The Lessons of History. 1 3 



universal history in so far as they make for progress or retrogres- 

 sion. The causes might be obscure, but the effects were theirs to 

 ponder on that they might not only adorn a tale, but also point a 

 moral for succeeding generations. Their view of history greatly 

 depended upon their view of men. If they believed that men 

 were so many chattels to be used by the lords of creation as vassals 

 and slaves, then history became so many funeral sermons, unsup- 

 ported by fact and insupportable by reason of fulsome flattery. If, 

 on the other hand, they believed that men were creatures endowed 

 with grand faculties — if they believed that all men, of every creed, 

 colour, and condition, were children of the same God, born for 

 equal justice and equal liberty — then history's page became 

 illumined by a divine light, and the lessons of history became 

 inspired and inspiring in the highest degree. The second was his 

 view. He regarded man as an animal on one side of his nature. 

 On the other side he differed from the animal by possessing that 

 which the animal could not possess Man, then, might be 

 regarded as an animal whose noblest function was the conception 

 of high ideals, and whose life was to be devoted to the realisation 

 of these ideals History was the record of the attempt of man to 

 introduce into real life the highest ideals. It was the story of 

 man's success or failure in this respect. To be fully understood, 

 it must be studied from a mount of observation that afforded a 

 complete view. Partial history could give but partial results. In 

 the story of history's lessons they must not take to-day as an 

 isolated fact, but as the result of the sum of all preceding days 

 since man appeared on this planet. Viewed as a whole, history 

 was the story of a growth, and were he asked to tell in a few words 

 what that growth was he should say that it was a perpetual 

 movement towards the ideal — a movement spiritual in character 

 and embodying man's attributes of God. 



