INTRODUCTION. 



hardly doubtful that, after hundreds or thousands of years 

 have passed, the simple, detailed, and perhaps contradic- 

 tory, narratives of contemporary witnesses will outlive 

 those more elaborate and artistic efforts of the historian 

 which are so largely inspired and coloured by the con- 

 victions of another viz., his own age. For as Goethe 

 has remarked : " History must from time to time be 

 rewritten, not because many new facts have been dis- 

 covered, but because new aspects come into view, because 

 the participant in the progress of an age is led to stand- 

 points from which the past can be regarded and judged 

 in a novel manner." 1 



Most of the great historians whom our age has pro- 

 duced will, centuries hence, probably be more interesting 

 as exhibiting special methods of research, special views 

 on political, social, and literary progress, than as faith- 

 ful and reliable chroniclers of events ; and the objectivity 12. 



Supposed 



on which some of them pride themselves will be looked objectivity 



of histor- 



upon not as freedom, from but as unconsciousness on their ians - 

 part of the preconceived notions which have governed 

 them. But where the facts recorded and the mind which 

 records them both belong to the same age, we have a 

 double testimony regarding that age. The events, and 

 the contemplating mind, supplement each other to form 

 a more complete picture, inasmuch as the matter and the 

 medium through which it is viewed belong to the same 

 time. And so it comes to pass that historians like 

 Thucydides, Tacitus, and Machiavelli are looked upon as 



1 ' Materialien zur Geschichte der 

 Farbenlehre,' Werke, 2te Abtheil- 

 ung, Band 3, p. 239. I quote 



from the new edition, brought out 

 by the German Goethe Society. 



