LECTURE I. 
TENDENCY IN ENGLISH HISTORY. 
It is a favourite maxim of mine that history, while it 
should be scientific in its method, should pursue a practical 
object. That is, it should not merely gratify the reader's 
curiosity about the past, but modify his view of the present 
and his forecast of the future. Now if this maxim be 
sound, the history of England ought to end with some 
thing that might be called a moral. Some large conclusion 
ought to arise out of it; it ought to exhibit the general 
tendency of English affairs in such a way as to set us 
thinking about the future and divining the destiny which 
is reserved for us. The more so because the part played by 
our country in the world certainly does not grow less pro 
minent as history advances. Some countries, such as Hol 
land and Sweden, might pardonably regard their history as 
in a manner wound up. They were once great, but the con 
ditions of their greatness have passed away, and they now 
hold a secondary place. Their interest in their own past 
is therefore either sentimental or purely scientific ; the only 
practical lesson of their history is a lesson of resignation. 
But England has grown steadily greater and greater,