Lectures on Modern history | Page 7

French and its successors #53, what is to become of us, docile and
attentive students of the absorbing Past? The triumph of the
Revolutionist annuls the historian #54. By its authentic exponents,
Jefferson and Sieyes, the Revolution of the last century repudiates
history. Their followers renounced acquaintance with it, and were ready
to destroy its records and to abolish its inoffensive professors. But the
unexpected truth, stranger than fiction, is that this was not the ruin but
the renovation of history. Directly and indirectly, by process of
development and by process of reaction, an impulse was given which
made it infinitely more effectual as a factor of civilisation than ever
before, and a movement began in the world of minds which was deeper
and more serious than the revival of ancient learning #55. The
dispensation under which we live and labour consists first in the recoil
from the negative spirit that rejected the law of growth, and partly in
the endeavour to classify and adjust the Revolution, and to account for
it by the natural working of historic causes. The Conservative line of

writers, under the name of the Romantic or Historical School, had its
seat in Germany, looked upon the Revolution as an alien episode, the
error of an age, a disease to be treated by the investigation of its origin,
and strove to unite the broken threads and to restore the normal
conditions of organic evolution. The Liberal School, whose home was
France, explained and justified the Revolution as a true development,
and the ripened fruit of all history #56. These are the two main
arguments of the generation to which we owe the notion and the
scientific methods that make history so unlike what it was to the
survivors of the last century. Severally, the innovators were not
superior to the men of old. Muratori was as widely read, Tillemont as
accurate, Liebnitz as able, Freret as acute, Gibbon as masterly in the
craft of composite construction. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of
this century, a new era began for historians.
I would point to three things in particular, out of many, which
constitute the amended order. Of the incessant deluge of new and
unsuspected matter I need say little. For some years, the secret archives
of the papacy were accessible at Paris; but the time was not ripe, and
almost the only man whom they availed was the archivist himself #57.
Towards 1830 the documentary studies began on a large scale, Austria
leading the way. Michelet, who claims, towards 1836, to have been the
pioneer #58, was preceded by such rivals as Mackintosh, Bucholtz, and
Mignet. A new and more productive period began thirty years later,
when the war of 1859 laid open the spoils of Italy. Every country in
succession has now been allowed the exploration of its records, and
there is more fear of drowning than of drought. The result has been that
a lifetime spent in the largest collection of printed books would not
suffice to train a real master of modern history. After he had turned
from literature to sources, from Burner to Pocock, from Macaulay to
Madame Campana, from Thiers to the interminable correspondence of
the Bonapartes, he would still feel instant need of inquiry at Venice or
Naples, in the Ossuna library or at the Hermitage #59.
These matters do not now concern us. For our purpose, the main thing
to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of
investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty from

doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of
erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens, and
extends the mind #60. And the accession of the critic in the place of the
indefatigable compiler, of the artist in coloured narrative, the skilled
limner of character, the persuasive advocate of good, or other, causes,
amounts to a transfer of government, to a change of dynasty, in the
historic realm. For the critic is one who, when he lights on an
interesting statement, begins by suspecting it. He remains in suspense
until he has subjected his authority to three operations. First, he asks
whether he has read the passage as the author wrote it. For the
transcriber, and the editor, and the official or officious censor on the
top of the editor, have played strange tricks, and have much to answer
for. And if they are not to blame, it may turn out that the author wrote
his book twice over, that you can discover the first jet, the progressive
variations, things added, and things struck out. Next is the question
where the writer got his information. If from a previous writer, it can be
ascertained, and the inquiry has to be repeated. If