LORD WOODHOUSELEE. 531 



the only object of the teacher was to convey to the student 

 the knowledge of the succession of historical facts. In the 

 second, the principle of chronological arrangement was alto- 

 gether disregarded : the events of history were considered not 

 as a branch of knowledge in themselves, but as a ground work 

 for the conclusions of science ; and the great object of the 

 teacher was to convey to the students the knowledge of 

 the general principles of public law and of political philoso- 

 phy. 



In neither of these systems did Mr Tytler find the utilities 

 which it was his ambition to derive from the subject of his lec- 

 tures. The first appeared to him only a barren detail of chrono- 

 logical events, in which nothing more was conveyed than the 

 mere knowledge of the succession of these events ; and all that 

 is included under the name of the Philosophy of History was ne- 

 cessarilv omitted. In the second, he feared that too wide a field 

 was opened to the ambitious speculations of the teacher, and 

 that while the attention of the student was liable to be occu- 

 pied by hasty or by unfounded theories, the interest of his- 

 torical narration was necessarily lost, and all the moral instruc- 

 tions of history neglected. 



The system which Mr Tytler finally adopted for his own 

 course of lectures, was one which combined the advantages 

 of both these systems, and was very happily adapted, both to 

 maintain the interest and to consult the instruction of the stu- 

 dent. In surveying with an attentive eye, the ancient history 

 of the world, he observed, (to use his own words,) that it was 

 distinguished, in every age, by one prominent feature; Thai 

 one nation or empire was successively predominant, to idiom all 

 the rest bore as it were an under-part, and to whose history, we 

 find that the principal events in the annals of other nations may 

 be referred from some natural connection. In this remarkable 



Vol, VIII. P. IL 3 X feature 



