itus, "to let no worthy action be
uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror
to evil words and deeds;" while Langlois and the majority of the
scholars of Oxford are of the opinion that the formation and expression
of ethical judgments, the approval or condemnation of Julius Caesar or of
Caesar Borgia is not a thing within the historian's province. Let the
controversy go on! It is well worth one's while to read the
presentations of the subject from the different points of view. But
infallibility will nowhere be found. Mommsen and Curtius in their
detailed investigations received applause from those who adhered rigidly
to the scientific view of history, but when they addressed the public in
their endeavor, it is said, to produce an effect upon it, they relaxed
their scientific rigor; hence such a chapter as Curtius's "The years of
peace," and in another place his transmuting a conjecture of Grote into
an assertion; hence Mommsen's effusive panegyric of Caesar. If Mommsen
did depart from the scientific rules, I suspect that it came from no
desire of a popular success, but rather from the enthusiasm of much
learning. The examples of Curtius and Mommsen show probably that such a
departure from strict impartiality is inherent in the writing of general
history, and it comes, I take it, naturally and unconsciously. Holm is a
scientific historian, but on the Persian Invasion he writes: "I have
followed Herodotus in many passages which are unauthenticated and
probably even untrue, because he reproduces the popular traditions of
the Greeks." And again: "History in the main ought only to be a record
of facts, but now and then the historian may be allowed to display a
certain interest in his subject." These expressions traverse the canons
of scientific history as much as the sayings of the ancient
historiographers themselves. But because men have warm sympathies that
cause them to color their narratives, shall no more general histories be
written? Shall history be confined to the printing of original documents
and to the publication of learned monographs in which the discussion of
authorities is mixed up with the relation of events? The proper mental
attitude of the general historian is to take no thought of popularity.
The remark of Macaulay that he would make his history take the place of
the last novel on my lady's table is not scientific. The audience which
the general historian should have in mind is