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HISTORY. 



inform us ?'' A few such critics as Ranke, would | 

 contribute greatly to the progress of historical know- j 

 leilge, and render the same kind of service to this 

 science as the Schlegels have rendered to belles 

 lettres. The Germans are less successful in his- 

 torical execution. If they surpass all nations in 

 historical knowledge, they are surpassed by several 

 in historical delineation. In this respect, our own 

 historical writers take the lead ; and it is only since 

 the Germans became acquainted with Gibbon, and 

 Robertson, and Hume, that their modern historical 

 writers have improved in the art of historical narra- 

 tion. One reason of this circumstance is, probably, 

 the want of popular elements in their government, 

 so that they do not acquire the habit of addressing 

 the public in a direct and lively manner, either in 

 speech or writing. 



Auxiliary to history are chronology and geography, 

 so often called the eyes of history; ethnography, 

 which treats of the customs and characteristics of a 

 nation ; mythology, as well for the purpose of com- 

 prehending the whole character of a people from the 

 beginning, as to find out in its fables, if possible, the 

 corrobo ration of facts (for instance, that civilization 

 came to Greece from Egypt) ; philology, which has 

 been already mentioned ; numismatics, or the know- 

 ledge of coins and medals, of importance, particu- 

 larly for those ages of which few written documents 

 exist; the knowledge of monuments, and epigra- 

 phies, or the knowledge of inscriptions, including 

 hieroglyphics ; heraldics, diplomatics (q. v.), a sub- 

 division of which is sphragistics, or the knowledge 

 of seals ; and, as we have already mentioned, the 

 criticism of historical sources, from the ancient papy- 

 rus to the modern memoir, and from state-papers 

 down to newspapers. (See the article Newspaper.) 

 Besides, it is necessary to be well acquainted with 

 the history of historiography, to know what has been 

 written, and the progress and decline of historical 

 writing. 



Herodotus is to be considered as the father of Euro- 

 pean history. He tells, with the most unaffected 

 simplicity, all that has been told to him. His work 

 is the childlike beginning of an art; yet, sometimes, 

 even he feels the great call of the historian, in all its 

 dignity, as when, after having mentioned that several 

 persons are each named as the traitor who led the 

 Persians round the mountains at Thermopylae to the 

 rear of the Greeks, he pronounces, " but it was 

 Epliialtes, and him I write down." However, he 

 has often been overrated by the learned. The Greeks 

 produced other and greater historians, of whom Thu- 

 cydides was the greatest. The period which began 

 with Herodotus lasted to Procopius and Cassiodorus, 

 or to the fifth centiu7, A. D. In this period, the 

 Romans likewise produced many and excellent his- 

 torians. When civilization, however, declined in the 

 West, history fled to Constantinople, where it was 

 fostered, at least in some degree. The whole of 

 Western Europe was in the most barbarous state, 

 and the little knowledge that existed had taken 

 refuge in the monasteries, where the deeds of the 

 age were recorded in chronicles, from the fifth cen- 

 tury to the fifteenth. Gregory of Tours (q. v.) opens 

 this series. At the same time, feudalism, which may 

 be called the political form of individuality, produced 

 in France that remarkable branch of literature, the 

 memoirs. In the feudal times, the individual acted 

 for himself, and hence the histories of those times 

 are, in a great measure, narratives of the actions of 

 individuals, whilst, in ancient times, the state pre- 

 vailed over the individual, so that Xenophon and 

 Caesar, even in describing events in which they were 

 the principal or very important actors, speak in 

 the third person. With the latter, however, it may 



arise also from a feeling of historical dignity, as Fre- 

 deric the Great and Napoleon likewise speak of 

 themselves in the third person. The crusades 

 enlarged the territory of European history ; and the 

 growth of a third class the citizens and the 

 revival of commerce had a salutary influence upon 

 the spirit of the age, and, with the restoration of 

 ancient literature, upon the study of history. In the 

 cities, a new state of society was developed ; a 

 struggle for liberty and independent government 

 commenced ; and thus a want of something better 

 than the dead chronicles of the cloisters was created. 

 The art of printing was invented ; the knowledge of 

 foreign and distant countries was enlarged by com- 

 merce, travel, and missions ; the various natior~' 

 languages were cultivated. The reformation crea 

 a new spirit of investigation and thirst for know- 

 ledge, and, by degrees, historical writing was more 

 and more studied. Italy, to which we must recur 

 for the beginning of almost all branches of modern 

 civilization, furnishes the first instances of distin- 



fuished historians in modern times. Guicciardini, 

 lachiavelli, and others, opened the path, which the 

 writers of France and England soon entered. In 

 Germany, history was long in shackles ; the philo- 

 logists cultivated only Greek and Roman history, 

 the theologians Biblical history, or other portions of 

 history only in a religious point of view, whilst the 

 jurists studied the history of the German empire, 

 merely as an auxiliary to their profession. A better 

 period did not begin until the time wliich we have 

 already indicated. History can truly flourish only 

 under the protection of liberty. Flattery poisons it. 

 The fear of offending established views destroys the 

 power of investigation, and its effects are very per- 

 ceptible in particular departments of historical 

 research. Whilst political history began to be cul- 

 tivated late in Germany, more has been done there 

 for ecclesiastical history than in any other country, 

 because so much liberty of religious investigation 

 exists no where else. We speak not of legal liberty, 

 but of that allowed by public opinion. In this 

 country, however, very little has been done for 

 ecclesiastical history, although we were the earliest 

 to produce great civil historians. History has seve- 

 ral points in common with dramatic poetry ; among 

 others, that just mentioned. Dramatic poetry cannot 

 thrive in a despotic government, because it exhibits 

 characters with boldness, whilst lyrical poetry, the 

 element of which is admiration and adoration, may 

 prosper at a court. The high rank and vast extent 

 of history are obvious, embracing, as it does, the 

 picture of man in every stage of improvement, and 

 teaching us how the present age is connected with 

 the past; what we owe our predecessors, and 

 how we should profit by their example ; removing 

 that feeling of self-complacency, into which indi- 

 viduals acquainted only with their own confined 

 sphere, or generations unacquainted with preceding 

 ones, easily fall ; it shows us that, if we surpass 

 former ages in some branches, they were before us 

 in others. History makes man modest, and yet it 

 elevates him, by showing him the great votaries of 

 virtue, and the height to which his nature may rise. 

 The freer a nation is, and the more its welfare is left 

 to itself, the more necessary is a general study of 

 history. Without it, we cannot properly understz 

 the object of existing laws and institutions ; and, 

 instead of developing' them farther, if they are salu- 

 tary, the hand of the ignorant will tear them down ; 

 whilst the bad are often left, from the same inability 

 to comprehend their character. 



History may be divided into, 1. Ancient history, 

 which begins with the first records of mankind, or, if 

 we begin with history which rests on critical grounds, 



