WHAT HISTORY SHOWS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 251, 5 August 1941, Page 4

WHAT HISTORY SHOWS.

History shows clearly enough in its largest lines the limits to which the most generous enthusiasms must he confined- the term beyond which flic most just of reforms may not venture, the minimum at least of evil which human society must learn to endure, writes Mr Hilaire Belloc in a new collection of essays, "The Silence of the Sea.” It adds a third dimension to experience ; for as we garner a knowledge of reality from our daily contact with men and through observation along the. course of life, we are still, as it were, only contemplating the surface. But when we call to our aid the record of centuries, depth is added to this mere surface; stuff; solidity. It‘becomes another and a. greater tiling. History also gives you the knowledge of character. It gives you (if you’ read it with wisdom) an increasing appreciation of accident in human affairs. It is certainly a breeder of humility which in its most general aspect is no more than a seeing of ourselves (and of things) as they are. But still the principal value of history is the certain lesson it teaches that the underlying substance, even of society, certainly of the living world as a whole, is a symbol of permanence It is a commonplace, hut one of pro-found-significance that our minds find repose in the watching of ancient ritual and most of all in watching that most ancient of all rituals, the lecuirent dealing of man with the earth which made him, to which he returns, and whence his”posterity shall spring.