200

MR. HENRY REEVE 242

DEAN MILMAN 249

QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE 275

OLD-AGE PENSIONS 298

INDEX 319

The Essays 'Thoughts on History,' 'Formative Influences,'
'Madame de Stael,' 'Israel among the Nations,' 'Old-age
Pensions,' appeared originally in the American Review, the
_Forum_--the first under the title of 'The Art of Writing
History'; 'Ireland in the Light of History,' in the _North
American Review_. Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve,
and Dean Milman were written for the _Edinburgh Review_. The
Essay on 'Queen Victoria as a Moral Force' appeared first in
the _Pall Mall Magazine_; 'Carlyle's Message to His Age' in
the _Contemporary Review_. 'The Political Value of History'
was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and
Midland Institute; 'The Empire,' an inaugural address
delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the 'Memoir of the
Fifteenth Earl of Derby' was originally prefixed to the
volumes of his speeches and addresses.

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS

THOUGHTS ON HISTORY

I do not propose in this paper to enter into any general inquiry about
the best method of writing history. Such inquiries appear to me to be
of no real value, for there are many different kinds of history which
should be written in many different ways. A diplomatic, a military, or
a parliamentary history, dealing with a short period or a particular
episode, must evidently be treated in a very different spirit from an
extended history where the object of the historian should be to
describe the various aspects of the national life, and to trace
through long periods of time the ultimate causes of national progress
and decay. The history of religion, of art, of literature, of social
and industrial development, of scientific progress, have all their
different methods. A writer who treats of some great revolution that
has transformed human affairs should deal largely in retrospect, for
the most important part of his task is to explain the long course of
events that prepared and produced the catastrophe; while a writer who
treats of more normal times will do well to plunge rapidly into his
theme.

Historians, too, differ widely in their special