t man may be worth several
immaculate historians. Otherwise there is virtue in the saying that a
historian is seen at his best when he does not appear #39. Better for
us is the example of the Bishop of Oxford, who never lets us know what
he thinks of anything but the matter before him; and of his
illustrious French rival, Fustel de Coulanges, who said to an excited
audience: "Do not imagine you are listening to me; it is history
itself that speaks." #40 We can found no philosophy on the observation
of four hundred years, excluding three thousand. It would be an
imperfect and a fallacious induction. But I hope that even this
narrow and dis-edifying section of history will aid you to see that
the action of Christ who is risen on mankind whom he redeemed fails
not, but increases #41; that the wisdom of divine rule appears not in
the perfection but in the improvement of the world #42; and that
achieved liberty is the one ethical result that rests on the
converging and combined conditions of advancing civilisation #43. Then
you will understand what a famous philosopher said, that History is
the true demonstration of Religion #44.

But what do people mean who proclaim that liberty is the palm,
and the prize, and the crown, seeing that it is an idea of which
there are two hundred definitions, and that this wealth of
interpretation has caused more bloodshed than anything, except
theology? Is it Democracy as in France, or Federalism as in
America, or the national independence which bounds the Italian
view, or the reign of the fittest, which is the ideal of Germans #45?
I know not whether it will ever fall within my sphere of duty to
trace the slow progress of that idea through the chequered scenes
of our history, and to describe how subtle speculations touching
the nature of conscience promoted a nobler and more spiritual
conception of the liberty that protects it #46, until the guardian of
rights developed into the guardian of duties which are the cause
of rights #47, and that which had been prized as the material
safeguard for treasures of earth became sacred as security for
things that are divine. All that we require is a workday key to
history, and our present need can be supplied without pausing to
satisfy philosophers. Without inquiring how far Sarasa or
Butler, Kant or Vinet, is right as to the infallible voice of God
in man, we may easily agree in this, that where absolutism
reigned, by irresistible arms, conc