THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 151 



The most familiar of words, past and future, have become pregnant 

 with significance; they are charged with all the implications of a 

 new perspective. 



It is clear that this new sense is inconsistent with the affirmation 

 of Arnold and Seeley that contemporary is superior to preceding 

 history by all the superiority of an end to the means. This doctrine 

 expresses the attitude of the old unregenerate spirit. The theoretical 

 truth which it contains is simply this, that contemporary history 

 represents a more advanced stage than any preceding it, or, in other 

 words, there is a real evolution. But for the same reason it is itself 

 inferior to the development which will succeedit; and if past history 

 is to be described as a means, contemporary history must be equally 

 described as a means, on the same ground. Theoretically, therefore, 

 this teleological argument has no application; it would not become 

 relevant till the end of the process has been reached. But what 

 Arnold and Seeley probably had most in mind was the importance 

 of comprehending the past for the sake of comprehending the present 

 for practical purposes. (This is now so fully understood and recognized 

 that I have not thought it necessary to dwell on it to-day. It is now 

 generally acknowledged, by those whose opinion need be considered, 

 that the practical value of history consists not, as used to bethought, 

 in lessons and examples, but in the fact that it explains the present, 

 and that without it the present, in which we have to act, would be 

 incomprehensible. It is modern history, of course, that is here 

 chiefly concerned. Lord Acton said : " Modern history touches us so 

 nearly, it is so deep a question of life and death, that we are bound 

 to find our own way through it, and to owe our insight to ourselves." 

 I venture to think that Lord Acton, in this characteristic statement, 

 rather strains the note; but the statement concerns, you observe, the 

 practical not the theoretical value of the subject.) 



To attempt to define absolutely the significance of modern or 

 recent history in the order of development would be to fall into an 

 error like that for which I criticised Hegel and Krause and others 

 who thought to draw forth Leviathan with a hook. It is much if it 

 can be established, as I think it can, that with the nineteenth century 

 the curtain has risen on a new act in the drama. But we can be more 

 confident in asserting negatives. The ideas and forces which have 

 driven man through the last four hundred years and are driving him 

 now, are not the last words or dooms in the progress of reason. The 

 idea of freedom which the modern world has struggled to realize 

 has been deemed by many the ultima linea rerum; but it is difficult 

 to see how or why it should be final, in the sense of not being super- 

 seded by the appearance of higher ideas which its realization shall 

 have enabled to emerge. Or again, it is unreasonable to suppose that 

 the idea of nationality w r hich has recently played and still plays a 



