The King himself, however, practically omits the record of this decade from his history of the reign. He assigns as the reason that “political intrigues which lead to nothing deserve no more notice than teasing in society, and the particulars of the internal administration do not afford sufficient material for history.” His great English admirer holds that this routine work in itself was eminent, that “one day these things will deserve to be studied to the bottom; and to be set forth, by writing hands that are competent, for the instruction and example of Workers,” but that “of Frederick’s success in his Law-Reforms, in his Husbandries, Commerces and Furtherances, conspicuously great as it was, there is no possibility of making careless readers cognisant at this day.” Carlyle then explains that the visit of Voltaire to Frederick and their quarrel is one of the few things perfectly knowable in this period and the only thing which the populations care to hear. The following chapter of this book is written in the belief that readers of the story of Frederick may well demand, above all else, whether he is justly termed “The Great,” and if so, in virtue of what achievements? Unless we are willing to answer that the title is his of right because he seized Silesia and held it against great odds, these questions compel us to enquire into his home administration. We know well that the ruler is strong only because he wields the collective strength of his nation, and that his chief task is to render the nation stronger and to improve the machinery by which its strength is collected and exerted. A great ruler is one who, when the difficulties which he had to contend with are taken into account, is perceived to have accomplished much more in the performance of this task than could be expected from an ordinary man. If we find that Frederick improved the lot of his subjects in a remarkable degree, or that he invented beneficial institutions, or devised a system by which the future of government in Prussia was assured and progress made easy, then we shall have to concede to him a right to the title of Great other than that which conquest may confer.