Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Volume 01 (of 14), 1898Mississippi Historical Society
History
Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Volume 01 (of 14), 1898
Mississippi Historical Society
Mississippi -- History
"History is the grandest study in the world." My College President, Dr.
Julius H. Seelye, was right. There is no art or science comparable to
it, for it embraces the whole experience of man in organized society.
History takes hold of all the past and points the way to all the
future. The French historian, Guizot, in his "History of My Time" (III.
162) says: "Religion opens the future and places us in the presence of
eternity. History brings back the past and adds to our own existence
the lives of our fathers." Pliny said of History: "Quanta potestas,
quanta dignitas, quanta majestes, quantum denique numen sit historiae."
Perhaps the highest conception of History comes from the Greek. The
etymology of the ward is an inspiration for both student and teacher.
History, from the Greek word historia, is a knowing or learning by
inquiry. To study History is to understand by means of research,
for History is a science; its very essence consists in knowledge.
Historical science is perhaps the most comprehensive and the noblest
of all sciences, for it is the self-knowledge of Humanity. The subject
of History is Humanity itself; it is the self-conscious development of
the human race. History, therefore, does not consist in dead facts, but
is itself a living fact; it is the self-knowledge of the present with
regard to its evolution from the past. Clio is a living muse, not a
dead, cold form. She stands upon that very threshold of the future and
glances backwards over the long vista Humanity has traversed. In the
plastic art of the Greeks you will notice that the muse of History is
represented in the attitude of reflection; the pen is uplifted, but the
word unwritten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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