Note 15-1 — An Ethnologist’s View of History.

There is nothing in this inconsistent with the principle laid down by Lecky: “The men of each age must be judged by the ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ourselves.”—The Political Value of History, p. 50, New York, 1892. The distinction is that between the relative standard, which we apply to motives and persons, and the absolute standard, which we apply to actions. The effects of the latter, for good or evil, are fixed, and independent of the motives which prompt them.