G
EXPANSION OF ENGLAND.
[lect.
it may attach itself to the civil community and to the
part of human well-being which depends on that. Now
by a kind of unconscious tradition the latter course has
more usually been taken. Run over the famous histories
that have been written ; you will see that the writers have
always had in view, more or less consciously, states and
governments, their internal development, their mutual deal
ings. It may be quite true that affairs of this kind are not
always the most important of human affairs. In the period
recorded by Thucydides the most permanently important
events may have been the philosophical career of Socrates
and the artistic career of Phidias, yet Thucydides has
nothing to say of either, while he enlarges upon wars and in
trigues which now seem petty. This is not the effect of any
narrowness of view. Thucydides is alive to the unique glory
of the city he describes ; how else could he have written
<t>i\orca\ovfi6v /¿er evTe\eia<? ical <fu\ocro(f)ovfiev avev /xa\a-
KÍa<í ? nay, so far as that glory was the result of political
causes, he is ready to discuss it, as that very passage shows.
It is with purpose and deliberation that he restricts himself.
The truth is that investigation makes progress by dividing
and subdividing the field. If you discuss everything at
once, you certainly get the advantage of a splendid variety of
topics; but you do not make progress; if you would make
progress, you must concentrate your attention upon one
set of phenomena at a time. It seems to me advisable to
keep history still within the old lines, and to treat separ
ately the important subjects which were omitted in that
scheme. I consider therefore that history has to do with the
State, that it investigates the growth and changes of a
certain corporate society, which acts through certain func
tionaries and certain assemblies. By the nature of the
State every person who lives in a certain territory is usually