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composed. The penury of writing materials, the absence of printing and of a post-office, the imperfection of roads, and the want of maps and of scientific measures of time, were important circumstances, which determined many parts of their plan. The mere mechanical impediments against which they had to contend were serious. (253)

Modern writers have enlarged the circle of history. (4) They have perceived more clearly the bearing which many social institutions, which the state of science, literature, the fine arts, the

useful arts, exercise upon the destinies of a nation—and have

included a greater range of subjects in political history.(255) The

invention of printing and paper, the facilities for communication

of all sorts, and the multiplication of statistical facts, have likewise placed at the disposal of the modern historian many resources which were inaccessible to ancient writers. He has, moreover, derived much assistance from the extension and improvement of other practical sciences, as astronomy, which has furnished a precise measure of time, and geography, which has furnished accurate surveys of the surface of the earth, with descriptions of its physical features and ethnology.

He, therefore, commands a wider horizon, and is armed with

(253) 'L'art de la critique n'a jamais été connu des anciens, et moins des Romains que tout autre peuple. La grande cause en est, qu'ils ne connaissaient pas l'imprimerie.'-Léon de Closset, Essai sur l'Historiogra phie des Romains, p. 243. As to the influence of printing on history, see Volney, Voyage en Egypte, tom. ii. p. 287.

(254) Eichhorn remarks that historical materials, from the increased use of writing, multiplied in the eleventh century, Gesch. der Litt. vol. i. part ii. p. 837. Writing materials were, however, still dear in the 12th and 13th centuries.-Raumer's Hohenstaufen, vol. vi. p. 487.

(255) Upon the practice of introducing into a history digressions or episodes, containing a general view of the state of a nation with respect to its political and social relations, arts, literature, manners, &c., see Daunou, (ib. p. 583-90), who distinguishes four sorts of digressions, tom. vii. P. 575. Compare the remarks in the Ed. Rev. vol. xlvii. p. 365. On digressions in history, see Mascardi, Dell' Arte Istorica, tratt. iii. c. 4. An example of a short digression, containing an account of the political state of the people, may be seen in Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. c. 41, 42. Plutarch (De Herod. Malign. c. 3) says that digressions in histories are chiefly devoted to mythical and antiquarian narratives, and also to panegyrics. Thus, Dionysius (vii. 70-3) has a digression on the Roman games.

more powerful weapons, than an ancient historian. The improvements of social institutions, and of the useful arts, have almost as much widened his sphere of vision, as the discovery of the telescope has enlarged the domain of the astronomer. But while the subjects to be described have been multiplied, he must take care that all his descriptions are subordinate to the main course of the narrative, and serve to illustrate the plot of the historical drama. The continuity of the events ought always to be present to his mind. History is essentially a series, involving an uninterrupted succession of terms. It is not merely a picture,

or panorama, in which a circle of contemporary events is portrayed from a single fixed station-it is a representation of a number of objects moving successively before the eye, like the impression obtained by making a voyage along a river, or a journey through a country. As we pass on, new objects come in sight; former objects also change their relative position with other objects, and the historian-so to speak-measures their parallax. The historian may occasionally halt in his course, and take a survey of surrounding objects, which, in his progressive change of position, he cannot deliberately note; but these resting places should be few, and should not arrest his forward movement, but should rather serve to hasten his speed when the narrative is resumed.

§ 23 It is the ever-changing character of a human community which impels the historian to introduce, from time to time, descriptive accounts of its social state. If a community

of men were like a community of bees, a single accurate description of its state would suffice: the work, done once, would be done for ever, and would not require renovation. In this respect, the subjects of physical science partake of the immutable attributes of the ocean, as sublimely described by Lord Byron

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;

Such as creation's hour beheld thee, thou art now.

Every human society, on the other hand, is mutable. It is always changing its attributes. Its political and social institutions, its manners, knowledge, command of the arts, its relations

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r

with other countries, and other circumstances, undergo variations. A tribe of savages, indeed, cannot become more barbarous ; and if it does not improve, it resembles the brute creation in its unchanging character. But no community above the savage state is strictly stationary: all advance or recede, more or less, in civilization; (256) all pass through certain phases of a national existence. Even those Oriental countries-such as China and Japan-which are considered the types of the stationary state, have undergone considerable changes within our knowledge; and notwithstanding the general immutability of character which marks the civilization of the Asiatic nations, yet, wherever any authentic history of them exists, we are able to trace material changes in successive periods of time. The shiftings of the seats of empire alone are pregnant with mighty consequences. The ruins of Nineveh and Babylon can now be scarcely descried; Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis, are no longer towns. gigantic palace of the Parthian kings stands in the midst of a depopulated waste. The colossal temples and halls of the hundred-gated Thebes are half buried under the drifting sands of the desert. Delhi, shorn of its imperial grandeur, has sunk into a provincial city. Whatever may be his theme, the historian will find that, at successive stages of his narrative, the nation whose acts and destinies he describes is no longer the

same.

The

§ 24 The history of the human race, considered as a whole, is the aggregate of the histories of the several political communities into which mankind is divided. Each of these histories has its individual character; and no general expression can be found which will combine all of them, consistently with truth, in a single description. Universal history is not formed by omitting all that is peculiar in the history of different nations, and including only what is common to all-it is not composed by a process of abstraction, aiming at scientific unity: but it consists merely in aggregating one history to another, and in tracing the

(256) Mill's Pol. Ec. vol. 2, p. 386.

fortunes and actions of the several nations in a series of parallel lines.(257) This method of treating universal history is generally adopted in the works which are designated by this title, and are received as such in the literature of modern nations.

,

'Attempts, however, have been made to simplify universal1 history, and to invest it with a character of unity, in two ways; first, by that species of history which has been called a 'history of man;' secondly, by that which is now usually called 'a history

(257) The historical work of Ephorus included the whole of Greece, and its relations with foreign countries, and was not confined to any one state.-See Hist. Gr. Fragm. vol. i. p. lix. ed. Didot. Indeed, the work of Herodotus, though less comprehensive, includes all the countries then known to the Greeks (Ulrici, Ant. Hist. p. 178, n. 2). Unless, however, Ephorus forms an exception, Polybius first undertook to write a history of the whole world-a universal history.-i. 3, 4: ii. 37, § 4; iv. 28; v. 33; viii. 4. Such an undertaking was recommended in his time by the extension of the Roman power, which brought all the states_round the Mediterranean into relation with that conquering state. This is what Polybius means by the whole world.' The plan of Diodorus for his Bibionen iσTopikη was likewise to narrate the history of every country, from the fabulous ages to his own time.-See his introduction, i. 1-3.

The work of Trogus Pompeius was a universal history, as including all the countries known to the Greeks: Græcas et totius orbis historias Latino sermone composuit.'-Justin, præf. In his work, 'omnium seculorum regum, nationum, populorumque res gestæ continentur.'—Ib.

Florus, in the preface to his Epitome Rerum Romanarum, says: 'Ita late per orbem terrarum arma circumtulit, ut, qui res ejus legunt, non unius populi, sed generis humani facta discant.' The history of Gibbon has likewise, for the same reason, to a considerable extent the character of a universal history.

Since the dissolution of the Roman empire, and the commencement of medieval history, the number of independent states whose acts it is necessary to follow multiply, and universal history can only be written by co-ordinating various special histories in parallel lines. Even those writers who generalize the most, and exclude all detailed narrative (as Hallam, in his History of the Middle Ages), are compelled to follow this method.

C. v. Rotteck, in the introduction to his Allgemeine Geschichte, defines the idea of weltgeschichte, or the history of the world, which he distinguishes from universal history, c. 9-12. The subject of weltgeschichte (he says) is a unity, not an aggregate, and is a whole, not a collection. It is the history of the earth and of mankind, as a connected whole. The events which it narrates are the most remarkable and important-those which have, not a local, temporary or special, but an universal and eternal interest. Weltgeschichte is the last and highest result of the orderly combination of all special histories. It is a connected account of all the main revolutions of the earth and the human race, from which their former and present condition, with its reasons, can be understood.-§ 82, 83, cf. 112. It is not an abstract of all special histories. A work of this sort is wanting in unity. It is distinct from universal history.-§ 85-8. The distinction here attempted between a history of the world and universal history (already made by Schlözer, see Ulrici, p. 176, n.) is fanciful and impracti

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of civilization.'(258) A history of man, (259) of which Lord Kames' work may be taken as the earliest, and the work of Herder as the most celebrated type—is in part a physical history of man; a history of man considered as an animal, with reference to the physiological properties of the human race, its varieties and races, the alterations which these have undergone, and the limits to their possible alterations. The physical history of man, as it has been treated by Dr. Prichard and others, (260) is, however, distinct from his political history, though necessary as a foundation for it. A history of mankind, so far as it is not a physical history

cable: no such unity is attainable in the history of mankind. Rotteck himself, in his own history, follows the ordinary practice, and makes his work a congeries of separate national histories.

Ulrici (ib. p. 176-92) lays it down, that the necessary principle of a universal history is as clear and intelligible as it is fixed and certain. It is contained in a few words: the idea of the unity of the entire human race, as of a personal and individual whole. It is the biography of mankind.— p. 176. This notion of a historical unity of mankind is, however, quite fanciful.

In the Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle, by Bossuet, the events are regarded from the Christian point of view, and in this manner an apparent unity is given to the narrative. The history, however, stops at Charle

magne.

Concerning the earlier works of universal history, see Wachler, vol. i. p. 216-22. The compendium of Sleidanus, De Quatuor Summis Imperiis, was so popular, that fifty-five editions of it were printed between 1556 and

1676.

A copious account of the later works of universal history by French, German, and English writers, is given by Wachler, ib. vol. ii. pp. 60, 307, 392, 463-73, 615, 870-5, 1138; and by C. v. Rotteck, Allgemeine Geschichte, introd. § 124.

(258) Called by the Germans, Culturgeschichte, or Bildungsgeschichte. See Wachsmuth, ib. p. 36-8, and Adelung's work with the former title.

(259) The subject of his Sketches of the History of Man (first printed in 1774) is thus described by Lord Kames:- The human species is, in every view, an interesting subject, and has been, in every age, the chief inquiry of philosophers. The faculties of the mind have been explored, and the affections of the heart; but there is still wanting a history of the species, in its progress from the savage state to its highest civilization and improvement.-vol. i. p. 1.

As to the meaning of a history of man, or geschichte der menschheit, see Wachsmuth, ib. p. 33: Zacharia, Vom Staate, vol. ii. p. 228. The earlier writers are enumerated in Wachler, ib. vol. ii. p. 1139. Wachsmuth states that the name was borrowed by the German writers from the English. Compare Wachler, ib. p. 617-22.

(260) A summary of the modern researches respecting the natural history of man may be found in Dr. Hall's Introduction to Dr. Pickering's work, On the Races of Man: London, 1850; Bohn.