704 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
of human life, it must discover what in every age the race 
has struggled for and attained; and this not by the way of 
philosophical speculation but of the critical study of facts.” 
The point mainly to be insisted upon is that the men must 
be studied in their own environment from the standpoint of 
their own age, not from the point of view of our age. This 
may seem self-evident, but it is only recently that this idea 
has been accepted, and as yet it is not generally followed. 
Motley would have been indignant at such a notion. Lord 
Acton in his inaugural address at Cambridge twenty years 
ago urged his hearers, “Never to debase the moral currency 
or to lower the standard of rectitude,” but to judge men of all 
ages and countries by the final maxim which governed their 
own lives, “to suffer no men and no cause to escape the 
undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on 
wrong.” “If we lower the standard in history we can not 
uphold it in Church and State.” In his presidential address be¬ 
fore the American Historical Association, Mr. Lea answered 
his friend, Lord Acton, and stated that, “The historian should 
so familiarize himself with the period under treatment that, 
for the time, he is living in it, feeling with the men whose 
actions he describes, and viewing events from their stand¬ 
point. Thus alone can he give us an accurate picture of the 
past, making us realize its emotions and understand the 
evolution of its successive stages.” Professor Dunning a 
few years later again emphasized this standard. “The 
business of the historian who studies the sixteenth century 
is to ascertain the scope and content of the ideas that con¬ 
stituted the culture of that period. Whether these ideas 
were true or were false, according to the standards of any 
other period has nothing to do with the matter. That they 
were the ideas which underlay the activities of the men of 
this time is all that concerns the work of the historian.” 
These ideals and aims make history a difficult subject. As 
man’s life is so complex, and his actions are determined by 
such varying motives, history must necessarily be complex. 
The causes of events are not easy to ascertain, and frequently 
must be sought in the far distant past. A man’s statement 
of why he himself did something must be interpreted from 
his whole mental attitude, which was partly the product of 
his education and environment, and partly of his own indi- 
