THE VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 17 



contemporary opinion. But he will be but a poor interpreter if he 

 have alien sympathies, the temperament of one age when writing of 

 another, it may be contrasted with his own in every point of prefer- 

 ence and belief. He needs something more than sympathy, for 

 sympathy may be condescending, pitying, contemptuous. Few things 

 are more benighting than the condescension of one age for another, 

 and the historian who shares this blinding sentiment is of course 

 unfitted for his office, which is not that of censor but that of inter- 

 preter. Sympathy there must be, and very catholic sympathy, but 

 it must be the sympathy of the man who stands in the midst and sees, 

 like one within, not like one without, like a native, not like an alien. 

 He must not sit like a judge exercising exterritorial jurisdiction. 



It is through the imagination that this delicate adjustment of 

 view is effected, a power not of the understanding nor yet a mere 

 faculty of sympathetic appreciation, or even compounded of the 

 two, but mixed of these with a magical gift of insight added, which 

 makes it a thing mere study, mere open-mindedness, mere coolness 

 and candor of judgment cannot attain. Its work cannot be done by 

 editorship or even by the fusing of the products of different minds 

 under the heat of a single genius; its insight is without rule, and is 

 exercised in singleness and independence. It is in its nature a thing 

 individual and incommunicable. 



Since literary art and this distinctive, inborn genius of interpreta- 

 tion are needed for the elucidation of the human story and must be 

 married to real scholarship if they are to be exercised with truth and 

 precision, the work of making successful synthesis of the several 

 parts of our labors for each epoch and nation must be the achieve- 

 ment of individual minds, and it might seem that we must await the 

 slow maturing of gifts Shakespearean to accomplish it. But, happily, 

 the case is not so desperate. The genius required for this task has 

 nothing of the universal scope, variety, or intensity of the Shake- 

 spearean mind about it. It is of a much more humble sort and is, 

 we have reason to believe, conferred upon men of every generation. 

 There would be good cause to despair of the advance of historical 

 knowledge if it were not bestowed with some liberality. It is needed 

 for the best sort of analysis and specialization of study as well as for 

 successful synthesis, for the particular as well as for the general task. 

 Moreover, a certain very large amount of cooperation is not only 

 possible but quite feasible. It depends, after all, on the specialists 

 whether there shall be successful synthesis or not. If they wish it, 

 if it be their ideal, if they construct their parts with regard to the 

 whole and for the sake of the whole, synthesis will follow naturally 

 and with an easy approach to perfection; but if the specialists are 

 hostile, if their enthusiasm is not that of those who have a large aim 

 and view, if they continue to insist on detail for detail's sake and 



