many lessons of great practical value. And I do not know that they have been better indicated by any one than by a writer of our own times, who in spirit and tone presents a most instructive contrast to the late Oxford Professor. It is a relief to turn from Mr. Froude's pages, always brilliant, indeed, but nearly always blundering and blustering, bitter and brutal, to the impartial accuracy, the magisterial serenity, the sustained self-command which breathe through the writings of Mr. Lecky-writings manifesting a skill in truly discerning and in logically marshalling facts, a power of ratiocination, a severity of taste, a purity of style, that make them a model of what history ought to be. I would refer my readers, who would know this admirable writer's views on the political value of history, to the weighty Lecture in which he has unfolded them. Here I will merely quote one sentence from it which exhibits, as I judge, the conclusion of the whole matter. 'He who has learnt to understand the true character and tendencies of many preceding ages is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own.' And the reason why this is so, I may add, was clearly indicated two thousand years ago by Thucydides. He addresses his History of the Peloponnesian War to those who ' are desirous to have a true view of what has happened and of the like or similar things which in accordance with human nature (Kатà Tò ȧνOρÓTELOV) will probably hereafter happen.' History is the record of change. But there is one thing that does not substantially change, and that is what Thucydides calls TÒ ȧveρáπEιov, and Tennyson 'the basis of the soul.' And this is precisely the reason why the muse of history is also the spirit of prophecy. Even the far-off times of Thucydides himself are rich in lessons for us in this nineteenth century. Indeed, there are few pages in any writer more worthy of serious study by statesmen of our day than those wherein he traces the demoralising influence of that party spirit which was so soon to lay his country in the dust. And here I may remark how curious a parallel is suggested, by the recently discovered work of Aristotle, between the story of the fall of the illustrious Hellenic republic and our own recent political career. The constitutional history of Athens extends over less than two centuries. Beginning with Solon, and reaching its greatest splendour under Pericles, it terminates, twenty-four years after his death, in the irremediable disaster of Egospotamos. We know, with much fulness of detail, the course of Athenian politics during those twenty-four yearsone radical change after another in the constitution (eight took place in the nine years between 412 and 403), one faction leader outbidding another for popular support, but all really indifferent to everything save the acquisition or retention of place and power, and meanwhile 'the consummation coming past escape.' Such is the brief epitome which the world's greatest political thinker puts before us and surely it may well suggest to us most anxious questionings. But, of : course, the history of our own times is peculiarly pregnant with direct teaching to ourselves. The experiments made by other countries in political problems confronting us are object-lessons visible to all save those who have closed the eyes of their understanding, than which, as Butler notes, nothing is easier. Let me point to two such. And in doing so I will employ the words of a thinker whose breadth of judgment and independence of mind give him a special claim upon the attention of the party which calls itself Liberal, and which at one time was wont with reason to recognise in him its chief oracle. A sophism now much in favour with many members of that party is the identification of civil and religious liberty with the unchecked domination of majorities told by the head. It is a sophism which the most elementary acquaintance with the facts of history should suffice to refute. Experience proves,' writes Mill, in one of his Essays-and assuredly it does prove-' that the depositaries of power who are mere delegates of the people—that is, of a majority—are quite as ready (when they think they can count on popular support) as any organ of oligarchy to assume arbitrary power, and encroach unduly on the liberty of private life.' Again, one of the demands most frequently made by those who pique themselves on being 'advanced' Liberals is that members of the House of Commons should receive salaries from the public funds. Mill strenuously resisted the proposal, in his book On Representative Government, as tending inevitably to the deep degradation of the Legislature. Mill's Representative Government was written in 1861; and the history of the civilised world during the thirty-four years which have since passed away has most emphatically corroborated the opinion expressed in it on this matter. In every country where the payment of Parliamentary representatives has been introduced, the business of a member of Parliament' has become 'an object of desire to adventurers of a low class '-a profession' carried on, like other professions, with a view chiefly to its pecuniary returns, and under the demoralising influences of an occupation essentially precarious.' But, of course, the question whether history possesses any practical value depends upon another-whether we are endowed with any real power to shape the course of events. History exhibits the play of forces, the operation of laws, which, from generation to generation, are the selfsame. But of what kind are those forces, those laws? Are they all merely physical, like the forces of matter, the laws binding nature fast in fate? That brings us to the issue which divides the two great schools of thought in history as elsewhere. It is an issue turning mainly on human personality: whether man is nothing more than a willy-nilly current of sensations' or is really possessed of true causality. It would be out of place here to enter upon a metaphysical discussion. To me, the Determinist view of the collective as of the individual life of humanity-the view which makes of it mere physiology and mechanism-seems clearly false. I so account it for this reason-to give no other-that it is flatly opposed to the testimony of consciousness. But, unquestionably, it veils or distorts a truth. What is called fatality no doubt plays a large part in the affairs of man. Things are what they are. Their consequences will be what they will be.' Yes; there is a necessity issuing from the nature of things. The action of economical and physical causes is incessant. There is a physiological side to human history. But the action of moral causes, of the ideas, volitions, virtues, vices, whether of individual men or of nations of men, is incessant also. There is a psychological side to human history. And it is the more important side. Hence I claim to include history among those moral sciences which have the free actions of men-relatively, not absolutely free-for their subject-matter; nay, to reckon it a province of psychology. We are told that behind the phenomena we must discern the law, behind contingency necessity, behind will nature. True, but to concede, or rather to maintain, this-for assuredly we must maintain it is not to convert history into a kind of social physics, to make of it, as the Germans say, 'eine reine Naturgeschichte.' Man is not bound fast in fate. The very condition of his progress is to emancipate himself from the law of physical fatality. The Roman poet has formulated it in one line: Et mihi res non me rebus subjungere conor.' Human history, viewed as a whole, seems to me the record of the gradual triumph of the forces of conscience and reason over the blind forces of inanimate nature and the animal forces of instinct and temperament in man. That civilisation consists solely in the knowledge and observance of the laws of physical nature I consider the stupidest of sophisms. The elements of civilisation are chiefly moral. The main progress of mankind-all other progress is subordinate to it-lies in the development of the ethical idea which, existing in our nature as a form of the mind, an element of human personality, has ever more and more unfolded itself in history as the vivifying principle of those ordinances and institutions whereby we live as civilised men; as the justification of the common might, which without it would be mere brute force. Hegel's dictum is profoundly true, that the philosophy of history is the philosophy of spirit, which traces the evolution of reason, manifesting itself as the State. The greatest lesson written on human history appears to me to be this of progress, consisting, above and before all things, not in our ever-advancing insight into the laws of physical nature or the laws of comfort, but in our deeper apprehension, as the ages roll on, of the sacredness and worth of man as an ethical being endowed with volition, choice, responsibility. There are those who warn us from time to time of much in our existing civilisation to sadden and distress, and to give rise to gloomy forebodings. I do not deny that their minatory denunciations are too well warranted. How can we deny it when, as we look around us, we see on all sides the worship of Mammon, and matter, and mechanism, the enfeeblement of good customs, the hatred of real superiorities, the disposition to drift hopelessly before currents of popular caprice, to throw responsibility upon events, to acquiesce in established facts regardless of their ethical significance, and to justify everything by paradoxes? Yes, they have too ample warrant, these censors of the age. Still, if we look to the past, if we survey human history as a whole, or even those recent centuries of it which we call modern, must we not assuredly believe that In the unreasoning progress of the world A wiser spirit is at work for us, A better eye than theirs? In particular, I find myself fully agreeing with Lord Acton that ' achieved liberty is the one ethical result that rests upon the converging and combined conditions of advancing civilisation;' that 'progress, in the direction of organised freedom, is the characteristic fact of modern history, and its tribute to the theory of Providence.' I see ruling in history-its study would be wholly destitute of significance or value to me if I did not- -a moral order, a reason of things, an ideal. I am convinced that it is the privilege of every man, by conforming himself to that order, that reason, that ideal, to forward, according to his measure, the progress of the world; to be a fellowworker in the fulfilment of that unending purpose which runs through the ages; a helper in the accomplishment of that ' far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves.' 2 And in this conviction I find an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, amid the crimes, the scandals, the defeats of good causes, the triumphs of false principles, of which history is full: I find an invincible assurance of our true greatness, though, indeed, we be such stuff as dreams are made of.' 6 We men, who in the morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish-be it so! Enough if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, through faith's transcendent dower, W. S. LILLY. ? I am reminded here of some admirable words of Herder: Also haben wir nicht zu zweifeln, dass jede gute Thätigkeit des menschlichen Verstandes nothwendig einmal die Humanität befördern müsse und befördern werde. . . . Es waltet eine weise Güte im Schicksale der Menschen; daher es keine schönere Würde, kein dauerhafteres and reineres Glück gibt, als im Rathe derselben zu wirken.'-Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit, book xv. 4-5. VOL. XXXVIII-No. 224 TT FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON I THE late Mr. Frederick Locker-as his friends continued to call him -shows us many phases of society through the lorgnettes of his London Lyrics, but the glasses are always so held as to exclude whatever might disturb the easy level of conversation and manners. He takes his time- as becomes the man of leisure- over each, but he does not dwell long enough upon any particular picture to allow interest to exceed the limits of well-bred reserve. His sad scenes may touch us to tender melancholy, but never to tears; his gay ones to smiles, but seldom to laughter. Of hurry, heroics, and hysteria he scarcely recognises the existence. There is barely more of movement in his verses than is needed to indicate the champing and pawing of her ladyship's high-stepping greys, impatient for the descent of their mistress from the drawing-room where she is sipping tea-scarcely more of sound than the pleasant buzz and murmur of subdued small-talk, which wells out, and dies away, from the same drawing-room, with every opening and shutting door. In his company we breathe again the ample morning air of leisure--for to the man of leisure the day is always at the morn. In an age when every poet has his message,' every novelist his mission,' Mr. Locker would make no serious business either of literature or of life. A favoured pupil of the Muse, he played truant from her class, as he played truant from the school of the taskmistress Life. He elected to don the cap and bells, when he might have worn the singing robes of the poet; just as he preferred to accept the irresponsible rôle of the collector and the country gentleman rather than enter into competition for the great posts in the professions or the public service, for which he was, in many ways, qualified. As a diplomat, his knowledge of men and of society, his judgment, his finesse, his unerring tact and taste, and his fine presence and charm of personality, would have made him a marked man. But his dislike to everything which tended to disturb the level of things, and his habitual backwardness,' added, one is bound to confess, to constitutional indolence and love of ease, made him shrink from the excitement and distraction of public life, as he |
