Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/24

8 composed till many years after the events dealt with. Till time has elapsed, correct perspective is impossible. Can we ensure that even after the lapse of time it will be correct?

All are familiar with incidents such as miscarriages of justice. An absolutely impartial judge, an unbiased jury with all the machinery of the law to help them get at facts, have more than once or twice gone astray. Who then shall claim infallibility for the infinitely more complicated task that is the historian's, even when free from bias? Few, too, are the unbiased historians; the type of mind that can throw over, not only all national sentiment, but also all national bent of thought, is rare. The spell of a great personality, of a Nelson or a Napoleon, does not die with him. Be the historian never so honest, is his relatively lesser individuality absolutely able to dissociate itself from the spell of the great man? In a word, is the ideal historian possible? Rather must not every historian fall short of the truth in places? Can he possibly be en rapport with both Napoleon and Wellington? Can he possibly avoid an unconscious bias for the one or the other, can he possibly give us all the truth even when he aims most sincerely at doing so?