The same principle of mental optics is of universal application. We cannot ignore it without fatal results when studying history, science, art, human nature, or any conceivable object of inquiry. Thus, in forming our opinion of the actions of others, there is no more mischievous absurdity, it has been remarked, than to judge them from the outside as they look to us, instead of from the inside as they look to the actors; nothing more irrational than to criticise deeds as though the doers of them had the same hopes, fears, desires, and restraints with ourselves. 'We cannot understand another's character except by abandoning our own identity, and realising to ourselves his frame of mind, his want of knowledge, his hardships, temptations, and discouragements.' If we turn to history, we are reminded of Thomas Moore's lines-- By Tory Hume's seductive page beguiled, We fancy Charles was just, and Stratford mild; And Fox himself, with party pencil draws Monmouth a hero 'for the good old cause!' Then, rights are wrongs, and victories are defeats, As French or English pride the tale repeats. Thus, too, Macaulay remarks, that for many years every Whig historian was anxious to prove that the old English government was all but republican--every Tory, to prove it all but despotic. 'With such feelings, both parties looked into the chronology of the middle ages. Both readily found what they sought, and obstinately refused to see anything but what they sought.' Accordingly, to see only one-half of the evidence, you would conclude that the Plantagenets were as absolute as the sultans of Turkey; to see only the other half, you would conclude that they had as little real power as the Doges of Venice: and both conclusions would be equally remote from the truth.