Chapter XI: Part 11

Among the German tribes of the time of Tacitus, "a people
loyal to Rome. Consequently they, alone of the Germans, trade
not merely on the banks of the river, but far inland, and in
the most flourishing colony of the province of Rætia.
Everywhere they are allowed to pass without a guard; and while
to the other tribes we display only our arms and our camps, to
them we have thrown open our houses and country-seats, which
they do not covet."

_Tacitus,
Minor Works, translated by Church and Brodribb:
The Germany._

"The settlements of the Hermunduri must have been in Bavaria,
and seem to have stretched from Ratisbon, northwards, as far
as Bohemia and Saxony."

_Tacitus,
Minor Works, translated by Church and Brodribb:
The Germany.
Geography notes._

HERNICANS, The.

A Sabine tribe, who anciently occupied a valley in the Lower
Appenines, between the Anio and the Trerus, and who were
leagued with the Romans and the Latins against the Volscians
and the Æquians.

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 6._

HERODEANS, The.

See JEWS: B. C. 40-A. D. 44.
REIGN OF THE HERODEANS.

HEROIC AGE OF GREECE.

See GREECE: THE HEROES.

HEROÖPOLIS.

See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.

HERRINGS, The Battle of the (1429).

In February, 1429, while the English still held their ground
in France, and while the Duke of Bedford was besieging Orleans
[see FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431], a large convoy of Lenten
provisions, salted herring in the main, was sent away from
Paris for the English army. It was under the escort of Sir
John Fastolfe, with 1,500 men. At Rouvray en Beausse the
convoy was attacked by 5,000 French cavalry, including the
best knights and warriors of the kingdom. The English
entrenched themselves behind their wagons and repelled the
attack, with great slaughter and humiliation of the French
chivalry; but in the mêlée the red-herrings were scattered
thickly over the field. This caused the encounter to be named
the Battle of the Herrings.

_C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
2d series, chapter 35._

HERRNHUT.

See MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN.

HERULI, The.

The Heruli were a people closely associated with the Goths in
their history and undoubtedly akin to them in blood. The great
piratical expedition of A. D. 267 from the Crimea, which
struck Athens, was made up of Herules as well as Goths. The
Heruli passed with the Goths under the yoke of the Huns. After
the breaking up of the empire of Attila, they were found
occupying the region of modern Hungary which is between the
Carpathians, the upper Theiss, and the Danube. The Herules
were numerous among the barbarian auxiliaries of the Roman
army in the last days of the empire.

_H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths._

ALSO IN:
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 3, chapter 8 (volume 2)._

----------HERZEGOVINA: Start--------

HERZEGOVINA: A. D. 1875-1876.
Revolt against Turkish rule.
Interposition of the Powers.

See TURKS: A. D. 1861-1877.

HERZEGOVINA: A. D. 1878.
Given over to Austria by the Treaty of Berlin.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878.

----------HERZEGOVINA: End--------

HESSE: A. D. 1866.
Extinction of the electorate.
Absorption by Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

HESSIANS, The, in the American War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

HESTIASIS.

The feasting of the tribes at Athens.

See LITURGIES.

HESYCHASTS, The.

See MYSTICISM.

HETÆRIES, Ancient.

Political clubs "which were habitual and notorious at Athens;
associations, bound together by oath, among the wealthy
citizens, partly for purposes of amusement, but chiefly
pledging the members to stand by each other in objects of
political ambition, in judicial trials, in accusation or
defence of official men after the period of office had
expired, in carrying points through the public assembly, &c.
… They furnished, when taken together, a formidable
anti-popular force."

_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 62 (volume 7)._

ALSO IN:
_G. F. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3._

HETAIRA. HETAIRISTS, Modern.

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

HETMAN.

See POLAND: A. D. 1668-1696;
also, COSSACKS.

HEXHAM, Battle of (1464).

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

HEYDUCS.

Servian Christians who, in the earlier period of the Turkish
domination, fled into the forest and became outlaws and
robbers were called Heyducs.

_L. Ranke,
History of Servia,
chapter 3._

HIAWATHA AND THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERATION.

See IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

HIBERNIA.

See IRELAND.

HICKS PASHA, Destruction of the army of (1883).

See EGYPT: A. D. 1870-1883.

HIDALGO.

"Originally written 'fijodalgo,' son of something. Later
applied to gentlemen, country gentlemen perhaps more
particularly. … In the Dic. Univ. authorities are quoted
showing that the word 'hidalgo' originated with the Roman
colonists of Spain, called 'Italicos,' who were exempt from
imposts. Hence those enjoying similar benefits were called
'Italicos,' which word in lapse of time became 'hidalgo.'"

_H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 1, page 252, foot-note._

HIDATSA INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HIDATSA.

{1645}

HIDE OF LAND. CARUCATE. VIRGATE.

"In the [Hundred] rolls for Huntingdonshire [England] a series
of entries occurs, describing, contrary to the usual practice
of the compilers, the number of acres in a virgate, and the
number of virgates in a hide, in several manors. … They show
clearly—(1) That the bundle of scattered strips called a
virgate did not always contain the same number of acres. (2)
That the hide did not always contain the same number of
virgates. But at the same time it is evident that the hide in
Huntingdonshire most often contained 120 acres or thereabouts.
… We may gather from the instances given in the Hundred
Rolls for Huntingdonshire, that the 'normal' hide consisted as
a rule of four virgates of about thirty acres each. The really
important consequence resulting from this is the recognition
of the fact that as the virgate was a bundle of so many
scattered strips in the open fields, the hide, so far as it
consisted of actual virgates in villenage, was also a
bundle—a compound and fourfold bundle—of scattered strips in
the open fields. … A trace at least of the original reason
of the varying contents and relations of the hide and virgate
is to be found in the Hundred Rolls, as, indeed, almost
everywhere else, in the use of another word in the place of
hide, when, instead of the anciently assessed hidage of a
manor, its modern actual taxable value is examined into and
expressed. This new word is 'carucate'—'the land of a plough
or plough team,'—'caruca' being the mediæval Latin term for
both plough and plough team. … In some cases the carucate
seems to be identical with the normal hide of 120 acres, but
other instances show that the carucate varied in area. It is
the land cultivated by a plough team; varying in acreage,
therefore, according to the lightness or heaviness of the
soil, and according to the strength of the team. … In
pastoral districts of England and Wales the Roman tribute may
possibly have been, if not a hide from each plough team, a
hide from every family holding cattle. … The supposition of
such an origin of the connexion of the word 'hide' with the
'land of a family,' or of a plough team, is mere conjecture;
but the fact of the connexion is clear."

_F. Seebohm,
English Village Community,
chapter 2, section 4,
and chapter 10, section 6._

ALSO IN:
_J. M. Kemble,
The Saxons in England,
book 1, chapter 4._

See, also, MANORS.

HIERATIC WRITING.

See HIEROGLYPHICS.

HIERODULI, The.

In some of the early Greek communities, the Hieroduli, or
ministers of the gods, "formed a class of persons bound to
certain services, duties, or contributions to the temple of
some god, and … sometimes dwelt in the position of serfs on
the sacred ground. They appear in considerable numbers, and as
an integral part of the population only in Asia, as, e. g., at
Comana in Cappadocia, where in Strabo's time there were more
than 6,000 of them attached to the temple of the goddess Ma,
who was named by the Greeks Enyo, and by the Romans Bellona.
In Sicily too the Erycinian Aphrodite had numerous ministers,
whom Cicero calls Venerii, and classes with the ministers of
Mars (Martiales) at Larinum in South Italy. In Greece we may
consider the Craugallidæ as Hieroduli of the Delphian Apollo.
They belonged apparently to the race of Dryopes, who are said
to have been at some former time conquered by Heracles, and
dedicated by him to the god. The greater part of them, we are
told, were sent at the command of Apollo to the Peloponnese,
whilst the Craugallidæ remained behind. … At Corinth too
there were numerous Hieroduli attached to Aphrodite, some of
whom were women, who lived as Hetæræ and paid a certain tax
from their earnings to the goddess."

_G. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 2, chapter 4._

See, also, DORIS AND DRYOPIS.

HIEROGLYPHICS, Egyptian.

"The Greeks gave the name of Hieroglyphics, that is, 'Sacred
Sculpture,' to the national writing of the Egyptians, composed
entirely of pictures of natural objects. Although very
inapplicable, this name has been adopted by modern writers,
and has been so completely accepted and used that it cannot
now be replaced by a more appropriate appellation. … For a
long series of ages the decipherment of the hieroglyphics, for
which the classical writers furnish no assistance, remained a
hopeless mystery. The acute genius of a Frenchman at last
succeeded, not fifty years since, in lifting the veil. By a
prodigious effort of induction, and almost divination, Jean
François Champollion, who was born at Figeac (Lot) on the 23d
of December, 1790, and died at Paris on the 4th of March,
1832, made the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century in
the domain of historical science, and succeeded in fixing on a
solid basis the principle of reading hieroglyphics. Numerous
scholars have followed the path opened by him. … It would
… be very far from the truth to regard hieroglyphics as
always, or even generally, symbolical. No doubt there are
symbolical characters among them, generally easy to
understand; as also there are, and in very great number,
figurative characters directly representing the object to be
designated; but the majority of the signs found in every
hieroglyphic text are characters purely phonetic; that is,
representing either syllables (and these are so varied as to
offer sometimes serious difficulties) or the letters of an
only moderately complicated alphabet. These letters are also
pictures of objects, but of objects or animals whose Egyptian
name commenced with the letter in question, while also the
syllabic characters (true rebusses) represented objects
designated by that syllable."

_F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier.
Manual of the Ancient History of the East,
book 3, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

"The system of writing employed by the people called Egyptians
was probably entirely pictorial either at the time when they
first arrived in Egypt, or during the time that they still
lived in their original home. We, however, know of no
inscription in which pictorial characters alone are used, for
the earliest specimens of their writing known to us contain
alphabetical characters. The Egyptians had three kinds of
writing—Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic. …
Hieroglyphics … were commonly employed for inscriptions upon
temples, tombs, coffins, statues, and stelæ, and many copies
of the Book of the Dead were written in them. The earliest
hieroglyphic inscription at present known is found on the
monument of Shera, parts of which are preserved in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and in the Gîzeh Museum; it dates
from the IInd dynasty. Hieroglyphics were used in Egypt for
writing the names of Roman Emperors and for religious purposes
until the third century after Christ, at least.
{1646}
Hieratic … was a style of cursive writing much used by the
priests in copying literary compositions on papyrus; during
the XIth or XIIth dynasty wooden coffins were inscribed in
hieratic with religious texts. The oldest document in hieratic
is the famous Prisse papyrus, which records the counsels of
Ptah-hetep to his son; the composition itself is about a
thousand years older than this papyrus, which was probably
inscribed about the XIth dynasty. Drafts of inscriptions were
written upon flakes of calcareous stone in hieratic, and at a
comparatively early date hieratic was used in writing copies
of the Book of the Dead. Hieratic was used until about the
fourth century after Christ. Demotic … is a purely
conventional modification of hieratic characters, which
preserve little of their original form, and was used for
social and business purposes; in the early days of Egyptian
decipherment it was called enchorial. … The Demotic writing
appears to have come into use about B. C. 900, and it survived
until about the fourth century after Christ. In the time of
the Ptolemies three kinds of writing were inscribed side by
side upon documents of public importance, hieroglyphic, Greek,
and Demotic; examples are the stele of Canopus, set up in the
ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy III. Euergetes I., B. C.
247-222, at Canopus, to record the benefits which this king
had conferred upon his country, and the famous Rosetta Stone,
set up at Rosetta in the eighth year of the reign of Ptolemy
V. Epiphanes (B. C. 205-182), likewise to commemorate the
benefits conferred upon Egypt by himself and his family, etc.
… A century or two after the Christian era Greek had
obtained such a hold upon the inhabitants of Egypt, that the
native Christian population, the disciples and followers of
Saint Mark, were obliged to use the Greek alphabet to write
down the Egyptian, that is to say Coptic, translation of the
books of the Old and New Testaments, but they borrowed six
signs from the demotic forms of ancient Egyptian characters to
express the sounds which they found unrepresented in Greek."

_E. A. Wallis Budge,
The Mummy,
pages 353-354._

See, also, ROSETTA STONE.

HIEROGLYPHICS, Mexican (so-called).

See AZTEC AND MAYA PICTURE-WRITING.

HIERONYMITES, The.

"A number of solitaries residing among the mountains of Spain,
Portugal, and Italy, gradually formed into a community, and
called themselves Hieronymites, either because they had
compiled their Rule from the writings of St. Jerome, or
because, adopting the rule of St. Augustine, they had taken
St. Jerome for their patron. … The community was approved by
Gregory XI., in 1374. The famous monastery of Our Lady of
Guadaloupe, in Estremadura; the magnificent Escurial, with its
wealth of literary treasures, and the monastery of St. Just,
where Charles V. sought an asylum in the decline of his life,
attest their wonderful energy and zeal."

_J. Alzog,
Manual of Universal Church History,
volume 3, page 149._

HIGH CHURCH AND LOW CHURCH:
First use of the names.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST).

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

See CURIA REGIS.

HIGH GERMANY, Old League of.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1332-1460.

HIGH MIGHTINESSES, Their.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1651-1660.

HIGHER LAW DOCTRINE, The.

William H. Seward, speaking in the Senate of the United
States, March 11, 1850, on the question of the admission of
California into the Union as a Free State, used the following
language: "'The Constitution,' he said, 'regulates our
stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to
justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is
a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our
authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble
purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of
the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the
Creator of the universe. We are His stewards, and must so
discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable
degree their happiness.' This public recognition by a Senator
of the United States that the laws of the Creator were
'higher' than those of human enactment excited much
astonishment and indignation, and called forth, in Congress
and out of it, measureless abuse upon its author."

_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall
of the Slave Power in America,
volume 2, pages 262-263._

In the agitations that followed upon the adoption of the
Fugitive Slave Law, and the other compromise measures
attending the admission of California, this Higher Law
Doctrine was much talked about.

HIGHLAND CLANS.

See CLANS.

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND,

See SCOTCH HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND.

HIKENILDE—STRETE.

See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

HILDEBRAND (Pope Gregory VII.), and the Papacy.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122;
GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122;
and CANOSSA.

HILDEBRAND, KING OF THE LOMBARDS, A. D. 743-744.

HILL, Isaac, in the "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Jackson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.

HILL, Rowland, and the adoption of penny-postage.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.

HILTON HEAD, The capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).

HIMATION, The.

An article of dress in the nature of a cloak, worn by both men
and women among the ancient Greeks. It "was arranged so that
the one corner was thrown over the left shoulder in front, so
as to be attached to the body by means of the left arm. On the
back the dress was pulled toward the right side, so as to
cover it completely up to the right shoulder, or, at least, to
the armpit, in which latter case the right shoulder remained
uncovered. Finally, the himation was again thrown over the
left shoulder, so that the ends fell over the back. … A
second way of arranging the himation, which left the right arm
free, was more picturesque, and is therefore usually found in
pictures."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks and Romans,
section 42._

----------HIMERA: Start--------

HIMERA, Battle of.

See SICILY: B. C. 480.

HIMERA:
Destroyed by Hannibal.

See SICILY: B. C. 409-405.

----------HIMERA: End--------

HIMYARITES, The.

See ARABIA.

HIN, The.

See EPHAH.

HINDMAN, Fort, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JANUARY: ARKANSAS).

{1647}

HINDOO KOOSH, The Name of the.

See CAUCASUS, THE INDIAN.

HINDUISM.

See INDIA: THE IMMIGRATION AND CONQUESTS OF THE ARYAS.

HINDUSTAN.

See INDIA: THE NAME.

HINKSTON'S FORK, Battle of (1782).

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1775-1784.

HIONG-NU, The.

See TURKS: 6TH CENTURY.

HIPPARCH.

A commander of cavalry in the military organization of the
ancient Athenians.

_G. F. Schömann,
Antiquity of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3._

HIPPEIS.

Among the Spartans, the honorary title of Hippeis, or Knights,
was given to the members of a chosen body of three hundred
young men, the flower of the Spartan youth, who had not
reached thirty years of age. "Their three leaders were called
Hippagretæ, although in war they served not as cavalry but as
hoplites. The name may possibly have survived from times in
which they actually served on horseback." At Athens the term
Hippeis was applied to the second of the four property classes
into which Solon divided the population,—their property
obliging them to serve as cavalry.

_G. Schömann,
Antiquity of Greece, The State,
part 3, chapters 1 and 3._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 594.

HIPPIS, Battle of the,

Fought, A. D. 550, in what was known as the Lazic War, between
the Persians on one side and the Romans and the Lazi on the
other. The latter were the victors.

_G. Rawlinson,
Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 20._

----------HIPPO: Start--------

HIPPO, OR HIPPO REGIUS.

An ancient city of north Africa, on the Numidian coast.

See NUMIDIANS; and CARTHAGE: DOMINION OF.

HIPPO: A. D. 430-431.
Siege by the Vandals.

See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

----------HIPPO: End--------

HIPPOBOTÆ, The.

See EUBŒA.

HIPPODROME. STADION. THEATER.

"The arts practised in the gymnasia were publicly displayed at
the festivals. The buildings in which these displays took
place were modified according to their varieties. The races
both on horseback and in chariots took place in the
hippodrome; for the gymnastic games of the pentathlon served
the stadion; while for the acme of the festivals, the musical
and dramatic performances, theatres were erected."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks and Romans
(translated by Hueffer),
sections 28-30._

HIPPOTOXOTÆ, The.

See SCYTHIANS, OR SCYTHÆ, OF ATHENS.

HIRA.

"The historians of the age of Justinian represent the state of
the independent Arabs, who were divided by interest or
affection in the long quarrel of the East [between the Romans
and Persians—3rd to 7th century]: the tribe of Gassan was
allowed to encamp on the Syrian territory; the princes of Hira
were permitted to form a city about 40 miles to the southward
of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy
and vigorous; but their friendship was venal, their faith
inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to
excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the
familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see and to
despise the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia."

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 50 (volume 5)._

"The dynasty of Palmyra and the western tribes embraced
Christianity in the time of Constantine; to the east of the
desert the religion was later of gaining ground, and indeed
was not adopted by the court of Hira till near the end of the
6th century. Early in the 7th, Hira fell from its dignity as
an independent power, and became a satrapy of Persia."

_Sir William Muir,
Life of Mahomet,
introduction, chapter 1._

In 633 Hira was overwhelmed by the Mahometan conquest, and the
greater city of Kufa was built only 3 miles distant from it.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651;
also, BUSSORAH AND KUFA.

HISPALIS.

The name of Seville under the Romans.

See SEVILLE.

HISPANIA CITERIOR AND HISPANIA ULTERIOR.

See SPAIN: B. C. 218-25.

HISPANIOLA.

The name given by Columbus to the island now divided between
the Republics of Hayti and San Domingo.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492; 1493-1496, and after;
and HAYTI.

HISSARLIK.

The site of ancient Troy, as supposed to be identified by the
excavations of Dr. Schliemann.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES;
also, TROJA, and HOMER.

----------HISTORY: Start--------

HISTORY:
Definitions.

"With us the word 'history,' like its equivalents in all
modern languages, signifies either a form of literary
composition or the appropriate subject or matter of such
composition—either a narrative of events, or events which
may be narrated. It is impossible to free the term from this
doubleness and ambiguity of meaning. Nor is it, on the whole,
to be desired. The advantages of having one term which may,
with ordinary caution, be innocuously applied to two things so
related, more than counterbalances the dangers involved in two
things so distinct having the same name. … Since the word
history has two very different meanings, it obviously cannot
have merely one definition. To define an order of facts and a
form of literature in the same terms—to suppose that when
either of them is defined the other is defined—is so absurd
that one would probably not believe it could be seriously done
were it not so often done. But to do so has been the rule
rather than the exception. The majority of so-called
definitions of history are definitions only of the records of
history. They relate to history as narrated and written, not
to history as evolved and acted; in other words, although
given as the only definitions of history needed, they do not
apply to history itself, but merely to accounts of history.
They may tell us what constitutes a book of history, but they
cannot tell us what the history is with which all books of
history are occupied. It is, however, with history in this
latter sense that a student of the science or philosophy of
history is mainly concerned. … If by history be meant
history in its widest sense, the best definition of history as
a form of literature is, perhaps, either the very old one,
'the narration of events,' or W. von Humboldt's, 'the
exhibition of what has happened' (die Darstellung des
Geschehenen).
{1648}
The excellence of these definitions lies in their clear and
explicit indication of what history as effectuated or
transacted is. It consists of events; it is das Geschehene. It
is the entire course of events in time. It is all that has
happened precisely as it happened. Whatever happens is
history. Eternal and unchanging being has no history. Things
or phenomena considered as existent, connected, and
comprehended in space, compose what is called nature as
distinguished from history. … Probably Droysen has found a
neater and terser formula for it in German than any which the
English language could supply. Nature he describes as 'das
Nebeneinander des Seienden,' and history as 'das Nacheinander
des Gewordenen.' … The only kind of history with which we
have here directly to deal is that kind of it to which the
name is generally restricted, history par excellence, human
history, what has happened within the sphere of human agency
and interests, the actions and creations of men, events which
have affected the lives and destinies of men, or which have
been produced by men. This is the ordinary sense of the word
history. … To attempt further to define it would be worse
than useless. It would be unduly to limit, and to distort and
pervert, its meaning. In proof of this a few brief remarks on
certain typical or celebrated definitions of history may
perhaps be of service. The definition given in the Dictionary
of the French Academy—'l'histoire est le récit des choses
dignes de mémoire' [Transcriber: "the story of things worth
remembering"]—is a specimen of a very numerous species.
According to such definitions history consists of exceptional
things, of celebrated or notorious events, of the lives and
actions of great and exalted men, of conspicuous achievements
in war and politics, in science and art, in religion and
literature. But this is a narrow and superficial conception of
history. History is made up of what is little as well as of
what is great, of what is common as well as of what is
strange, of what is counted mean as well as of what is counted
noble. … Dr. Arnold's definition—'history is the biography
of a society'—has been often praised. Nor altogether
undeservedly. For it directs attention to the fact that all
history accords with biography in supposing in its subject a
certain unity of life, work, and end. … It does not follow,
however, that biography is a more general notion than history,
and history only a species of biography. In fact, it is not
only as true and intelligible to say that biography is the
history of an individual as to say that history is the
biography of a society, but more so. It is the word biography
in the latter case which is used in a secondary and analogical
sense, not the word history in the former case. … According
to Mr. Freeman, 'history is past politics and politics are
present history.' This is not a mode of definition which any
logician will be found to sanction. It is equivalent to saying
that politics and history are the same, and may both be
divided into past and present; but it does not tell us what
either is. To affirm that this was that and that is this is
not a definition of this or that, but only an assertion that
something may be called either this or that. Besides, the
identification of history with politics proceeds, as has been
already indicated, on a view of history which is at once
narrow and arbitrary. Further, it is just as true that
mathematical history is past mathematics and mathematics are
present history, as that political history is past politics
and politics are present history. … The whole of man's past
was once present thought, feeling, and action. There is
nothing peculiar to politics in this respect."

_R. Flint,
History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc.,
pages 5-10._

HISTORY:
The subjects and objects of History.

"The position for which I have always striven is this, that
history is past politics, that politics are present history.
The true subject of history, of any history that deserves the
name, is man in his political capacity, man as the member of
an organized society, governed according to law. History, in
any other aspect, hardly rises above antiquarianism, though I
am far from holding that even simple antiquarianism, even the
merest scraping together of local and genealogical detail, is
necessarily antiquarian rubbish. I know not why the pursuits
of the antiquary should be called rubbish, any more than the
pursuits of the seeker after knowledge of any other kind.
Still, the pursuits of the antiquary, the man of local and
special detail, the man of buildings or coins or weapons or
manuscripts, are not in themselves history, though they are
constantly found to be most valuable helps to history. The
collections of the antiquary are not history; but they are
materials for history, materials of which the historian makes
grateful use, and without which he would often be sore put to
in doing his own work. … It is not too much to say that no
kind of knowledge, of whatever kind, will be useless to the
historian. There is none, however seemingly distant from his
subject, which may not stand him in good stead at some pinch,
sooner or later. But his immediate subject, that to which all
other things are secondary, is man as the member of a
political community. Rightly to understand man in that
character, he must study him in all the forms, in all the
developments, that political society has taken. Effects have
to be traced up to their causes, causes have to be traced up
to their effects; and we cannot go through either of those
needful processes if we confine our studies either to the
political societies of our own day or to political societies
on a great physical scale. The object of history is to watch
the workings of one side, and that the highest side, of human
nature in all its shapes; and we do not see human nature in
all its shapes, unless we follow it into all times and all
circumstances under which we have any means of studying it.
… In one sense it is perfectly true that history is always
repeating itself; in another sense it would be equally true to
say that history never repeats itself at all. No historical
position can be exactly the same as any earlier historical
position, if only for the reason that the earlier position has
gone before it. … Even where the reproduction is
unconscious, where the likeness is simply the result of the
working of like causes, still the two results can never be
exactly the same, if only because the earlier result itself
takes its place among the causes of the later result.
Differences of this kind must always be borne in mind, and
they are quite enough to hinder any two historical events from
being exact doubles of one another. … We must carefully
distinguish between causes and occasions. It is one of the
oldest and one of the wisest remarks of political philosophy
that great events commonly arise from great causes, but from
small occasions.
{1649}
A certain turn of mind, one which is more concerned with
gossip, old or new, than with real history, delights in
telling us how the greatest events spring from the smallest
causes, how the fates of nations and empires are determined by
some sheer accident, or by the personal caprice or personal
quarrel of some perhaps very insignificant person. A good deal
of court-gossip, a good deal of political gossip, passes both
in past and present times for real history. Now a great deal
of this gossip is sheer gossip, and may be cast aside without
notice; but a good deal of it often does contain truth of a
certain kind. Only bear in mind the difference between causes
and occasions, and we may accept a good many of the stories
which tell us how very trifling incidents led to very great
events. … When I speak of causes and occasions, when I speak
of small personal caprices and quarrels, as being not the
causes of great events, but merely the occasions, I wish it to
be fully understood that I do not at all place the agency of
really great men among mere occasions: I fully give it its
place among determining causes. In any large view of history,
we must always be on our guard against either underrating or
overrating the actions of individual men. History is something
more than biography; but biography is an essential and a most
important part of history. We must not think, on the one hand,
that great men, heroes, or whatever we please to call them,
can direct the course of history according to their own will
and pleasure, perhaps according to their mere caprice, with no
danger of their will being thwarted, unless it should run
counter to the will of some other great man or hero of equal
or greater power. … On the other hand, we must not deem that
the course of history is so governed by general laws, that it
is so completely in bondage to almost mechanical powers, that
there is no room for the free agency of great men and of small
men too. For it is of no little importance that, while we talk
of the influence of great men on the history of the world, we
should not forget the influence of the small men. Every man
has some influence on the course of history."

_E. A. Freeman,
The Practical Bearings of European History
(Lectures to American Audiences),
pages 207-215._

HISTORY:
The Philosophy of History

"The philosophy of history is not a something separate from
the facts of history, but a something contained in them. The
more a man gets into the meaning of them, the more he gets
into it, and it into him; for it is simply the meaning, the
rational interpretation, the knowledge of the true nature and
essential relations of the facts. And this is true of whatever
species or order the facts may be. Their philosophy is not
something separate and distinct from, something over and
above, their interpretation, but simply their interpretation.
He who knows about any people, or epoch, or special
development of human nature, how it has come to be what it is
and what it tends to, what causes have given it the character
it has, and what its relation is to the general development of
humanity, has attained to the philosophy of the history of
that people, epoch, or development. Philosophical history is
sometimes spoken of as a kind of history, but the language is
most inaccurate. Every kind of history is philosophical which
is true and thorough; which goes closely and deeply enough to
work; which shows the what, how, and why of events as far as
reason and research can ascertain. History always participates
in some measure of philosophy, for events are always connected
according to some real or supposed principle either of
efficient or final causation."

_R. Flint,
Philosophy of History,
introduction._

HISTORY:
The possibility of a Science of History.
Mr. Buckle's theory.

"The believer in the possibility of a science of history is
not called upon to hold either the doctrine of predestined
events, or that of freedom of the will; and the only positions
which, in this stage of the inquiry, I shall expect him to
concede are the following: That when we perform an action, we
perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that
those motives are the results of some antecedents; and that,
therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the
antecedents, and with all the laws of their movements, we
could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their
immediate results. This, unless I am greatly mistaken, is the
view which must be held by every man whose mind is unbiased by
system, and who forms his opinions according to the evidence
actually before him. … Rejecting, then, the metaphysical
dogma of free will and, the theological dogma of predestined
events, we are driven to the conclusion that the actions of
men, being determined solely by their antecedents, must have a
character of uniformity, that is to say, must, under precisely
the same circumstances, always issue in precisely the same
results. And as all antecedents are either in the mind or out
of it, we clearly see that all the variations in the
results—in other words, all the changes of which history is
full, all the vicissitudes of the human race, their progress
or their decay, their happiness or their misery—must be the
fruit of a double action; an action of external phenomena upon
the mind, and another action of the mind upon the phenomena.
These are the materials out of which a philosophic history can
alone be constructed. On the one hand, we have the human mind
obeying the laws of its own existence, and, when uncontrolled
by external agents, developing itself according to the
conditions of its organization. On the other hand, we have
what is called Nature, obeying likewise its laws; but
incessantly coming into contact with the minds of men,
exciting their passions, stimulating their intellect, and
therefore giving to their actions a direction which they would
not have taken without such disturbance. Thus we have man
modifying nature, and nature modifying man; while out of this
reciprocal modification all events must necessarily spring.
The problem immediately before us is to ascertain the method
of discovering the laws of this double modification."

_H. T. Buckle,
History of Civilization in England,
chapter 1._

"Buckle is not the first who has attempted to treat the
unscientific character of History, the 'methodless matter,' as
an ancient writer names it, by the method of exhibiting vital
phenomena under points of view analogous to those which are
the starting-point of the exact sciences. But a notion which
others have incidentally broached under some formula about
'natural growth,' or carried out in the very inadequate and
merely figurative idea of 'the inorganic; what still others,
as Comte in his attractive 'Philosophie Positive,' have
developed speculatively, Buckle undertakes to ground in a
comprehensive historical exposition. …
{1650}
He purposes to raise History to a science by showing how to
demonstrate historical facts out of general laws. He paves the
way for this by setting forth that the earliest and rudest
conceptions touching the course of human destiny were those
indicated by the ideas of chance and necessity, that in all
probability' out of these grew later the 'dogmas' of free-will
and predestination, that both are in a great degree
'mistakes,' or that, as he adds, 'we at least have no adequate
proof of their truth.' He finds that all the changes of which
History is full, all the vicissitudes which have come upon the
human race, its advance and its decline, its happiness and its
misery, must be the fruit, of a double agency, the working of
outer phenomena upon our nature, and the working of our nature
upon outer phenomena. He has confidence that he has discovered
the 'laws' of this double influence, and that he has therefore
elevated the History of mankind to a science. … Buckle does
not so much leave the freedom of the will, in connection with
divine providence, out of view, but rather declares it an
illusion and throws it overboard. Within the precincts of
philosophy also something similar has recently been taught. A
thinker whom I regard with personal esteem says: 'If we call
all that an individual man is, has and performs A, then this A
arises out of _a + x, a_ embracing all that comes to the
man from his outer circumstances: from his country, people,
age, etc., while the vanishingly little _x_ is his own
contribution, the work of his free will.' However vanishingly
small this _x_ may be, it is of infinite value. Morally
and humanly considered it alone has value. The colors, the
brush, the canvas which Raphael used were of materials which
he had not created. He had learned from one and another master
to apply these materials in drawing and painting. The idea of
the Holy Virgin and of the saints and angels, he met with in
church tradition. Various cloisters ordered pictures from him
at given prices. That this incitement alone, these material
and technical conditions and such traditions and
contemplations, should 'explain' the Sistine Madonna, would
be, in the formula A = _a + x_, the service of the
vanishing little _x_. Similarly everywhere. Let
statistics go on showing that in a certain country so and so
many illegitimate births occur. Suppose that in the formula A
= _a + x_ this _a_ includes all the elements which
'explain' the fact that among a thousand mothers twenty,
thirty, or whatever the number is, are unmarried; each
individual case of the kind has its history, how often a
touching and affecting one. Of those twenty or thirty who have
fallen is there a single one who will be consoled by knowing
that the statistical law 'explains' her case? Amid the
tortures of conscience through nights of weeping, many a one
of them will be profoundly convinced that in the formula A =
_a + x_ the vanishing little _x_ is of immeasurable
weight, that in fact it embraces the entire moral worth of the
human being, his total and exclusive value. No intelligent man
will think of denying that the statistical method of
considering human affairs has its great worth; but we must not
forget how little, relatively, it can accomplish and is meant
to accomplish: Many and perhaps all human relations have a
legal side; yet no one will on that account bid us seek for
the understanding of the Eroica or of Faust among jurists'
definitions concerning intellectual property."

_J. G. Droysen,
Outline of the Principles of History
pages 62-64 and 77-79._

HISTORY:
History as the root of all Science.
Lost History.

"History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the
first distinct product of man's spiritual nature; his earliest
expression of what can be called Thought. It is a looking both
before and after; as, indeed, the coming Time already waits,
unseen, yet definitely shaped, predetermined and inevitable,
in the Time come; and only by the combination of both is the
meaning of either completed. The Sibylline Books, though old,
are not the oldest. Some nations have prophecy, some have not:
but of all mankind, there is no tribe so rude that it has not
attempted History, though several have not arithmetic enough
to count Five. History has been written with quipo-threads,
with feather-pictures, with wampum-belts; still oftener with
earth-mounds and monumental stone-heaps, whether as pyramid or
cairn; for the Celt and the Copt, the Red man as well as the
White, lives between two eternities, and warring against
Oblivion, he would fain unite himself in clear conscious
relation, as in dim unconscious relation he is already united,
with the whole Future and the whole Past. A talent for History
may be said to be born with us, as our chief inheritance. In a
certain sense all men are historians. Is not every memory
written quite full with Annals, wherein joy and mourning,
conquest and loss manifoldly alternate; and, with or without
philosophy, the whole fortunes of one little inward Kingdom,
and all its politics, foreign and domestic, stand ineffaceably
recorded? Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men,
you may observe, speak only to narrate; not in imparting what
they have thought, which indeed were often a very small
matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen,
which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off
from Narrative, how would the stream of conversation, even
among the wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and among
the foolish utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but
enact History, we say little but recite it: nay rather, in
that widest sense, our whole spiritual life is built thereon.
For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too but
recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which;
therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and
Passion, are essential materials? … Social Life is the
aggregate of all the individual men's Lives who constitute
society; History is the essence of innumerable Biographies.
But if one Biography, nay our own Biography, study and
recapitulate it as we may, remains in so many points
unintelligible to us; how much more must these million, the
very facts of which, to say nothing of the purport of them, we
know not, and cannot know! … Which was the greatest
innovator, which was the more important personage in man's
history, he who first led armies over the Alps, and gained the
victories of Cannæ and Thrasymene; or the nameless boor who
first hammered out for himself an iron spade? When the oak
tree is felled, the whole forest echoes with it; but a hundred
acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.
{1651}
Battles and war-tumults, which for the time din every ear, and
with joy or terror intoxicate every heart, pass away like
tavern-brawls; and, except some few Marathons and Morgartens,
are remembered by accident, not by desert. Laws themselves,
political Constitutions, are not our Life, but only the house
wherein our Life is led: nay they are but the bare walls of
the house; all whose essential furniture, the inventions and
traditions, and daily habits that regulate and support our
existence, are the work not of Dracos and Hampdens, but of
Phœnician mariners, of Italian masons and Saxon metallurgists,
of philosophers, alchymists, prophets, and all the
long-forgotten train of artists and artisans; who from the
first have been jointly teaching us how to think and how to
act, how to rule over spiritual and over physical Nature. Well
may we say that of our History the more important part is lost
without recovery."

_T. Carlyle,
On History
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 2)._

HISTORY:
Interpretation of the Past by the Present.

"But how, it may be asked, are we to interpret the Past from
the Present, if there are no institutions in the present
answering to those in the past? We have no serfs, for example,
in England at the present time, how then are we to understand
a state of Society of which they were a component element? The
answer is—by analogy, by looking at the essence of the
relation. Between a modern master and his lackeys and
dependents, the same essential relation subsists as between
the lord and serf of feudal times. If we realise to ourselves
the full round of this relationship, deepen the shades to
correspond with the more absolute power possessed by a lord in
early times, allow for a more aristocratic state of opinion
and belief, the result will be the solution desired. This
method of interpreting the Past from the Present has been
followed by Shakespeare in his great historical dramas, with
such success as we all know. He wishes, for example, to give
us a picture of old Roman times. He gets from Plutarch and
other sources the broad historical facts, the form of
Government and Religion, the distribution of Power and
Authority: this is the skeleton to which he has to give life
and reality. How does he proceed? He simply takes his stand on
the times in which he himself lived; notes the effects
existing institutions have on his own and other minds; allows
for the differences in custom, mode of life, and political and
religious forms; and the result is a drama or dramas more real
and lifelike, more true and believable, an insight into the
working of Roman life more subtle and profound, than all the
husks with which the historians have furnished us."

_J. B. Crozier,
Civilization and Progress,
page 35._

HISTORY:
The Moral lessons of History.

"Gibbon believed that the era of conquerors was at an end. Had
he lived out the full life of man, he would have seen Europe
at the feet of Napoleon. But a few years ago we believed the
world had grown too civilized for war, and the Crystal Palace
in Hyde Park was to be the inauguration of a new era. Battles
bloody as Napoleon's are now the familiar tale of every day;
and the arts which have made greatest progress are the arts of
destruction. … What, then, is the use of History, and what
are its lessons? If it can tell us little of the past, and
nothing of the future, why waste our time over so barren a
study? First, it is a voice forever sounding across the
centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners
change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on
the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous
deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the
price has to be paid at last; not always by the chief
offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and truth alone
endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived,
but doomsday comes at last to them, in French revolutions and
other terrible ways. That is one lesson of History. Another is
that we should draw no horoscopes; that we should expect
little, for what we expect will not come to pass."

_J. A. Froude,
Short Studies on Great Subjects,
pages 27-28._

HISTORY:
The Educational and Practical value of History.

"It is, I think, one of the best schools for that kind of
reasoning which is most useful in practical life. It teaches
men to weigh conflicting probabilities, to estimate degrees of
evidence, to form a sound judgment of the value of
authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual practice much more
than by any a priori methods. Many good judges—and I own I am
inclined to agree with them—doubt much whether a study of
formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are no
doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with
demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many
excellent mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of
the power of measuring degrees of probability. But History is
largely concerned with the kind of probabilities on which the
conduct of life mainly, depends. There is one hint about
historical reasoning which I think may not be unworthy of your
notice. When studying some great historical controversy, place
yourself by an effort of the imagination alternately on each
side of the battle; try to realise as fully as you can the
point of view of the best men on either side, and then draw up
upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form you can
give them. You will find that few practices do more to
elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
The Political Value of History,
pages 47-49._