INTRODUCTION. 3 



of changes can produce numbers without end, or forms of 

 countless variety: but this process would deserve the 

 name of history only if either the transition from unity 

 to multiplicity, or the production of formal variety, were 

 capable of being understood by a thinking mind, if 

 the result of the process were a matter of some con- 

 cern, if an interest were attached to it, if a gain or loss 

 could be recorded. The pendulum which swings back- 

 wards and forwards in endless monotony, the planet which 

 moves round the sun in unceasing repetition, the atom of 

 matter which vibrates in the same path, have for us no 

 interest beyond the mathematical formulae which govern 

 their motions, and which permit us mentally to reproduce, 

 i.e., to think them. A combination of an infinite number of 

 these elementary movements would have as little interest, 

 were it not that out of such a combination there resulted 

 something novel and unforeseen : something that was beau- 

 tiful to behold or useful to possess, something that was 

 valuable to a thinking mind in a higher or lower meaning 

 of the word. 



But if, even in inanimate nature, the processes of 

 change acquire an interest, possess a history, only if 

 referred to a thinking mind which can record, under- 

 stand, and appreciate them, how much more is this the 

 case when we deal with human affairs, where man is 

 not only the thinking beholder but the principal agent ? 

 Here the historic interest would cease, were the succeed- 

 ing years and ages to produce no valuable change, were the 

 rule of existence and the order of life to repeat themselves . 

 in unceasing monotony. The savage tribes of Africa have a ^ v S age y f 

 history : but this history is all known when the order of [Tit?' Wha1 



