"In habitual and commonplace actions we are not conscious of the volition unless our attention is specially called to it." "But always," he adds, there are "two elements" present,-the "volition," on the one hand, and "the antecedents or motive," on the other hand; "and upon the presence of the volition depend our retrospective judgments on our own actions and our judgments on the actions of our neighbors." ** * "Huxley, biased by physical science," (says Mr. Smith), "took at one time the extreme necessarian view. But if I mistake not, he had latterly ceased to feel so sure that man was an automaton which had automatically fancied itself a free agent but had automatically come back to the belief that it was an automaton."1

The other phase of the subject is connected with the fact that no room is left for individuality. Most teachers find it an impressive fact that, with all the effort to plan our systems of education on a general scale, there are continually found individual instances for whose peculiar needs no direct provision has been made. The problem is a perplexing one, for it is not always possible to command the resources for an individual treatment of the individual child. If not, the child, by some form of repression, is smoothed down, so to speak, (or rather, crowded down), to the general level. Nor is this experience confined to children. More and more, as our present-day tendencies to consolidation and uniformity develop, the individual everywhere feels the pressure of what the poet has called "the world's rough hand."

It need hardly be added that in this respect the usage of society is closely in accordance with that which Tennyson, in "In Memoriam", has attributed to Nature herself:

"So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life,"

An even more subtile application of this principle lies in the interpretation of motive. "Judge not, that ye be not judged", is still sound doctrine, as it was twenty centuries ago; and yet judges on the bench, and judicial historians everywhere, as well, are constantly obliged to pass judg

1American Historical Review, v. 10, p. 512.

2Section 55.

ment, as to the motives which probably led to the actions in question. Since this is inevitable, perhaps the most that can be hoped for is that they shall invariably recognize that "the exceptions," as well as "the rule," are sometimes to be reckoned with. There are few men who have lived in this world for many years with a fairly observing habit of mind who have not been forced to take note, time after time, that it is the unexpected that has happened. Even from the point of view of simple mathematics, this is by no means incomprehensible. Let us say of some occurrence, as, for instance, the passing of a St. Bernard dog, in the crowded throng which surges past the corner of Broadway and Canal Street, in New York, that the probability, or chance, is only as one in ten. Very well then. Even in that case, some dog must be this one in ten. Or suppose it is only one man in twenty who stands six feet in height. Even then some one must be that twentieth man. It is no more strange that you should be the one than that some one else should be.

The influence of this same indisposition to conceive of the "exceptional instance" is felt also in ethical fields. Given, a historical character to be studied and analyzed, whose associates and whole environment were obviously characterized by low moral standards. In that case it is only by a distinct effort of mind, that we are prevented from concluding, off hand, that the person in question was swayed by the same low motives. Nevertheless, this kind of "snap judgment" cannot be regarded as either just or sane. Let us apply the principle to our case. The future student of social conditions in the years 1900 to 1906, in this country, will perhaps be impressed by nothing more strongly than this, that in these years "graft" was wide-spread, and pervasive. Let us suppose, then, that the student, in unearthing various papers, comes upon the existence of you or of me, and sets us down as tarred with the "graft" taint, because of our living in this age. Would

anyone enjoy this prospect? Indeed, one does not always have to wait for the "snap judgment" of posterity in such a matter as this, for it is not unheard of to find the contemporary judgment", expressed somewhat as follows: "Well, every man has his price." In this way, the matter may perhaps best be brought home to us, so as to lead us to appreciate the rights of the minority, (the "twentieth man", so to speak), to a square deal, or, in other words, to a fair judgment, on an independent basis.

Great is the wisdom of "Poor Richard," and it has great merits, as summing up the condensed thought of the majority of men. And yet this "proverbial" wisdom of the centuries may sometimes be a tyrannous judgment. With the fable of the fox and the "sour grapes" ringing in his ears, not only has an individual sometimes been compelled to take his appointed course in the face of almost certain misconstruction, but nations also have been compelled to do the same. A historian who has occasion to record the struggles of small nations with great ones will do well to look carefully into this phenomenon.

There is another bearing of the scientific view of history which demands our attention,-namely, the fragmentary and unsatisfactory nature of a large portion of the "materials of history". Mr. Firth for instance, who has already been quoted above, remarks: "Often the really conclusive document is missing; we know that something happened, but the piece of evidence which would explain why it happened is non-existent, and the precise significance of the fact becomes a matter for inference or conjecture. Sometimes a whole series of documents dealing with a particular episode has perished by accident or design, and shreds or patches of evidence must be collected from diffferent sources to supply its absence."

Again, it seems probable that an extreme view of the scientific treatment of history may tend to defeat its own

'Firth's "A plea for the historical teaching of history." p. 10-11.

purpose. In other words, while the primary purpose of science is practical,-the adaptation of means to ends,the treatment may be so conducted as to lead to no end. Here, for instance, is the uncompromising statement of the purpose of the scientific school of history, as found in the pages of one of its latest advocates,-Professor Bury, of the University of Cambridge:

"The gathering of materials bearing upon minute local events, the collation of MSS. and the registry of their small variations, the patient drudgery in archives of states and municipalities, all the microscopic research that is carried on by armies of toiling students-it may seem like the bearing of mortar and brick to the site of a building which has hardly been begun, of whose plan the labourers know little. This work, the hewing of wood and the drawing of water, has to be done in faithin the faith that a complete assemblage of the smallest facts of human history will tell in the end. The labour is performed for posterityfor remote posterity; and when, with intelligible scepticism, someone asks the use of the accumulation of statistics, the publication of trivial records, the labour expended on minute criticism, the true answer is: 'That is not so much our business as the business of future generations. We are heaping up material and arranging it, according to the best methods we know; if we draw what conclusions we can for the satisfaction of our own generation, we can never forget that our work is to be used by future ages. It is intended for those who follow us rather than for ourselves, and much less for our grand-children than for generations very remote' "'

While there is something very noble in all this work of self-abnegation, yet it must be admitted that it is sadly destitute of the hope of an assured fruition. As Mr. Trevelyan has forcibly put it, in his trenchant comment on Mr. Bury's address: "The readers of books will pass by, ignorant of the hidden treasure, till, after long centuries of toilsome and useless accumulation, the unwieldy and neglected mass at length perishes, like the unopened books of the Sibyl."

It is significant that all of the various dissentients from the ultra-scientific view of Mr. Bury, (including

'Bury's "Inaugural lecture," 1903, p. 31-32.

"The latest view of history," by George Macaulay Trevelyan, in Independent Review, London, reprinted in Living Age, v. 240, p. 197.

Butcher,' Trevelyan, Falkiner,2 Firth, and others), ascribe the difficulty and the danger above referred to, to the deliberate elimination of style from the narrative. And they consequently regard the restoration of style,-or, at least, of life, of vitality, of something intimately concerned with the passion and movement of human life,-as being the most promising way out of the difficulty.

Frederic Harrison also puts the case very lucidly:

"There is more to be said for literary form in historical composition than the present generation is wont to allow. Abstracts of complicated documents with abundant archæological setting do not need any literary form, nor can they endure such setting any more than grammars, dictionaries, or catalogues of microscopic entozoa. But all compilations of original research not fused into the form of art, remain merely the text-books of the special student and are closed to the general public. They have a purely esoteric value for the few, however profound be their learning, however brilliant the discoveries they set forth. Perhaps no historian in this century has exercised a more creative force over modern research than Savigny; but his great historical work is a closed book to the general public as much as is his purely legal work. Now, it is the public which history must reach, modify, and instruct, if it is to rise to the level of humane science and be more than pedantic antiquarianism. And nothing can reach the public as history, unless it be organic and proportioned in structure, impressive by its epical form, and instinct with the magic of life.

The colossal monuments compiled by Muratori, Pertz, and Migne are invaluable to the scholar, and so are Catalogues of the Fixed Stars to the astronomer, or the Nautical Almanac to the seaman. But to any but professed students of special subjects, the only real kind of history is a reduced miniature of the vast area of actual events, in such just proportion as to leave on the mind a true and memorable picture. A real history (and of a real history, the Decline and Fall is, at least in literary conception and plan, the ideal type) must be so artfully balanced in its proportion that a true impression of the crucial events and dominant personalities is forced into the reader's brain. It has to be what

'Butcher, Samuel Henry. Harvard lectures on Greek subjects, London: 1904, p. 251-52. "We cannot lightly accept the suggestion," says Mr. Butcher, "that history should emancipate herself from literature." Page 251.

'Falkiner, C. Litton. Literature and history. Monthly Review, London, reprinted in Living Age, June 4, 1904, v. 241, p. 621-28. "If the whole workshop of historical research is not to become a vast lumber-room, it is time that some at least among the leaders of English historical learning should recognize the saving grace of style as the great antiseptic not only of literature but of history." (Page 627.) Among other articles, should be cited a very trenchant article in the New York Evening Post, Dec. 19, 1903.

See also Mr. Firth's "Plea for the historical teaching of history," above cited.