A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

in other fields of thought. Hume and Gibbon had set the example of a strictly naturalistic treatment of history; and the clerical Robertson was faithful to their method; but Hallam makes a stand for supernaturalism even in applying a generally scientific critical standard. The majority of historical events he is content to let pass as natural, even as the average man sees the hand of the doctor in his escape from rheumatism, but the hand of God in his escape from a railway accident. Discussing the defeat of Barbarossa at Legnano, Hallam pronounces that it is not "material to allege ... that the accidental destruction of Frederic's army by disease enabled the cities of Lombardy to succeed in their resistance.... Providence reserves to itself various means by which the bonds of the oppressor may be broken; and it is not for human sagacity to anticipate whether the army of a conqueror shall moulder in the unwholesome marshes of Rome or stiffen with frost in a Russian winter." [1926] But Hallam was nearly the last historian of distinction to vend such nugatory oracles as either a philosophy or a religion of history. Even the oracular Carlyle did not clearly stipulate for "special providences" in his histories, though he leant to that conception; and though Ranke also uses mystifying language, he writes as a Naturalist; while Michelet is openly anti-clerical. Grote was wholly a rationalist; the historic method of his friend and competitor, Bishop Thirlwall, was as non-theological as his; Macaulay, whatever might be his conformities or his bias, wrote in his most secular spirit when exhibiting theological evolution; and George Long indicated his rationalism again and again. [1927] It is only in the writings of the most primitively prejudiced of those German historians who eliminate ethics from historiography that the "God" factor is latterly emphasized in ostensibly expert historiography.