Historical and Political Essays

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Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved.
The Essays 'Thoughts on History,' 'Formative Influences,' 'Madame de Staël,' 'Israel among the Nations,' 'Old-age Pensions,' appeared originally in the American Review, the Forum —the first under the title of 'The Art of Writing History'; 'Ireland in the Light of History,' in the North American Review . Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve, and Dean Milman were written for the Edinburgh Review . The Essay on 'Queen Victoria as a Moral Force' appeared first in the Pall Mall Magazine ; 'Carlyle's Message to His Age' in the Contemporary Review . 'The Political Value of History' was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Institute; 'The Empire,' an inaugural address delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the 'Memoir of the Fifteenth Earl of Derby' was originally prefixed to the volumes of his speeches and addresses.
I do not propose in this paper to enter into any general inquiry about the best method of writing history. Such inquiries appear to me to be of no real value, for there are many different kinds of history which should be written in many different ways. A diplomatic, a military, or a parliamentary history, dealing with a short period or a particular episode, must evidently be treated in a very different spirit from an extended history where the object of the historian should be to describe the various aspects of the national life, and to trace through long periods of time the ultimate causes of national progress and decay. The history of religion, of art, of literature, of social and industrial development, of scientific progress, have all their different methods. A writer who treats of some great revolution that has transformed human affairs should deal largely in retrospect, for the most important part of his task is to explain the long course of events that prepared and produced the catastrophe; while a writer who treats of more normal times will do well to plunge rapidly into his theme.