Page:Philosophical Review Volume 15.djvu/54

36 makes beyond mere chronicle history or beyond the history which claimed to be also a theodicy, can scarcely be overestimated. It brought the guiding principle indefinitely nearer to history itself, and therefore made history to a so much greater degree a self-sufficing branch of knowledge. Moreover, such a history observes a much better proportion in its assignment of value to the various departments of human activity. Manners and customs cover an indefinitely larger portion of the life of a people than its mere military history. The study of these matters, also, tended to develop a sense of that very historical perspective which was generally lacking among the historians of that time. This addition to the problem of history is, accordingly, to be regarded as a most important contribution to the historical method.

The History of England is an illustration both of Hume's interest in social questions and of his lack of the notion of historical continuity. The very plan of the work reflects both these qualities. The division is purely chronological; that is, each reign is treated in a separate chapter, and in this chapter are narrated all the important events between the coronation and the death of the monarch. At the end of most of the principal reigns, there is an appendix dealing with the condition of the people, the chief laws enacted, important innovations or discoveries, economic conditions and financial policy, and similar subjects. To understand the difference between this mode of planning a history and that followed by recent writers, one need only read through the book and chapter headings in works like Ranke's or Green's histories of England. "The Charter," "The Parliament," "The Monarchy," "The Reformation," "Puritan England," " The Revolution," show at a glance the significant institution which gives meaning to a long train of events. They are the dominating ideas of their epochs, the guiding threads that bring order into an otherwise hopeless chaos, the principles of selection which determine what events the historian shall narrate and which give the events their significance.

Nevertheless, though The History of England shows this lack of continuity, it is by no means a history of the mere chronicle