Letters on the Study and Use of History

by Henry Saint John

From Content: "My Lord: I have considered formerly, with a good deal of attention, the subject on which you command me to communicate my thoughts to you: and I practised in those days, as much as business and pleasure allowed me time to do, the rules that seemed to me necessary to be observed in the study of history. They were very different from those which writers on the same subject have recommended, and which are commonly practised. But I confess to your lordship, that this neither gave me then, nor has given me since, any distrust of them. I do not affect singularity. On the contrary, I think that a due deference is to be paid to received opinions, and that a due compliance with received customs is to be held; though both the one and the other should be, what they often are, absurd or ridiculous. But this servitude is outward only, and abridges in no sort the liberty of private judgment. The obligations of submitting to it likewise, even outwardly, extend no further than to those opinions and customs which cannot be opposed, or from which we cannot deviate without doing hurt, or giving offence to society. In all these cases our speculations ought to be free: in all other cases, our practice may be so. Without any regard, therefore, to the opinion and practice even of the learned world, I am very willing to tell you mine. But, as it is hard to recover a thread of thought long ago laid aside, and impossible to prove some things, and explain others, without the assistance of many books which I have not here, your lordship must be content with such an imperfect sketch, as I am able to send you at present in this letter. The motives that carry men to the study of history are deficient. Some intend, if such as they may be said to study, nothing more than amusement, and read the life of Aristides or Phocion, of Epaminondas or Scipio, Alexander or Caesar, just as they play a game at cards, or as they would read the story of the seven champions."

482 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2008

About the author

Henry Saint John, first viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman, orator, and a Jacobite, spent much life in exile and wrote influential political treatises, notably The Idea of a Patriot King in 1749.

This Tory philosopher flourished.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_S...

Reviews

[Andie]

What I like most about reading this book was the experience: this was the first manuscript (an eighteenth-century copy) I read in one of Trinity College Dublin's reading rooms for early modern books.

I read it for my dissertation.

It was most interesting in regard to how people thought history should be written and what was expected of those who dare write it. It was evidently a profession only for men. Those that study it, however, could be all kinds --albeit, of men. They saw history as a practical guide to cultivate virtue and wisdom to live a happy life, and a guide especially dedicated to men that serve the country. But in his view, in a democratic government as Britain was supposed to be in the eighteenth-century, you didn't need to born for a post or have a special rank, or men should study the history of their country.