Historical and Political Essays | Page 4

of proof and the methods of
historical writing prevailing in his time. A modern writer who placed in
the mouths of his personages speeches which he himself invented
would be justly discredited, but in antiquity it was a recognised custom
for a historian to embody in fictitious speeches the reflections
suggested by his narrative and the motives which he believed to have
actuated his heroes.
Different ages differ enormously in the severity of proof which they
exact, in the degree of accuracy which they attain. The credibility of a
statement also depends not only on the amount of its evidence, but also
on its own inherent probability. Everyone will feel that an amount of
testimony that would be quite sufficient to persuade him that a
butcher's boy had been seen driving along a highway is wholly

different from that which would be required to persuade him that a
ghost had been met there. The same rule applies to the history of the
past, and it is complicated by the great difference in different ages of
the measure of probability, or, in other words, by the strong
predisposition in certain stages of knowledge to accept statements or
explanations of facts which in later stages we know to be incredible or
in a high degree improbable. Few subjects in history are more difficult
than the laws of evidence in dealing with the supernatural and the
extent to which the authority of historians in relating credible and
probable facts is invalidated by the presence of a mythical element in
their narratives.
Connected with this subject is also the question how far it is possible
by merely internal evidence to decompose an ancient document,
resolving it into its separate elements, distinguishing its different dates
and its different degrees of credibility. The reader is no doubt aware
with what a rare skill this method of inquiry has been pursued in the
present century, chiefly by great German and Dutch scholars, in dealing
with the early Jewish writings. At the same time, without disputing the
value of their work or the importance of many of the results at which
they have arrived, I may be pardoned for expressing my belief that this
kind of investigation is often pursued with an exaggerated confidence.
Plausible conjecture is too frequently mistaken for positive proof.
Undue significance is attached to what may be mere casual
coincidences, and a minuteness of accuracy is professed in
discriminating between the different elements in a narrative which
cannot be attained by mere internal evidence. In all writings, but
especially in the writings of an age when criticism was unknown, there
will be repetitions, contradictions, inconsistencies and diversities of
style which do not necessarily indicate different authorship or dates.
I have spoken of the uncertainty of the biographical element in history.
It must, however, be said that when a historian is dealing with men who
have played a very prominent part on the stage of life, the general
acceptance of his judgment is a strong corroboration of its truth. It may
be added that the later judgment of men is not unfrequently more true
than the contemporary judgment. The wisdom of a teaching or of a

policy is shown by its results, and these results are in most cases very
gradually disclosed. Great men are like great mountains which are
surrounded by lower peaks that often obscure their grandeur and seem
to a near observer to equal or even to overtop them. It is only when
seen from far off that their true dimensions are fully realised and they
soar to heaven above all rivals. In the page of history men are judged
mainly by the net result of their lives, by the broad lines of their
characters and achievements. Many injudicious words, many minor
weaknesses of conduct, are forgotten. Faults of manner, deficiencies of
tact, awkwardnesses of appearance, which tell so largely upon the
judgments of contemporaries, are no longer seen. The conversational
nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm or assurance or
magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, all of which tend
to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the circle in which he
moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, and tactless recluse
often emerges on the strength of his genuine and abiding performances
to a position in the eyes of the world which he never attained during his
lifetime.
That fine saying of Cardan, 'Tempus mea possessio, tempus ager meus,'
might be the motto of the historian. Time is the field which he
cultivates, and a true sense of space and distance should be one of the
chief characteristics of his work. Few things are more difficult to attain
than a just perspective in history. The most dramatic incidents are not
the most important, and in weighing the