Two other causes limited Acton's output. Towards the close of the seventies he began to suspect, and eventually discovered, that he and Doellinger were not so close together as he had believed. That is to say, he found that in regard to the crimes of the past, Doellinger's position was more like that of Creighton than his own--that, while he was willing to say persecution was always wrong, he was not willing to go so far as Acton in rejecting every kind of mitigating plea and with mediaeval certainty consigning the persecutors to perdition. Acton, who had as he thought, learnt all this from Doellinger, was distressed at what seemed to him the weakness and the sacerdotal prejudice of his master, felt that he was now indeed alone, and for the time surrendered, as he said, all views of literary work. This was the time when he had been gathering materials for a _History of the Council of Trent_. That this cleavage, coming when it did, had a paralysing effect on Acton's productive energy is most probable, for it made him feel that he was no longer one of a school, and was without sympathy and support in the things that lay nearest his heart. Another cause retarded production--his determination to know all about the work of others. Acton desired to be in touch with university life all over Europe, to be aware, if possible through personal knowledge, of the trend of investigation and thought of scholars working in all the cognate branches of his subject. To keep up thoroughly with other people's work, and do much original writing of one's own, is rarely possible. At any rate we may say that the same man could not have produced the essay on German schools of history, and written a _magnum opus_ of his own. His life marks what, in an age of minute specialism, must always be at once the crown and the catastrophe of those who take all knowledge for their province. His achievement is something different from any book. Acton's life-work was, in fact, himself. Those who lament what he might have written as a historian would do well to reflect on the unique position which he held in the world of letters, and to ask themselves how far he could have wielded the influence that was his, or held the standard so high, had his own achievement been greater. Men such as Acton and Hort give to the world, by their example and disposition, more than any written volume could convey. In both cases a great part of their published writings has had, at least in book form, to be posthumous. But their influence on other workers is incalculable, and has not yet determined.