AN APOLOGY FOR PLAINSPEAKING. By Leslie Stephen 281




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JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

BORN 1818.




THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY.

A LECTURE DELIVERED BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION
FEBRUARY 5, 1864.


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I have undertaken to speak to you this
evening on what is called the Science of History. I fear it is a dry
subject; and there seems, indeed, something incongruous in the very
connection of such words as Science and History. It is as if we were to
talk of the color of sound, or the longitude of the Rule-of-three. Where
it is so difficult to make out the truth on the commonest disputed fact
in matters passing under our very eyes, how can we talk of a science in
things long past, which come to us only through books? It often seems to
me as if History was like a child's box of letters, with which we can