their day and to allege the
spirit of the age in excuse for the Albigensian Crusade or the burning
of Hus. Acton felt that this was to destroy the very bases of moral
judgment and to open the way to a boundless scepticism. Anxious as he
was to uphold the doctrine of growth in theology, he allowed nothing for
it in the realm of morals, at any rate in the Christian era, since the
thirteenth century. He demanded a code of moral judgment independent of
place and time, and not merely relative to a particular civilisation. He
also demanded that it should be independent of religion. His reverence
for scholars knew no limits of creed or church, and he desired some body
of rules which all might recognise, independently of such historical
phenomena as religious institutions. At a time when such varied and
contradictory opinions, both within and without the limits of Christian
belief, were supported by some of the most powerful minds and
distinguished investigators, it seemed idle to look for any basis of
agreement beyond some simple moral principles. But he thought that all
men might agree in admitting the sanctity of human life and judging
accordingly every man or system which needlessly sacrificed it. It is
this preaching in season and out of season against the reality of
wickedness, and against every interference with the conscience, that is
the real inspiration both of Acton's life and of his writings.

It is related of Frederick Robertson of Brighton, that during one of
his periods of intellectual perplexity he found that the only rope to
hold fast by was the conviction, "it must be right to do right." The
whole of Lord Acton's career might be summed up in a counterphrase, "it
must be wrong to do wrong." It was this conviction, universally and
unwaveringly applied, and combined with an unalterable faith in Christ,
which gave unity to all his efforts, sustained him in his struggle with
ecclesiastical authority, accounted for all his sympathies, and
accentuated his antipathies, while it at once expanded and limited his
interests. It is this that made his personality so much greater a gift
to the world than any book which he might have written--had he cared
less for the end and more for the process of historical knowledge.

He was interested in knowledge--that it might diminish prejudice and
break down barriers. To a world in which the very bases of civilisation
seemed to be dissolving he preached the need of directing ideals.