formed, and how it was applied, so any view of history falls short of its purpose which does not exhibit the formation and exercise of national character, as the motive power of national life, prompting to action and growing by use.
In attempting to follow out this line of thought, it is necessary to find a starting-point. I will not venture on speculations about the influence of race or climate, but will confine myself within the limits of recorded facts. I am not concerned with the origin of our national character, interesting as that may be, but with its nature and the forms in which it has declared itself in history.
Now the most important point about English history is that the English were the first people who formed for themselves a national character at all. We always tend insensibly to regard the past with the eyes of the present; and, though we know better, we think about the past as though nations always existed. A distinction, however, must be made between races and nations. Races or tribes came into history with certain characteristics which were doubtless the result of their previous conditions; but these conditions are unrecorded and can only be dimly conjectured. We can see these races mixing with other races, and entering into new surroundings. The result of this process is that populations become nations, because they are united for common purposes, which are dictated rather by common experiences than by common conditions. In fact, nations, as we conceive them, are founded upon a consciousness of common interests and ideas, which are the result of long and
