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12
INTRODUCTORY
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HISTORY AND ITS LESSONS If, however, we examine this teaching by the light of the lessons which History instils--and History is in such matters our surest and safest guide-if we examine it by the help of those lives which form the soul of all good biographies, we shall find that a nation's greatness, a nation's power, peace and prosperity have resulted from, and have always depended upon, not men of selfish ends and interests, not men who lived contented with earning their own bread and seeking their own happiness, not men who pursued their own pleasures and sought the gratification of their own wants and desires, regarding themselves as the centre of all their thoughts and actions, but those noble and selfless characters who thought less of themselves and more of others, who devoted their talents, their energies and their lives to the service of their country and their people, who loved the land of their birth, the glory and the renown of their race, with so pure an affection that they counted it a joy and an honour beyond price to work and even to suffer for their sake. Take away these characters and their deeds from the pages of History, and see then what remains of History at all? History then becomes a perfect blank. It has little to tell; still less to teach. And, if countries that have become great and prosperous owe their greatness and their prosperity to the selfdenying labours of the men who lived and worked
