Diffusion
of light.
Illustration
from archi-
tecture and
mechanical
inventions.
Emblems of
new growth.
636 Constitutional History. [chap.
plication of books would make such scholarship as that of
Vincent of Beauvais, or Thomas Aquinas, or Gerson, or Tor-
quemada, an impossibility. Still there would be giants like
Scaliger and Casaubon, men who culled the fair flower of all
learning, critical as the new scholars, comprehensive as the old ;
reserved for the patronage of sovereigns and nations, and
perishing when they were neglected like the beautiful books of
the early printers. But they are a minor feature in the new
picture. The real change is that by which every man comes to
be a reader and a thinker; the Bible comes to every family, and
each man is priest in his own household. The light is not so
brilliant, but it is everywhere, and it shines more and more
unto the perfect day. It is a false sentiment that leads men in
their admiration of the unquestionable glory of the old culture
to undervalue the abundant wealth and growing glory of the new.
The parallel holds good in other matters besides books. He
is a rash man who would with one word of apology compare the
noble architecture of the middle ages with the mean and
commonplace type of building into which by a steady decline
our churches, palaces, and streets had sunk at the beginning of
the present century. Here too the splendour of the few has
been exchanged for the comfort of the many; and, although
perhaps in no description of culture has the break between the
old and the new been more conspicuous than in this, it may be
said that the many are now far more capable of appreciating
the beauty which they will try to rival, than ever the few were
of comprehending the value of that which they were losing.
But it is needless to multiply illustrations of a truth which is
exemplified by every new invention : the steam plough and the
sewing machine are less picturesque, and call for a less educated
eye than that of the ploughman and the sempstress, but they
produce more work with less waste of energy; they give more
leisure and greater comfort ; they call out, in the production
and improvement of their mechanism, a higher and more
widely-spread culture. And all these things are growing
instead of decaying.
500. To conclude with a few of the commonplaces which
XXi.] Lessons of Ilistory. 637
must be familiar to all who have approached the study of Concluding
, . . ., . , . . , reflexions on
history with a real desire to understand it, but which are apt the study
to strike the writer more forcibly at the end than at the begin- °f llbt01-'∙
ning of his work. However much we may be inclined to set
aside the utilitarian plan of studying our subject, it cannot be
denied that we must read the origin and development of our
Constitutional History chiefly with the hope of educating our-
selves into the true reading of its later fortunes, and so train
ourselves for a judicial examination of its evidences, a fair and
equitable estimate of the rights and wrongs of policy, dynasty,
and party. Whether we intend to take the position of a judge a training
ɪ *z « . . . , for the study
or the position of an advocate, it is most necessary that both of co∏trover-
. . , . . , . . Ti. ∙ sɪal history,
the critical insight should be cultivated, and the true cιrcum-
stances of the questions that arise at later stages should be
adequately explored. The man who would rightly learn the
lesson that the seventeenth century has to teach, must not only
know what Charles thought of Cromwell and what Cromwell
thought of Charles, but must try to understand the real ques-
tions at issue, not by reference to an ideal standard only, but
by tracing the historical growth of the circumstances in which
those questions arose : he must try to look at them as it might
be supposed that the great actors would have looked at them,
if Cromwell had succeeded to the burden which Charles in-
herited, or if Charles had taken up the part of the hero of
reform. In such an attitude it is quite unnecessary to exclude
party feeling or personal sympathy. Whichever way the senti- Bespect for
ment may incline, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but ɪ,otn sides,
the truth, is what history would extract from her witnesses :
the truth which leaves no pitfalls for unwary advocates, and
which is in the end the fairest measure of equity to all. In
the reading of that history we have to deal with high-minded
men, with zealous enthusiastic parties, of whom it cannot be
fairly said that one was less sincere in his belief in his own
cause than was the other. They called each other hypocrites
and deceivers, for each held his own views so strongly that he
could not conceive of the other as sincere. But to us they are
both of them true and sincere, whichever way our sympathies