a long delirium, is very dear to Mr.
Belloc. We have dwelt on it at the beginning of this chapter and must
return to it now, for, if one idea can be said to underlie all his
historical writings, this is that one idea. The notions which we have
described as the three pillars of his historical scheme are three
expressions of this vision, and the vision is of something transcendent,
like the dogmas on which his mind rests, something which is a reality,
but cannot be proved in words or seized by any merely physical metaphor.
He begins _Marie Antoinette_ with these words: "Europe, which carries
the fate of the whole world ..."

This fundamental point in its three expressions is the point which Mr.
Belloc would have his public grasp before beginning to discuss the
problems which await it in the polling-booths and in the everyday
conversations which more weightily mould the fate of the world. He is a
propagandist historian, and his work has the liveliness given by an air
of eagerness to convince.

His bias, the precise nature of his propaganda, are frankly exposed. He
would have the State and European society, especially the society of
England, revived by a return to the profession and the practice of his
own faith. In Prussia also historians compose their works with such a
definite and positive end in contemporary affairs.

But between them and Mr. Belloc lies this great difference. He writes,
as we have said, candidly, in a partisan spirit, with the eagerness of a
man who wishes to convince. In the University of Berlin the
indoctrination of the student is pursued under the cloak of a baleful
and gloomy pedantry, laughably miscalled "the scientific method." The
propaganda of Frederick is not obvious and many are deceived.

The Catholic historian lies in England under a grave suspicion. Lingard,
who wrote, after all, one of the best histories of the English nation,
certainly more readable than Freeman and less prejudiced than Froude, is
neither studied nor mentioned in our schools. Even poor Acton, whose
smug Whig bias is apparent to the stupidest, who nourished himself on
Lutheran learning, "mostly," as he says, pathetically "in octavo
volumes," is thought of darkly by the uninstructed as an emissary of the
Jesuits. But who can either suffer from or accuse the Catholic bias of
Mr. Belloc?

He says to you frankly in every page: "I am a Catholic. I believe in the
Church of Rome. For these and these reasons, I am of opinion