Great Britain -- History; History; United States -- History
Perhaps it may be said of Green that he combines the merits of the
scientific and literary historian. He has written an honest and artistic
piece of work. But he is not infallible. I have been told on good
authority that in his reference to the Thirty Years' War he has hardly
stated a single fact correctly, yet the general impression you get from
his account is correct. Saintsbury writes that Green has "out-Macaulayed
Macaulay in reckless abuse" of Dryden. Stubbs and Gardiner are
preeminently the scientific historians of England. Of Stubbs, from
actual knowledge, I regret that I cannot speak, but the reputation he
has among historical experts is positive proof of his great value. Of
Gardiner I can speak with knowledge. Any one who desires to write
history will do well to read every line Gardiner has written--not the
text alone, but also the notes. It is an admirable study in method which
will bear important fruit. But because Gibbon, Gardiner, and Stubbs
should be one's chief reliance, it does not follow that one may neglect
Macaulay, Carlyle, Tacitus, Thucydides, and Herodotus. Gardiner himself
has learned much from Macaulay and Carlyle. All of them may be
criticised on one point or another, but they all have lessons for us.
We shall all agree that the aim of history is to get at the truth and
express it as clearly as possible. The differences crop out when we
begin to elaborate our meaning. "This I regard as the historian's
highest function," writes Tacitus, "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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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