xiv OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



equally dramatic episodes. In contrast with these Mr. Lea chose a 

 much earlier period of the world's history and a group of subjects 

 during that period of which the elements are less emotional, more 

 intellectual ; in which the problem is rather to understand than to 

 depict, rather to explain than to narrate. Whereas their periods 

 were modern, he chose the middle ages ; whereas they recounted 

 principally events, he wrote principally on institutions. The medi- 

 aeval conceptions of law ; the organization, ideals, doctrines and prac- 

 tices of the mediaeval church ; the origin, development, connections 

 and influence of the Inquisition, one of the most characteristic 

 embodiments of the spirit of the mediaeval church — such were the 

 great problems he took up for solution. They were narratives, of 

 course, that he wrote, as all history must be narration, but they were 

 narratives not so much of incidents in the life of certain individual 

 men as of incidents in the life of mankind. He was dealing not so 

 much with occurrences — these served as illustrations only — as with 

 the development of principles. In this more difficult and more 

 philosophical conception of history Mr. Lea was a pioneer in Amer- 

 ica, and his choice was apparently made independently even of such 

 European scholars as had preceded him in it. 



Why he made this choice has long been a matter of interest to 

 historical scholars. He himself could probably have told how rather 

 than why he took this attitude toward history. The wind of human 

 interest " bloweth where it listeth " and we seldom know just why we 

 have become so deeply interested in some one particular field of 

 knowledge or endeavor. But it is to be remembered that Air. Lea's 

 early surroundings and interests were largely in the field of natural 

 science. The analogy between the history of institutions and the 

 study of natural history is very close. There is the same subordi- 

 nation of the individual to the type, the same interest in logical clas- 

 sification, the same greater attention to observation than to exposi- 

 tion. It would seem entirely natural therefore that Mr. Lea, having 

 become interested in the Middle Ages, would wish to understand 

 and elucidate the rules and ideas of mediaeval law and organized 

 mediaeval religion, rather than merely to narrate the story of exter- 

 nal events during that period. 



The same early interest in natural history, acting on a certain 



