Under the process we have assumed, Droysen, Sybel, and Treitschke would have to be cast down from their pedestals.  They were the political schoolmasters of Germany during a period of profound national discouragement.  They used history in order to stir their countrymen to action, but “if the supreme aim of history is to discover truth and to interpret the movement of humanity, they have no claim to a place in the first class.”  Patriotism, as the Portuguese historian, Herculano da Carvalho, said, is “a bad counsellor for historians”; albeit, few have had the courage to discard patriotic considerations altogether, as was the case with the Swiss Kopp, who wrote a history of his country “from which Gessler and Tell disappeared,” and in which “the familiar anecdotes of Austrian tyranny and cruelty were dismissed as legends.”

Philosophic historians, who have endeavoured to bend facts into conformity with some special theory of their own, would fare little better than those who have been ardent politicians.  Sainte-Beuve, after reading Guizot’s sweeping and lofty generalisations, declared that they were far too logical to be true, and forthwith “took down from his shelves a volume of De Retz to remind him how history was really made.”  Second-or third-rate historians, such as Lamartine, who, according to Dumas, “raised history to the level of the novel,” or the vitriolic Lanfrey, who was a mere pamphleteer, would, of course, be consigned—­and very rightly consigned—­to utter oblivion.  The notorious inaccuracy of Thiers and the avowed hero-worship of Masson alike preclude their admissibility into the select circle of trustworthy and veracious historians.  It is even questionable whether one of the most objectively minded of French writers, the illustrious Taine, would gain admission.  His work, he himself declared, “was nothing but pure or applied psychology,” and psychology is apt to clash with the facts of history.  Scherer described Taine, somewhat unjustly, as “a pessimist in a passion,” whilst the critical and conscientious Aulard declared that his work was “virtually useless for the purposes of history.”  Mr. Gooch classes Sorel’s work as “incomparably higher” than that of Taine.  Montalembert is an extreme case of a French historian who adopted thoroughly unsound historical methods.  Clearly, as Mr. Gooch says, “the author of the famous battle-cry, ’We are the sons of the Crusades, and we will never yield to the sons of Voltaire,’ was not the man for objective study.”

The fate of some of the most distinguished American and British historians would be even more calamitous than that of their Continental brethren.  If the touchstone of impartiality were applied, Prescott might perhaps pass unscathed through the trial.  But few will deny that Motley wrote his very attractive histories at a white heat of Republican and anti-Catholic fervour.  He, as also Bancroft, are classed by Mr. Gooch amongst those who “made their histories the vehicles of political and religious propaganda.”  Washington Irving’s claim to rank in the first class of historians may be dismissed on other grounds.  “He had no taste for research,” and merely presented to the world “a poet’s appreciation” of historical events.