Revisionism

“ How are you to enable men to know the truth with regard to a period of revolution? Will you give them simply a calm statement of recorded events, simply a quiet, unaccentuated narrative of what actually happened, written in a monotone, and verified by quotations from authentic documents of the time? You may save yourself the trouble. ”

“ To men in general I would justify the stress I am laying on Modern History, neither by urging its varied wealth, nor the rupture with precedent, nor the perpetuity of change and increase of pace, nor the growing predominance of opinion over belief, and of knowledge over opinion, but by the argument that it is a narrative told of ourselves, the record of a life which is our own, of efforts not yet abandoned to repose, of problems that still entangle the feet and vex the hearts of men. ”

“ We may accept the isolation of the historical critic then, at least in theory, and conceive of him as a fragment of a social historian, as the author of a chapter in the history of the human spirit. But can we isolate the philosophic critic in the same way? ”

“ The men who, with the compass of criticism in their hands, sailed the uncharted sea of original research proposed a different view. History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions. ”

“ But when, on the other hand, by the study and imitation of ancient authors, the art of embracing a vaster circle of facts springs into being, and the causes and relations of those facts are investigated in order to weld them into visible unity, historic criticism is still lacking to verify events, to examine and define laws and institutions, to colour and almost revive the past in all its varied and changeful aspects. ”

“ Finally, in the formation of an opinion as to the abstract preferableness of one course of action over another, or as to the truth or falsehood or right significance of a proposition, the fact that the majority of one’s contemporaries lean in the other direction is naught, and no more than dust in the balance. ”

“ Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age. The fact narrated must correspond to something in me to be credible or intelligible. We as we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner, must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly. ”

“ They will find, if they examine into the matter, that only Truth can be polished: and that all we recognize of beautiful, subtle, or constructive, in the manners, the language, or the architecture of the French, comes of a pure veracity in their nature, which you will soon feel in the living creatures themselves if you love them: if you understand even their worst rightly, their very Revolution was a revolt against lies ”

“ Transformations have passed, transformations are on the way. For mercy's sake, cannot they show us transformations in the act? Must the facts of the past and the facts of the future necessarily exclude the facts of the present? ”

“ Every project of reform is, in their eyes, the result of ignorance or insanity, and the most compassionate it is who condescend to accuse you of what they call the bewilderment of your understanding. ‘They think themselves wiser than their fathers,’ says one, and with that the matter seems decided. ”

“ In fact, from first to last, the Revisionist agitation, whilst proving that the Truth must always ultimately conquer, has likewise shown the supremacy of true intellect over every other force in the world, whether wealth, or influence, or fanaticism. ”

“ And part of this inability arose from their curious fear of the past. Most movements of reform have looked to the past for great part of their inspiration. To reform means to shape anew, and he pointed out that every revolution involves the idea of a return. ”

“ When a change is made in the state of any thing, how do we know that such a change has been for the better? By what signs do we distinguish an onward from a retrograde movement? Great changes are constantly taking place in the forms of matter, in the lives of men, in the constitution of states, in the whole structure and working of society. The elements, the passions, discoveries in literature, in art, all produce stupendous revolutions in human affairs. How do we know, that these various changes are for better or for worse, or that they carry us towards perfection or imperfection? ”

“ In years tyrannised over by abstract ideas, his work remained to plead for the concrete and the historical; among men devoted to the absolute in theory and the extreme in practice, it remained to justify the relative, to demand a consideration of circumstances and conditions, to teach men how large a field of reform lay within the bounds of moderation and good sense. ”

“ The times demand, too, of our profession, more cultivation of the taste for history. A counter-balance against the hasty pressure for reform, and against an over-absorption in the narrow experience of the present, is to be sought in the solid influence of history. ”

“ But, while there has been no breach, there has none the less been change,—more far-reaching change than some of us are glad to recognise; for who would not be glad to read his own modern views into the convincing words of the great masters? ”

“ The revival of classical literature, the rediscovery as it were of an older and a greater world, the contact with a larger, freer life whether in mind, in society, or in politics introduced a spirit of scepticism, of doubt, of denial into the realms of unquestioning belief. ”

“ The world says with a large airy sweep of the hand, "the opposition to progress is all in the past, the great reformer or the great genius is recognized to-day." No, in the past they tried to kill a great truth by opposition ”

“ They thought it possible to write, with so much scruple, and simplicity, and insight, as to carry along with them every man of good will, and, whatever his feelings, to compel its assent. Ideas which, in religion and in politics, are truths, in history are forces. ”

“ Theories, opinions, men, and things, are examined into and sifted until all can understand their truth and error. The argument of antiquity or authority is exploded and ridiculed, and the men who seek to sustain antiquated error on the foundation of effete tradition are compelled to prove it by scripture or reason. ”

“ In the order of experience, historical and biographical truth is discovered by stripping off layer after layer of exaggeration, and going back to the statements of contemporaries. As a rule, figures are reduced, not enlarged, by criticism. ”

“ Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false. ”

“ All the dreary questions of the precise order in which history should be taught—whether backwards or forwards, local first or the reverse, may be brought up if one chooses to do so. But after all, these questions are not very fruitful. What we need most is the historical spirit. ”

“ "Reform won't catch up to the needs of civilization unless it's made to. ”

“ The senses of many individuals become, indeed, more and more open, the more clearly they recognized, by its historical characters, the fatal abyss to which the age of the world was drawing nigh. The epoch of the restoration was, moreover, followed by a general revolution in the sentiments, the moral principles, and prevailing pursuits of men. ”

“ But that a traditionary remark or opinion should be handed from one generation to another, and lead nations into error, without a detection of its falsity, is a fact as astonishing as it is real. Such is the opinion of the writers on the fine arts ”

“ No ... it is time to improve history as every thing else; to seek the truth and tell it.
As the human mind is yet more swayed by authorities, than genius or wisdom; high authorities will be given instead of long explanations. ”

“ Yet, even if we could assume that traditional opinion is a fairly clear and reliable reflection of hard-earned experience, surely it should have less weight in our day and generation than in the past. ”

“ The great historic revolutions, the great social reformations, ancient or modern, present themselves from this height as just as important—as just as unimportant—as the visions of saintly fanatics or the amours of besotted rakes. ”

“ All these views may seem to ourselves exaggerated; we may have settled into some moderate via media, or have carved out our own ground on an original pattern; but if we are wise, the differences in other men's judgments will teach us to be diffident. The more distinctly we have made history bear witness in favour of our particular opinions, the more we have multiplied the chances against the truth of our own theory. ”

“ The spirit of modern inquiry, and the tendency of modern scholarship, both of which are often said to be solely negative and destructive, have, in truth, restored to splendour, and almost created anew, far more than they have assailed with censure, or dismissed from consideration as unreal. ”

“ His digressions are never more agreeable than when they become dissertations; the most ordinary events of history assumed a new face by the noble speculations which he builds on them, full of a searching, critical spirit, of sound morality, and of practicable policy; often profound, always eloquent. ”

“ All we have had to live upon up to the present date are crumbs from the revolutionary table of the past century, and even this fare has been masticated over and over again. These ideas of the past require new substance, new interpretation. ”

“ The change wrought is a transcendence of the earlier level of experience and valuation, not a widening and clarification of vision on that level. And the standards which govern on the new level serve not so much to condemn the old as to seal its consignment to disuse and oblivion. Least of all can a judgment or appraisal of the old from the standpoint of the new be taken for a transcript of the motives which led to the transition. ”

“ Improvement consists in bringing our opinions into nearer agreement with facts; and we shall not be likely to do this while we look at facts only through glasses coloured by those very opinions.—Mill, Inaugural Address, 25. [85]
[28] He who has learnt to understand the true character and tendency of many succeeding ages is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own.—Lecky, Value of History, 21. C'est à l'histoire qu'il faut se prendre, c'est le fait que nous devons interroger, quand l'idée vacille et fuit à nos yeux.—Michelet, Disc. ”

“ All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopædia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline to repeat my old steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the power of change and reform. ”

“ The whole depth of your being does not reach so far, and reaches no farther than historical acceptance, your business being to further analyze the traditions of this historical faith by means of argument. ”

“ There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. ”

“ A constant concern for revision, then, would seem to be forced upon the professed rationalist, who knows how often the appeal to reason has yielded mere modifications of error, one unjustifiable credence ousting another. ”

“ Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes, one partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement consisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it displaces. ”

“ Like all great reforms that have had their conception, their struggle for existence, and their ultimate triumph, any reform that contemplates so radical a change in the treatment of the beloved and respected dead is a work of time, and depends wholly upon an enlightened conception of the subject for its general recognition and popular development. ”

“ For history is made with tools, not with ideas; and everything is changed by economic conditions—art, philosophy, love, virtue—truth itself! ”

“ What example, then, has history given to mankind of the operations and benefits of truth? It has shown him in the examples of the ages, the disadvantages of bad draining, bad ventilation, bad government, indolence, bad practices generally, and has set him the task of using his intellectual faculties for the purpose of understanding and bettering his condition. ”

“ Pragmatic reflections, however abstract they be, are thus in reality the present, and vivify the tales of the past with the life of to-day.—Here too a word should specially be given to the moralising and the moral instructions to be gained through history,—for which it was often studied.... Rulers, statesmen, nations, are especially bidden learn from the experience of history. ”

“ And the accession of the critic in the place of the indefatigable compiler, of the artist in coloured narrative, the skilled limner of character, the persuasive advocate of good, or other, causes, amounts to a transfer of government, to a change of dynasty, in the historic realm. For the critic is one who, when he lights on an interesting statement, begins by suspecting it. ”

“ Much had no doubt been done within the century to enlarge the basis of our critical views, to exchange the criticism of particulars for that of generals, to contemplate and decide according to the essence rather than the form. ”