ossing themes of the historian; but he now casts his
net wider and embraces the whole opulent record of civilization. The
influence of nature, the pressure of economic factors, the origin and
transformation of ideas, the contribution of science and art, religion
and philosophy, literature and law, the material conditions of life, the
fortunes of the masses--such problems now claim his attention in no less
degree. He must see life steadily and see it whole. We must master such
revealing works as Lecky's histories of Rationalism and Morals,
Burckhardt's and Symonds' interpretations of the Italian Renaissance,
Sainte-Beuve's full-length portrait of the Jansenists, Morley's studies
of Voltaire, Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists, Dean Church's sketch of
the Oxford Movement, and Merz's survey of European Thought in the
nineteenth century, if we are to understand the throbbing life of the
human spirit. We must measure the operation of economic factors and
forces and profit by the faithful labours of Schmoller and Thorold
Rogers, Cunningham and Kovalevsky, the Webbs and the Hammonds, if we are
to visualize the life of the unnumbered and the unknown who have done
the routine work of the world.

The fifty years roughly sketched in this lecture witnessed an immense
and almost immeasurable advance in historical studies. The technique
needed to turn raw materials into the finished article kept pace with
the supply, and men learned to write the history of their own country,
their own party, and their own beliefs, as impartially as that of other
lands and other creeds. But the Great War has ravaged the placid
pastures of scholarship no less than the fields of France and Belgium.
Too many historians in every belligerent country have lost their heads
and degenerated into shrieking partisans. International co-operation in
the pursuit of truth, which is the condition of progress in history no
less than in science, has been rudely shattered by the clash of arms.
With all but the calmest minds, national self-consciousness and national
self-righteousness have rendered frankness in dealing with the record of
our late allies and fairness in dealing with our late enemies difficult
if not impossible. Many years will elapse before the European atmosphere
regains the tranquillity in which alone the disinterested pursuit of
truth can nourish. Meanwhile it is a source of legitimate satisfaction
that while the world was rocking to its foundations two E