poses; care, prudence, sagacity, practical wisdom, and good counsel, can be recognised by their good fruits; neglect, rashness, folly, shortsightedness, and bad counsel, can be recognised by their bad fruits. § 12. In proportion, therefore, as men's conduct in doubtful questions of practice is influenced by reason, they will defer to the opinion of the most competent advisers where their own judgment is at fault. By these means they will, as far as is practicable, subject the future to their control. If they are ignorant and superstitious, they will be impatient of merely human advice, and unwilling to resign themselves to the guidance of a judgment which does not lay claim to infallibility. They then fall into the hands of diviners and soothsayers, who undertake, by supernatural aid, and by some occult method, to prognosticate the future.* Hence the prevalence of the arts of divination by auguries, auspices, omens, oracles, dreams, necromancy, evocations of spirits, judicial astrology, cabbala, magic, palmistry, second-sight, &c., which at one time flourished among the civilized nations of Europe,† and still exercise a potent sway over the Oriental and savage nations. The desire to penetrate into the future by supernatural means is particularly manifested upon the eve of uncertain events of great moment; hence, in antiquity, diviners always accompanied armies, and were consulted before a battle. These arts of foretelling the future doubtless, in part, p. 27. See Adelung, Geschichte der Menschlichen Narrheit, vol. ii. + The belief in divination is ably defended by Q. Cicero, according to the Stoic doctrine, in the first book of Cicero's Dialogue de Divinatione. owe their success to the fallacy of attending only to the lucky, and neglecting the unlucky predictions; of counting the hits, and not counting the misses;* in part, also, to the use of an obscure and ambiguous phraseology, which can be accommodated to the event however it may turn out. But-granted the desire to know the future-their chief foundation is a belief in the supernatural character of the source from which they emanate, which induces the consulters of the oracle to resort to any shift for saving its honour, in case its predictions do not prove true. § 13. As it is the part of prudence and wisdom to follow, in practical questions, the advice of good counsellors, so is it incumbent on those who assume the office of counsellor to discharge it with a due sense of the moral responsibility which they undertake. In all matters of professional or deliberative advice, the counsellor ought to look exclusively to the benefit of the persons whose interest is in question, and by whom he is consulted. As trust is reposed in his practical judgment,‡ * See Mill, System of Logic, b. V. c. iv. § 3. Compare Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, II. ii. p. 270. + See Aristot. Rhet. III. v. § 4, where he remarks that diviners do not individualize objects, but describe them by generic terms. Ambiguity and indistinctness are the general characteristics of the ancient oracular prophecies. Compare Cic. de Divin. II. 54. It is scarcely necessary to refer to such predictions as Κροῖσος "Αλυν διαβὰς μɛyáλŋv åpxýv diaλúσɛ, and “Aio te Æacida Romanos vincere posse." See also Adelung, ut. sup., on the obscurity of the predictions of Gauricus and Nostradamus, two astrologers of the sixteenth century, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. vii. pp. 125, 135. Compare vol. iv. p. 212. Some further remarks on this subject will be found in Note A. at the end of the chapter. It was on account of the importance of this trust, and the obligations growing out of it, that the sacredness of counsel was he ought to advise without any view to his own advantage, and upon a full knowledge of the circumstances of the case. It is only by complying with these conditions, and by a consciousness of the binding nature of the obligation which he contracts, that the professional man, in advising his client-or the deliberative counsellor, addressing a council of state or a legislative assembly, can acquire authority for his opinion, independently of his reasons. § 14. It would be improper to close this chapter without adverting to the marks of trustworthiness in a historian; inasmuch as his province does not distinctly fall under any of the heads above considered. Before, however, we attempt to assign the qualifications of the trustworthy historian, it will be necessary first to settle what is his proper province; for the progress of knowledge, the extension of literature, and the increased habit of recording successive changes in the same object, have of late given an enlarged and somewhat indefinite meaning to the term History. By History, is properly understood a narrative of the acts of a political community, or nation, as represented by its government, and of events important to it in its collective capacity. The works of the great Thucydides and Tacitus historians of antiquity-as which have served as the types of history since the revival of letters, describe the Greek and Roman States in action; their wars, negotiations, treaties, intestine tumults, public deliberations, legislation Res gestæ regumque ducumque et tristia bella. proverbial from an early time among the Greeks, (iepòv ǹ ovμßovλý, ZENOB. IV. 40, cum not.) L These form the proper subject-matter of history. Geographical and ethnographical descriptions,* accounts of the social state of the people, of its wealth, manners, literature, religion, and the like, however interesting and instructive they may be in themselves, cannot be considered as forming strictly an integral part of political history, and ought only to be introduced incidentally, as illustrating the course of the narrative. History is essentially dramatic: it describes a series of actions; and is distinguished from biography in taking for its subject a nation, not an individual.† Hence, history has been considered a species of composition peculiarly suited to * The ancient historians, on account of the defective knowledge of geography then existing, and the total want or comparative scarcity of geographical treatises, were forced to introduce geographical descriptions into their works to a greater extent than modern historians. See Polyb. III. c. 36, 37. is + According to the definition in Gellius, N. A., V. 18, history rerum gestarum narratio." The office of history is to narrate, according to Plin. Epist. V. 8. Lucian, Quom. Hist. sit conscrib. c. 55, says that, with the exception of the proëm or introduction, history is nothing but a long narration. The following definitions from modern dictionaries present the same leading idea:-" Storia: Diffusa narrazione di cose seguite.”—Voc. della Crusca. "Histoire: Narration des actions et des choses dignes de mémoire."-Dict. de l'Académie. 66 History: A narration of events and facts, delivered with dignity."-JOHNSON's Dict. "L'histoire est l'exposition ou la narration, tempérée quant à la forme, et savante quant au fond, liée et suivie des faits et des événemens mémorables les plus propres à nous faire connaître les hommes, les nations, les empires, etc."Dict. des Synonymes de la Langue Française, ed. Guizot, tom. i. p. 469. All these definitions are wanting in precision; they all, for example, include biography as well as history. The word ioropía first occurs, in its modern sense, in the Poetic of Aristotle, c. 18; 38, ed. Tyrwhitt. an orator, because he is able to describe a succession of events with perspicuity and vividness.* An historical narrative, so understood, is usually conceived as following the chronological series of events, and as comprehending a sufficient portion of them to be interesting and instructive. If the number of events be small, or confined to a particular class or subject, the work is considered rather as materials for history than as history itself; and falls into the subordinate category denominated by the French, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire. On the other hand, a history may narrate events connected only by chronological co-existence or sequence, and not linked together by any mutual dependence. In this respect, a history differs (according to the remark of Aristotlet) from an epic poem, which must relate to a complete and connected action. History, again, if it be worthy of the name, ought to be composed with a due regard to impartiality, and with a requisite amount of sobriety and calmness of judgment. Without these attributes, it becomes a mere party pamphlet, or the pleading of an advocate. History, like science, ought to be treated without any view to a practical application, and merely for its own sake. It ought to narrate, and illustrate its narrative by appropriate comments; but to abstain from all precepts. Such appear to be the essential constituents of our * According to Cicero de Leg. I. 2. History is "opus oratorium maxime." Compare De Orat. II. 12. + According to Bacon, "memorials" are "history unfinished," "the first or rough draughts of history," or "preparatory history." -Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. p. 106. Poet. c. xxxviii. ed. Tyrwhitt. |