Note A — DISCOURSE.

See Dr. Arnold's "Lectures on Modern History." The above statement is correct, so long as we take a merely natural view of mankind—so long as we view men merely in their moral relations. Viewing men by the light of revelation and in relations more strictly religious, Church-biography would still better deserve the name of history. But for some reason, these religious relations are not commonly recognized in their importance. Like the historian, the moral philosopher commonly ignores man's lapsed condition, and all the great truths which distinguish supernatural religion. See Wardlaw's "Christian Ethics."

It ought also to be observed that human governments, at the best, are obliged to leave many interests of their citizens uncared for, or to be cared for by other agents than their own; also, that human governments are often corrupt and fail to discharge their proper functions. Hence, the historian needs the supplement of individual biographies, and transactions of voluntary societies, and pictures of domestic and social life, in order to a full representation of his subject. Who would dispense with the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament history, or with Macaulay's picture of England in 1685 in his English history?