Lectures on Modern historyActon, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron
History
Lectures on Modern history
Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron
History, Modern
#24 I must regard the main duty of a Professor to consist, not simply
in communicating information, but in doing this in such a manner, and
with such an accompaniment of subsidiary means, that the information
he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to a vigorous
and varied exertion of their faculties.--SIR W. HAMILTON, Lectures,
i. 14. No great man really does his work by imposing his maxims on his
disciples, he evokes their life. The pupil may become much wiser than
his instructor, he may not accept his conclusions, but he will own,
"You awakened me to be myself; for that I thank you."--MAURICE, The
Conscience, 7, 8,
#25 Ich sehe die Zeit kommen, wo wir die neuere Geschichte nicht mehr
auf die Berichte selbst nicht der gleichzeitigen Historiker, ausser in
so weit ihnen neue originale Kenntniss beiwohnte, geschweige denn auf
die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen zu grunden haben, sondern aus
den Relationen der Augenzeugen and der achten and unmittelbarsten
Urkunden aufbauen werden.--RANKE, Reformation, Preface, 1838, Ce qu'on
a trouve et mis an oeuvre est considerable en soi: c'est peu de chose
au prix de ce qui reste a trouver et a mettre en oeuvre.--AULARD,
Etudes sur la Revolution, 21.
#26 N'attendez donc pas les lecons de l'experience; elles coutent trop
cher aux nations.--O. BARROT, Memoires, ii. 435. Il y a des lecons
dans tous les temps, pour tous les temps; et celles qu'on emprunte a
des ennemis ne sont pas les moins precieuses.--LANFREY, Napoleon,
v. p. ii. Old facts may always be fresh, and may give out a fresh
meaning for each generation.--MAURICE, Lectures, 62. The object is to
lead the student to attend to them; to make him take interest in
history not as a mere narrative, but as a chain of causes and effects
still unwinding itself before our eyes, and full of momentous
consequences to himself and his descendants--an unremitting conflict
between good and evil powers, of which every act done by any one of
us, insignificant as we are, forms one of the incidents; a conflict in
which even the smallest of us cannot escape from taking part, in which
whoever does not help the right side is helping the wrong.--MILL,
Inaugural Address, 59.
#27 I hold that the degree in which Poets dwell in sympathy with the
Past, marks exactly the degree of their poetical faculty.--WORDSWORTH,
in C. Fox, Memoirs, June 1842. In all political, all social, all
human questions whatever, history is the main resource of the
inquirer.--HARRISON, Meaning of History, 15. There are no truths which
more readily gain the assent of mankind, or are more firmly retained
by them, than those of an historical nature, depending upon the
testimony of others.--PRIESTLEY, Letters to French Philosophers, 9.
Improvement consists in bringing our opinions into nearer agreement
with facts; and we shall not be likely to do this while we look at
facts only through glasses coloured by those very opinions.--MILL,
Inaugural Address, 25.
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