Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/218

200 Later Historians In the Education Henry Adams defined history in these words : " To historians the single interest is the law of reaction between force and force — between mind and nature — the law of progress." He thus announced in his maturity his alle- giance to the most modern concept of history. In his early his- torical writings he dealt with the relations of men with men, as Parkman, Lea, Mahan, and many others dealt. In his revised opinions he conceived that the story of man's progress as affected by natural forces was the true task of the historian. It is a concept to which the best modern thinkers have been slowly moving. Adams grasped it with the greatest boldness and in the Mont Saint Michel gave future historians an example of how to realize it in actual literature.