LXXII THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



of his inferiority to Thiicydides. In brilliancy of style and in range of 

 knowledge Macaulay had the advantage; and in narrative and construc- 

 tive power he was not inferior. Wherein then lay the superiority of 

 the Greek historian? It must be found, I think, in his wider grasp 

 and more complete command of his subject. While Macaulay seeks 

 for telling antitheses, and entangles himself in arguments from which 

 special pleading is not always absent, Thucydides sets forth his facts 

 with unfailing insight and a calm and luminous impartiality. The first 

 is the unrivalled advocate, the second is the consummate judge from 

 whose decision it were rash to appeal. Much as we admire Macaulay, no 

 one sits at his feet : Macaulay himself was willing to sit at the feet of 

 Thucydides. 



There are, indeed, many evidences that, in the ancient world, his- 

 tory was not wholly sacrificed to literature. Caesar had the narrative art 

 in perfection and, as a record of facts, his work is of high value. It was 

 probably a serious work that Asinius Pollio had in hand, when Horace 

 addressed him thus in the first Ode of his second Book: "You are 

 treating of the civic troubles that broke out when Metellus was 

 consul; of the causes of the war; the faults that were committed; the 

 changing phases of the struggle; the play of fortune; the fatal coali- 

 tions of leaders; and bring before our view weapons still stained with 

 unexpiated blood — a work full of hazard, for your path lies over fires 

 slightly covered by treacherous ashes." Here are surely the main 

 elements of history. The character of Tacitus as an historian has, it must 

 be acknowledged, been much debated. His style was one studiously 

 designed to catch and hold attention; but clearly he had a sound con- 

 ception of the historian's art. "Before I enter on my task," he says, 

 "it is desirable that I should recall what the situation in the capital was 

 at the time; what the disposition of the troops; what the state of feel- 

 ing in the provinces; what was sound, and what unsound, throughout 

 the world at large; so as to show, not only what particular things hap- 

 pend — a matter largely of chance — but how events stood related to one 

 another and from what causes they sprang." The Greek Lucian too, a 

 little later than Tacitus, took a right view of the subject when he said: 

 "A writer of history ought, so far as that is concerned, to be a foreigner 

 without country, living under his own law only, subject to no king, nor 

 caring what any man may like or dislike; but setting forth the matter 

 as it is." If it had not been for the break which came with the downfall 

 of the Roman Empire, the science of history, so far as it is a science, 

 might have been established on firm foundations much earlier than it 

 was. 



In spite of the concessions we must make, and should cheerfully 

 make, to the Scientific school, I think it will have to be maintained that 



