with increasing respect, to the remotest ages; and be his conspicuous monument, when these heights, now bare, shall realize the character of Academic Shades. We would gladly inscribe also, on some of its Departments, the name of its principal Contributor; and, should he continue to decline the publicity as yet, we leave it in charge to our successors, to do justice to a liberality so munificent, and to a prompt attendance so untiring. And finally, we dedicate it as a lasting memorial of its agent, who has labored for so many years in its behalf; and as a perpetual remembrancer of all its Benefactors, far and

near.

H. B. 2d.

..

ART. XXIV.

Hildreth's History of the United States.

The History of the United States of America, by Richard Hildreth. In six volumes. 8vo. Revised Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854.

AN ingenious writer in one of the foreign Reviews,1 in discussing "the use and meaning of history," denies that it has any power to teach truth. The moralist, the philosopher, and the statesman, as such, can learn from history nothing whatever. In no instance has it taught what is good, what is true, or what is wise. Not merely a chief use, but the sole use of history, is the portrayal of "personal character in conflict with the circumstances of life," with a view to "toning and nerving the heart to noble emotions"-the raising and sustaining a "love of what is good"-a "condition of pure and elevated feeling, in which, irrespective of consequences, human things and human actions are seen and weighed at their just and real value." In the simple improvement of the heart, and in no respect the informing of the understanding, does history find its exclusive use.

1 The Westminster Review for October, 1854, Article IV.

As a sort of compensation for thus narrowing the sphere of its utility, we are virtually assured, that it seems quite unnecessary that history should teach truth-it does not appear that any good would be secured, even if it could. and did inform the understanding! History is good for nothing, except as it pictures personal character; and, in doing this, all that is required is, that it shall be true to "the conditions of humanity." In selecting material for the portrait, it would seem to be quite immaterial whether the artist made use of fact or fiction!

The argument by which it is attempted to sustain this. unwelcome theory, if it does not convince, is certainly perplexing. History is made to testify against itself; and the position, that men have been noblest and best, not when they have had truth, but rather when they have put implicit faith in error, and very absurd error at that, is seemingly sustained by an array of facts quite surprising. We are reminded of the circumstance that "the beautiful cultivation of the Greeks," and "the iron nerve and austere virtue of the Romans," were the direct results of belief in mythologies, which are now justly "the laughingstock of school-boys." As an instance in point-while the Roman character, after the terrible defeat at Cannæ, gave evidence of its noble heroism, by selling at auction, in the Forum, and at its full value, the very ground on which the victorious enemy were encamped, "the State was sentencing the consul Flaminius to death, because he had thrown the sacred chickens into the lake Thrasymene; and these two actions, (it is further affirmed,) so strangely opposite in form, were linked together in inseparable unity in the Roman heart; they were the outcome of the same faith; both fruits were growing on the same tree." "Greece fell as soon as Greece had exchanged its faith for a philosophy. Rome accepted her philosophy, and followed her in her ruin. Truth entered, and virtue died." The strange, yet obvious inference would seem to be, that history can teach no truth, and that it is well that it cannot do so; for error rather than truth appears to be conducive to manly feeling, and true nobility of character!

In attempting to extricate ourselves from the folds of this logic, we will take no advantage of the paradoxconceded by the writer to be such-of first affirming that

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history, as testifying to truth, is good for nothing, and then using it to testify to a theory, which it shocks our best sensibilities to accept. The writer, at first view, seems to sustain his affirmation, that history is of no use in teaching the understanding truth, and that it is full better for the world that it cannot do so. If, however, we test his use of the word truth, especially if when he speaks of teaching truth we notice within what narrow limits he comprises all possible methods of teaching truth-we think no necessity will appear, either for accepting his affirmation, or the theory by which it is attempted to reconcile us to it.

We are glad to admit, not indeed that the sole use, but certainly one of the highest uses of history-we may per haps say, its chief use-is in such a portrayal of personal character, as, in touching "those emotional links of sympathy, by which the members of the family of mankind are connected one with another," will most effectually call up in the heart noble emotions, and thereby lead to manly and heroic virtue. But let us ask, is not this teaching truth? and is it not teaching, by the surest and most effective of all methods? Perhaps it must be admitted, that history cannot furnish the understanding with defi. nite rules and propositions," but rules and propositions are only forms of truth; and because history cannot teach truth in certain forms (admitting that it cannot do so,) does it thence follow that it cannot teach truth at all, in any form? Perhaps it must be admitted that history cannot directly inform the understanding-in other words, that its method of teaching is not didactic or preceptive. But is there but one way of teaching truth? Is the sole method of reaching the understanding, preceptive and direct? On the contrary, we contend that the very best way of informing the understanding is indirect, is through the heart. Indeed, we may say, that the highest qualities of truth can be communicated to the understanding by no other than this indirect process. We are told that the use of history, is not to make us "know what is good, but to love what is good." Just as if there could be a surer way-just as if there could be any other way, of making men know what is good, than by making them love goodness! It is true, there may be a metaphysical difficulty

in any attempt so to distinguish the different provinces of the understanding and the heart as to assign to each its peculiar process in the mutual work of apprehending truth. In point of fact, the two faculties, (if such we may call them,) do not appear to be anywhere separated by a very sharp line of demarkation. Man is one, and heart and intellect are blended in conscious unity; and in this unity, there appears to be a simultaneous action of both powers, when truth is attained. Yet, so far as the operations of the heart may be distinguished from the operations of the understanding, so far may it be affirmed, that the highest quality of truth reaches the understanding only through the heart. To say, therefore, that history moves the one with a love of truth, is to say that it can inform the other with a knowledge of truth.

Gladly admitting that history finds a use in calling up noble feeling in the heart, we therefore affirm, that it also finds a use in informing the understanding. What the writer we have noticed severs as radically different things, indeed even as incompatible things, we link together as cause and effect- -as successive links in the same chain of development. We affirm that history both inspires a love of what is good and imparts a knowledge of what is good; and that it imparts this knowledge because it inspires by inspiring-this love. We affirm that history informs the understanding, because it fulfils the prerequisites of such a result-by inciting in the heart those emotions which are the root, the very life-blood of the truth, as it exists in the understanding. How illogical then to suggest even the possibility that faith in truth ever has proved, or can prove, detrimental to human character! Worse than this: for if the love of what is good, and the knowledge of what is true, are, in human experience, found to be necessarily connected-connected as cause and effect-if they are but successive steps in the same general process, to suggest that, in any case, the one may prove detrimental to the other the presence of the one implying the absence of the other, is to suggest an absurditya contradiction in terms.

It will avail nothing against us here, to refer us to the experience of the ancient Greek and Roman-an experience in which belief in error is found in connexion with

beautiful culture and manly virtue, and in which the exchange of error for truth was attended with the loss of culture and virtue. It is at least possible that the apparent incongruity in the faith and character of this remote age, can be shown to be only apparent. Let it be admitted that the mythologies which received the belief of the cultivated Greek and heroic Roman, and which are now the laughing-stock of school-boys, were, in their simply ob jective character, very absurd-does it follow that as believed in by Greek and Roman, they were so very absurd? May they not have been connected, in the believing mind, with great truths, with the inspiring principles of virtue and heroism-connected with them as embodying or symbolizing them? And may not the character which is so justly the theme of eulogy, have been the result, not of faith in the incongruous symbol, but in the truth symbolized? Nor need it excite any marvel, should it appear that in passing from erroneous forms which yet symbolized truth, to truthful forms, the Greek and Roman mind lost the truth it had before cherished. Unfortunately, these truthful forms were the product of almost exclusive intellectual culture. And an age in which intellect alone is worshipped, so far from being inconsistent with the loss of virtue and manly heroism, is, in fact, a sign and cause of this loss. When all the forces of the soul are drawn from the channel of manly action, to invigorate and sustain mere intellectual discipline, though a philosophy beautiful and profound may be developed, manly and heroic character, bereft of the vital element which alone can energize and perfect it, must wither and die. When the Greek and Roman exchanged their faith for a philosophy, may it not have been, that they exchanged error symbolizing truth, for truth symbolizing error?

This explanation of the incongruity in the faith and character of the ancient people, to whose experience we have been referred-though we deem it a rational one, and in accordance with known experience we do not offer with dogmatic assurance. We do not offer it as removing the incongruity, but as showing that it can be removed as showing, at least, that the asserted possibility of its removal involves no absurdity, no contradiction. And surely we shall not set aside a conviction rooted in