to see men, we must see their works, that we may learn what reason
has dictated or passion has excited, and find what are the most
powerful motives of action. To judge rightly of the present, we
must oppose it to the past; for all judgment is comparative, and of
the future nothing can be known. The truth is that no mind is much
employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up
almost all our moments. Our passions are joy and grief, love and
hatred, hope and fear. Of joy and grief, the past is the object,
and the future of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the
past, for the cause must have been before the effect.

"The present state of things is the consequence of the former; and
it is natural to inquire what were the sources of the good that we
enjoy, or the evils that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves,
to neglect the study of history is not prudent. If we are
entrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when
it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with
evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.

"There is no part of history so generally useful as that which
relates to the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement
of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of
learning and ignorance (which are the light and darkness of
thinking beings), the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the
revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and
invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful or
elegant arts are not to be neglected; those who have kingdoms to
govern have understandings to cultivate.

"Example is always more efficacious than precept. A soldier is