of letters, you have but to select such facts as suit you, you have but
to leave alone those which do not suit you, and, let your theory of
history be what it will, you can find no difficulty in providing facts
to prove it.

You may have your Hegel's philosophy of history, or you may have your
Schlegel's philosophy of history; you may prove from history that the
world is governed in detail by a special Providence; you may prove that
there is no sign of any moral agent in the universe, except man; you may
believe, if you like it, in the old theory of the wisdom of antiquity;
you may speak, as was the fashion in the fifteenth century, of "our
fathers, who had more wit and wisdom than we"; or you may talk of "our
barbarian ancestors," and describe their wars as the scuffling of kites
and crows.

You may maintain that the evolution of humanity has been an unbroken
progress toward perfection; you may maintain that there has been no
progress at all, and that man remains the same poor creature that he
ever was; or, lastly, you may say, with the author of the "Contract
Social," that men were purest and best in primeval simplicity,--

"When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

In all or any of these views, history will stand your friend. History,
in its passive irony, will make no objection. Like Jarno, in Goethe's
novel, it will not condescend to argue with you, and will provide you
with abundant illustrations of any thing which you may wish to believe.

"What is history," said Napoleon, "but a fiction agreed upon?" "My
friend," said Faust to the student, who was growing enthusiastic about