IT has long been matter of observation and regret that in England, alone among the great countries of Europe, there does not exist any periodical organ dedicated to the study of history. Although the number of persons engaged in this study is large and constantly increasing ; although the work done is as thorough in quality as that even of the Germans, and probably larger in quantity than that of the French or Italians ; although historical schools of much promise have lately been developed at our universities, English historians have not yet, like those of other countries, associated themselves in the establishment of any academy or other organisation, nor founded any journal to promote their common object. besides the thirty-five millions of the United Kingdom, there is in America and the British colonies and dependencies an English-speaking population of nearly seventy millions, who form, for the purposes of literature, learning, and science, virtually one people with the inhabitants of the old country. Among these outlying English also (though America has periodicals treating of her own history) there is no organ which concerns itself with history in general, or appeals to an audience of the whole race. The need of some such journal is therefore evident ; and there is a corresponding prospect of usefulness and success for one which shall bring to a focus the light now scattered through many minor publications, none of them devoted to this special purpose, which shall present a full and critical record of what is being accomplished in the field of history, and become the organ through which those who desire to make known the progress of their researches will address their fellow-labourers.
The principles by which the promoters of the HISTORICAL REVIEW are guided, and the methods whereby they seek to apply those principles, will best appear from the contents of the first few issues. But there are several questions likely to be asked by the readers of the present number, to which an answer may properly be given at the outset.
One of these questions relates to the conception which the promoters form of history. Is the Review intended to deal with political history only, or also with the development of various branches of civilisation—with the history, for example, of religion and the church; of language, literature, and art, of metaphysics and the sciences of nature ?
Two views prevail concerning the scope of history. One regards it, to use the expression of an eminent living writer, as being concerned solely with states, so that (in the words of another distinguished contemporary) history is past politics, and politics is present history.' The other, which has found illustrious exponents from Herodotus downwards, conceives it to be a picture of the whole past, including everything that man has either thought or wrought. Of these views the former appears to us narrow, and therefore misleading ; the latter so wide as to become vague, fixing no definite limit to the province of history as bordering on other fields of learning. It seems better to regard history as the record of human action, and of thought only in its direct influence upon action. States and politics will therefore be the chief part of its subject, because the acts of nations and of the individuals who have played a great part in the affairs of nations have usually been more important than the acts of private citizens. But when history finds a private citizen who, like Socrates or St. Paul or Erasmus or Charles Darwin, profoundly influences other men from his purely private station, she is concerned with him as the source of such influence no less than with a legislator or a general. History therefore occupies herself with theology or metaphysics or natural science not as independent branches of inquiry, but only in their bearing on the acts of men. She deals with language as an evidence of the relations of races to one another, or as a force in uniting or disjoining them. She finds in literature and art illustrations of the productive power and the taste of a nation, and notes the effect they exercise in developing national life. An historical review ought therefore, it is submitted, by no means to limit itself to mere political history, but to receive from the students of each special department such light as they can throw upon the whole life of man in the past. Nor is it difficult in practice to draw the line between what belongs to general history, thus conceived, and what is proper for a specialist journal. For instance, a minute account of the diggings at Troy or Tiryns would be fitter for an archaeological magazine than for these pages, but we should be prompt to notice any discovery which bore upon the worth of Homer's evidence regarding prehistoric Greece. A discussion of the meaning of a passage in Cicero about the constitution of Rome would fall within our province if the point involved were of importance to a knowledge of that constitution, but not if it merely brought out some peculiarity in Latin syntax or in the use of Latin words. An article setting forth the views of Aquinas or Occam on the relations of the civil to the ecclesiastical power might be accepted, while one dealing with the metaphysics or theology of those thinkers would be deemed unsuitable. It need scarcely be added that we should draw no distinction between ancient and modern history, nor (subject to the above limitation as to theology) between civil and ecclesiastical.
How will the HISTORICAL REVIEW avoid the suspicion of partisanship in such political or ecclesiastical questions as are still burning questions, because they touch issues presently contested ?
It will avoid this danger by refusing contributions which argue such questions with reference to present controversy. The object of history is to discover and set forth facts, and he who confines himself to this object, forbearing acrimonious language, can usually escape the risk of giving offence. Some topics it will be safer to eschew altogether. In others fairness may be shown by allowing both sides an equal hearing. But our main reliance will be on the scientific spirit which we shall expect from contributors likely to address us. An article on the character and career of Sir Robert Peel will be welcome, so long as it does not advocate or deprecate the policy of protective tariffs ; and President Andrew Jackson may properly be praised or blamed if the writer's purpose be neither to assail nor to recommend, with President Cleveland in his eye, the system of party appointments to office. Recognising the value of the light which history may shed on practical problems, we shall not hesitate to let that light be reflected from our pages, whenever we can be sure that it is dry light, free from any tinge of partisanship.
Will the HISTORICAL REVIEW address itself to professed and, so to speak, professional students of history, or to the person called the general reader'?
It will address itself to both, though its chief care will be for the former. It will, we hope and intend, contain no article which does not, in the Editor's judgment, add something to knowledge, i.e. which has not a value for the'trained historian. No allurements of style will secure insertion for a popular rechauffe of facts already known or ideas already suggested. On the other hand, an effort will be made to provide in every number some articles, whether articles on a question, an epoch, or a personage, or reviews of books, which an educated man, not specially conversant with history, may read with pleasure and profit. We shall seek to accomplish this not so much by choosing topics certain to attract as by endeavouring to have even difficult topics treated with freshness and point. So far from holding that true history is dull, we believe that dull history is usually bad history, and shall value those contributors most highly who can present their researches in a lucid and effective form. More than in any other countries there is a public in England and America which, without possessing an exact knowledge of history, heartily enjoys it and desires to be set in the way of understanding its critical processes. We believe that history, in an even greater degree than its votaries have as yet generally recognised, is the central study among human studies, capable of illuminating and enriching all the rest. And this is one of the reasons why we desire, while pursuing it for its own sake in a calm and scientific spirit, to make this Review so far as possible a means of interesting thinking men in historical
study, of accustoming them to its methods of inquiry, and of showing them how to appropriate its large results.
The HISTORICAL REVIEW belongs to and represents no particular school of opinion or set of men. It has received promises of aid from nearly all the most zealous and famous labourers in the field it has chosen. It invites the co-operation of all who love historic truth and are striving to find it. Although Englishmen and Americans are chiefly occupied with the history of their own countries, yet the annals of the Mediterranean nations of antiquity, of the nearer and farther East, of the whole foreign world, medieval and modern, will be duly cared for ; and the help of eminent historians in Germany, France, Italy, and the Scandinavian countries will be welcomed to complete the universal record which the HISTORICAL REVIEW will endeavour to lay before its readers.
