The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-14

risen. fiourished and fallen. Various systems of morals and ethics have evolved. influenced and died. In all of these, man has been the chief. agent of instrumentality. Therefore. the his- tory of the world is the history of man. The present is the summit of human history and the basis of the | A collective Judgment of the growth and decay of man in all his relations has been that of progress and towards higher and better life. This con- ception augurs an optimistic future. There have been. of course, a great many ups and downs, but taken to- gether. the general direction has been more upward than downwards..
 says @ is to pr es1Usy from Se cay the remembrance of what men have done" Thucydides says, His tory will be found profitable by those who desire an exact knowledge of the all human probability, will repeat or | This regard as history's highest function: To let no worthy action be reprobation of posterity as terror to evil words and deeds.'' Thus spoke the triumvirs of ancient Greek and Roman history. As a criticism of Tac- he, nor does my augury deceive me. 1 that your histories will be immortal; hence all the more do I desire to find Tacitus as the First of historians who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts.''
 Inconsistencies of History.
 1 That all that purports to be history is not true all will admit; that much I of the error in history is attributable to the personal equation of the histo- rian, his prejudice, bias, etc. and to erroneous methods and false points of | xriar ha {od af 1 the first duties of the student of history is to separate the chaff from the wheat. As an illustration of the bias of the historian, compare Carlyle and Claren- him, Carlyle says: "A great light, one of our few authentic solar Iuminaries, | going down now amid the clouds of death. like the setting of a great, vic- torious summer sun; it's course now fin ished. Here As a life battle nobly done. Blessed are the dead that die In the Lord; blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord" Of him Clarendon wickedness for which damnation is de- nornced and for which hell-fire is pre- rared, so he had some virtues which have caused the memory of some men will be looked upon by posterity as a
 In criticising these opinions, Prof 1 George Park Fisher. who in 1898 was I Association, after quoting Clarendon. says: All know how this prophecy has been verified" MT Froude says of King Henry VIII, Far deeper blem- ishes would be but as scars upon the features of a sovereign who in trying time sustained nobly the honor of the English name and carried the com monwealth securely through the hard | est crisis in it's history" Macauly says of King Henry VIII. "A King whose character may be best described by saying that he was despotism itself personified.
 dice of historians, one must for the | time being live in the times in which he wrote. No historian will deny that Socrates was great philosopher, one martyr to his convictions. Yet we are told that he advised the courtesans how to ply their trade. Tried by our own standard of morals: precept and ex- | hensible, but by that of the Creek in | that day, 1t was not so regarded. In the narrative of ancient wars. where the conqueror was given power over the persons of the conquered to subject them to his own service or to take their lives, made the conquerors measured by our criteria terrible personages, | but in the light of that period it was considered proper. and right. And herein lies function of the philosophy of history, to explain by the process | of the evolution of ethics the change of Rqele senttpBehS nRHp o the s | ters, characters and other methods of preserving any records of the acts of men. history must depend upon l science.
 In this way, the sciences of geology, archaeology ISIo Raionteoiogy, biology; dSa1 S | light upon the flora and fauna, their habits, conditions, etc, which, of course, Includes men during the pre- l n- Goa ,IrFw. s.f Ia ta nnfl l cd of study, a geologist has said. Rocks do not lie but men do" In making a record of the acts of men, many errors recorded for the truth doubt exist. There are many more errors, however, which are due to fail ure to observe the facts or error in
 Sincerity of Historians.
 It is not always easy to determine l the honesty and sincerity of men liV- | ing, much less so the dead, whether the dead be writers or those written about. We do not expect to gather grapes of thorns or figs of missiles, but if the thistle and thorn mad the skill of the human being they might adorn themselves in the foliage of the fig and grape and pin these fruits upon their | needles and thus pass as true grape vine and fig tree before the careless of view bay be from the standpoint | of theologic or of natural cosmogony. 1 Tn 1868, Wm. Stoughton, in speak ing of the immigrants to this country, said God sifted q whole nation that He might send this grain over into this wilderness" Two hundred years later Charles Darwin said: There is ap- pearently much truth in the belief that the wonderful progress of the United States, as well as the character of the people, are the results of natural se- lection; for the more energetic, rest less, and courageous men from all parts of Europe have migrated during the Hast ten or twelve generations to that great country and have there sue Iceeded best" The same scientist said: Looking to the distant furure, do not think it an exaggerated view to say that all other series of events Las that which resulted in the culture suited on the Empire of Rome--only ap pear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to the great stream of Anglo Saxon emigration to the west"
 The historian who exhibits the theological criterion of history will necessarily differ from the historian who exhibits the natural sciences. It is. therefore, necessary that in passing
 upon the value of all history we must consider the historian not only in his
 personal interest but also his points of view and his environment, physical.
 social and ethical
 A historian who is honest. sincere. painstaking, unpretudIced, fair and a Iseeker after truth only is perhaps a Irare specimen of the human race, but lthat such have existed and that, too, in sufficient numbers to give us fair Iindex to the philosophy of history is undoubtedly true. The purpose of this address is not to criticise any school NtDrV I. s-Na