John Edward Emerich Acton was one of the most important British historians of the
early 20th century.
FOR OUR PURPOSE, the main thing to learn is not the art of accumulating material,
but the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty
from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of erudition, that
the study of history strengthens, and straightens, and extends the mind. And the accession
of the critic in the place of the indefatigable compiler, of the artist in coloured
narrative, the skilled linmer 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. He remains in suspense until he has subjected his authority to three
operations. First, he asks whether he has read the passage as the author wrote it. For the
transcriber, and the editor, and the official or officious censor on the top of the
editor, have played strange tricks, and have much to answer for. And if they are not to
blame, it may turn out that the author wrote his book twice over, that you can discover
the first jet, the progressive variations, things added, and things struck out. Next is
the question where the writer got his information. if from a previous writer, it can be
ascertained, and the inquiry has to he repeated. if from unpublished papers, they must be
traced, and when the fountain-head is reached, or the track disappears, the question of
veracity arises. The responsible writer's character, his position, antecedents, and
probably motives have to be examined into; and this is what, in a different and adapted
sense of the word, may be called the higher criticism, in comparison with the servile and
often mechanical work of put-suing statements to their root. For a historian has to be
treated as a witness, and not believed unless his sincerity is established. The maxim that
a man must be presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proved, was not made for him. . .
.
I shall never again enjoy the opportunity of speaking my thoughts to such -in audience
as this, and on so privileged an occasion a lecturer may well he tempted to bethink
himself whether he knows of any neglected truth, any cardinal proposition, that might
serve as his selected epigraph, as a last signal, perhaps even as a target. I ani not
thinking of those shining precepts which are the registered property of every school; that
is to say-Learn as Much by writing as by reading; be not content with the best book; seek
sidelights from the others; have no favourites; keep men and things apart; guard against
the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own, and do not shrink from
disagreement; no trusting without testing; be more severe to ideas than to actions; do not
overlook the strength of the bad cause or the weakness of the good; never be surprised by
the crumbling of an idol or the disclosure of a skeleton; judge talent at its best and
character at its worst; suspect power more than vice, and study problems in preference to
periods; for instance: the derivation of Luther, the scientific influence of Bacon, the
predecessors of Adam Smith, the medieval masters of' Rousseau, the consistency of Burke,
the identity of the first Whig. Most of this, I suppose, is undisputed, and calls for no
enlargement. But the weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never to debase the
moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim
that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying
penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong. The plea in extenuation of guilt
and mitigation of punishment is perpetual. At every step we are met by arguments which go
to excuse, to palliate, to confound right and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level
of tile reprobate. The men who plot to baffle and resist us are, first of all, those who
made history what it has become. They set up the principle that only a foolish
Conservative judges the present time with the ideas of the past; that only a foolish
Liberal judges the past with the ideas of the present.The mission of that school was to make distant times, and especially the Middle Ages,
then most distant of all, intelligible and acceptable to a society issuing from the
eighteenth century. There were difficulties in the way; and among others this, that, in
the first fervour of the Crusades the men who took the Cross, after receiving communion,
heartily devoted the day to the extermination of Jews. To judge them by a fixed standard,
to call them sacrilegious fanatics or furious hypocrites, was to yield a gratuitous
victory to Voltaire. It became a rule of policy to praise the spirit when you could not
defend the creed. So that we have no common code: our moral notions are always fluid; and
You must consider the times. the class from which men sprang, tile surrounding influences,
the masters in their schools, the preachers in their pulpits, the movement they obscurely
obeyed, and so on, until responsibility is merged in numbers, and not a culprit is left
for execution. A murderer was no criminal if he followed local custom, if neighbours
approved, if he was encouraged by official advisers or prompted by just authority, if he
acted for the reason of state or the pure love of religion, or if lie sheltered himself
behind the complicity of the Law. . . .
If, in our uncertainty, we must often err, it may be sometimes better to risk excess in
rigour than in indulgence, for then at least we do no injury by loss of principle. As
Bayle has said, it is more probable that the secret motives of an indifferent action are
bad than good; and this discouraging conclusion does not depend upon theology, for James
Mozley supports the sceptic from the other flank, with all the artillery of Tractarian
Oxford, "A Christian," he says, -is bound by his very creed to suspect evil, and
cannot release himself. . . . He sees it where others do not; his instinct is divinely
strengthened; his eye is supernaturally keen; he has a spiritual insight, and senses
exercised to discern. . . . He owns the doctrine of original sin; that doctrine puts him
necessarily on his guard against appearances, sustains his apprehension under perplexity,
and prepares him for recognising anywhere what he knows to be everywhere." There is a
popular saying of Madame de Staël, that we forgive whatever we really understand. The
paradox has been judiciously pruned by her descendant, the Duke de Broglie, in the words:
-Beware of too much explaining, lest we end by too much excusing." History, says
Fronde, does teach that right and wrong are real distinctions. Opinions alter, manners
change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. And
if there are moments when we may resist the teaching of Froude, we have seldom the chance
of resisting when he is supported by Mr. Goldwin Smith: "A sound historical morality
will sanction strong measures in evil times; selfish ambition, treachery, murder, perjury,
it will never sanction in the worst of times, for these are the things that make times
evil.-Justice has been justice, mercy has been mercy, honour has been honour, good faith
has been good faith, truthfulness has been truthfulness from the beginning." The
doctrine that, as Sir Thomas Browne says, morality is not ambulatory, is expressed as
follows by Burke, who, when true to himself, is the most intelligent of our instructors:
"My principles enable me to form my judgment upon men and actions in history, just as
they do in common life; and are not formed out of events and characters, either present or
past. History is a preceptor of prudence, not of principles. The principles of true
politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor ever will admit of any
other."
Source:
John Edward Emerich Acton, "Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History," from Lecturer
on Modem History ( 1906), pp. 15-16, 2,1-24, 26-28.
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© Paul Halsall, July 1998
