५ Quo spectanda modo, quo sensu credis, et ore ?-HOR THE direction of our studies is usually determined, not so much upon grounds of abstract dignity or usefulness, as by the comparative importance of different pursuits with reference to our views in life. The philosophy of man-in other words, the philosophy of history, is almost the only study, at once so comprehensive and so necessary, as to command the attention of gevery one who is to reason or to act. Whoever would specùlate upon the safe foundations of induction, or avoid in practice the errors incident to ignorance, must explore the principles of human nature as they are developed in the annals of mankind, and investigate the Past as the great index of the Probable. But in order to derive the highest possible advantage from the moral and political lessons of history, the attention should chiefly be confined to those systems of affairs, and expositions of character, which are traced out for our examination in all their bearings, and subject to the test of our familiar and distinct conceptions. Man is so much the creature of circumstances, that to theorise upon any notions independent of these, is a certain road to be deceived. However uniform the original principles of his nature may remain, their influence and operation must be perpetually modified. As the current of events rolls on, the sources that supply it may be fixed and immutable, but its channel will be for ever shifting, and its as pect varied by continual alterations. The agency of external band contingent causes has power to control, diversify, transform. Characters, or actions, which have little real dissimilitude, will be attended, under changes of æra or condition, with very opposite appearances, and widely discrepant results. The tyrant of one century would be the fool of another: The action that at one period might be excused as an harmless licence, or recognised as a legitimate proceeding, would be sufficient, at a different epoch, to kindle the flames of revolution, and deluge a nation with blood. Hence arises the peculiar and paramount importance of MODERN History. To govern conduct by example, to judge ww of the probable issues of affairs by the rule of experience, being ไห the grand ends of historical study, an adequate idea of the model to be imitated, a perfect comprehension of the case to be applied, are primary and most essential steps. Reasoning from analogy is always a method of much nicety. If a due caution against oversights be not observed, and a prudent horror of precipitate conclusions maintained, it may become a method of much danger. In its comparisons, the omission of a single term will vitiate the entire proportion: in its combinations, admit the slightest mixture of an unwarrantable element, and you destroy the whole. Yet analogy is the only medium for converting history to use; the preparatory ordeal through which her stores must pass, before they will be clear of doubt or fit for application. No aid should therefore be neglected that can promote the safer management of so indispensable, but so delicate a process. It is wise to afford the judgment every chance of security; and, where the materials for employment are almost without limit, to select for closer operation that portion whose properties and relations we can most fully appreciate and understand. It will not be inferred from this, that the portion of history which treats of a condition of the world slenderly related to its existing state, has no claims to be considered of importance. The importance of ancient history rests upon a basis, too secure to be undermined, and fortunately too evident to be otherwise than wilfully mistaken. For general examples of vice or virtue, folly or wisdom, strength or weakness, it forms a vast and inexhaustible repository. It reveals the secret springs of human conduct: it abounds in every thing to warm the fancy, inform the memory, and elevate the taste. Stamped by the all-powerful hand of genius with the characters of truth, it retains that everlasting impress which confers a value where currency is lost. Even the science of political philosophy had made a wonderful progress among the ancients. They supply the student of history with more than bare materials; and speculate as well as describe. The unostentatious wisdom that mingles with the details of their professed historians is uniformly fraught with.. instruction; while the just and comprehensive views upon political subjects taken by their philosophers are frequently astonish ing. Thus Archytas could deduce, though from a defective model,' the splendid doctrine of a balanced government, which The Constitution of Sparta.-See Pythag. Fragmenta Politica. it has been the work of centuries to realise in the most perfect of modern constitutions. Thus the piercing sagacity of Aristotle, from an extensive range of laborious researches, drew that analysis of practical philosophy, which has been compared to the work of Montesquieu,' and which Locke recommended as an essential preliminary to the study of history and politics.2 And even the errors into which the mystical imagination and lofty abstractions of Plato betrayed him, are not unmixed with conclusions at once accurate and sublime. Nor should it ever be forgotten, in considering the useful lessons to be derived from the details of antiquity, that Machiavel, so pernicious a writer, where he argues from modern events, and the transactions of his own country, has found a beneficial scope for his transcendant talents in reasoning upon a portion of the ancient annals,3 But something like the discernment and abilities of an author whom Harrington' has characterised as the only politician of later ages, is requisite for the safe accomplishment of such a task as Machiavel performed. It is too hazardous for common understandings. The danger is, lest by too ardent and implicit an attention, too intense a study of the ancient models, the discriminating sense should be gradually blunted, until self-deception become pleasing, and the labor of separating illusion from reality at once disagreeable and difficult. To discover an example of such danger, and of its fatal effects, we need only turn to the great instance of the French Revolution. Amid the mingled horrors and absurdities of that disgusting scene, it is easy to detect an anxious imitation, though it produced nothing better than a distorted resemblance, of a classic original. When the minds of men are once heated with a favorite notion, its influence grows soon predominant. The idea is cherished until what was at first an institution of reason, or perhaps a movement of caprice, ends in a principle of passion and its force is entirely uncontrolable, because every opposing consideration is either constrained to fall in with the domineering fancy, or, if stubborn and untractable, is thrown out of sight, and altogether disregarded. To erect, in this manner, a standard borrowed from antiquity; ? Miller's Philosophy of Modern History. * Letter to Mr. King from Locke. 3 Discourses on the First Decade of Livy. and to adopt with unhesitating zeal what should be scrutinised with cautious scrupulosity; is thus strikingly preposterous. As well may the traveller hope to direct his route with certainty through an unknown country by a chart whose divisions are obsolete and very names forgotten, as the statesman expect to be guided with plainness and precision by examples which must often be imperfectly applicable, and often indistinctly apprehended. Modern history, at whatever æra we may fix its commencement, displays a striking and extensive change in the condition of the world. Even if we descend with Bolingbroke to the close of the fifteenth century, we shall perceive a vast, though not a total alteration. New series of events, and new systems of causes, connected by a very sensible and intimate relation with the present disposition of human affairs, begin at that epoch to appear. From that epoch too it is more requisite to study history in detail. The different Powers of the civilised world are thrown into closer connexion with each other; the veil is drawn away from many objects formerly obscure; and the genius of governments and growth of constitutions in the several countries, while they become a more necessary, become also a more easy and more open topic of inquiry. But in order to consult the grander views of political philosophy, and to afford the student of history a completer survey of that great machinery which has produced such wonderful effects, it is proper to ascend to a much higher period than Bolingbroke has marked. The subversion of the Western Empire, in the year of the Christian æra 476, presents a point at which the change is almost perfect, and from which nearly every step in our observations must be progressive. The exterminating swords of the barbarian conquerors, as they urged the work of desolation, left scarcely a vestige of former systems behind them. A deluge passed over the face of the earth, and its moral aspect was transformed. Looking forward from this point, we perceive mankind acting under impulses, and placed in situations, which were previously unknown. They come upon the stage with a change of character, of appearance, and of attitude: a wider theatre is opened, and unexpected scenes expand. History becomes a study of augmented interest; and the political philosopher acquires a field for speculation, at once altered in its nature, and enlarged in its extent. It is no longer, as in the early history of oriental countries, a succession of broken and confused traditions, a series of gorgeous but uncertain and unsatisfactory pictures, that is hardly to excite, or poorly to repay, his attention. It is no longer Greece, with her feverish and fluctuating destinies, her perplexed politics and endless divisions, her gleams of grandeur and long tracts of gloom, whose records are to appal while they instruct, and to instruct, for the most part, by negative examples. It is no longer Rome, in her gradual rise, her broad dominion, and her slow decline, a brilliant illustration of the Polybian theory of constitutions, but too engrossing to afford variety, and too singular to bear comparison, that is to confine his observation to one system, simple in its principles, and sure in its results, described in alipe by Virgil, and comprehended in a paragraph by Tacitus, Countries, disregarded in the huge and cumbrous mass of Roman territory, unfold their energies and assert their dignity. Navigation spreads a bolder sail, and adventure finds a way to shores whose existence had never been suspected. The Hercynian Forest teems with empires :-Isles, which Roman contempt would have banished almost beyond the limits of the world, assume a more imposing attitude; and we hail with patriotic exultation the progressive advancement of Great Britain to that station of eminence, from which her laws have been dietated to wider regions, than Rome, at the zenith of her greatness, ever knew! To this creation of fresh dynasties and rise of powerful states, where ancient history had depicted barbarians or neglected slaves; to the gradual process of civilisation and discovery, which enlarged the sphere of human action; and to the attendant variety of growing causes and new interests, which advancing time was to bring into collision, we must ascribe not only the primary impulse that gave birth to a different order of things, but likewise the first origin of those additions to the objects of historical study, which, as much as the argument already drawn from the uncertainties of analogical reasoning, bestow importance on the consideration of modern transactions. Such an extension in the scope of historical study has been followed by a similar extension in its aims; the science has found new subject-matter, and the subject-matter has reacted on the science. Two chief and remarkable additions at once present themselves to notice. The doctrine of the equipoise of power, as it is now VOL. XXIV. · 1 Polybii Hist. 1. vi. CI. JI. NO. XLVII. G |