THE STUDY OF HISTORY.*
MR. HARRISON characteristically grounds his claim to a hear- ing, not on his attentive examination into the annals of past ages, but on his careful study of the various writings of Auguste Comte. He worthily represents the school to which he belongs. Energy, enthusiasm, dogmatism, and eloquence give to his sentences a vigour and force rarely marking the expressions of men whose diffidence or whose scepticism makes them deal in innuendoes, and hedge round general statements with cautious reservations. A moral pugilist, who knows how to hit hard at received doctrines, is, no doubt, fully prepared to receive sharp blows from the opponents whose principles or whose prejudices he offends, and we do not suppose that Mr. Harrison, when he descends into the arena of discussion, has any wish to be spared the honest criticism which his views will evidently provoke. We have no desire to join the common herd of his assailants. The various doctrines of positive philosophers have, before this, been the object of enough criticism and of far more than enough abuse. One point, however, has almost escaped the assaults which have been made upon the strong no less than upon the weak sides of Comte's system. While the supposed moral results, the historical accuracy, the religious bearing of his teaching, have, each in turn, been unsparingly canvassed, few persons have urged an objection which, in as far as it is valid, lies equally against many views of historical study which, in most respects, are diametrically opposed to the theories of which Mr. Harrison is the advocate. Occupied in mutually defending or assailing the various so• called philosophies of history, hostile critics have forgotten to inquire whether the means exist for form- ing any philosophy of history whatever. Thus, hundreds have asked what is the meaning of history, whilst not one in a hundred have inquired what is its nature. Yet the least suspicion that the time has not arrived when any general induction can be drawn as to the so-called " meaning" or " laws " of history does much more than shake our confidence in received theories, for it suggests an inquiry whether the great hindrance to the progress of investiga- tion be not the prevalence of those rashly formed generalizations, which are supposed to afford a clue by which to unravel the events of past years.
To any one, at least, who attentively considers the state of his- torical speculation, it will be sufficiently manifest that there is some- thing wrong in the way in which the mass of writers address them- selves to its study. Every theory, every view, every prejudice, or every sentiment, finds, by some mysterious process, its justification or its corroboration in the annals of the past. Worshippers of heroes can discover heroic leaders in every century but their own. Fanatics for material progress can prove to their own satisfaction that all civilization is evolved from the gradual growth of physical well- being. Men who look on daily events as something which, like the text of a sermon, is of no value unless it is improved, never find the least difficulty in tracing throughout the records of the universe just such a scheme of Providence as suits the petty notions of some modern sect ; whilst opponents who, with Mr. Harrison, see "man advancing in one unbroken line of progress," can trace the law which has governed the million lives of endless millions of individuals with infinitely greater certainty than that with which any sane person would venture to point out the development of his own character. All these theorists have, however, one point in common. They none of them add a single iota to our knowledge of facts. They all assume that we know enough, if not all, that can be known, of the events which have taken place amongst mankind, and that the main duty of modern historians is to sit down and speculate at their ease upon the infer- ences to be drawn from ascertained phenomena. In other words, all historical philosophers talk about history ; they none of them per- form the part of historians. Unconsciously, for the most part, these theorists entertain a certain dislike to men imbued with what they consider an ignominious love for facts ; yet this sentiment does not often find the plain expression which is given to it by Mr. Harrison. He is quite indignant at persons low-minded enough to indulge a passion for raking up details, and laments, with equal bitterness and wonder, that "lives are spent in raking up old letters, to show
• The Meaning of history. Two Bedtime. By F. Harrison, MA. Trttbner.
why or how some parasite, like Sir Thomas Overbury, was dered ; or to unravel some plot about a maid of honour or a diamo necklace ; or some conspiracy to turn out a minister, or to detect, some Court impostor," and can hardly find terms strong enough' to express his contempt for minds who find fascination in the Popish plots of Titus Oates, where the interest centres round a dastardly ruffian. In such language, let it be observed, is just truth enough to prevent the falseness of the view which it expresses from being at first sight apparent. If all the lecturer means is to denounce the school of historical gossips who sink history into anecdote, and think that the end of their efforts is attained when history is made as entertaining as a novel, he deserves the thanks of all students, but his words suggest and are intended to suggest, much more than this ; he wishes to throw contempt upon those who deem it their duty to explore to its bot- tom the evidence on which our conceptions of bygone times rest. To such investigators after truth there seems nothing absurd in asking how Overbury died, or what was the degree of truth to be found amongst Oates's lies? Even though the object of their search were to point a moral, or to justify a theory, they could easily defend their conduct. Oates, to take Mr. Harrison's example, is, if we except Jeffreys, perhaps the most loathsome of the figures which crossed the stage of public life during the most degraded period of the annals of England ; but, on the other hand, scarcely any event contains so much instruction as the Popish Plot. Studied in a philosophic spirit, the excitement, the terror, the credulity, and the cruelty of a nation commonly known for its calmness and good sense, throw a light over the whole subject of religious panics. When Mr. Grote sought for an explanation of the state of Athens when the Hermm were mutilated, he could find no parallel so striking as the condition of London when the best blood of England was shed at the bidding of the most brazen-faced of scoundrels. But patient explorers of half-for- gotten transactions do not need this apology. Love of knowledge and of truth is the motive of their labours. They do not indulge in the fantastic sentimentalism of conceiving that they ought to hold converse with the good and wise alone of past ages, and should avert their eyes from the folly of mankind ; but are rather determined that the light of science, like the light of the sun, shall rise upon the deeds alike of the evil and of the good. " But," urges Mr. Harrison, " what some people call the pure love of truth is, after all, a very poor affair, if we come to think of it." Though in saying this he has brought a much more damning accusation against himself and his school than we should think it just to endorse, he has pointed to a vice prevailing amongst a school of historical teachers whose doc- trines he supports. Throughout his lectures there is an apparent want of what one may fairly call a pure love of his- torical truth. His second address is occupied with an eloquent account of the progress of man. It has every merit but the one of possessing any proof of its truth. Speculations as to the growth of society from a condition of absolute barbarism, or on the formation of language out of mere inarticulate sounds, may be curious, ingenious, or eloquent, but they are not history. The whole spirit of modern inquiry tends to dismiss them as futile. Assertion should cease with the cessation of evidence, and a history of the earlier ages of mankind must be built up, if it ever can be erected at all, not on conceptions of what might have been, but on. proofs, if such proofs can be found, of what actually took place.
At. this point becomes apparent the evil done by the existence of crude philosophies of history. They divert the mind from the true road of investigation. Whatever has been performed by the great men who have recorded past events, or discovered again facts hidden through the forgetfulness or stupidity of mankind, has been achieved by exploring the sources of historical know- ledge. "Hellas peters finites quam sectari rivulos " is the true motto which guides all sincere investigators into the past. The study of history is, after all, nothing but the study of evidence. The greatest and truest historians have felt this. What gives the value to Thucydides is not so much his philosophic views as his keen appreciation of the rules which govern all inquiry into the truth of facts. Gibbon, again, may either interest or disgust by his sneers and his philosophy, according to the taste of his readers ; but what has raised hint to the head of English historians is not so much his wonderful power of compression as his boundless knowledge, which makes even his sarcasm the em- bodiment of the results attained by years of patient toil. If history is to progress, if the conclusions drawn from it are ever to possess any certainty or fixity, the most careful and minute study of all the stores of documentary evidence which still lie unknown
and'unexplored in libraries and state-paper offices must be carried out by the staunch lovers of pure truth. This work may, indeed, be, in a sense uninteresting, just because it is work, and not mere fanciful and lazy speculation. No doubt this labour cannot be under- taken by the poor ; it is one of the disadvantages of their position that artizans cannot study history in the same sense that they can study mathematics. We cannot see that there is any gain in suggesting to those who most unfortunately cannot pursue a certain science that they are fitted for its study. Something, however, they can do, though not for the advancement of historical knowledge, yet for their own instruction. Even for this object the advice given by Mr. Harrison is unfortunate :—" Let a man," he says, " ask himself what he wants to know ;" and he supplies as an answer, " some- thing of man's social nature, something of the growth of civi- lization." Such a reply is thoroughly delusive. A man who knows nothing of what the lecturer calls a lifeless catalogue of names, or a dry table of dates, will gain little instruction by learning by rote a few pretentious generalizations about the progress of humanity or the growth of man. Real students must go through the painful labour of pondering over catalogues and committing dates to memory. For these very generalizations, when of use at all, are so to those alone who know their limitations and their uncertainty. Man, for example, it is said, "moves forward in a straight line of progress," and this doctrine under different forms, is the key-note to half the historical theories of the day ; yet, without great restrictions and explanations, it is certainly false. One age, in Europe at least, advances somewhat beyond former generations ; but, as Mr. Harrison well points out, it loses some- thing also which other centuries possessed. We have virtues not known to Greece or Rome ; but Greeks and Romans found it easy to perform some great deeds that would almost overtook the strength of modern Englishmen. Even when every restriction is taken into account and every explanation given, the dogma of human progress remains an article of faith and hope, rather than of proof and knowledge. Romans, no doubt, traced the finger of Providence in the victories of Scipio. Carthaginians, possibly, saw less clearly the progress of the human race in events which drove into exile and death the greatest genius of the ancient world, and destroyed one of the forms of ancient civilization. Modern speculators themselves feel perplexed as to the meaning of the transactions by which Rome destroyed the prosperity of Italy, and in doing so undermined her own freedom and greatness. When it is explained what the world gained by the triumphs of Cortes, which uprooted one civilization without introducing another, philosophers who care more for facts than for theories will perhaps be able to speak with dogmatic certainty about the fixity of human progress, but, until many clouds are cleared away, modest students will accept and explore the facts of the past, and look with equal distrust on theologians who use history to vindicate the decrees of Providence, and on the Sociolo- gists who study the past to defend the dogmas of Auguste Comte.
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