Note 27 — Front matter

I hold that the degree in which Poets dwell in sympathy with the Past, marks exactly the degree of their poetical faculty.—Wordsworth in C. Fox, Memoirs, June, 1842. In all political, all social, all human questions whatever, history is the main resource of the inquirer.—Harrison, Meaning of History, 15. There are no truths which more readily gain the assent of mankind, or are more firmly retained by them, than those of an historical nature, depending upon the testimony of others.—Priestley, Letters to French Philosophers, 9. Improvement consists in bringing our opinions into nearer agreement with facts; and we shall not be likely to do this while we look at facts only through glasses coloured by those very opinions.—Mill, Inaugural Address, 25.