daily details which make up individual human life--are found to be
necessary parts of a whole, when regarded with that breadth and clearness
of vision which is permitted to human beings only when they can look
backward upon that long sequence of events which make up the life of
nations and which we call the Past. It is only by the anatomical study
of what has ceased to exist that we can come thoroughly to comprehend the
framework and the vital conditions of that which lives. It is only by
patiently lifting the shroud from the Past that we can enable ourselves
to make even wide guesses at the meaning of the dim Present and the
veiled Future. It is only thus that the continuity of human history
reveals itself to us as the most important of scientific facts.

If ever commonwealth was apparently doomed to lose that national
existence which it had maintained for a brief period at the expense of
infinite sacrifice of blood and treasure, it was the republic of the
United Netherlands in the period immediately succeeding the death of
William the Silent. Domestic treason, secession of important provinces,
religious-hatred, foreign intrigue, and foreign invasion--in such a sea
of troubles was the republic destined generations long to struggle. Who
but the fanatical, the shallow-minded, or the corrupt could doubt the
inevitable issue of the conflict? Did not great sages and statesmen
whose teachings seemed so much wiser in their generation than the
untaught impulses of the great popular heart, condemn over and over again
the hopeless struggles and the atrocious bloodshed which were thought to
disgrace the age, and by which it was held impossible that the cause of
human liberty should ever be advanced?

To us who look back from the vantage summit which humanity has reached--
thanks to the toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us--it may
seem doubtful whether premature peace in the Netherlands, France, and