INFLUENCE OF HISTORY. 5 searching analysis of that tendency to equality which was so invariably fatal to the states of antiquity and which we now meet with under more complex conditions. Of this work, I will only state my impression, that if it be not more familiarly known among ourselves, it is because of that national indifference to social philosophy in which we compare so disadvantageously with the first nations of the continent. It would be too much to say that either of the authors I have mentioned have exhausted the great divisions of which they treat. But I shall not undertake to follow them on what may be considered the leading questions of social philosophy, but I propose to occupy your time this evening with a very subordinate branch of the inquiry. Passing over the primary elements and conditions of progress, I wish only to dwell on the single circumstance that it has been affected by the narrative of its prior stages, that it has been modified in the presence and through the knowledge of history. In Now I do not mean by this, the knowledge of history which has influenced most men more or less as individuals; for the aggregate of such impressions, however immense, it is impossible to analyze. every varying circumstance of life men have been affected by what they believed others had ante- · cedently said or done in like conditions, but this influence can only be tested upon general principles where they have been so affected conjointly and in masses. Charles XII, may have learnt how to contend from Alexander, or that poor Louis XVI. at the Tuileries may have studied how to die by the example of Charles the First. Such instances, and thousands of others less illustrious, are nothing to our purpose, for they are individual and exceptional, and are not capable of any appropriate classification. Again, I do not mean by the influence of history its general effect in deterring mankind from a repetition of the errors registered on its pages. If, for instance, the excesses of the first French Revolution have taught us (as I do not doubt they have) considerable caution for all time to come, I could not pretend to reason on their influence, unless I knew certainly from what they had saved us. The negative effect of history I pass over entirely. It is only where its agency is of a positive kind, where it has induced movement instead of repressing it; where it has acted, if I may so speak, as a disturbing influence on the current of human affairs, that I propose to consider it. History being a record of former events, it can only so operate by presenting certain representations of the past, which men may be induced deliberately to imitate. Accordingly, we find that in various instances men have attempted to restore the past according to the notion which they have conceived of it from history. These attempts at revival have certain features in common, but I will first endeavour to illustrate them by examples. One of the first and most remarkable was that of the Emperor Julian. The attempt of Julian was not the mere impulse of an individual mind, but was an impulse he partook in common with others. Any one who is acquainted with Mr. Kingsley's 'Hypatia,' which is now publishing in Fraser's Magazine, will understand how Julian was the type of a class-the most distinguished type unquestionably, as followed necessarily from the advantages both of his talents and position. Julian represented the antagonism of his age. When he was called to the throne of the Cæsars, the Christians were rejoicing in their newly acquired ascendency. The martyrs of the Circus had striven continually till they had become eventually the masters of the classic world. The old creeds were outworn; the old gods, if not dead, were deathstricken; and among their adherents there was a general solicitude compounded of their fears, their sympathies and their regrets, on behalf of a system which others were supplanting. As most of you know, from the splendid narrative of Gibbon, Julian is represented as the exponent of that relenting spirit which, without any definite conviction or hope, sought to perpetuate the old Olympus, together with the social agencies it implied. I will illustrate the words "without any definite conviction or hope" presently, for I must first of all point to the influences, which in Julian's case were a substitute. We should remember that at his outset in life he was a sufferer at the hands of his cousin Constantius, by whom his brother Gallus was treacherously murdered, and that he had, therefore, no predilection for the professing Christians in authority. His early education had interested him in the classic legends, From the Eunuch Mardonius he first obtained a knowledge of the majestic verse of Homer. By Libanius and Maximus he was instructed in the Greek philosophy. And thus prepared, we should remember also that, during the plastic and probationary season of life, he had a respite for a time from political surveillance, and that this respite was afforded him at Athens. Milton may suggest to us the aspect of Athens at that time where he is indicating all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. We may imagine its effect on Julian, who would "See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; The schools of Ancient Sages; his who bred Lyceum there and painted Stoa next." The anti-Christian prejudices which Julian participated with others, would be thenceforth intensified by his most charming recollections. Can we wonder that, when Julian was summoned from Athens, he raised his hands in prayer to the Minerva of the Parthenium, and besought her to protect him, her devoted servant? It is not my purpose to recount his perseverance. He ascended, as you know, the throne of Constantius. He became the restorer of the ancient religion. He revived the ancient classic usages. He officiated as Supreme Pontiff. He fasted in honour of Pan and Mercury. He arbitrated between Corinth and Argos on the restitution of the Isthmian games. He officiated himself at the Pagan altars, and he imagined that he was visited by the Genius of the empire; that he had communications from the gods; that he could distinguish their voices like Numa or Achilles. He himself attempted to emulate the heroes of Homer while he wrote treatises against Christianity in the interest of the followers of Plato. He supplanted the Christian bishops by rhetoricians and philosophers. With a literary leaning to sophists and charlatans he combined the manly bearing of a Roman general; and he died with the equanimity of a Greek sage, when arrested in the highest triumph of a Greek warrior, retaliating invasion upon the soil of the barbarian. Concurrently with his effort to restore the ancient creed he exemplified in his person the antique virtues. And yet, as I said, in spite of these assumed proofs of his sincerity, he maintained this creed without any definite conviction of its truth, and without any reasonable hope of success. How could he possess a definite conviction of polytheism when he acknowledged the original unity of the Divine being? In spite of his Neo-Platonic mysticism, he had a philosophical tendency to freedom of thought. I find that notwithstanding his patronage of augury, he could himself defy augury if need were. As Libanius says, on such occasions, "he was himself his own Pythia ;" and otherwise he showed symptoms of a mental confusion, such as that illus |