The name is absent

I

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

AnoVELIST of his day said of Lamartine that he had
raised History to the level of Fiction. The fear of
earning similar praise has made many another historian tell
a simple story of events which sometimes seem unrelated to
all that came before or after. But in stern times like these
it is more than ever evident, as Morley has so finely said,
that “We are all of us a good many hundreds of thousands
of years old two minutes after we find our way into the mid-
wife’s arms,” and also this from the same wise man, that
“Progress is a working belief that the modern world will
never consent to do without.” The historian may safely
write in the light of this belief, if he only keep in mind what
Oliver Cromwell said to the Presbyterian elders, “My
brethren, in the name of Christ, I beseech you to think it
possible that you may be mistaken !”

To judge the work of statesmen by future events to them
unknown or only dimly guessed seems scarcely fair; and yet
it is the only test which can ever be applied. All statesman-
ship must ever have something of the prophetic quality. The
judgment of posterity is the truest measure of a man’s great-
ness. Did he read aright the principles of progress and of
life? Did he guide his own generation in such a way as to
prepare the way for other generations to live in better times ?
Or did he only solve the immediate problem and leave his
real task to be performed by some wiser man? These are
the questions which we must ask of the men of other ages;

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