Note 6 — Chapter I · HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Reading edition
What Morley has said of Macaulay is true of many eminent American historical writers: “A popular author must, in a thoroughgoing way, take the accepted maxims for granted. He must suppress any whimsical fancy for applying the Socratic elenchus; or any other engine of criticism, scepticism, or verification to those sentiments or current precepts or morals which may in truth be very equivocal and may be much neglected in practice, but which the public opinion of his time requires to be treated in theory and in literature as if they had been cherished and held semper, ubique, et ab omnibus.” Miscellanies, Vol. I, p. 272.