APPENDIX A LXXIII 



the great age of history is the Literary age. Omitting the works of 

 the ancients, it was that age which gave us in England the histories of 

 Clarendon and Burnet, of Hume and Robertson, of Gibbon and Macau- 

 lay, of Carlyle and Froude; and that produced in France those of Bossuet 

 and Fleury, of Tillemont and Montesquieu, of Chateaubriand and 

 Thierry, of Thiers and Michelet. In all these, with the exception 

 perhaps of Chateaubriand, a measure, sometimes a large measure, 

 of the scientific spirit is present; and to Chateaubriand much must 

 be forgiven for the flashes of divination which light up so many of 

 his pages, particularly in the "Mémoires d'Outre Tombe." These 

 writers have all had their respective points of view; but can history, 

 it may be asked, be written to any good purpose, or at all, without 

 a point of view? Some remarks made by Sir Francis Palgrave on this 

 point may be quoted with advantage, "No person," he says "can ever 

 attempt this historical enquiry who does not bring some favorite dogma 

 of his own to the task — some principle which he wishes to support, 

 some position which he is anxious to illustrate and defend — and it is quite 

 useless to lament these tendencies to partiality, since they are the very 



incitements to the labour I have exerted myself, (he continues) to 



see the objects before me clearly and distinctly. I have endeavoured to 

 place them in a proper light; and I have approached them as nearly as 



I could in order to assure the utmost accuracy and, whilst I 



am most ready to admit that my eyes may often have deceived me, I 

 hope that those who see differently will admit that they also may, with 

 equal unconsciousness on their part, be labouring under a similar delu- 

 sion." This was written eighty-two years ago, and the advances that 

 have since been made in historical method have not deprived it of much 

 of its force. 



At the same time the fact cannot be overlooked that some writers 

 are less judicial in their tone of mind than others, and that some import- 

 ant historical works are strongly marked, not to say marred, by bias. In 

 some cases again critics who were themselves decidedly biassed have 

 raised the cry of bias against works far less open than their own to that 

 accusation. What to one man is bias is to another a fair and natural 

 way of looking at things. Bias, after all, when it is honest, is little else 

 than that psychology of which we have already spoken. Of two ways of 

 understanding a character or interpreting events one may commend it- 

 self to one man and the other to another. This is a matter of constant 

 occurrence in the affairs of life, nor do we always accuse of bias those who 

 differ from us, nor do they necessarily so accuse us. There is, however, a 

 kind of bias, if it may still be so called, which goes beyond mere psychol- 

 ogy, and which causes a man to make rather than to adopt conclusions 

 and to colour his narrative to suit the complexion of his own thought. 



