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 f'^odern History. 
 
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 By 
 
 
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 Hal ford Vaughan. 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 TWO 
 
 GENERAL LECTURES 
 
 MODERN HISTORY, 
 
 DELIVERED ON INAUGURATION, 
 
 OCTOBER, 1849. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HALFORL) VAUGHAN, M.A. 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 OXFORD AND LONDON, 
 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER. 
 
 1849.
 
 llAXTEK, PRINTER, OXfOKD,
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 These Lectures, delivered some months ago, 
 were not intended for publication, but have been 
 printed in compliance with numerous requests. 
 This circumstance will account for their unusually 
 n late appearance, and will also suggest other con- 
 >- siderations to the good sense of those who may 
 c read them. I would particularly apologise for the 
 ^ compression of style which has sometimes an- 
 nounced, within the compass of a single sentence, 
 principles which, in so far as they are broad and 
 c- original, might claim many pages for their due 
 <r> elucidation. This applies particularly to parts of 
 '^ the first Lecture. But I felt restricted as to time 
 ,„ in the recital, and therefore condensed into as few 
 words as possible my expressions. Subsequent 
 reflection on the part of those who heard me, it 
 was hoped, might sufficiently expand and appre- 
 ciate them. I will not offer any excuse for the 
 speculative character of this introduction to a study 
 which finds its chief obstacle, as an element of 
 education, in the practical interests and passions 
 "AkWhich it might engage. 
 
 December 19, 1849. 
 
 ar>4818
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 It is impossible for me, on the present occasion, 
 to enter on my subject. I can only approach it ; 
 and from the numerous points of view which might 
 offer themselves, would gladly select not such as 
 may give the richest view, and command the most 
 attractive features, but such as our relation to it 
 for the present as strangers, and our connexion 
 with it through this University, would most naturally 
 prompt. 
 
 The word history, as an English term, offers 
 nothing to the imagination of most of us. It is a 
 mere arbitrary symbol of what it indicates. But as 
 the Greek taTopia, it becomes emphatically know- 
 ledge the result of investigation — a meaning which 
 is actually preserved in classical authors, after and 
 along with its application to the subject which 
 it now represents. We should be tempted there- 
 fore by the name alone, to consider some of the 
 qualities which it possesses as a branch of know- 
 ledge. In this place, new and distinct consider- 
 ations direct us to the same point of view. It 
 
 B
 
 would be unpardonable in one, even slightly ac- 
 quainted with the Civil Law, to appeal to our 
 name as the test of the universality of our studies. 
 Still owing to the nature of our University as an 
 institution, it is a matter of fact, that as numerous 
 bodies and individuals have been congi'egated and 
 harmonized into one body, and called a University ; 
 so too all the elements in the great society of 
 human knowledge have, in course of time, been 
 hither convoked and naturalized. Time may have 
 evolved them separately ; they may have been 
 sustained and advanced in their growth and culti- 
 vation elsewhere, but when their mature and adult 
 age has claimed for them recognition as genuine 
 knowledge, they are here adopted and become the 
 members of the great sisterhood of the Sciences. If 
 all branches of knowledge, therefore, in this place 
 claim our attention as such, so does each particular 
 department of it especially deserve our considera- 
 tion under some point of view, which will at the same 
 time, limit our thoughts to the qualities which it 
 essentially possesses as a branch of truth, and will 
 also extend them by the exhibition of such as may 
 in some degree be common to all truth. 
 
 Now the first universal attribute of truth is its 
 greatness ; this quahty it is which has mainly 
 fascinated the hearts of those who have most de- 
 votedly pursued it. It is the more worthy of our 
 observation, since it is through this quality amongst 
 others that we see the moral and intellectual
 
 worlds, which are so generally distinguished, and 
 have been so often contrasted, mingle their nature, 
 and pass into each other. For if greatness be an 
 attribute of something which is sensibly or intel- 
 lectually impressed, still it discloses itself as such, 
 by the mode in which our moral, as distinct from 
 our intellectual, nature is aifected by it. All 
 greatness expands, elevates, commands, and tran- 
 quiUizes. We know the feelings with which we 
 look upon the starry heavens, the silent outspread 
 mountains, and the ocean. We are conscious how 
 the eye fails to span them, and how the over- 
 flowing and incapable sense fixes itself to receive 
 what it cannot contain ; scanning, and again 
 scanning, the object which at once invites and 
 baffles, satisfies and eludes it. Such we all know 
 from experience is the manifestation of greatness, 
 when approaching to the subhme, and disclosed to 
 our bodily senses. But whether it address itself 
 directly to our senses; or whether it be revealed 
 at once and simply to our imagination as in poetry ; 
 or to the imagination as ministering to the intellect 
 which compares, combines, and generalizes, as in 
 the higher departments of knowledge, the effect is 
 in kind and character the same. We confess its 
 presence by the same mode of feeling, the same 
 attitude of attention, absorption, submission, and 
 repose. Whether our eye be fixed upon the 
 sublimer scenery of nature, or our fancy be filled 
 with the first and second books of the Paradise 
 
 b2
 
 Lost, or our intellect contemplate the highest and 
 vastest subjects of human thought, we are in all 
 these instances affected by the same quality dis- 
 closing itself in a different way through different 
 objects. 
 
 Now it need not be said, of course, that physical 
 greatness is not coextensive with all greatness. 
 But although great qualities in a metaphorical and 
 spiritual sense affect us in the very highest degree, 
 and inspire the highest kinds of pleasure, yet on 
 the present occasion, chiefly for the sake of limiting 
 as much as possible my subject, and partly because 
 the existence of such elements in historical studies 
 must have been often insisted on, I shall not advert 
 to any but the more simple and less refined, that is, 
 the physical conditions of grandeur. 
 
 These in an intellectual pursuit have two main 
 sources ; they both act on the imagination, to 
 produce the state of feeling which we have de- 
 scribed ; and although the efficacy of both might 
 be traced to the same ultimate causes, yet, when 
 viewed generally and distinctly, they carry our 
 observation to circumstances which separate and 
 distinguish them. 
 
 In the object-matter of our knowledge is con- 
 tained the first, in the form of it is the second 
 cause of its sublimity. 
 
 The matter of our knowledge again may be 
 great in itself, or great by the associations which 
 immediately attend it.
 
 By the object-matter of our knowledge, I mean 
 those objects which om- mind is fixed to study and 
 to know ; those objects about which its curiosity 
 is excited and satisfied ; which, either through the 
 senses or through the imagination, it must con- 
 tinually realize; and around which, as upon the 
 main substance of our thoughts, all our inquiries 
 must revolve. 
 
 Now I would define History, " as a disclosure of 
 the critical changes in the condition of society.'* 
 Under such a definition, this branch of knowledge 
 is viewed not as an unformed and imperfect growth, 
 which still needs time and toil to develope it, but 
 as a form of learning that has reached its full 
 proportions. In actual truth, it may still want 
 altogether some of its essential parts ; others may 
 have been discoloured or distorted from their 
 natural shape and complexion ; so that it would 
 need long investigation, aided by critical as well as 
 constructive power, to present to us even an outline 
 of History, or to discriminate the parts which are 
 genuine fi-om such as are mere parasitic growths, 
 or from such as being essentially distinct from it, 
 yet seem to be incorporated with it, through the 
 delusions of the atmosphere which envelopes them. 
 Under this point of view, actual History, such as 
 w^e possess it, may not be an announcement of 
 truths, but rather a problem, whose true solution 
 would involve such an announcement. And to 
 those therefore who cultivate it, it may present
 
 itself partly as an existing knowledge to be ac- 
 quired, and partly as a possible knowledge to be 
 constructed, and partly as an impossible knowledge 
 to be despaired of. It is under the first of these 
 characters, however, that it has a place here. It 
 is this its kindlier and more encouraging aspect 
 which it opens upon the student who consults it. 
 
 In contemplating then this object-matter, as the 
 substance, so to speak, around which our know- 
 ledge is gathered, there is presented to us, first 
 and chiefly, the conception of societij. And this 
 predominating idea, as directly, and in the first 
 instance, it is contrasted with the idea of the 
 individual, so indirectly it involves such as an 
 element of itself. For in actual life the individual 
 holds one of two relations ; he is himself either the 
 source of powers which work on society, or he is 
 the object of powers through which society works 
 on him. He is either an active and original force 
 affecting those around him, and influencing the 
 social scheme of which he forms a part ; or he is 
 himself the object of surrounding forces by which 
 the social scheme moulds and directs him. And 
 our general conception of society, such as History 
 at each moment suggests, includes directly and 
 sensibly the latter of these two, the common and 
 passive type of character, inasmuch as it represents 
 to us a tissue of individuals, harmonizing in opinion, 
 intelligence, purposes, and general destiny, yielding 
 to the same influences, and owning the same habits.
 
 As it is of such individuals that society is on the 
 whole composed, so it is of such, commanding our 
 attention by their numbers and capability of union, 
 that the historical interest is constantly fixed. 
 And in certain points of view. History would be 
 less great if the individuals who compose society 
 were greater. There would not be the same vast 
 consenting movement, the same harmonious com- 
 plexion, the same complete resulting unity, as 
 there now is, if each element had its pecuhar 
 character, and its appropriate law. But if this be 
 the general picture, yet on occasions must History 
 exhibit that other relation of the individual, in 
 which he is the exception rather than the normal 
 element, the disturbing force rather than the 
 harmonised effect. Power to master ordinary 
 impulses, power to resist the general example, 
 power to conceive remarkable designs and achieve 
 them, power of will, principle, or intellect, great- 
 ness of soul, of speculative or practical genius, 
 these, and such as these, are objects which History 
 occasionally discloses to us. Yet these extra- 
 ordinary characters have two aspects, the one 
 presented by themselves, the other by their social 
 effects ; and the historical aspect is therefore dis- 
 tinguishable from the moral. They are great 
 morally through the great quahties which the indi- 
 vidual intrinsically possesses, they are great histo- 
 rically as they affect the countless numbers whose 
 fate is moulded by their activity. Thus as we realize
 
 8 
 
 the greatness of society through the vast aggregate 
 of common mdividuals who compose it, so we reahze 
 the greatness of individuals also historically through 
 the grand social scheme which they contribute to 
 affect. Under every view, therefore, of the indi- 
 vidual, society is still the comprehensive and pre- 
 dominant object of thought. 
 
 But in realizing history, we must not merely 
 conceive this great aggregate of human nature 
 by itself, but along with, and by means of, those 
 conditions through which, in the various periods 
 of historical time, it has been destined to pass. 
 And it is clear, upon consideration, that the con- 
 dition of society must be a fact as complicated and 
 manifold as iJie nature which man can carry into 
 society, and develope through it. If it be possible 
 and natural that, in respect to public and house- 
 hold life, religion, moral principles, passions, sen- 
 timents, tastes intellectual and physical, social 
 maxims and feelings, in a word, in respect to 
 all the modes of suffering, enjoyment, action, 
 capability, sensibility, and power into which an 
 individual can pass ; if it be possible and natural, 
 I say, that in respect to all these great numbers 
 and masses of men should own one common and 
 identical character, then it is clear that the general 
 condition of society must involve all these states, 
 and that our idea of such conditions of society 
 must be formed by the combination of these several 
 objects of thought. But this social condition, in-
 
 eluding as it does and involving all states what- 
 ever, political, moral, intellectual, and social, 
 throughout the whole of Modern History presents 
 itself as a most various, complicated, and manifold 
 fact. We see without difficulty that there are 
 principles at work, which tend to give it greater 
 complexity, and a larger sphere of existence as 
 society moves forward. Institutions are multiplied, 
 professions and arts are separated and increased, 
 the grades in society become more numerous. 
 At the earliest periods of Modern History in our 
 own country, the King and his Council executed 
 the laws as well as framed them. By continual 
 separation of functions, this Council has developed 
 itself into three Courts of Common Law, two 
 Houses of Parliament, many Courts of Equity, 
 a grand Chamber of Appeal, a Privy Council, and 
 a Cabinet. The Clerical order has resolved itself 
 into the Clergyman, Lawyer, Physician, Artist, 
 Historian, and Engineer. Each of these branches 
 again has divided itself into distinct functions, and 
 been assigned to separate persons. This fact in 
 the progress of social life is seen to be the natural 
 result of increased numbers, accumulated ex- 
 perience, necessities more urgent, desires more 
 numerous, enjoyments multiplied, faculties dis- 
 criminated, capabiUties evoked and apphed. It 
 may be called somewhat vaguely, a principle of 
 developement. By the existence and manifest 
 operation of this principle, we might be led
 
 10 
 
 perhaps to conclude, that through a contmual 
 ascent to the opening of Modern History, we 
 should gradually reach a period of high simplicity ; 
 an aera in which we should find the simple seed, 
 and the few and scanty elements of a condition 
 which has become so complex in its parts, and so 
 vast in its range. But it is not so. The first state 
 of modern society was not simple in this sense. 
 A small tract of country, and a scanty population, 
 contained many languages, distinct systems of law, 
 several magistracies : it would exhibit the vital 
 operation of distinct political ideas, religious beliefs, 
 domestic and social institutions. Within a few 
 miles round a Gaulish town, might be heard the 
 Celtic, Latin, Frankish, and even Sclavonic. In 
 the present Yorkshire might have been seen at 
 one time the worship of the Druid, the Pagan, and 
 the Christian. Upon examining this complexity 
 in the social condition, we see it to be very 
 different, in its nature and its principle, from the 
 complexity of our own social state. The latter is 
 the complexity of division, distribution, and de- 
 velopement ; the former is the complexity of dis- 
 integration and intermixture. The latter is the 
 complexity of different ends, and different functions 
 assigned to separate organs ; the former is the com- 
 plexity of similar or identical effects accomplished 
 by different instruments. In the earlier society 
 three or four languages were doing the work of one. 
 Two or three systems of law were controlhng the
 
 11 
 
 devolution of the same kind of property upon 
 different principles. There was one class of ideas 
 by which one part of the population was linked in 
 a system of subordination, and obedience to their 
 ruler, as general and leader; there was another 
 class of ideas, by which the general mass of the 
 population was held in allegiance to their ruler, as 
 civil magistrate. Thus the ruder age has its natural 
 simplicity balanced by its heterogeneous character, 
 as the more advanced age has its uniformity quali- 
 fied by its prolific spirit of discrimination. The 
 first is introductory to the second. Before the 
 elements of the social state could be brought into 
 a state of fertile combination, they must be inti- 
 mately blended ; before they could be blended, 
 they must be intermixed ; before they could be 
 intermixed, they must be mutually approximated. 
 Now it is the peculiarity of Modern History, that 
 we see society in its rudimentary state, we see the 
 elements out of which it is formed lie side by side ; 
 we see the subtle affinities, and the rude external 
 impulses, which entangle and engage them together; 
 we see the latest issue of this in various facts and 
 institutions of more recent life. Thus we pass 
 through the course of Modern History, from the 
 heterogeneous to the complex, and from the com- 
 plex to the manifold ; from aggregation to en- 
 velopement, and from envelopcment to devclope- 
 ment. But to the historical eye, the condition at 
 each moment is a great nmltitude and variety of
 
 12 
 
 facts ; and the conception of the social state is a 
 conception proportionately various and vast. 
 
 It may be observed, that I have spoken of 
 society, that is, of a social unity, rather than of 
 a nation, or a national unity. Doubtless, the na- 
 tional bond is the cardinal and the prevaihng tie, 
 by which individual interests are combined into 
 one historical object of attention. But it is not 
 essential to the character of historic truth, that it 
 should represent to us at all moments individuals 
 connected by a national identity. In some cases 
 a true historical interest hangs on the doings and 
 destinies of men, viewed in classes subordinate to 
 this. History will often bring before us some 
 particular class in national society, the descendants, 
 perhaps, of a race that is a nation no more, or 
 some great political party individualized by common 
 aims and character, or some great religious body knit 
 together by common belief, hopes, and moral ideas. 
 On the other hand, a social unity may be conceived, 
 which in extent and greatness shall transcend the 
 limits of the national life, as much as these to which 
 I have adverted to fall within it. Thus, in Greek 
 history, our eye embraces not only the various Greek 
 nations, but the whole Greek race, viewed as a 
 single object of thought and interest, notwith- 
 standing the pre-eminence of the Athenian and 
 Spartan nationalities. Now, in the history of 
 modern Europe, we discover a peculiar tendency 
 in this respect, a tendency to create, and more
 
 13 
 
 and more to develope these physical elements of 
 greatness. In the first place, the modern nations 
 of Europe have been from the beginning framed 
 on a greater scale than those nations of antiquity 
 with which we are most famihar ; and further, 
 the order of events has, in a peculiar degree, 
 tended to develope from their aggregation as 
 individual nations a still higher unity, and a 
 more compreliensive and grander system of group- 
 ing. The Visigothic kingdom, at the time of its 
 first foundation, was more extensive than the 
 Roman, after centuries of growth, struggle, and 
 victory ; yet the France of modern Europe 
 absorbed both this, and the Burgundian, and 
 Prankish, and Armorican, into a single nation. 
 And, as from these distinct nationalities was 
 framed the greater and more comprehensive na- 
 tionality of France ; and, as in all modern Euro- 
 pean kingdoms we may trace the same principle 
 which has thrown small states into large ones ; so 
 over and above this has there disclosed itself a 
 power to develope a still greater unity. The order 
 of events has worked with accumulated effect 
 through centuries, to form a European as distinct 
 from a French, English, German, or Italian cha- 
 racter, and to elicit from these separate and hete- 
 rogeneous compounds an identity, which, however 
 vague or partial, still serves to present them occa- 
 sionally to the eye, in a single group. The 
 Missionary and administrative activity of the
 
 14 
 
 Roman See from the Straits of Gibraltar to the 
 Baltic, Pilgrimages, Corporations, Universities, 
 Knighthood, Earldoms, Monasteries, Cathedrals, 
 Vassalage, the more or less absolute prevalence 
 of the Feudal system, the more or less universal 
 adoption of the Civil Law, the Crusades, Rehgious 
 Orders, Orders of Knighthood, the struggle be- 
 tween commerce and arms, between the eccle- 
 siastical and civil powers, rehgious disputes, re- 
 ligious wars, the European system of international 
 treaties, the development of international law, the 
 creating of international tribunals, congresses, me- 
 diations, coahtions, and all the machinery and 
 accidents of the balance of power, — all these are 
 facts which betray the operation of some uniting 
 principle, through the varied destinies and con- 
 dition of modern nations. In addition to this, they 
 serve to compose a unity, in which all the nations 
 of Modern Europe, with all the countries over 
 which they are spread, all the powers, faculties, 
 interests, ranks, which they represent, are gathered 
 in one grand panorama before the glance of our 
 imagination. 
 
 Further, the use of the term society, the adop- 
 tion of the idea of society, seems serviceable to 
 our conception of History in respect to duration, 
 as well as in regard to extent. It enlarges our 
 view of History to its due proportions in both 
 cases ; and in the former no less than the latter, 
 it is chiefly disclosed and illustrated by Modern
 
 15 
 
 History. It would be dangerous to hazard any 
 close comparison between the national and indi- 
 vidual identity ; between the national and indi- 
 vidual life. We know that at the best the indi- 
 vidual must pass through certain stages of infancy, 
 adolescence, manhood, and decline, and then perish. 
 We see this course of human life as a fact, and 
 as a necessity. Our historical experience has not 
 disclosed any very close analogy to this in the 
 destinies of nations. There is no law to be col- 
 lected by observation, prescribing certain periods 
 for development, maturity, and decay. There are 
 not even any constant conditions and symptoms 
 of such states in the history of different nations, 
 as there are unfailing indications of them in the 
 progress of individual life ; and last of all, we can 
 not, in the organization of national existence, dis- 
 cover elements and principles which absolutely 
 necessitate the dissolution within a period more 
 or less remote. But allowing that the analogy 
 between the life of individuals and life of nations 
 is slight and fallacious, it is still certain that the 
 mortality of nations has been hitherto a general 
 fact ; it has been the general lot of nations as such 
 to perish. Now it might be justly observed of 
 Modern History, that as it exhibits the original 
 structure of nations upon a more extensive plan 
 than does the history of ancient civilization, so it 
 has displayed a grander national existence in point 
 of duration. Many modern nations have already
 
 16 
 
 reached the twelve centuries which prophecy was 
 thought to foresee, and fate fulfilled, for the 
 Roman Empire. It is nearly fourteen centuries 
 since France first took its name, and speaking 
 roughly, first adopted its present form and limits ; 
 it is nine centuries since it imbibed the most recent 
 race-blood which now flows in its veins. It is 
 ten centuries since England was consolidated first 
 into a nation. It is eight centuries since the last 
 element of the national organization was finally 
 developed. Yet it would be hazardous to say in 
 what age of her existence the present actual con- 
 dition of either people should be fixed. Modern 
 History has upon the whole solved the problem 
 of combining national progress and national 
 duration in a manner and on a scale unknown to 
 Ancient History. But Modern History has also 
 served, if not to develope a new fact in itself, 
 at least to disclose and illustrate its existence. 
 As there is a national life which transcends and 
 comprehends the fleeting life of individuals, so 
 also we can perceive indications of a social life 
 which outlasts and connects the present life of 
 nations. It is not like the national life broadly 
 marked and defined, but not on that account is it 
 unreal. There are institutions, laws, customs, 
 tastes, traditions, beliefs, convictions, magistracies, 
 festivals, pastimes, and ceremonies, and other 
 such elements of social organization, which are 
 both in thought and in fact, distinguishable from
 
 17 
 
 the conditions of a national unity. It is essential 
 to the latter, that it should be attended by some 
 executive or legislative power, which extends over 
 all its parts, and which can control the collective 
 action of the whole community. History exhibits 
 this unity often gradually impaired and dissolved, 
 sometimes as suddenly and violently severed ; 
 while, in many of these instances, the social unity 
 survives the shocks, or the principle of natural 
 decay, by which the national unity has been 
 broken up. Indeed the whole character of 
 Modern History is due to the fact, that, while 
 nations perish, society lives on. Modern History 
 is the coahtion of two systems of society, which 
 had subsisted for ages, and for ages had been held 
 apart. The three great nations of Europe exemplify 
 the principle, while they shew the versatility of its 
 operation. In France the fusion was physical. The 
 Gauhsh frontier had once been the impregnable 
 dermoskeleton of a vast empire living within it ; at 
 first this was secreted naturally from the abundance 
 of its constitutional strength. But the muscle and 
 the flesh began to waste inwardly. A law of 
 depopulation had been at work. The fields were 
 untilled. In vain did imperial statutes enact, 
 that men should possess and cultivate the soil. 
 In vain did they punish the man who left his 
 duties to, and his property in, the land, as we 
 would punish one who deserted his child, or 
 took the property of another. The unsupported 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 shell of the empire gave way. The northern 
 races rushed in. There was a great physical col- 
 hsion, hut there was no flight, and no recoil. 
 Their blood mingled, their languages were com- 
 promised ; and the Roman still continued to teach, 
 to rule, to judge, and to administer. In England 
 the process was a moral one. As the old Roman 
 society had physical strength to survive in France, 
 so did it possess spiritual energy to migrate into 
 England. A monk, a hymn, a crucifix, and a 
 sermon, brought two worlds together in a village 
 of Kent. It brought to the old Teutonic race, 
 and the old Teutonic institutions, maxims of civil 
 government, modes of civil administration, a spirit 
 of literature, a tone of thought, and practical arts 
 numberless, all of Roman origin. The Norman 
 conquest but completed and fixed this effect. In 
 Germany the same result was reached by means 
 more various and more scattered. The conquests 
 of Charlemagne and his predecessors enforced a 
 political organisation, which carried some elements 
 of Roman society into the heart of Germany. 
 They left behind them the idea of the Roman 
 Emperor, which should one day grow to maturity, 
 strike its roots from the German into the Italian 
 soil, and so draw from under the very palaces of 
 the Caesars a Roman principle of life, to circulate 
 through all its prerogatives, and to be exhaled 
 through all its functions, into the German atmo- 
 sphere. Afterward the Anglo-Saxon missionaries.
 
 19 
 
 though brothers in blood, implanted the doctrine, 
 and discipline, and practical canons of administra- 
 tion, which were those of Rome. Last of all was 
 imbibed the very soul of Roman society, the civil 
 law ; which seized upon all personal rights, con- 
 trolled all domestic relations, and carried Roman 
 principles into the public and private conscience of 
 the Teutonic people. Thus through the greatest 
 of revolutions, and into the destinies and character 
 of alien races, was preserved the continuance of 
 society ; a fact which would disclose itself in the 
 history of all times, ancient and modern, but of 
 which Modern History alone can offer the perfect 
 illustration. 
 
 In speaking of Modern History, as illustrating the 
 greatness of Civil History, 1 have confined myself 
 simply to the object-matter which History at all 
 moments presents to our contemplation. And of 
 this object-matter I have only alluded to so much 
 as is indicated by the two latter terms of my defi- 
 nition, " societif and its " condition." The two first 
 terms of my definition, '^ critical changes," as I have 
 feared to trespass on you at too great length, 1 must 
 defer to another Lecture, in which I shall employ 
 them to illustrate the form, as I have now adverted 
 to the two last terms to illustrate the object-matter 
 of historical knowledge. 
 
 This idea of society then completes the object- 
 matter of History as a scheme continued through 
 the course of time, and extended through the 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 regions of the globe. It carries us to the Hmits of 
 History as an isolated branch of knowledge. Thus 
 having traversed the inward regions of the subject, 
 and reached its ample bounds, we may cast a 
 glance at its place in the great world of human 
 learning. I have said that an object may be great 
 by association as well as by its single and intrinsic 
 qualities. The effect of one note in a melody 
 must be determined in great measure by those 
 wliich immediately precede and follow it. The 
 power of a colour in composition must in part be 
 bestowed by the other colours which the eye can 
 comprehend at the same time. It may well be 
 then that the object-matter of History holds a 
 relation to that of other kinds of learning, such as 
 it is essential to our perfect appreciation of it, that 
 we should for a moment seize. 
 
 Now there are two sciences of which it has been 
 more than once observed that they are practically 
 linked with History at many points of contact. 
 Geology and Physiology. In the history of com- 
 merce, of empire, and of war, in the history of 
 the arts, fine as well as useful, the products of 
 organized nature, and the materials of the un- 
 organized world, exercise an influence, and there- 
 fore claim their share of attention. To the relation 
 of these therefore to History, as less startling than 
 that of other sciences, I would advert: not however 
 to the practical connection which has already been 
 observed by others, because such practical con-
 
 21 
 
 nexion is not such as could fairly reflect any 
 element of the greatness of these sciences on the 
 object of History itself. Nay, that very greatness 
 might furnish grounds of contrast, such as would 
 make the Historian jealous of their approach. The 
 range of Civil History must be confined to the 
 comparatively short period of time, during which 
 human society has existed, and during which the 
 order of events has been recorded. It brings 
 before us a single creature among the creatures of 
 God ; it allows our imagination a mere ghmpse at 
 a mere fraction of the whole course of time ; and 
 the scene on which its drama is represented in all 
 its shiftings ranges over a part only of the globe 
 which we inhabit. But if we turn from this to 
 Natural History as represented by the sciences of 
 which we have spoken, in Physiology we are 
 presented necessarily with a contemplation of the 
 whole living world. The world of life passes a 
 second time before the intellectual Adam, whose 
 eye sweeps over its endless files, and labours to 
 realize through its successive manifestations of 
 power and beauty the worlds which they have 
 peopled, and the untold years in which they have 
 been created. Each clime and each country must 
 be present to our thoughts, in the beings of which 
 it is the cradle and the nurse ; and ages must be 
 suggested to us in the stages of progressive organ- 
 ization which are indicated by its examples. So 
 again with Geology, we can not conceive the vast
 
 22 
 
 masses which compose the earth's surface, and the 
 substances which constitute the object-matter of 
 Geology, without reahzing ideas of vastness, such 
 as fill and oppress the imagination. The scale 
 of all its phenomena is colossal. These immense 
 structures too are but the figures and graduations 
 of a chronometer. If Civil History is computed by 
 years, the chronicles of Physical History are written 
 in centuries and thousands of years. The object- 
 matter therefore of Geology like that of Physiology 
 contains elements of the sublime, exceeding the 
 measure of the same in Civil History, as much as in 
 this respect Civil History transcends that of indi- 
 vidual existence. 
 
 But Civil History may dissolve the effect of this 
 contrast by claiming a share in the grand work of 
 developing in these sciences elements so august. 
 For it must be observed, that they might have been 
 sciences of contemporary facts, as Botany, and 
 what is commonly called Natural History, still are. 
 Geology might have indicated and classified the 
 present phenomena of the earth's materials, as dis- 
 closed by its actual state. It might have taught 
 the relation of the granite to the slate, the slate to 
 the Silurian system, of the Silurian system to the 
 red sandstone, as exhibited by geographical con- 
 ditions only. In such case it would have been 
 descriptive, and would have dealt with the past 
 merely as conditions of the present. So again 
 with Physiology. It might have described, as now
 
 23 
 
 it does, all the functions of all the forms of life, 
 both living and dead, it might have exhibited all 
 the examples and laws of organization as general 
 truths, so that our general view of natural phe- 
 nomena would have been bounded by our imagin- 
 ation of the present. But Civil History had 
 freighted the human mind with conceptions of 
 succession, of events, epochs, periods, and changes : 
 and it was this cultivated Historical instinct which 
 transmuted description into History, an arrange- 
 ment of phenomena into an order of events. 
 Civil History directed the human mind to seek 
 and to find in Geology a history of the earth's 
 surface, as a result of successive phenomena and 
 successive operations ; in Physiology not only an 
 account of vital organization and all its forms, but 
 a chronicle however rude and imperfect of the 
 order in which through innumerable ages supreme 
 power has evoked, and congregated all past and 
 present forms of organized beings. The stupendous 
 ideas therefore of time and change, and progress 
 with which these natural sciences must overawe 
 us, were summoned and evoked in the first instance 
 by Civil History. 
 
 Thus far are they historically connected, but 
 when once approximated and viewed together, 
 they disclose a vital and scientific relation to each 
 other. It becomes essential to the full and com- 
 prehensive view of Civil History that it should 
 take its place as a part of Natural History. It
 
 24 
 
 becomes essential to the fullest appreciation of 
 natural science that it should be regarded as an 
 antecedent to Civil History. Through the connexion 
 which this relation supplies the conditions under 
 which the leading ideas of History are presented 
 ta uSy become far grander and more impressive 
 even as the facts of science become more humane 
 and interesting. H'lstonj receives back the ideas 
 she has lent in a more colossal form: Science 
 marshals her facts as a series of changes towards 
 more interesting phenomena, and more exalted 
 destinies. Natural History, when ranged and 
 steadily coordinated in this point of view with Civil 
 History, is no longer merely Natural History, but 
 the history of nature with a human interest. It is 
 the chronicle of those changes by which the world 
 has passed into its present state, as the birth-place 
 of man, as the storehouse from which the elements 
 of his physical frame would be furnished, as the 
 garden to supply his wants, as the scene on which 
 the great social drama would be acted, as the 
 modifying condition by which his social life was 
 to be developed. So again of Physiology. It too 
 assumes an aspect not only historical but human. 
 It discloses to us a long series of changes through 
 vast periods of time, tending towards, and ter- 
 minating in, the creation of man, as the final and 
 sovereign form of life, uniting, perfecting, and 
 transcending all others. It exhibits, speaking 
 generally, a long historical progression from con-
 
 25 
 
 fused and more shapeless forms, ft-oni mixed 
 and less powerful functions, from weaker capa- 
 cities more widely diffused, from qualities more 
 gross and material, to the determinate and beau- 
 tiful in shape, to the various and distinct in 
 function, to tlie exclusive and powerful in struc- 
 ture, to the acute and sensitive in susceptibility, to 
 the spiritual and intellectual in activity and power, 
 — to the form of man. Such is the aspect which 
 these sciences wear when approximated to History. 
 Thus it is that Geology becomes the history of 
 man's external condition, conceived as prior to, 
 and preparatory for, his existence ; that Physiology 
 becomes the history of man's internal nature and 
 organization, conceived in the counsels of Supreme 
 Wisdom before his actual creation. They are the 
 annals of the Human History backward, from the 
 date of his creation, as Civil History is its con- 
 tinuation forward. But if History gives a meaning 
 and expression to Science, Science communicates 
 the physical grandeur of its ideas to History. Man 
 and Society, the space which is the scene of his 
 social action, and the time which measures the 
 duration of the drama, become parts the most 
 perfect and interesting of a still vaster scheme, 
 extending over innumerable ranges of time, oc- 
 cupying and possessing vast masses of matter, 
 involving an endless variety of beings. Civil 
 History becomes the close and consummation of 
 Natural History. Himian nature is the achieve-
 
 26 
 
 iiient and perfection of all structure and all 
 being. Human society is the means and sub- 
 ject of change, moving progressively after the 
 birth of man, as organization is the means and 
 subject of change before his existence. And as 
 the last act in the drama involves all others, so 
 does Civil History, and the critical changes in 
 the condition of society suggest to our imagination 
 immeasuimble periods of time, infinite and pro- 
 gressive changes, the most varied forms of vital 
 being, and every element in the fabric of the globe 
 w^hich has contributed its influence, as an external 
 condition, to the existence and the progress of the 
 last creature, the subject of History, the social and 
 political man.
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 In my last Lecture I treated of the sources of 
 greatness in historical knowledge, so far as the 
 object-matter of knowledge was calculated to pro- 
 duce it ; and in doing so, I confined my observa- 
 tions to the two last terms in my definition of 
 History, that is, to the condition of Society. 
 
 But I have said, that this quality of greatness is 
 due not only to the object-matter, but also to the 
 form of truth. Thus we find that objects in them- 
 selves paltry, may yet furnish a nucleus and centre 
 to sciences which are great and dignified. The 
 science of crystallization may be grand even to 
 sublimity, though the mineral which is its concrete 
 exemphfi cation be low in the scale of organization, 
 in appearance unattractive, in commercial value 
 poor, in size insignificant. \\\ this and similar 
 instances, universality in the form of truth invests 
 it with greatness, enthrones it as a science, and 
 anoints it to command our instincts for ^'encration. 
 Here the logical and the imaginative faculties 
 have their points of near and important union, —
 
 28 
 
 a truth which can not be expressed in a universal 
 form, must so far lack an element of sublimity. 
 The imagination which entertains such a truth, 
 is fettered by particulars and exceptions. The 
 allness, which is an essential condition of its free- 
 dom, is withheld. There is a limit to the sphere 
 of contemplation. The privileges which have made 
 science a temple, and truth a symbol of God, are 
 so far not accorded to it. And even propositions 
 which in form are universal, and which admit no 
 exception, may still be in a sense greater or less, 
 according as they are more or less frequently and 
 constantly exemphfied. The law of Gravitation is 
 a greater law, than the law that the alkali neu- 
 tralises the acid, because the action of the first 
 pervades our conception of all matter, while the 
 latter discloses itself on casual opportunities, and 
 in few forms of substance. 
 
 Now I have defined History as a disclosure of 
 the ' critical changes' in the condition of society, 
 and historical truth therefore must be an announce- 
 ment of such changes as they are developed from 
 time to time. The term critical I have made use 
 of in respect to them, in order the better to express 
 their essential nature, and to distinguish them from 
 changes of another kind. 
 
 There are certain sciences, which, like History, 
 consist in the statement of changes ; while from 
 the nature of those changes the truths which 
 they deliver, differ altogether from the form and
 
 29 
 
 character of historical truth. Chemistry is a 
 science of changes. But these changes are con- 
 stant and recurring. The same substance may be 
 again found, or compounded ; it may and will be 
 again submitted to the same circumstances ; it will 
 therefore pass into the same form of matter, and 
 exhibit the same phenomena, as it now does, and 
 as it often has done. What is true, therefore, of 
 its present condition, will remain true of many 
 similar substances to the end of time. In this 
 sense, Proteus himself, the genius of change, was 
 also the genius of divination and prophecy. " Quae 
 sint, quae fuerint, quae mox ventura sequentur," 
 was the substance of his disclosures. He was the 
 symbol of the universal truth, the truth of the 
 present, the past, and the future. But the matter 
 of History, that is, the condition of Society owns a 
 different nature, and in consequence its changes 
 are not recurrent nor periodic, but, as I have ex- 
 pressed it, critical. Enough has been said in the 
 former Lecture, to indicate how complex a phae- 
 nomenon is the condition of society at any moment. 
 And if such a state is a most complicated fact, when 
 glanced at directly and in itself it must appear the 
 more so, if regarded indirectly, through the causes 
 which produce and modify it. Climate, soil, scenery, 
 geological structure, race, language, religion, le- 
 gends, art, poetry, customs, creed, institutions, laws, 
 mechanical skill, knowledge, social ranks, domestic 
 relations, wealth, and its distribution; these, and
 
 30 
 
 many other circumstances are all shedding an 
 influence to determine at each moment the na- 
 tional condition. And if but one of these be con- 
 siderably changed, there is reahzed at once a tend- 
 ency to alter the general condition of the people, 
 even as the addition, change or loss of any single 
 element, will vary the fimctions and general pro- 
 perties of the whole chemical substance. This 
 would be the case, if each element in the general 
 condition should leave by its change or absence 
 all the other elements unaffected, and should act 
 solely and simply through its own exclusive and 
 direct influence on the general effect. But, in 
 point of fact, such a change must work not only 
 by direct agency on the general effect, but also 
 indirectly, through the surrounding facts and cir- 
 cumstances, however distant from itself, which 
 contribute to produce it. So, for instance, the 
 state of a nation's economical laws, and the con- 
 dition of the public taste, are two separate, and, it 
 must be allowed, widely separate, elements of the 
 social condition. Yet an economical law may 
 affect the pubhc welfare, not only by its direct 
 influence on the wealth and comfort of society, 
 but by some collateral effect on its aesthetic culti- 
 vation. A tax, for instance, may exclude some plastic 
 material, the free use of which would have exercised 
 the powers of design, and developed the sense of 
 beauty. So the law of inheriting property may not 
 only affect the relation of individuals to each other.
 
 31 
 
 and in this way work upon the poHtical constitution, 
 but it may affect the whole course of agriculture, 
 and thus operate upon the general welfare through 
 another and distinct element in the national con- 
 dition. Thus, therefore, if one power or cause in 
 the general condition is altered, we discern a 
 tendency to a propagation of changes through the 
 whole group of powers aud causes which accom- 
 pany it. Each cause acts collaterally, though the 
 surrounding circumstances as well as lineally, 
 through its own direct influence upon the general 
 condition, which is the sum, result, and effect of all. 
 From this point of view it becomes obvious how, 
 notwithstanding the common ground of humanity 
 which assimilates them, the whole condition of one 
 society tends to differ from that of another. If we 
 take all the causes which vary the climate of a 
 country, and determine it even under the same 
 latitudes, such as the vicinity of mountains, and 
 their position, the height of table lands, the prox- 
 imity of the sea, the nature and cultivation of the 
 soil, the quarter of prevailing winds and similar 
 facts, such a review must shew us a number of 
 influences which will tend to destroy the absolute 
 similarity of any, must establish wide distinctions 
 between most, and necessitate entire differences 
 in many. And this single physical variation will 
 operate upon the general condition of such nations 
 both directly, and indirectly thrcugh other sensual, 
 sentimental, intellectual, political, and legal cir-
 
 32 
 
 cumstances of life to which it can communicate 
 its influence. Yet although climate be a necessary 
 element in the state of any people, although it be 
 an element of high influence in determining such 
 state, although it be a fact resulting from such 
 complicated arrangements of causes, and must in 
 some degree differ in all parts of the world, and 
 must in consequence tend to vary in some degree 
 the condition of all nations from each other; yet 
 in all these particulars it does not claim exclusive 
 consideration. It is merely an example of the 
 multifold influences which conspire to produce or 
 modify the social condition. Rarely then can the 
 same condition attend separate nations. 
 
 Further, it can never revisit the same people, 
 at diff'erent periods of its history. 
 
 Here perhaps it would be well to fortify what 
 is assumed by my definition as a preliminary 
 step, that all the conditions of society, and all the 
 grander elements of such condition, do continually 
 change, and that as change is the law of all social 
 states, so changes are the subject of all Historical 
 disclosure. Any institution which is vital and 
 practical, nay even any passing event of moment, 
 must aflect the present and the future, even as it 
 has been produced by the present and the past. 
 It is related itself to the past and the present 
 as an effect, and it must also be related to the 
 present and the future as a cause. Thus it is that 
 even the occurrence of an event ever tends to
 
 33 
 
 change the former course of events, and often 
 even affects the character of fixed institutions. 
 We know how^ the passing triumphs of the earher 
 Enghsh Kings upon the continent are said to have 
 operated upon the History of France. Not merely 
 were its outward fortunes depressed and retarded, 
 but its internal organization, its structure as a 
 system of government and of freedom was de- 
 ranged, and partially determined by these events. 
 Thus upon the accident of an invasion ultimately 
 unsuccessful, historians tell us, hung in great 
 measure the permanent fate of a constitution. 
 But the necessity of change hes nearer and reaches 
 deeper than this. Systems and institutions doojn yj 
 themselves to alteration. For since it is their 
 tendency to affect all things that lie within the 
 reach of their influence, they threaten the very 
 circumstances which produced or permitted their 
 own existence. The feudal system, as a general 
 condition of society, could not endure ; its own 
 effects modified first, and afterwards removed, 
 some grand causes and conditions of its own exist- 
 ence. The feudal system collected the town round ^ 
 the castle, rallied the timid and subject artizans 
 around the home of their lord. This fostered 
 rude manufactures, markets, and personal property : 
 and these first changed and afterwards destroyed 
 the personal relations from which they had sprung; 
 they first balanced, and finally outweighed the real 
 property, whose sole and exclusive existence was 
 
 D A\
 
 34 
 
 so conducive to the perfect predominance of the 
 system. Thus if all facts and institutions tend to 
 alter each other and themselves, how certain must 
 be the work of change upon all ; how sure and 
 unceasing must be the work of alteration, when 
 the forces of change move from every point as 
 a source, and tormrds every point as an object. 
 
 Let me not, however, be understood to gainsay 
 the reality, and the incalculable benefit of per- 
 manent institutions, if the nature of such per- 
 manence be well and distinctly understood. At 
 the present hour we have a King, Nobles, and 
 a Church, even as the nation had in the days 
 of William the Conqueror. But the King is no 
 longer the owner of the soil, the general of the 
 army, the sentinel over the national treasury 
 locked with his own key, and dispensed at his 
 own will. The Nobles are no longer tenants of the 
 King's lands, the delegates of his power and his 
 privileges, the distributors of property, the dis- 
 pensers of justice, the subordinate leaders and 
 disbanders of the army, the direct owners of 
 human labour, the immediate supporters of poverty, 
 the judges, generals, capitalists, and gaolers of 
 society. The Church too has remained, but spe- 
 culatively, practically, and socially it has departed, 
 so far as is consistent with its great and lasting 
 purpose in the world, from its condition in those 
 ages. Our Ecclesiastics are not the depositaries 
 of all human learning, the printers, mechanicians.
 
 35 
 
 painters, foresters, jewellers, coiners, the sources 
 of hope, belief, and opinion. We still owe our 
 safety to the jury and the constable, yet it is a jury 
 which is not sworn to decide by what it has 
 already learned before it comes into court, through 
 personal knowledge, or the common fame of the 
 district ; but, on the contrary, sworn or directed to 
 cast away all previous information, to discard all 
 personal bias, and to decide by proof produced 
 before them. As with these, so with other gi'eat 
 facts and arrangements ; they preserve their name, 
 but they change their qualities, or maintaining the 
 type of their original structure, they exercise new 
 powers altogether. Under such conditions alone 
 are they truly, actively, and healthily permanent. 
 
 And this very conclusion aids us in the discern- 
 ment of the truth from which I set out ; that as 
 states and conditions of society cannot unchanged 
 remain, so can they never return. They have not 
 the power to endure unmodified, because they 
 have the force to act ; and they have not the 
 power to recur at any future period, because under 
 a modified form, or in a peculiar sense of the 
 terms, when once brought into existence, they 
 have a life and an influence for ever. 
 
 To one unaccustomed to trace minutely the 
 Historical connexion of public facts, it might seem 
 a task somewhat difificult to attempt to decipher 
 in any modern institutions the Roman system of 
 military colonization. And perhaps it would be 
 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 still more startling to indicate its existence in the 
 relations of landlord and tenant, and in the policy 
 and spirit of English customs, still faintly sm-viv- 
 hig to the present horn*. Yet can this connexion 
 be descried ; and in tracing it out, we are carried 
 through some momentous facts in the History of 
 Europe. We all know how the Shepherd Poet of 
 Mantua lost his farm ; how the pipe which the reeds 
 of the Mincio had furnished was heard in the streets 
 of the Capitol, complaining that the veteran soldier 
 of Augustus had been rewarded for his services, by 
 the farm of which its master had been spoiled. In 
 accordance with the custom instituted in the time 
 of Sylla, it became a part of the imperial policy 
 to plant the more distant provinces of the empire 
 with colonies of discharged veterans, whose martial 
 habits might protect the neighbourhood, and over- 
 awe the incroaching and aggressive spirit of foreign 
 enemies. In this way, the possession of lands 
 became not only a reward for the past, but a con- 
 sideration for future and contingent services of a 
 military nature. Into what had this institution 
 developed itself in the fifth century ? at that period, 
 the most momentous in the history of the present 
 European world, we see not a legion, but a nation, 
 whose name is legion, both on account of its spirit, 
 and its numbers, and its devotion to enterprise, 
 occupying the whole left bank of the Lower Rhine. 
 They are Franks, the soil is Roman. Let us cast 
 our eye to the south east. The whole country on
 
 37 
 
 the south bank of the Danube is similarly held. 
 But the race is different, they are Goths ; still 
 the soil is Roman. So again in England, there is a 
 considerable district extending along the coast, 
 from the Thames southward and westward to the 
 Isle of Wight. It had a name, which is by many 
 supposed to attest the existence '^ of a people settled 
 there. It is called the Saxon shore. The soil 
 here too is Roman. Now these settlers hold in all 
 cases the same relation to the soil, the same rela- 
 tion to the empire, the same relation to the opposite 
 bank of its rivers, and to the opposite coast of the 
 channel. They are friends and tenants by stipula- 
 tion, they are enemies by blood and by destination. 
 A great revolution in the social state of the empire 
 has supervened. It has no native troops. Its 
 mercenary legions have become insufficient to pro- 
 tect the frontier. The empire is guarded and sen- 
 tinelled by tenants, who pay for the soil which 
 they occupy, by the condition that they will hold 
 it against all enemies of the Roman name, and all 
 invaders. We overleap six centuries, and drop 
 amongst the settled nations and fixed institutions of 
 Modern Europe. The tenant soldiery have, under 
 the outward pressure of kindred tribes, and the in- 
 ward impulse of ambition, cupidity, and hunger, 
 
 ' This disputed I'lict has the support of Palgnive See the 
 "Eise and Progress of the Enghsh Connuouweahh," part i. 
 The author deduces the feudal system from the mihtaiy 
 benefices of Rome. 
 
 fir>48 1 H
 
 38 
 
 grown into and overrun the heart of the countries 
 which they were hound to guard. The Saxon, the 
 Frank, and the Goth, occupy France, England, and 
 Spain. Their relation to the empire has been long 
 abolished. In some instances they have not only 
 conquered, but in their turn they have yielded to 
 the conquerors. Jn France, they own the soil as 
 lords; in England, they occupy the land as tenants, 
 or guide the plough over the tilth as serfs. But 
 whether they personally are lords, or tenants, or 
 labourers, the great bond which connects the 
 whole population throughout the whole country 
 by means of the soil, is but a developement of 
 the idea under which so many ages back their 
 ancestors had held it of the empire. Speaking 
 generally, the land of this island, and of the neigh- 
 bouring continents, is held by a double ownership. 
 The actual occupier, if not the supreme lord, 
 holds the soil by a military tenure. He is obliged 
 to serve personally for a certain number of days, 
 or to furnish the personal service of others. He is 
 not the soldier of the State, as was the Roman 
 colonist. He is not the soldier of an imperial 
 nation, as was the Frank, the Saxon, or Gothic oc- 
 cupier ; but he is the soldier of his lord, the soldier 
 by virtue of his land as they were, and in theory 
 as well as in practice liable to forfeit it on the 
 first moment that he shall disclaim or desert such 
 character. Let us pass again over some hundreds 
 of years to the eighteenth century. The land is
 
 39 
 
 still held by landlord and tenant. The tenant 
 has no arms in his dwelling, he owns no personal 
 duties to his lord. He holds by contract, and pays 
 money for the possession of the soil, as he does for 
 his coat, his ox, and his plough. Still his annual 
 payment is not purchase-money, or hire-money, it 
 is called and accounted rent service; it is not 
 merely money paid for land, it is money paid in 
 lieu of, or in connexion with, personal service 
 for his land. It carries with it incidents'' derived 
 from the ages of military tenure, and is controlled 
 by many of its ideas. Scarcely has the time gone 
 by, in which socially and politically the tenant 
 was in some senses a dependent and retainer. 
 Thus any great pervading condition, any large 
 and important fact, which visits society, loses as 
 we have seen its form, but it preserves its active 
 force, it propagates an influence, or is meta- 
 morphosed into other facts, which without it 
 would never have been evolved. These again 
 pass away in their turn, not by annihilation, but 
 by a similar transmutation into new and active 
 elements. The very principle of decay and change 
 is a principle of modified vitality. Things are 
 plied to some new purpose ; they are either broken 
 into stubborn fragments, or disintegrated into a 
 vegetative mould on which new growths may 
 flourish. The principle of change, which forbids 
 
 ^ The right of distress originally implied the existence of 
 some personal serv^ice, as due from the tenant to the lord.
 
 40 
 
 them to remain as they have heen, empowers and 
 enjoins them to subsist by alteration. The change 
 which effiices them from the smface of society, 
 incorporates them indirectly in its substance. 
 
 And from this very process is necessitated the 
 law, that no past states can ever be renewed; 
 for could the same outward circumstances again 
 befal society, the inward forces in society which 
 must accept and digest them are altered. They 
 must be assimilated, so to speak, in a different 
 manner, and must result in a different fact. Not 
 only therefore is it true, that no state of society 
 can ever return, but it is clear also upon con- 
 sideration, that the mere fact of its past existence 
 is a pledge that it shall never exist again. So 
 subtle and so obstinate is the operation of this law, 
 that the mere historical consciousness of a past 
 fact on the part of a nation is often sufficient to 
 preclude its recurrence. The Revolution of 1688 
 could not be the same as the Revolution of 1642, 
 because the Revolution of 1642 had taken place; 
 because its events and character had been known 
 and reflected on. For the same reason, the French 
 Revolution of the last year could not approach to 
 an identity with that of 1789, not only because 
 the state of society (produced in great measure by 
 tlie epoch of 1789) was essentially different from 
 the state out of which that epoch itself had 
 sprung ; but also because it had become a part of 
 the national memory. This applies, of course.
 
 41 
 
 with chief force to such events and arrangements 
 as are tainted with fatal and unhappy associations. 
 But it is not true of such alone. No studied 
 imitation or elaborate revival can really own the 
 character or hold the influence of its model. It 
 must be a different fact ; wilful, not spontaneous ; 
 elaborated, not developed ; adjusted, not harmo- 
 nizing ; the result of resolution, and power, and 
 management ; not of temper, congenial circum- 
 stances, and the spirit of the whole. 
 
 It seems then a truth, in the principle of which 
 we must acquiesce, not only that the same general 
 conditions of society can hardly be exemplified in 
 different nations, but that what has once been 
 realized can never revisit the same people. A 
 second Magna Charta, a second war of the Roses, 
 a second system of Crusades, a second inter- 
 ference of the Pope in secular matters, a second 
 Reformation, a second national conflict with the 
 Kingly power, under all those circumstances of 
 social habits and interests, which gave to each of 
 these events the spirit and character which con 
 stitutes their identity, we readily feel to be im- 
 possible. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that Historical truth can 
 rarely reach a universal or even a highly general 
 form ; we have seen the necessities by which it is 
 commonly restricted to peculiar times and nations. 
 Seldom then can the student of History derive 
 directly from the apprehension and contemplation
 
 42 
 
 of historic trutli that high and profound pleasure 
 of taste ; that pleasure which results from seeing 
 multiplied and even numberless instances em- 
 braced by the unity, and overshadowed by the 
 majesty of a single fact ; by the expression of 
 which all its particular instances are announced, 
 and by the conception of which all its exempli- 
 fications are reviewed in a series reaching towards 
 infinity. That delight which is felt by concen- 
 trating the boundless within the sphere of a simple 
 law on the one side, and of realizing the single 
 statement by countless instances on the other, is 
 directly denied to us. In this respect. Historical 
 differs from Scientific truth, and so far falls 
 below it. 
 
 But what is the cause of this deficiency ? It 
 has been shewn, that the social condition is a fact 
 of the most composite and complex nature, and 
 that its individuahty is in great measure the result 
 of this quality. It may be observed, then, of this 
 complicated fact which we call the social state, 
 that as it is actually produced by the combination 
 of many facts, so is it historically represented by a 
 number of phaenomena, which more or less faith- 
 fully represent, or more or less surely indicate, 
 their existence. The amount and importance of 
 these must depend upon the richness or poverty 
 of the Historical evidences which time has be- 
 queathed to us concerning each age. 
 
 Now in order to arrive at Historical Truth, we
 
 43 
 
 must first observe the facts ; and secondly, we 
 must appreciate them. But to the first and 
 seemingly simple act of observation, how much 
 foregone knowledge is necessary. In order merely 
 to perceive and apprehend the indications which 
 are scattered and imbedded as it were in the 
 Historical soil, which we have chosen as the region 
 of our inquiry, we ever need in our own mind 
 and accomplishments not only general habits of 
 vigilance and keenness, but a principle of attraction 
 to the facts which are without us. This principle 
 of attraction is and must be an established fami- 
 liarity with objects kindred to and identical with 
 those which lie before us. True it is that attention 
 only can seize distinctive points, and impress them 
 upon the mind ; but attention itself is a blind 
 power, unless it be directed by the instincts of 
 expectation more or less definite, or at least be 
 pointed and fixed by habits of rapid recognition. 
 But expectation implies previous knowledge of 
 somewhat suggesting to us what we are to look 
 for ; and recognition implies the recurrence to 
 our thoughts of somewhat with which we are 
 famiUarly acquainted. The power of a fine ob- 
 servation, therefore, itself involves the knowledge 
 of objects similar to those which we observe : it is 
 the identity or similarity of that which is within us ; 
 which, as I have expressed it, attracts to our powers 
 of apprehension that which is without us. It were 
 in vain that we placed the keen eyes of childhood
 
 44 
 
 and ignorance before the cliffs of the Isle of Sheppey, 
 and bade them report their observations. Yet the 
 dim senses of a veteran naturalist would at once 
 seize on forms of vegetation and remains of animal 
 existence, which they could discern in the obscure 
 mass of soil and stone presented to them. His mind 
 possesses images and ideas of kindred phenomena, 
 collected by various experiences, and famiharized 
 by continual reference and reflection. Every object 
 which he sees in the earth before him, is in part 
 suggested by the imaginative memory, and only in 
 part, passively impressed upon the senses. And so in 
 all cases we perceive only by what we have already 
 perceived, we learn only through what we have 
 already learned. But this truth holds with singular 
 strictness of all subjects in which the object-matter 
 is entangled and confused, and dissipated as in the 
 fragmentary and straying documents of History, 
 where we must not only examine, but in the first 
 instance set free and isolate. For the mere purpose 
 therefore of fully catching and apprehending the 
 important phenomena of History, it were well at 
 least that we had educated our attention by an 
 acquaintance with laws, arts, constitutions, lan- 
 guages, economy, and hterature, and religion, and 
 the like, as peculiar and independent objects of 
 inquiry. Thus furnished, we should never heed- 
 lessly or Ijlindly neglect the confused and dis- 
 guised treasures which the history of a people 
 may really contain. Our knowledge will at once
 
 45 
 
 fill the sails and guide the helm of our inquiries. 
 Slight differences between the general results of 
 past experience, and the particular effects of the 
 present, will awaken us by gentle shocks of surprise 
 to a complete apprehension of the phenomenon 
 before us. Thus in the traditional knowledge of 
 History which we now actually possess, we may 
 commonly trace the operation of knowledge work- 
 ing through resemblance and contrast, to relieve 
 and bring out fticts, and so to evoke the Historical 
 truths of which they are the basis. For instance, 
 there are few arrangements to which greater im- 
 portance in the history of Modern Europe has 
 been attributed than the law, that the eldest male 
 offspring should represent the parent. It was this 
 law which diffused, consolidated, and handed down 
 the feudal system. It was this law which gave its 
 character to our Aristocracy as concentrating the 
 ownership of property and title. It was this law 
 which made European Monarchy a principle of 
 order by its strict designation of a successor to 
 the throne. It is this law which has made poverty 
 and toil honourable, by condemning the best blood 
 in the younger branch to labour and enterprise. 
 It was this law of representation which enabled 
 the French Crown to absorb by heirship inde- 
 pendent Dukedoms, which it would never have 
 taken up by conquest, it was this law which so 
 far tended to make France a nation. These con- 
 sequences however, which give it so much im-
 
 46 
 
 portance when it has once attracted observation, 
 did not originally bring it into the notice of our 
 Historians. Had no system but the feudal juris- 
 prudence been known, such an institution would 
 have furnished no contrast, it would have provoked 
 no surprise ; it would have remained a principle 
 practically active in the great mechanism of our 
 social life, logically productive in the arguments, 
 and opinions, and practice of our lawyers : but it 
 might never have attracted the observation of those 
 who have reflected on the course of pubhc events, 
 and on the rationale of social institutions, but for 
 another fact which has brought it out to the eye of 
 the common observer. By a process which I need 
 not follow out, the general principles of the Roman 
 law have influenced the descent of personal property, 
 as the feudal law has regulated the transmission of 
 the land. Thus, side by side, the corresponding por- 
 tions of the two systems of law have stood mutually 
 contrasted, and illustrating each other. By this 
 their juxta position in the mind of the Lawyer and 
 Historian, the feudal principle has struck the atten- 
 tion ; in the presence of a distinct and more natural 
 rule of law, it has awakened the observation to a 
 vivid realization of its existence. But for this prox- 
 imity it might have been acquiesced in merely as a 
 natural and necessary provision, not remarkable or 
 exceptional in itself, and therefore not sufliciently 
 reheved from out the general surface of Historical 
 facts to win attention, and so to lead the thoughts to
 
 47 
 
 its remarkable consequences. However Historically 
 important, it might have escaped Historical recogni- 
 tion. 
 
 But, as we have said, the Student of History 
 must not only read phenomena, he must appreciate 
 them. A constitutional power, an arrangement of 
 medical police, an economical law, a legal principle, 
 a work of art, a treaty, a campaign, are facts not 
 only for the observation, but for the judgment of 
 the Historian. Now wise and temperate criticism 
 ever involves, directly or indirectly, a comparison 
 with objects the same in kind. In this respect the 
 Historian differs from the Statesman, as the Ana- 
 tomist differs from the Physician. The immediate 
 object of statesmanship and medicine are practical; 
 the immediate object of anatomical and historical 
 knowledge is speculative. Insight into the work- 
 ings of a constitution in the particular nation is 
 the requisite for political ability, acquaintance 
 with the structure of the particular animal is 
 essential for the healing of disease. But com- 
 parative knowledge of Historical phenomena is as 
 conducive to the full criticism of the Historian, as 
 the comparative knowledge of vital structures is to 
 the Physiologist. I would not assert, that the 
 absolute standard of judgment, where such is pos- 
 sible and needful, is to be drawn from experience in 
 all cases, but it cannot in any be temperately and 
 reasonably applied, until it has been graduated by 
 acquaintance with similar objects. All the great
 
 48 
 
 social facts of the same kind, which time has dis- 
 closed, thus pronounce, through the human inteUi- 
 gence, which can collect and comprehend them, a 
 judgment on each other. The Historical judgment 
 is a judgment by peers; the many are arrayed, 
 and impannelled, and indirectly questioned to pro- 
 nounce on the one. Through the poetry of all 
 ages we must estimate the poetry of one ; through 
 the art of all countries, we must pronounce our 
 verdict upon the art of our own times. So even 
 of the finance, the military organization, the mu- 
 nicipal laws, the social economy ; the many com- 
 ment on the few, and all on each. 
 
 Thus, therefore, it would seem, that perfect 
 Historical knowledge, in respect to the particular 
 facts and states of a single nation or a single 
 period alone, is hardly possible ; that, in the first 
 place, we cannot discriminate the Historical fact ; 
 in the second place, we cannot appreciate it as 
 such, except in so far as in our own minds it is 
 coordinated with, and distinguished from, corre- 
 sponding phenomena exhibited by other nations 
 and periods. But here we approach the region of 
 general and universal truth ; we are here thronged 
 by a multitude of instances, which, as they disclose 
 some particular varieties, must also embody some 
 common principles which connect them. Thus 
 the legal maxims of descent, to which we have 
 just alluded, while distinguished by the fact, that, 
 under one system of law, property descends to the
 
 49 
 
 eldest male, and under the other, to all children, 
 are at least identified by the common principle, that 
 property is transmitted by direct descent from the 
 last possessor. Thus, while expressing respectively 
 rules of Municipal Law which partially and prac- 
 tically disagree, they involve a principle of juris- 
 prudence which is common to both. It were hard 
 to see and appreciate the corresponding institutions 
 of different societies, without attempting to rise 
 through the special provisions which differ to the 
 larger transcendent principle in which they agree. 
 The first are truths historical and particular; the last 
 is truth scientific, general, and possibly universal. 
 Thus to see, and apprehend, and understand the 
 single phsenomenon Historically, we must so collect 
 and so dispose the coordinate Historical phenomena, 
 as that the universal spirit of all may be easily 
 evoked from the collection of instances by which 
 we are enabled to appreciate the one. The par- 
 ticulars in this case are fused into the universal, 
 and knowledge is exalted into science. 
 
 But if we are thus carried forward indirectly 
 into the world of general and universal truth by 
 historical facts, viewed in themselves as parts and 
 samples of existing social states ; their relation as 
 existing through change, and through change 
 passing away, must bring us out into the same 
 region at a thousand points. History is, we have 
 seen, a melodious series of changes ; but it is quite 
 impossible that we should listen to this melody.
 
 50 
 
 and not desire to analyse it ; or that our eye 
 should fix itself upon the facts as upon a running 
 stream, merely catching and losing each wave as 
 it glances by in succession. They are not mere 
 sequences, but effects, and as effects they are, 
 each of them, not one fact, but many. One when 
 viewed as entire phenomena and at a given moment 
 of time, they are many when exhibited through the 
 various parts of which they consist, and powers by 
 which they have been evolved. It seems to be a 
 law of nature, that the greatest creations are the 
 result of the most numerous and most various 
 elements ; that the greatest works are the efFects^ 
 of the most complicated and the most varied 
 forces. How does the plant differ from the rock 
 to which it clings ? How does man differ from the 
 plant on which he feeds ? not only in form and 
 power, but in the variety of principles which have 
 been brought into action to form his constitution 
 and sustain it. As is his power, beauty, and 
 perfection, so also is his complexity, so is the 
 number and variety of second causes to which his 
 being may be traced. In the society which man 
 contributes to form, in the great facts which are 
 the manifestation of its state, may be descried the 
 same number and variety of principles which 
 hourly evolve and modify them. Countless powers 
 seem to converge into all great Historical pheno- 
 mena. In the erection of the ecclesiastical edifices 
 at the close of the middle ages, as a social fact.
 
 51 
 
 how many causes operated ? Not one such could 
 have been raised, had not wealth been amassed in 
 the hands of a particular class in the connnunity ; 
 had not the Clergy occupied a definite place, and 
 exercised a definite power in the nation ; had not 
 religious convictions, religious fears and sentiments 
 of a peculiar kind worked in the great heart of 
 society ; had not peculiar stratifications in the 
 earth's surface furnished appropriate materials ; 
 had not a given advance in the mechanical arts 
 permitted the use of them; had not a given 
 condition of international relations facilitated the 
 circulation (so to speak) of architectural skill ; 
 had not a peculiar condition of climate pre- 
 scribed in some degree the general form of the 
 edifice ; had not a particular measure of taste 
 and cultivation suggested the lines, and the 
 masses of light and shade which could be thrown 
 upon the eye in subservience to the main plan of 
 the structure, as dictated by climate, by custom, 
 by religious feeling. In tracing the real history, 
 therefore, of such a fact as this, we follow a course 
 of causes in all directions. The lines along which 
 we move traverse regions, and are entangled in 
 subjects the most various, and at all times of course 
 open general truths the most distinct ; we are com- 
 pelled to spell the general facts into the several 
 elements which compose it, and into the several 
 laws by which these elements are themselves 
 controlled. In this instance, such elements are
 
 52 
 
 political, theological, artistic, economical ; and 
 should we seek to explain and account for their 
 presence, we must appeal to the general principles 
 which these subjects respectively include. The 
 legal facts must exhibit some general rule of law. 
 The artistic fact must disclose some general rule 
 of art, even as the whole fact under investigation 
 involves all these principles, as combined and re- 
 ciprocally modified by their amalgamation. Thus 
 may we be borne by the instincts of our intelligence 
 past the particular statements of History, into the 
 general truths of science. If for this there be no 
 absolute necessity, there is at least opportunity aad 
 temptation. Proportioned to the force of intelli- 
 gence, and the intelligent desires which spring 
 from it, may be the depth to which we penetrate 
 in the expanding series of causes : with every new 
 link will a new subject open, more comprehensive 
 than the last, and more universal in the applicability 
 and range of its principles. Thus, for instance, the 
 rule of art, when we have reached it, will resolve 
 itself, if we seize and scrutinize it with sufficient power, 
 into some larger principle of taste, particularized 
 by the nature of the material, encroached on by 
 some urgent influence of climate, or deflected by 
 some inveterate association of belief. In the same 
 way, every other historical fact, which can be 
 regarded as the true, though partial, indication of 
 the social state, must own a manifold nature in 
 respect to the various laws which have foregone.
 
 53 
 
 modified, and determined its character. The range 
 of sciences, to which we may be thus introduced, 
 is ahnost coextensive with the sphere of science 
 itself. There is scarcely a material object, how- 
 ever gross or inert, there is not a quality of 
 mind, however fine or subtle, which does not dis- 
 charge some of its properties upon the aiTange- 
 ments and destinies of a being so delicate in his 
 susceptibiHties as man, living in a condition so 
 complicated as society. 
 
 Thus then, I trust, it may be admitted, that as 
 Historical facts presuppose universal laws. Historical 
 studies are, at least, so far congenial with scientific 
 teaching, that those who have cultivated any branch 
 of exact knowledge, either spiritual or material, 
 have not thereby estranged themselves from the 
 Historical spirit ; but that, on the contrary, they 
 have acquired a new interest in Historical dis- 
 closure, a new power to appreciate, and a new 
 instrument to understand it. And further, although 
 History, especially that of modern times, reaches 
 us most obviously and most powerfully through 
 the practical interest and sympathy which it 
 kindles, and is appropriated most easily and most 
 joyfully through the poetical imagination by which 
 it can be reahzed ; yet, on the other hand, its 
 most beautiful and picturesque forms do in fact also 
 exemplify the combinations of universal laws; so 
 that when the imaginative eye has followed their 
 graceful and entangled growths to the surface of
 
 54 
 
 the ground, our reason may piu'sue them still 
 further, and seize somewhat of that severer and 
 loftier satisfaction, with which great problems are 
 solved, and eternal laws are contemplated. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 WAXTF.Il, PRINTEU, OXFORD.
 
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