INTRODUCTION. 7 



through geological time, and on all scales of magnitude, 

 from a star to an atom. In the second place, there is a 

 tendency among us to regard nothing as isolated, but, on 

 the contrary, to think of everything in its relation with the 

 universe of which it forms a part ; and, as a consecpience 

 of this, the rigid lines by which sciences were formerly 

 separated one from the other are disappearing. And, in 

 the third place, we are learning to extend scientific con- 

 ceptions and scientific methods to many subjects, espe- 

 cially history and language, which formerly appeared to 

 be outside the pale of scientific knowledge ; and we are 

 gradually learning to regard all students of every branch 

 of knowledge as fellow-workers in science. 



But in all these we only carry forward the ideas of the 

 last century to results of which the men of the last century 

 scarcely dreamed ; and it is, I think, universally felt that 

 the difference between our intellectual position and theirs 

 is something profounder than this. Our characteristic What is 

 difference from them consists, as I think, iu the importance ™°teristic 

 which we attach to the historical method. History, no of the 

 doubt, was written with as much ability in the eighteenth concep-" 

 century as it has been in the nineteenth. I believe that tjous of 



_^ tills ti*-''6 is 



Gibbon's great work on the " Decline and Fall of the the im-' 

 Eoman Empire " has never been subsequently equalled for ^°4*ehe'iito 

 vastness of research, and for lucid arrangement of very historical 

 perplexing materials. But that very work is one of the ^^ , ° ^' 



•'. Gibbon's 



best instances of the difference of which I speak, between " Decline 

 the conceptions of the last century and of this respecting ^h^/o'^^j,°[ 

 history. It consists of an admirably arranged account of Empire." 

 events as they passed before men's eyes, with clear, if some- 

 what slight, sketches of the more noticeable facts of society 

 and government. But the real problem of the history, — 

 the reason why the Eoman Empire declined from its 

 original strength and feU. before its barbarian enemies, — 

 so far from being solved, is scarcely stated. In the present 

 age, no historian with the tenth part of Gibbon's powers 

 would rest satisfied with doing what Gibbon did. I do not 

 say that he would do the work better — this depends on 

 individual powers, not on the systems of thought which 



