Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-02-07
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

TprT
Sir JAMES STEPHEN KC.B, LID, Professor of Modern
History in the University OF Cambridge. New York
Harper Brothers, 1852.
In offering recently some general reflections sug-
,,ested by this volume, we remember to have said
that History has value independent of its intrinsic
and literal truth in aword that the moral of history
"a the same whether its statements be fact fable,
and therefore its practical may be maintained
in spite of all allegations against Its inevitable OBJ
securities and falsities Whatever may be charged
AGAINST the great volume of History in point of its
liability to error it cannot at least be denied that 1T
teaches the great moralites of social and political
life as cogently and variedly as the book of Asop
instructs us in the practical wisdom OF individual
thrift and sagacity so that if History all fable
it would still be philosophy teaching by examples,
and would convey to us its parallels the lessons of
social morality and political economy more forcibly
than any iteration of abstract principles for, says
Seneca /" Loagun iter est per prRccptd breeze Ell of
fcar Der ereu,pla;" so that if history were of no
use save to point a moral" it would still be a
study of the greatest utility In order, however, DO
arrive ut the discovery of historic truth alike in Its
statements and in its lessons, an unprecedented ad
mission must be given to any and all conclusions
founded on the most careful observation of history
in It's facts and in the logic which they embody
and by thus applying it we're, the "euphrasy and
rue wherewith 'to purge our sight" we shall be
enabled to apprehend the vast and comprehensive
principles which should govern the mind IN the IN
duction of historic facts and in the deductions that
flow from them. If men could learn from history,
says Coleridge, somewhere in his g Table Talk,
what lessons it might teach them But passion and
party blind our eyes, and the light which experience
gives is lantern on the STERN which shines only on
the waves behind US.
But besides these, the more apparent applications
of historical facts and principles, is there such
thing as science of history co-ordInating all these
various facts and principles into systematic and
consistent whole? If history be grand drama, of
which the world is the stage and men the players,
wherein consists the unity of this imposing tragi-
comedy? This love of unity seems to be implanted
In the mind of man one OF the instincts OF his
nature and there is an unsatisfactoriness in any
study that does not crafty this intellectual craving
Every thingen science, said Goethe, is become too
much divided into compartments. In our professors
chairs the several provinces violently and ars
trarily severed and allotted into halfyeary courses
of lectures, according to fixed plans. | want to
know he said on another occasion, what it is that
mpels every several portion of the universe to seek
out some other porton-either to rule or obey it
and qualities for the one part and some for the
other, according law innate in them all, and OPP
Grating like voluntary choice? But this is pre-
cisely the point upon which the most perfect and
all, presents to many minds, says DR.. Arnold an
unsatisfactory aspect because it is perpetual study
of particulars without any certainly acknowledged |
law and though our knowledge of general laws
may here, as well as in natural science, be drawn
from induction of particular instances, yet it is
not in natural science required of every student to
go through this process for himself; whereas in
history the laws of the science kept out of sight,
perhaps are not known and he is turned adrift, as
- IL haS+ H.
and take his own soundings and make his own sur
veys. Now, allowing the great beauty and interest
of history series of particular pictures not by
any barren in matter for reflection but in the
highest degree rich and instructive transcending
all the most curious details of natural history in the
ratio of mans superiority the brute creation
yet think that we must confess and deplore that
Its scientific character has not been yet sufficiently
made OUT there hangs an uncertainty about its |
laws which to most persons is very perplexing.
Such is the view of history taken by judicious
thinker, and it is one, as we think which commends
itself to the sober judgment of every diligent and
prudent investigator of historical annals. History
resembles that pyramidal monument at Sais, upon
which is inscribed " all that has been, is, or
shall be- and no mortal man hath yet raised my
veil" Or again, history in its complexity, resem-
bles that wheel in the midst of wheel by the
Hebrew prophet in holy vision, and is mysterious
It's ultimate principles as IllaL :" spirit OF the
living creature" which swayed the intricate me-
chanism so that when the cherubim lifted up their
wings full Of eyes, to mount up from the earh the
wheels, also full of eyes round about, turned not
from besides them, and they went straight forward
but ,ohitter the prophet not. Even such a
wheel is history, moving straight forward in its
ceaseless revolutions, and, though full Of eyes
round about" looking towards no visible goal in its
progress.
We are aware that there is more sanguine theory
of history than that thus presented theory which
has for its basis-the gorgeous illusion of human per-
reliability; philosophical creed which has for its
fundamental tenet the dogma that the "whole
scheme of benignant Providence is to be wrought
out in this world" and that history records and
marks the progress Of humanity towards the con-
summation Of this providental destiny and in this
progress towards perfectabty we are told that a
motto, proud like that Of the patriot Hampden, nuVa
yestigia retrorsa, is the armoria bearing inscribed
on the history of the race The unsatisfactoriness
of history to many minds without some unifying
principle around which its phenomenal details NAV
be aggregated has driven the historical philosophers
to the adoption of various tentative hypothesis.
in order to alght upon some great seminal truth Of
which all special and particular history may be
deemed the efervescence. When Schillerwas called
to occupy the post of lecturer on history in jena he
stated the scientific object Of universal history TO be
the discovery and enunciation of harmony to be
educed by human reason from the chaos Of historic
C. -. 4 - n