progressive, so that the best
master is quickly distanced by the better pupil #24. The Vatican
archives alone, now made accessible to the world, filled 3239
cases when they were sent to France; and they are not the
richest. We are still at the beginning of the documentary age,
which will tend to make history independent of historians, to
develop learning at the expense of writing, and to accomplish a
revolution in other sciences as well.

To men in general I would justify the stress I am laying on
Modern History, neither by urging its varied wealth, nor the
rupture with precedent, nor the perpetuity of change and increase
of pace, nor the growing predominance of opinion over belief, and
of knowledge over opinion, but by the argument that it is a
narrative told of ourselves, the record of a life which is our
own, of efforts not yet abandoned to repose, of problems that
still entangle the feet and vex the hearts of men. Every part of
it is weighty with inestimable lessons that we must learn by
experience and at a great price, if we know not how to profit by
the example and teaching of those who have gone before us, in a
society largely resembling the one we live in #25. Its study fulfils
its purpose even if it only makes us wiser, without producing
books, and gives us the gift of historical thinking, which is
better than historical learning #27. It is a most powerful
ingredient in the formation of character and the training of
talent, and our historical judgments have as much to do with
hopes of heaven as public or private conduct. Convictions that
have been strained through the instances and the comparisons of
modern times differ immeasurably in solidity and force from those
which every new fact perturbs, and which are often little better
than illusions or unsifted prejudice #28.

The first of human concerns is religion, and it is the salient
feature of the modern centuries. They are signalised as the
scene of Protestant developments. Starting from a time of
extreme indifference, ignorance, and decline, they were at once
occupied with that conflict which was to rage so long, and of
which no man could imagine the infinite consequences. Dogmatic
conviction--for I shun to speak of faith in connection with many
characters of those days--dogmatic conviction rose to be the
centre of universal interest, and remained down to Cromwell the
supreme influence and motive of public policy. A time came when
the intensit