364 HENRY JAMES SUMNER MAINE. 



given rise, we may consider the ideas which have arisen in consequence 

 of the establishment of democratic institutions. What has been the 

 effect of these institutions upon the human mind ? Have they not 

 had a great and noble effect ? Can the institutions of monarchy and 

 oligarchy show anything like it? Maine's view of popular government 

 seems to us a narrow and very unsatisfactory one. It is in the field of 

 historical inquiry and theory that we follow Maine with most profit. 

 It is in this field that he did his best work, — discovering and describing 

 historical developments, and making them interesting to pupils and 

 readers. We see in Maine almost the ideal teacher. There are two 

 kinds of teachers, — those who give us knowledge, and those who give 

 us the love of knowledge. These last are the best teachers, and Maine 

 is one of them. He was not merely an investigator, a collector of 

 facts and statistics. He was also an artist. He was able to compose 

 the facts and statistics which he gathered together into interesting 

 ideas. Here lies the secret of his great reputation and success. Other 

 men have studied the records and survivals of the past as diligently as 

 he ; some men have surpassed him as investigators. He was sometimes 

 a little careless in accepting statistics without verifying them, without 

 tracing them to their original sources, and making sure of them. He 

 was not so patiently laborious in the examination and criticism of his- 

 torical records as some of his contemporaries ; but he surpassed them 

 all in the art of composing his materials into interesting and significant 

 ideas. He was a man of imagination, — of comprehensive imagination. 

 More than that, he was discriminating in regard to the materials out of 

 which he composed his ideas. Nothing is easier than the composition 

 of ideas out of facts, when one has imagination. Wherever there is 

 imagination, there is a plentiful supply of ideas ; but it does not follow 

 that the ideas are in any high degree significant or valuable. The 

 value of an idea depends upon the importance of the facts or statistics 

 which it comprehends. No one has ever understood this better than 

 Maine. " All generalization," he says, " is the product of abstraction ; 

 all abstraction consists in dropping out of sight a certain number of 

 particular facts, and constructing a formula which will embrace the 

 remainder ; and the comparative value of general propositions turns 

 entirely on the relative importance of the particular facts selected, and 

 of the particular facts rejected. The modern facility of generalization," 

 he adds, " is obtained by a curious precipitation and carelessness in this 

 selection and rejection, which, when properly carried out, is the only 

 difficult part of the entire process. General formulas which can be 

 seen on examination to have been arrived at by attending only to par- 



