the shadow of a prejudice
against those who were against them, and when he was asked why he did
not try to clear himself from misrepresentation, he said that he was
silent both from humility and pride.
At last I understood that what we had disliked in him was his virtue
itself.
J.N.F.
R.V.L.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: There is no foundation for the statement of Canon Meyrick
in his _Reminiscences_, that Acton, had he lived on the Continent, would
have undoubtedly become an Old Catholic. He did very largely live on the
Continent. Nor did even Doellinger, of whom Dr. Meyrick also asserts it,
ever become an adherent of that movement.]
I
THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN ANTIQUITY[2]
Liberty, next to religion, has been the motive of good deeds and the
common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, two
thousand four hundred and sixty years ago, until the ripened harvest was
gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature
civilisation; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew
the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress
has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by
lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for
power, and the poor man's craving for food. During long intervals it has
been utterly arrested, when nations were being rescued from barbarism
and from the grasp of strangers, and when the perpetual struggle for
existence, depriving men of all interest and understanding in politics,
has made them eager to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, and
ignorant of the treasure they resigned. At all times sincere friends of
freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities,
that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose
objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is
always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents
just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in
the hour of success. No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult
to overcome, as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true
liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have
wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of
knowledge, as much as in the improvement of laws. The history of
institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their
virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that
preserves them, and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has
passed away.
A few familiar examples from modern politics will explain why it is that
the burden of my argument will lie outside the domain of legislation. It
is often said that our Constitution attained its formal perfection in
1679, when the Habeas Corpus Act was passed. Yet Charles II. succeeded,
only two years later, in making himself independent of Parliament. In
1789, while the States-General assembled at Versailles, the Spanish
Cortes, older than Magna Charta and more venerable than our House of
Commons, were summoned after an interval of generations, but they
immediately prayed the King to abstain from consulting them, and to make
his reforms of his own wisdom and authority. According to the common
opinion, indirect elections are a safeguard of conservatism. But all the
Assemblies of the French Revolution issued from indirect elections. A
restricted suffrage is another reputed security for monarchy. But the
Parliament of Charles X., which was returned by 90,000 electors,
resisted and overthrew the throne; while the Parliament of Louis
Philippe, chosen by a Constitution of 250,000, obsequiously promoted the
reactionary policy of his Ministers, and in the fatal division which, by
rejecting reform, laid the monarchy in the dust, Guizot's majority was
obtained by the votes of 129 public functionaries. An unpaid legislature
is, for obvious reasons, more independent than most of the Continental
legislatures which receive pay. But it would be unreasonable in America
to send a member as far as from here to Constantinople to live for
twelve months at his own expense in the dearest of capital cities.
Legally and to outward seeming the American President is the successor
of Washington, and still enjoys powers devised and limited by the
Convention of Philadelphia. In reality the new President differs from
the Magistrate imagined by the Fathers of the Republic as widely as
Monarchy from Democracy, for he is expected to make 70,000 changes in
the public service; fifty years ago John Quincy Adams dismissed only two
men. The purchase of judicial appointments is manifestly indefensible;
yet in the old French monarchy that monstrous practice created the only
corporation able to resist the king. Official corruption, which would
ruin a commonwealth, serves in Russia as a salutary relief from the
pressure of absolutism. There are conditions in which it is scarcely a
hyperbole to say that slavery itself is a stage on the road to freedom.
Therefore we are not so much concerned this evening with the dead letter
of edicts and of statutes as with the living thoughts of men. A century
ago it was perfectly well known that whoever had one audience of a
Master in Chancery was made to pay for three, but no man heeded the
enormity until it suggested to a young lawyer that it might be well to
question and examine with rigorous suspicion every part of a system in
which such things were done. The day on which that gleam lighted up the
clear hard mind of Jeremy Bentham is memorable in the political calendar
beyond the entire administration of many statesmen. It would be easy to
point out a paragraph in St. Augustine, or a sentence of Grotius that
outweighs in influence the Acts of fifty Parliaments, and our cause owes
more to Cicero and Seneca, to Vinet and Tocqueville, than to the laws of
Lycurgus or the Five Codes of France.