154 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE 



Under the circumstances we need feel little surprise when we 

 contemplate the amount of energy which modern historians have 

 devoted to the task of setting their predecessors right. One might 

 almost say that at the dawn of the nineteenth century the criminal 

 law of England required no more revision than did the best books 

 which were to be had on English history. Perhaps more mistakes 

 clustered around the Civil War and the Revolution than around any 

 other subjects, although, as Dr. Johnson observes of Voltaire and 

 Rousseau, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between 

 Smollett's account of the Revolution and Hume's allusions to the 

 medieval church. Apart from all larger attempts at construction, 

 the critics have had quite enough to do during the last hundred 

 years or so in correcting errors of detail. This kind of occupation 

 is not, and never will be, finished. It is an industry which goes on 

 for the most part quietly, though interrupted now and then by an 

 explosion. Investigators of the higher grade still aspire to set right 

 mistaken notions regarding the defenses at Hastings. The humble 

 beginner is content if he can detect a slip lurking beneath the guarded 

 utterances of Stubbs. 



We all like to prove our points, and the more limited their scope 

 the keener seems the anxiety. Yet at times, and especially on inter- 

 national occasions like the present, one's thought is drawn away 

 from the task of rectifying details, and even from the nobler sport 

 of slaying unfounded deductions. According to a dictum of Professor 

 Dicey, " Democracy depends upon the importance attached to the 

 similarities, as surely as aristocracy depends upon the importance 

 attached to the differences, of human nature." 1 Usually we are 

 intellectual aristocrats, thinking of the specialties which divide us 

 and spurring on the hobbies which bear us madly away in the most 

 divergent directions. Here we become democrats (not necessarily 

 red radicals but respectable whiggish democrats) bent on accent- 

 uating if only for a moment the things that draw us together. Well 

 would it be for one speaking on such a subject as mine if he could 

 produce from his pocket an eloquent and convincing philosophy of 

 history. When we pause a moment to draw breath, we can overhear 

 the candid comments of those who rate the value of historical studies 

 less highly than we do. I am not referring so much to the cynical 

 detractor like Walpole, with his gibe against historical credibility. 

 I have in mind, rather, the candid friend of philosophical tastes, who 

 is willing to admit that history would furnish a fine theme if only his- 

 torians could manage to get at the heart of their subject instead of 

 playing with superficial trivialities. Buckle, to whose taste for specu- 

 lation was added a vast amount of historical knowledge, has expressed 

 this view in a passage too hackneyed for further quotation; and it is 

 1 The Nation, vol. LXXV, p. 28. 



