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