Page:The Beginnings of South Indian history.pdf/18



' is fable agreed upon' was how history was understood at one time when the idea of history primarily as a piece of literature held sway. We have since gone a long way from that position. Without attempting to set forth what history is, a task which baffled the genius of far greater men than I am, I may make an extract from one of the leading thinkers of the day on matters germane thereto, to gain an idea of what is actually understood by the term. Lord Mor- ley has it in his Notes on Politics and History, 'History, in the great conception of it, has often been compared to a mountain chain seen far off in a clear sky, where the peaks seem linked towards one another towards