looked at with our eyes, is grave and proper, natural and rational, when looked at through the eyes of the men of other times, as we are enabled to do, by the cultured historic sense when this is quickened and guided by the historic imagination.

As the result of this liberal and wise use of the imagination, history has become more true and more just in its judgments as well as more elevating in its lessons and influence than formerly. The more vividly and fully we represent the men and the scenes of other times, the more entirely shall we do justice to them. The more thoroughly we understand events in their motives and principles, the more truthfully shall we estimate and weigh them. The new method educates and elevates the imagination, as well as employs it as an auxiliary to truth. We read and study history somewhat as we read and study the drama, viewing it as a grand spectacle of the past that is vividly reproduced in scenery, personages, and events; that fixes our attention, excites our curiosity, and kindles our sympathies. As the actual drama is fitted to ennoble the imagination and purify the passions, so does dramatized history act with even greater energy in these directions, when it is fitly rendered by the writer and justly conceived by the reader. These thoughts lead us to,

The second characteristic stated, viz., that the New History is more philosophical than the old. It recognizes more distinctly the truth that all historic events are to be explained by certain causal influences or agencies, which are furnished in man's own nature, in the circumstances of his condition, and in the purposes of the living God. Different historians differ in the variety of the agencies which they recognize, in the importance which is to be attached to each, and in the power of harmonizing one with another; but all agree that to some agencies or principles, acting after fixed methods or rules, all great historical

events are to be ascribed, and that the problem of history and the duty of the historian is to discover what these principles are. The historian nowadays is not content to entertain his readers with striking descriptions of the startling events which give to history its dramatic interest, nor to paint to the life the story of those great personages who illustrate the pathos and power, the tenderness and energy of human passion, but he seeks also to explain historic phenomena both the greater and the less-by their principles and laws.

To determine what are the principles and what the laws which underlie all these events is the aim of what is technically called The Philosophy of History. Much is made of this phrase in our times. To many persons it suggests something very profound, attractive, and incomprehensible. To others it is big with high-sounding verbiage, transcendental pretension, attenuated Pantheism, or depressing Fatalism. But there ought to be no special mystery in the phrase. If a philosophy of the universe of spirit and matter, is possible in its present manifestations, then a philosophy is possible of the past history of man, from which lessons of instruction may be derived, and if need be of monition for the future. As there is a variety of theories of the present, each one of which may be incompatible with the other, so there may be an equal variety of philosophies of the past. A Mohammedan, a Mormon, a Brahmin, and a Christian, would necessarily have each a peculiar philosophy of history. It need not be a mystery or a wonder that a materialist and a spiritualist, a necessitarian and a believer in freedom, should each interpret the history of man after a fashion of his own. One who studies man as an animal only, and recognizes no other forces and laws than those which are vital, will of necessity, like Draper, make physiology the basis of his Philosophy of History, or rather, he will resolve all his

torical into physiological phenomena, whether they are material, vital, or spiritual. Temperature and moisture, of a certain degree and quantity, acting on certain chemical combinations of nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, etc., are the formulæ by which historical phenomena can all be explained. Napoleon and Waterloo, Abraham Lincoln and Bull Run, General Lee and Appomatox Court-House, are satisfactorily accounted for by various formulæ, of which the terms are H, O, C, N, etc., in various combinations. A writer who recognizes a somewhat wider range of forces, some of which are spiritual, but all, whether material or spiritual, obey mechanical laws and act by a necessitating force, will, like Buckle, evolve and explain all possible occurrences and phenomena according to an à priori necessity, from whose iron embrace there is no release. Those who, like Froude, believe in the caprices and energy of human passions and individual freedom, or who, like Niebuhr, Arnold, Goldwin Smith, and hosts of other Christian historians, distinctly recognize a Divine Providence fulfilling merciful plans of human progress and redemption, will have another and a nobler philosophy of history, because they accept a nobler philosophy of the universe and of human life.

It ought to be added that to serve more effectually the philosophical explanation of the Past, the great movements of historic progress in separate lines and the several agencies on which they depend have been treated of in distinct works. Thus we have not a few generalized histories, as of Commerce, Geographical Discovery, Emigration, Philosophy, Morals, Literature, Poetry, Fiction, Criticism, and even of Civilization itself. The treatment of these topics of historic research separately has this great advantage, that it limits the attention more effectually to single classes of phenomena, and to the workings of single forces. It withdraws the mind from the more palpable

and material effects and causes, to the more refined and spiritual. It enables each student to look at the history of man from that point of view which most interests his own feelings, or bears upon his own studies, and it saves the general reader an immense amount of special research and laborious investigation.

But the impatient reader, who may have followed us thus far, will be likely here to interrupt us with the inquiry; "But what has all this to do with a course of historical reading? These general disquisitions on the writing of history may have some interest for those who have history to write, but they can have no possible application to those who have history to read. The progress and development of history, from poetic narration to philosophical interpretation, may be instructive to learned students but not to general readers." To which we reply: Have patience; "History is a vast jungle, an impenetrable morass to the reader who undertakes to find his way through it without a guide, and even to him who reads the first book which is recommended to him, and having finished that seizes upon another. To read history with any profit or even with much satisfaction whether alone or under the advice of a sagacious friend, one should know something of what history is, and how it is written, in what various forms, with what diversity of honesty, truth, and trustworthiness." To furnish this information, preliminary to special advice respecting the selection of books and the manner of reading them, has been the aim of this chapter.

CHAPTER XII.

HOW TO READ HISTORY.

It is not easy to prescribe a course of Historical Reading for a single individual, even though he is an intimate friend, whose character and culture, whose aims and habits, whose leisure and opportunities are all supposed to be familiarly known to his adviser. It is more difficult to do it for many persons, every one of whom may differ from the other in every one of these particulars. An extended or general course which might be equally suitable for all readers, is idle to think of. To attempt even a selection of the best authors, without knowing somewhat intimately the person for whom they are chosen, would be foolish and futile. All that we propose to do is to lay down a few principles which will enable a reader to begin wisely and to proceed with satisfaction in selecting books for himself; and also to illustrate these principles by referring to a few authors of marked peculiarities and of unquestioned excellence.

We observe, first of all, that a thorough mastery of the field of history must be the work of many years; in some sort, of a lifetime. To fix in the mind the dates of the most important events, to impress the events themselves upon the memory so that they shall be permanent and familiar, to settle the great questions which are in dispute in respect to facts and principles, to be able to summon at call the great pictures which make up the diorama of the world's past, can be achieved only by the few students to whom historical research is the exclusive occupation of