230 HISTORY. 



a narrative of warfare, or its inevitable adjuncts the 

 ju,ax<u pvpiovtKpoi, of all nations of men. The gates of 

 Janus, at Eome, were closed but three times during 

 700 years. The accounts we have of savage life, even 

 in the smallest and most remote isles of the ocean, all 

 tell the same tale of strife and bloodshed. 



Look, again, at the large proportion of European 

 history of which courts, sovereigns, ministers, political 

 intrigues and diplomacy make up the engrossing or 

 sole material. It is true that the record here is of 

 those whose acts and fortunes have had largest in- 

 fluence on the world. But what a mass of mankind 

 is left unnoticed and unknown beneath the stage on 

 which these higher actors play their parts in the world's 

 drama ! 1 They have led armies and migrations of men 

 from region to region; have founded or destroyed 

 empires ; have framed governments and laws, and abol- 

 ished them ; have attained eminence either by virtue 

 or by crime. Yet underneath all these things lies the 

 history of nine-tenths of the human race untold, or 

 told only by casual and scanty notices. Generations of 

 this multitude successively pass away without leaving a 

 mark behind. As an old writer says, ' The greater 

 part of the world must be content to be as though it 

 had never been.' 



Even in the countries fondly called civilised how 

 often are we surprised and shocked by casually disen- 



1 Goethe comments justly on this partial colouring of history: 

 ' Was hier den Geist der Zeiten heisst, 

 Das ist im Grund der Herren eignen Geist, 

 In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln.' 



