The American Historical School (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from The American Historical School

The branches of knowledge especially devoted to the consideration of the mental powers, the duties and the high er interests of man, are comprehended under the general name of the moral sciences. In a restricted signification, moral science rests upon conscious experience, not empiri cal observation. It is conversant with man rather in his individual than in his social capacity. It teaches what he is, to the end that he may know what he can become, in~ stead of prescribing rules to guide him in determining what he shall do. But, in a larger sense, the term embraces certain mixed studies, which treat of men rather than of man; of the social being who is subject to human law, not the isolated agent that is amenable to the judgment of the conscience alone, and pleads before no other tribunal. Among these latter humbler and more uncertain studies, one of the most important and comprehensive in its appli cations is the Science (as it is perhaps too ambitiously call cd,) of History, and I propose to ask your attention to a few remarks upon the general character of existing historical literature, the uses of historical knowledge, and the conditions which the peculiar character of our institutions requires in theamerican historical school.

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Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The American Historical School

The sagest philosophers, under all religious dispensations, have thought the temporal condition and prospects of man a subject, in dignity, importance and obscurity, inferior only to the greater question of his eternal destiny. Indeed, man's mortal life is perhaps the darker theme; for most wise men, in every age, have held that some ray of Divine illumination has illustrated that more momentous problem, in itself too hard for human solution, while the often-disputed topic of the constant and indefinite earthly progress of our race is elucidated by no revelation, and the hopes and fears of terrestrial man must be determined by the lights which nature has furnished him. Although it should seem that every self-conscious being, possessed of memory and the powers of volition, reflection and comparison, ought to be able to solve, unaided, all questions connected with his own moral or intellectual position and progress; yet, in this enigmatical world of ours, man is not left to puzzle out, by his inward light alone, the riddle of his own existence. To the revelations of consciousness, the experience of states of moral and intellectual being, the science of necessary truths, he may add the knowledge acquired through the powers of sensuous observation, the laws of the physical universe, the rules of practical wisdom, which the discipline of thousands of years has accumulated.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.