ctrines for the instruction of
princes, governments, and peoples (he formed a special collection of
doctrines and reflections, frequently giving us in his correspondence
the exact number of apothegms which he had compiled in a week); but he
cannot assert that this part of his labor was among the best he
accomplished. It is only a thorough, liberal, comprehensive view of
historical relations (such for instance, as we find in Montesquieu's
_L'Esprit des Lois_) that can give truth and interest to reflections of
this order. One Reflective history, therefore, supersedes another. The
materials are patent to every writer; each is prone to believe himself
capable of arranging and manipulating them, and we may expect that each
will insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question.
Disgusted by such reflective histories, readers have often returned with
pleasure to narratives adopting no particular point of view--which
certainly have their value, although, for the most part, they offer only
material for history. We Germans are content with such; but the French,
on the other hand, display great genius in reanimating bygone times and
in bringing the past to bear upon the present condition of things.

3. The third form of Reflective history is the _Critical_. This deserves
mention as preeminently the mode, now current in Germany, of treating
history. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more
properly designate it as a History of History--a criticism of historical
narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its
peculiarity, in point of fact as well as intention, consists in the
acuteness with which the writer extorts from the records something
which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given us much
that is profound and judicious in this class of composition, but have
not endeavored to make a merely critical procedure pass for substantial
history; their judgments have been duly presented in the form of
critical treatises. Among us, the so-called "higher criticism," which
reigns supreme in the domain of philology, has also taken possession of
our historical literature; it has been the pretext for introducing all
the anti-historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest.
Here we have the other method of making the past a living reality; for
historical data subjective fancies are substituted, whose merit is
measured by their boldness--that is, the scantiness of t