THE PERSONAL THEORY OF HISTORY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 715, 2 April 1864, Page 5

THE PERSONAL THEORY OF HISTORY.

(From the " Saturday Review.") No one can read the historical literature of the present day without being aware that it is pervaded by two distinct and divergent theories. Possibly there may be a way of reconciling the two, and it may turn out that each has a fair share of truth in it; but, as we see them at present, they are thoroughly different, and are taken up by men of totally different characters and casts of mind. There is the scientific theory, and there is the personal theory. The scientific theory presupposes that mankind is constantly acted on by a variety of causes, many of them connected with the conformation of the physical globe and of the human body, and that the history is to be looked on as the record of the action of these causes. The personal theory assumes that the fortunes of mankind are controlled by the action of a succession of eminent individuals, in whose will, and genius, and character there is an inexhaustible and inscrutable fund of motive power, intended and able to propel mankind in a direction congruous to that in which the eminent individuals themselves have moved. These eminent individuals, however, being some good and some bad, propel mankind in different directions, but, in the long run, the propulsive power of the good ones is found superior. History is thus turned into a field in which a countless series of biographies finds its place. Mr Maurice and Mr Carlyle have familiarised their countrymen with this theory, and * whatever its merits or defects, no one can deny that it has been enforced with all the support of earnestness, of genius, and of a thorough belief that it alone is the key of the universe. The personal theory of history is the foundation of all Mr Maurice's theology, or at least of all of it which is not merely argumentative and doea not consist of assurances to his opponents that they would be wholly right if they were not wholly wrong, while, in a higher sense, they are both wholly right and wholly wrong. Mr Carlyle's adherence to the theory has led him from stso-e to stage till it has landed him in the biography of Frederick the Great. But the exact results of a theory are often more easily tested when, we look at them as they appear in the writings of those who are followers rather than leaders in the field. An obscure or incompetent follower would be a very unfair specimen to take. But a follower who is himself a man of originality and power may properly be selected as showing what the theory comes to when it passes into general use. Professor Kingsley has lately written in " Macmillan's Magazine" a review of Mr Froude's History of Elizabeth, and in this review the Personal Theory appears in its most pronounced form. This offers a good opportunity of examining, however briefly, some of the characteristics attaching to the theory itself or to the use practically and naturally made of it. It appears to us to be quite true that eminent men have a great influence over the destinies of mankind. This always has been so, and always will be so, for men are largely and quickly swayed by those whom they recognise to be their superiors, and differences in the quality of men are as obvious as the sun at noonday. It is true' that we may trace much of this influence, and much of the way in which it is shown, to what we know or fancy are its causes, and we may assume that there is a set of causes determining the whole of the influence which is potentially cognisable by human inquiry, although science is as yet unequal to the task. But, as a matter of fact, greatness of mind and character remains as yet a something not analysed and to analyse which we are making no perceptible steps. Those who have lived on terms of intimacy with a great man are aware that although each of his actions appears tolerably simple, and each thing he says is not better than what some of his neighbors could have said, there is an additional something—an indication of possible capacity, a tone of mind and thought, a force and a spirit—which is felt but cannot be expressed. Men are swayed by the truly great, and true greatness in its inmost nature is inexplicable. So Tar the Personal Theory is, we venture to think, indisputable ; and we may also venture to say that the composition of history in some sort of accordance with this theory is a thins that can never cease. For it is only through an appeal to the undying interest which great men and actions of conspicuous nobleness, or horror, or significance excite, that those who are not accustomed to reflect can be made to read history with pleasure. Mr Kingsley, in the review of which we have spoken, seems to us quite right when he says that this is the secret of the popularity, such as it is, of Shakspeare's historical plays, and that the uneducated or half-educated must have this personal attraction in order that they may be induced to open the page of the past. The young, too, always regard history in its personal aspect. They are violent partisans of the Greeks or Trojans, of Hannibal or the Eomans, of Charles I. or Cromwell. We see with pleasure that Mr Kingsley has undertaken to write a history of England for boys; for boy 3 must learn by admiring and detesting, not by analysing and weighing evidence ; and Mr Kingsley will, we have no doubt, not only awaken a vast amount of admiration or detestation for the people he describes, but will generally awaken it justly. But when we come down from generals to particulars, when we have got our interest in history awakened, and only want to know what really happened in a given case, we see some reason to mistrust histories written exclusively tinder the Personal Theory. And the first reason of our mistrust is that, just as we can appeal to our own experience of great men, and say that there was a something in them which had an influence not to be analysed, so we can appeal to our experience and see how easily any one would be misled who explained a whole period of history and a whole stage of society by attending only to the acts and sayings of some great man, on whom he might choose to concentrate his attention. We find that, practically, there are limits to the influence, and to the right to influence, which great men possess, Their very virtues often led them into paths where, if we followed them, we should quickly go astray in writing modern history. Few persons, for example, would deny that, each in his way, the Duke of Wellington and Dr Arnold were great men. But if an histo-

rian, two hundred years henc§, in willing the history of oui* times, were to be guided mainly by what he could learn of the lives and conduct and opinions of these two men, he might, as we know, very easily fall into grave errors. It would be, we should think, manifestly absurd if the Reform movement were condemned because the Duke was discovered to have opposed it, and it would be manifestly unjust if a conception of the drift and value of theological opinion among the upper classes of England were estimated by the vehement language in which Dr Arnold recorded his likes and dislikes. And yet it is by no means hard to see how a future historian, adopting the Personal Theory with avidity and satisfaction, might fall into both these mistakes. We feel sure, at any rate, that if Mr Carlyle had made the Duke his hero, he would have set no bounds to the scornful pleasantry with which he would have announced the resistance of the Duke to all projects for giving up the control of men to " a thousand Tomkinses and their ballotboxes."* And ifj two hundred years hence theologians do not habitually choose some theological star, and glorify all he said and did, and explain and justify all his random assertions and dogmatic guesses as if they were articles of faith, the theologians of Ahat day will be a different set from those known in our time.

It is, again, almost impossible "that a zealous adherent of the Personal Theory of history should not be mastered by his own theorj', and carried away captive wherever it may lead him. Mr Kingsley, at any rate, will not stand any trifling with the theory. He cannot even comprehend how any one, except from baseness or ignorance, can see spofs in the sun which has been set up to be worshipped. People who ask, however humbly, whether spots are spots, are dismissed under the opprobrious name of critics. When M. Froude's picture of Henry VIII. came out in his first two. volumes, Mr Kingsley tells us that "the critics recalcitrated." And he goes on to explain the motive of this recalcitration—" If it had been so, would they not hive said it themselves long ago?" This is the only cause which Mr Kingsley can conceive as having led critics to examine lor themselves, as patiently and honestly as they could, whether the evidence adduced by M. Froude bore out his conclusions. In his later volumes Mr Froude has treated the chief persons of his history as actuated by more mixed motives, and this is very painful to Mr Kingsley. He cannot bear this disturbance of the pure and simple Personal Theory. Mr Froude finds much to admire and much to blame in Elizabeth, but Mr Kingsley is of opinion that the truly Protestant and English thing to do is to apply the Personal Theory in favor of Elizabeth, and to back her throughout. Mr Froude, for example, in one passage, speaks with some confidence that Etizabeth at one period honestly wished to marry Leicester to Mary Stuart, and shortly after says that Elizabeth was "most likely acting in good faith." This grain of hesitation is not at all to Mr Kingsley's taste. When the colors are once nailed to the Elizabeth mast, they must be stuck to. " Cut bono ?" as he asks, " the whole of this later passage." He himself declares that there shall be no spots in his sun. When she was hesitating what to do about Dudiev, Mr Kingsley tells us, Elizabeth "vacillated and lied till she herself, and England likewise, was half mad with suspense." !' But then," as we are^elsewhere told, " she began on lie wrong path, after the fashion of the then world, when everyone seems to have lied over public matters, It is enough that she left that path in time to save England and herself." Then, again, the Personal Theory is liable to variations. The idol of one man is the detestation of another. Mr Kingsley, with a candour that does him credit, not only sees this, but owns it. Every one, he seems to think, will naturally and properly work the Personal Theory according to his previous prepossessions. Mr Motley, for example,, has pronounced an opinion that Elizabeth was avaricious. Such charges may, Mr Kingsley thinks, •l be permissible in a republican author," but do not come well from Mr Froude, who in one place explained Elizabeth's parsimony by the desire to pay her sister's debts, and who ought to have stuck to the explanation. It gives us a curious no tion of history that it should avow edly vary according to the form of government under which the writer has been brought up. Mr Kingsley, however, does not recoil even from this extremity. His main criterion of historical evidence is, apparently, to ask what is the truly English view to take. As Englishmen are loyal, it is truly English to interpret everything in favour of their great monarchs ; and as the English are also intensely Protestant, it is truly English to connect the greatness of their monarchs with their Protestantism. Elizabeth waß a Queen, and after considerable hesitation, and in view of immediate dethronement if she hesitated, was induced to risk her fortunes on the success of the Reformed religion, and therefore a good Englishman will swear by her through thick and thin. A Republican will naturally see faults in her, because he does not care about Queens; and a Catholic will justifiably suspect her of atrocious crimes, because she preferred being a here lie. Quot homines, tot historici—a, dismal prospect for readers, and one that makes us think that, after all, something may be said in favor of the dull plan of writing history according to the balance of evidence.

A Wokd on Joint-Stock Banks. —In 1826 the statute was passed which nermitted the formation of joint-stock hanks. Previously they were said to be incompatible with the privileges of the grand monopoly in Threadneedte street. The encouragement ?>fforded by the Apt in question was slight. Lancaster inaugurated the new enterprise, and Kuddersfield followed; but not until 1833 did the movement receive any marked impulse. In 1836 a mania in its favor prevailed, as runarkable as the lethargy with which it began. The first quarter of this year produced forty. 1884 is celebrated for giving birth to the London and Westminster. It was the largest partnership in England, exclusive, of course, of certain chartered companies like the Bank of England itself. The reception it met with was anything but cordial. First it was politely denied entrance to the clearing house. Then the Bank of England downright refused it the convenience of a drawing account; and other persecutions followed sufficient to furnish materials for a complete history of little-mindedneFS and prejudice. But the A^t of 1844 came in time to rescue our first London joint-stock bank from these indignities, before the struggle against them bad dene any substantial harm. It was emancipation; and its beneficial effects are attested by the abundance of this class of banks and their prosperity. The £50,000 of paid-up capital with which this enormous trading concern commenced has been since increased to one million.—" Once a Week." New Law fob Bruisers.- A prize-fight has no right to be turned into a wrestling match. In the rinsr. as at the bar, the understanding should be, " No hugeery allowed." Justifiable Bigamy. At the Central Crimi-

nal Court the other day, one John Double was

S convicted of bigamy under ex'enuating circum--1 stances, and sentenced to one month's impriaon{inent. That was not much; but still, if Double is worthy of his name, has lie not a right to have two wives ?