272 A Century of Science 



the Union arms prevented Freeman from going 

 on with his book was simply ridiculous. It was 

 not anything that happened in America, but some- 

 thing that happened in Europe, which caused 

 him to defer the completion of his second volume. 

 That volume was to deal with federal government 

 as exemplified in Switzerland and otherwise in Ger- 

 many ; and the war of 1866 between Prussia and 

 Austria marked the beginning of organic changes 

 in Germany which Freeman was anxious to watch 

 for a while before finishing his book. 



He therefore turned aside and took up the third 

 of his three great works, the only one that he 

 lived to complete, the " History of the Norman 

 Conquest of England, its Causes and its Kesults." 

 Upon this subject he had thought and studied for 

 nearly twenty years, or ever since the time when 

 he was publishing works on architecture. As one 

 turns the leaves of these stout volumes, each of 

 seven or eight hundred pages, crowded with minute 

 and accurate erudition, one marvels that the author 

 could carry along so many researches and of such 

 exhaustive character at the same time. Alike in 

 Greek, in German, and in English history, along 

 with abundant generalizations, often highly original 

 and suggestive, we find investigations of obscure 

 points in which every item of evidence is weighed as 



