BANCROFT, GEORGE. 



61 



believe in making an evolutionist's allowance for 

 relative values in the testimony of men of dif- 

 ferent ages. The address entitled " The Neces- 

 sity, Reality, and Promise of the Progress of 

 Mankind," which he delivered in 1854 on the 

 semi-centennial anniversary of the New York 

 Historical Society, is the most perfect statement 

 of his historical creed, and he held it to the close 

 of his life. Therein he declares that " every 

 member of the race is in will, affection, and in- 

 tellect consubstantial with every other " ; that 

 " truth knows nothing of the succession of ages, 

 . . . neither does morality need to perfect itself, 

 it is what it always has been and always will be. 

 . . . The progress of man consists in this, that he 

 himself arrives at the perception of truth. . . . 

 The many are wiser than the few ; the multi- 

 tude than the philosopher ; the race than the in- 

 dividual ; and each successive generation than 

 its predecessor. . . . Since the Mediator is from 

 the beginning, he exists for all intelligent creat- 

 ures not less than for all time. . . . Truth as dis- 

 cerned by the mind of man is constantly recov- 

 ering its primal luster and is steadily making its 

 way toward general acceptance. . . . The collect- 

 ive man of the future will see further and will 

 see more clearly than the collective man of to- 

 day, and he will share his superior power of 

 vision and his attainments with every one of his 

 time. The organization of society must more and 

 more conform to the principle of freedom. This 

 will be the last triumph, partly because the sci- 

 ence of government enters into the sphere of 

 personal interests and meets resistance from pri- 

 vate selfishness ; and partly because society, be- 

 fore it can be constituted aright, must turn its 

 eye upon itself, observe the laws of its own ex- 

 istence, and arrive at the consciousness of its 

 capacities and relations. . . . The permanent es- 

 tablishment [of republican Government] pre- 

 supposes meliorating experience and appropriate 

 culture ; but the circumstances under which it 

 becomes possible prevail more and more. . . . Re- 

 member that the principles of justice and sound 

 philosophy are but the inspirations of common 

 sense and belong of right to all mankind. Carry 

 them forth, therefore, to the whole people, for so 

 only can society build itself up on the imperish- 

 able groundwork of universal freedom." 



Of course, it is a debatable question how far 

 Bancroft carried out this admirable philosophy 

 of history in practice. In the matter of style he 

 gave himself infinite pains. His vast reading 

 was largely with a view to acquiring perfection 

 of form, and it was no uncommon thing for him 

 to write and rewrite an important passage over 

 and over again, as often frequently as eight 

 times. A well-known paragraph on the Missis- 

 sippi river in the eighth chapter of the ninth 

 volume is an example. In fact, the entire book 

 was written again and again, partly with refer- 

 ence to the deliberate and calm consideration of 

 facts and judgments, but with a view also to 

 beauty of form ; and yet he often errs on the 

 side of over-ornament and Ciceronian balance, 

 leaving too frequently the impression of labored 

 floridness rather than of sparkling brilliance. 



He was true from first to last in his devotion 

 to original authorities. His residence in Eng- 

 land as minister was devoted throughout to the 

 collection of hitherto unused materials from the 



archives of the historic families and of the Eng- 

 lish and French foreign offices. In the end his 

 collection of manuscript sources became enor- 

 mous. The first volumes of the history were re- 

 ceived with enthusiasm, pirated in England, and 

 translated into Danish, Italian, German, and 

 French, both with and without the author's per- 

 mission. He was therefore admitted in England 

 to the highest literary and social circles and 

 given every possible opportunity for access to 

 private and public papers. It was no wonder 

 that he was tempted to put an exaggerated value 

 on what he thus obtained. The real value was 

 very high. Most of the fourth and fifth vol- 

 umes were written in London, and they set forth 

 as never before the elemental importance of the 

 movements of thought in Europe and the colo- 

 nies that produced the American Revolution. It 

 is an old story now, but he was the first to set 

 forth the representative character of our career 

 in the history of epochal social movements. Un- 

 due importance is sometimes given to tendencies 

 which though apparent are not strong, to diplo- 

 matic rumors, to the hasty conclusions of con- 

 temporary writers. 



In certain instances also Bancroft has treated 

 his documents as if they were accessible to all 

 the world for comparison with his text. From 

 long and prosy documents he has compiled, per- 

 haps on the Thucydidean model, spirited and ad- 

 mirable resumes, which are given as if thus actu- 

 ally written. Sometimes also the matter between 

 quotation marks is so selected and rearranged as 

 to be rather his own than that of the first writer. 

 Misapprehension of a minor kind has several 

 times arisen on both these grounds ; but it has 

 never been shown that he falsified the ideal truth 

 of history, and twice he has printed volumes of 

 the correspondence with which he worked. Two 

 were printed separately about 1875, and the sec- 

 ond volume of his " History of the Constitution " 

 is largely made up of similar material. In both 

 instances the- text is an exact reproduction of the 

 copies made for him by careful copyists in the 

 archives or of the documents in his possession. 



It is also true that material in the field of 

 American history was accumulated during Ban- 

 croft's lifetime which he did not use ; but he no- 

 where claimed finality for his work, and the 

 laborious years of his old age were entirely occu- 

 pied in weaving into his narrative what he had, 

 and no one else had, that he might not die be- 

 fore it was given to the world. It is not con- 

 ceivable that he could have done more than he 

 did in the time he had. With another existence 

 he might also have appropriated the labors of 

 others, minute, boundless, and untiring as they 

 are ; but his own were no less so. 



But no one can fleny that Bancroft success- 

 fully fulfilled the lofty and philosophical concep- 

 tion of his task a task comparable to any un- 

 dertaken by the greatest historians, and carried 

 out with a splendor of equipment in material, in 

 time, and in judicial ability which has made the 

 nation a sharer of his world-wide renown. The 

 generalization of the philosopher, the insight of 

 the strategist, the acuteness of the statesman, all 

 appear in his pages. No less amazing is the per- 

 ennial enthusiasm that plays over the whole 

 narrative, and is as youthful at the close as in the 

 first volume. Without it no one could fitly por- 



