William Edward Hartpole Lecky

“ The battles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been definitely won. A kind of language which at one period of English history implied the noblest heroism is now the idlest and the cheapest of clap-trap. The sycophant and the self-seeker bow before quite other idols than of old. The dangers of the time come from other quarters; other tendencies prevail, other tasks remain to be accomplished; and a public man who in framing his course followed blindly in the steps of the heroes or reformers of the past would be like a mariner who set his sails to the winds of yesterday. ”

“ The truth of an historical picture lies mainly in its judicious and accurate shading, and it is this art which the historian should especially cultivate. He will scarcely do so with success unless it becomes to him not merely a matter of duty, but also a pleasure and a pride. The kind of interest which he takes in his narrative should be much less that of a politician and an advocate than of a painter, who, now darkening and now lightening the picture, seeks by many delicate touches to catch with exact fidelity the tone and hue of the object he represents. ”

“ We owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge. The imagination, which is altogether constructive, probably contributes more to our happiness than the reason, which in the sphere of speculation is mainly critical and destructive. The rude charm which in the hour of danger or distress the savage clasps so confidently to his breast, the sacred picture which is believed to shed a hallowing and protecting influence over the poor man's cottage, can bestow a more real consolation in the darkest hour of human suffering than can be afforded by the grandest theories of philosophy. ”

“ Religion is the one romance of the poor. It alone extends the narrow horizon of their thoughts, supplies the images of their dreams, allures them to the supersensual and the ideal. The graceful beings with which the creative fancy of Paganism peopled the universe shed a poetic glow on the peasant's toil. Every stage of agriculture was presided over by a divinity, and the world grew bright by the companionship of the gods. But it is the peculiarity of the Christian types, that, while they have fascinated the imagination, they have also purified the heart. ”

“ Considering the countless ages that man has lived upon this globe, it seems a strange thing that he has so little learned to acquiesce in the normal conditions of humanity. How large a proportion of the melancholy which is reflected in the poetry of all ages, and which is felt in different degrees in every human soul, is due not to any special or peculiar misfortune, but to things that are common to the whole human race! The inexorable flight of time; the approach of old age and its infirmities; the shadow of death; the mystery that surrounds our being ”

“ Genius is like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and it often appears in strangely uncongenial quarters. The true nobility of a nation is shown by the men they choose, by the men they follow, by the men they admire, by the ideals of character and conduct they place before them. Tried by such tests, there is often much that is profoundly saddening in the history of countries that have been far from poor in the number of their great men. ”

“ Perfect love knows no rights. It creates a boundless, uncalculating self-abnegation that transforms the character, and is the parent of every virtue. Side by side with the terrorism and the superstitions of dogmatism, there have ever existed in Christianity those who would echo the wish of St. Theresa, that she could blot out both heaven and hell, to serve God for Himself alone; and the power of the love of Christ has been displayed alike in the most heroic pages of Christian martyrdom, in the most pathetic pages of Christian resignation, in the tenderest pages of Christian charity. ”

“ In the age of Leo X., in the age of the French Regency, or of Lewis XV., we look in vain for high moral teaching in the centre of Italian or of Parisian civilisation. The true teachers of those ages were the reformers, who arose in obscure towns of Germany or Switzerland, or that diseased recluse who, from his solitude near Geneva, fascinated Europe by the gleams of a dazzling and almost peerless eloquence, and by a moral teaching which, though often feverish, paradoxical, and unpractical, abounded in passages of transcendent majesty and of the most entrancing purity and beauty. ”

“ He was in truth a being who stood self-centred, and apart from the sympathies, passions, and enthusiasms of his kind, habitually regarding men, not as fellow-creatures, but as mere counters in a game; a will of colossal strength; an intellect of clear, cold, transcendent power, solely governed by the imperturbable calculation of the strictest egotism, and never drawn aside by love or hatred, by pity or religion, or by attachment to any cause. It was impossible, she found, to exaggerate his contempt for human nature and his disbelief in the reality of human virtue. ”

“ Let me in the first place frankly express my own belief that to many readers of history the study is not only useless, but even positively misleading. An unintelligent, a superficial, a pedantic or an inaccurate use of history is the source of very many errors in practical judgment. Human affairs are so infinitely complex that it is vain to expect that they will ever exactly reproduce themselves, or that any study of the past can enable us to predict the fixture with the minuteness and the completeness that can be attained in the exact sciences. ”

“ How often do painful diseases lurk in germ in the body which would have produced unspeakable misery if an early and perhaps a painless death had not anticipated their development! How often do mistakes and misfortunes cloud the evening and mar the beauty of a noble life, or moral infirmities, unperceived in youth or early manhood, break out before the day is over! Who is there who has not often said to himself as he looked back on a completed life, how much happier it would have been had it ended sooner? 'Give us timely death' is in truth one of the best prayers that man can pray. ”

“ The doctrine of suicide was indeed the culminating point of Roman Stoicism. The proud, self-reliant, unbending character of the philosopher could only be sustained when he felt that he had a sure refuge against the extreme forms of suffering or of despair. Although virtue is not a mere creature of interest, no great system has ever yet flourished which did not present an ideal of happiness as well as an ideal of duty. Stoicism taught men to hope little, but to fear nothing. ”

“ The great landlord who is wisely governing large districts and using all his influence to diffuse order, comfort, education, and civilisation among his tenantry; the captain of industry who is faithfully and honestly organising the labour of thousands, and regarding his task as a moral duty; the rich man who, with all the means of enjoyment at his feet, devotes his energies 'to make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God—to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuller, happier, more blessed,' always received his admiration and applause. ”

“ War is not, and never can be, a mere passionless discharge of a painful duty. It is in its essence, and it is a main condition of its success, to kindle into fierce exercise among great masses of men the destructive and combative passions—passions as fierce and as malevolent as that with which the hound hunts the fox to its death or the tiger springs upon its prey. Destruction is one of its chief ends. Deception is one of its chief means, and one of the great arts of skilful generalship is to deceive in order to destroy. ”

“ All that the intuitive moralist asserts is that we know by nature that there is a distinction between humanity and cruelty; that the first belongs to the higher or better part of our nature, and that it is our duty to cultivate it. The standard of the age, which is itself determined by the general condition of society, constitutes the natural line of duty; for he who falls below it contributes to depress it. Now, there is no fact more absolutely certain than that nations and ages which have differed most widely as to the standard have been perfectly unanimous as to the excellence of humanity. ”

“ We may indeed sacrifice our sense of material beauty to considerations of utility with much more alacrity than our sense of moral beauty; we may consent to build a shapeless house sooner than to commit a dishonourable action, but we cannot voluntarily choose that which is simply deformed, rather than that which is beautiful, without a certain feeling of pain, and a pain of this kind, according to the school of Hartley, is the precise definition of conscience. Nor is it at all difficult to conceive men with a sense of beauty so strong that they would die rather than outrage it. ”

“ But in the long run, under free governments, political systems and measures must be adjusted to the wishes of the various sections of the people, and this adjustment is the great work of statesmanship. In judging a proposed measure a statesman must continually ask himself whether the country is ripe for it—whether its introduction, however desirable it might be, would not be premature, as public opinion is not yet prepared for it?—whether, even though it be a bad measure, it is not on the whole better to vote for it, as the nation manifestly desires it? ”

“ It is much easier to govern great masses of men through their imagination than through their reason. Moral principles rarely act powerfully upon the world, except by way of example or ideals. When the course of events has been to glorify the ascetic or monarchical or military spirit, a great saint, or sovereign, or soldier will arise, who will concentrate in one dazzling focus the blind tendencies of his time, kindle the enthusiasm and fascinate the imagination of the people. But for the prevailing tendency, the great man would not have arisen, or would not have exercised his great influence. ”

“ That which invests war, in spite of all the evils that attend it, with a certain moral grandeur, is the heroic self-sacrifice it elicits. With perhaps the single exception of the Church, it is the sphere in which mercenary motives have least sway, in which performance is least weighed and measured by strict obligation, in which a disinterested enthusiasm has most scope. A battle-field is the scene of deeds of self-sacrifice so transcendent, and at the same time so dramatic, that in spite of all its horrors and crimes, it awakens the most passionate moral enthusiasm. ”