d. Each
of these narrators simply measures by the scale which is considered
for the time as expressing the great concerns and duties of humanity.

Schiller's views on this matter were, as might have been expected, of
the most enlarged kind. 'It seems to me,' said he in one of his
letters, 'that in writing history for the moderns, we should try to
communicate to it such an interest as the History of the Peloponnesian
War had for the Greeks. Now this is the problem: to choose and arrange
your materials so that, to interest, they shall not need the aid of
decoration. We moderns have a source of interest at our disposal,
which no Greek or Roman was acquainted with, and which the _patriotic_
interest does not nearly equal. This last, in general, is chiefly of
importance for unripe nations, for the youth of the world. But we may
excite a very different sort of interest if we represent each
remarkable occurrence that happened to _men_ as of importance to
_man_. It is a poor and little aim to write for one nation; a
philosophic spirit cannot tolerate such limits, cannot bound its views
to a form of human nature so arbitrary, fluctuating, accidental. The
most powerful nation is but a fragment; and thinking minds will not
grow warm on its account, except in so far as this nation or its
fortunes have been influential on the progress of the species.'

That there is not some excess in this comprehensive cosmopolitan
philosophy, may perhaps be liable to question. Nature herself has,
wisely no doubt, partitioned us into 'kindreds, and nations, and
tongues:' it is among our instincts to grow warm in behalf of our
country, simply for its own sake; and the business of Reason seems to
be to chasten and direct our instincts, never to destroy them. We
require individuality in our attachments: the sympathy which is
expanded over all men will commonly be found so much attenuated by
the process, that it cannot be effective on any. And as it is in
nature, so it is in art, which ought to be the image of it. Universal
philanthropy forms but a precarious and very powerless rule of
conduct; and the 'progress of the species' will turn out equally
unfitted for deeply exciting the imagination. It is not with freedom
that we can sympathise, but with free men. There ought, indeed, to be
in history a spirit superior to petty distinctions and vulgar
partialities; our particular affections ought to be enlightened and
purified; but they should not be aban