God, my Creator, have pity on your poor servant John Gerson. He had the happiness to die poor, in some measure, in the midst of the poor, having scarce enough left for a last foundation of the sisters of charity for the instruction of girls, and to take care of the sick. I hope the reader will pardon this digression, since the sole motive of it is, to express my gratitude for a master to whom I have so many obligations. BOOK 1 BOOK IV. OF HISTORY. INTRODUCTION. Ir is not without reason that [a] History has always been considered as the light of ages, the depositary of events, the faithful evidence of truth, the source of prudence and good counsel, and the rule of conduct and manners. [b] Confined without it to the bounds of the age and country wherein we live, and shut up within the narrow circle of such branches of knowledge as are peculiar to us, and the limits of our own private reflections, we continue in a kind of infancy, which leaves us strangers to the rest of the world, and profoundly ignorant of all that has preceded, or even now surrounds us. [e] What is the small number of years that make up the longest life, or what the extent of country which we are able to possess or travel over, but an imperceptible point in comparison of the vast regions of the universe, and the long series of ages, which have succeeded one another since the creation of the world? And yet all we are capable of knowing must be limited to this imperceptible point, unless we call in the study of History to our assistance, which opens to us every age [a] Historia testis temporum,lux veritatis, vita. memoriæ, magistra vitæ, nuncia vetustatis. Cic. lib. 2. de Orat. n. 36. [6] Nescire quid antea quàm natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Cic. in Orat. n. 120. [] Terram hanc, cum populis urbibusque ... puncti loco ponimus, ad universa referentes minorem portionem ætas nostra quàm puncti habet, si tempori comparetur YOL. II. P omni. Senec. de Consol. ad Mar. ciam. cap. 20. Nullum seculum magnis ingeniis clusum est, pullum non cogitationi pervium, Id, Si magnitudine animi egredi humanæ imbecillitatis angustias libet, multum per quod spatiemur temporis est... Licet in consortium omnis ævi pariter incedere. Id. de Brev. Vitæ, c. 14. and and every country, keeps up a correspondence betwixt us and the great men of antiquity, sets all their actions, all their atchievements, virtues, and faults before our eyes; and by the prudent reflections it either presents, or gives us an opportunity of making, soon teaches us to be wise before our time, and in a manner far superior to all the lessons of the greatest masters. History may properly be called the common school of mankind, equally open and useful both to great and small, to princes and subjects, and still more necessary to princes and great men, than to all others. For, how can awful truth approach them amidst the crowd of flatterers, which surround them on all sides, and are continually commending and admiring them, orin other words corrupting and poisoning their hearts and understandings; how, I say, can truth make her feeble voice be heard amidst such tumult and confusion? How venture to lay before them the duties and slaveries of royalty? How shew them wherein their true glory consists, and represent to them, that if they will look back to the original of their institution, they may clearly find [d] they were made for the people; and not the people for them? How put them in mind of their faults, make them apprehend the just judgment of posterity, and disperse the thick clouds, which the vain phantom of their greatness, and the inebriation of their fortune, have formed around them? These services, which are so necessary and important, can be rendered them only by the assistance of History, which alone has the power of speaking freely to them, and the right of passing an absolute judgment upon the actions of princes, no less than fame, which [e] Seneca calls liberrimam principum judicem, "the most free judge of princes." Their abilities may be extolled, their wit and valour admired, and their ex [d] Assiduis bonitatis argumentis probavit, non rempublicam suam esse, sed se reipublicæ. Senec. de Clem. lib. 1. cap. 19. [e] Sen. de Consol. ad Marciam, cap. 4. ploits and conquests boasted of; but if all these have no foundation in truth and justice, History will tacitly. pass sentence upon them under borrowed names. The greatest part of the most famous conquerors they will find treated as public calamities, the enemies of mankind, and [f] the robbers of nations, who hurried on by a restless and blind ambition, carry desolation from country to country, [g] and like an inundation, or a fire, ravage all that they meet in their way. They will see a Caligula, a Nero, and a Domitian, who were praised to excess during their lives, become the horror and execration of mankind after their deaths; whereas Titus, Trajan, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, are still looked upon as the delights of the world, for having made use of their power only to do good. Thus we may say, that History is to them a tribunal raised in their life-time, like that which was formerly erected amongst the Egyptians, where princes, like private men, were tried and condemned after their death, and that hence they may learn beforehand, the sentence which will for ever be passed upon their reputation. It is History, in fine, [h] which fixes the seal of immortality upon actions truly great, and sets a mark of infamy on vices, which no after-age can ever obliterate. It is by History that mistaken merit, and oppressed virtue, appeal to the uncorruptible tribunal of posterity, which renders them the justice their own age has sometimes refused them, and without respect of persons and the fear of a power, which subsists no more, condemns the unjust abuse of authority with inexorable rigour. There is no age or condition, which may not derive the same advantages from History; and what I have said of princes and conquerors, comprehends [f] Jer. iv. 7. [g] Philippi aut Alexandri latrocinia cæterorumque, qui exitio gentium clari, non minores fuere pestes mortalium, quàm inundatio, quâ planum omne perfusum est, quam conflagratio, quâ magna pars animantium exaruit. Senec. lib. 3. Nat. Quæst. in Præfat. [b] Præcipuum munus annalium reor, ne virtutes sileantur, utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate & infamiâ metus sit. Tacit. Annal. lib. 3 cap. 65. P 2 also also in some measure all persons in power, ministers of state, generals of armies, officers, magistrates, governors of provinces, prelates, ecclesiastical superiors both secular and regular, fathers and mothers, masters and mistresses; in a word, whoever have authority over others. For such persons have sometimes more haughtiness, pride and humour in a very limited station than kings in theirs, and carry their despotic disposition and arbitrary power to a greater length. History therefore is of great advantage, to lay down useful lessors to them all, and present them with a faithful mirror of their duties and obligations by an unsuspected hand and thereby make them sensible, that they are all constituted for the sake of their inferiors, and not their inferiors for them. Thus History, when it is well taught, becomes a school of morality for all mankind. It condemns vice, throws off the mask from false virtues, lays open popular errors and prejudices, dispels the delusive charms of riches, and all the vain pomp which dazzles the imagination, and shews by a thousand examples, that are more availing than all reasonings whatsoever, that nothing is great and commendable but honour and probity. From the esteem and admiration, which the most corrupt cannot refuse to the great and good actions which History lays before them, it confirms the great truth, that virtue is man's real good, and alone renders him truly great and valuable. [] This virtue we are taught by History to revere, and to discern its beauty and brightness through the veils of poverty, adversity, and obscurity, and sometimes also of disgrace and infamy; and on the other hand it inspires us with the contempt [i] Si, quemadmodum visus oculorum quibusdam medicamentis acui solet & repurgari, sic & nos acrem animi liberare impedimentis voluerimus, poterimus perspicere virtutem, etiam obrutam corpore, etiam paupertate oppositâ, & humilitate, & infamiâ objacentibus: cernemus, inquam, pulchritudinem illam, quamvis sordido obtectam. Rursus æquè militiam & ærumnosi animi veternum perspiciemus, quamvis multus circa divitiarum radiantium splendor impediat, & intuentem hinc honorum,illinc magnarum potestatum, falsa lux vetberet. Senee. Ep. 115 and |
