and the process of tracing the application of ideas and their gradual spread is one which admits of great latitude. There is a temptation to exaggerate the importance of opinions which seem to agree with our own, and to claim for them an occult influence extending through ages. It seems to me that on such a point especially we cannot too resolutely stand on the requirement of actual proof. The question that history asks about opinions is simply, how far did they influence events?
A man's utterances are valuable historically, for the effect which they produced when they were uttered, for the meaning which they had at that time. It is one thing to believe fervently that truth never dies, and that noble ideas are always fruitful. It is another thing to elevate these ethical convictions into principles which are of themselves enough to explain the growth of human affairs. History requires an apparent connexion, an organised arrangement of events: otherwise it is a shapeless and unintelligible record. But this connexion is one that runs on continuously through the ages, and ought to be made manifest by the movement of events themselves. The same truths, the same ideas are repeated age after age, when the same sort of difficulty is before men's minds.
Again, ecclesiastical history has suffered as a science because it affords the materials for so many biographies. The lives of isolated individuals are profitable for edification, and thereby they are unduly exalted into historical personages. A hero is immediately created—and when once a hero has gained a hold upon the popular imagination, it is an ungrateful task to try
