in the
circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged,
and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and
abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he
never attained during his lifetime.

That fine saying of Cardan, 'Tempus mea possessio, tempus ager meus,'
might be the motto of the historian. Time is the field which he
cultivates, and a true sense of space and distance should be one of
the chief characteristics of his work. Few things are more difficult
to attain than a just perspective in history. The most dramatic
incidents are not the most important, and in weighing the joys and
sorrows of the past our measures of judgment are almost hopelessly
false. The most humane man cannot emancipate himself from the law of
his nature, according to which he is more affected by some tragic
circumstance which has taken place in his own house or in his own
street than by a catastrophe which has carried anguish and desolation
over enormous areas in a distant continent. In history, too, there are
vast tracts which are almost necessarily unrealised. We judge a period
mainly by its great men, by its brilliant or salient incidents, by the
fortunes of a small class; and the great mass of obscure, suffering,
inarticulate humanity, whose happiness is often so profoundly affected
by political and military events, almost escapes our notice. It should
be the object of history to bring before us past events in their true
proportion and significance, and one of the greatest improvements in
modern history is the increased attention which is paid to the
social, industrial, and moral history of the poor. The paucity of our
information and the difficulty of realising the conditions of obscure
multitudes will always make this branch of history very imperfect, but
it is one of the most essential to the just judgment of the past.

Another task which lies before the historian is that of distinguishing
proximate from ultimate causes. Our first natural impulse is to
attribute a great change to the men who effected it and to the period
in which it took place, and to neglect or underrate the long train of
causes which had been, often through many generations, preparing its
advent. A faithful historian must especially guard against this error.
He must study the slow process of growth as well as the moment of
efflorescence, the long progress of decay as well as the final
catastrophe. He wi