on of military courage and self-sacrifice
which had been so prominent in antiquity was again in the ascendant,
but it was combined with a new kind of honour and with a new vein of
courtesy, modesty, and gentleness. When we apply the epithet
'chivalrous' to a modern gentleman, this is no unmeaning term. There
is even now an element in that character which may be distinctly
traced to the ideal of chivalry which the Crusades made dominant in
Europe.

I do not propose to follow the history of other ideals that have in
turn prevailed. What I have written will, I trust, be sufficient to
illustrate a kind of history which appears to me to possess much
interest and value. It will show, too, that a faithful historian is
very largely concerned with the fictions as well as with the facts of
the past. Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the
highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their
time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute
perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to
give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely
governed by its fictions. Great events often acquire their full power
over the human mind only when they have passed through the
transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed
to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they
actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world, and each before it
loses its ascendancy bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy
to the human race.

THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY

When, shortly after I had accepted the honourable task which I am
endeavouring to fulfil to-night, I received from your Secretary a
report of the annual proceedings of the Birmingham and Midland
Institute,--when I observed the immense range and variety of subjects
included within your programme, illustrating so strikingly the intense
intellectual activity of this great town,--my first feeling was one of
some bewilderment and dismay. What, I asked myself, could I say that
would be of much real value, addressing an unknown audience, and
relating to fields of knowledge so vast, so multifarious, and in many
of their parts so far beyond the range of my own studies? On
reflection, however, it appeared to me that in this, as in most other
cases, the proverb was a wise one which bids the cobbler stick to his
last, and that a writer who, during