s have been
overthrown, not so much by puissance and might of adversaries, as
through defect of council in those that should have upheld and defended
the same."[196]

The philosophy of history blends the past with the present, and combines
the present with the future: each is but a portion of the other! The
actual state of a thing is necessarily determined by its antecedent, and
thus progressively through the chain of human existence; while "the
present is always full of the future," as Leibnitz has happily expressed
the idea.

A new and beautiful light is thus thrown over the annals of mankind, by
the analogies and the parallels of different ages in succession. How the
seventeenth century has influenced the eighteenth; and the results of
the nineteenth as they shall appear in the twentieth, might open a
source of predictions, to which, however difficult it might be to affix
their dates, there would be none in exploring into causes, and tracing
their inevitable effects.

The multitude live only among the shadows of things in the appearances
of the PRESENT; the learned, busied with the PAST, can only trace whence
and how all comes; but he who is one of the people, and one of the
learned, the true philosopher, views the natural tendency and
terminations which are preparing for the FUTURE!

FOOTNOTES:

[179] See Rushworth, vol. i. p. 420. His language was decisive.

[180] This letter is in the works of AEneas Sylvius; a copious
extract is given by Bossuet, in his "Variations." See also Mosheim,
Cent. xiii. part ii. chap. 2, note _m_.

[181] Though it cannot be positively asserted it is generally
believed that the author was Robert Longlande, a monk of Malvern.
See introduction to Wright's edition of "The Vision." The latter
part of the year 1362 is believed to be the time of its composition.

[182] The passage is so remarkable as to be worth giving here, for
the immediate reference of such readers as may not have ready access
to the original. We modernize the spelling from Mr. Wright's
edition:--

But there shall come a king,
And confess you religious,
And award you as the Bible telleth
For breaking of your rule.

* * * * *

And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon
And all his issue for ever,
Have a knock of a king,
And incurable the wound.

[183] Ep. ad Att. Lib. x. Ep. 4.

[184]