There were no fixed and ascertained principles by which the actions of men were determined.
There was no possibility of trying experiments.

The late Mr.Buckle had not displaced the methods of the older historians, nor founded a system of his own.

"I have no philosophy of history," added Froude, who disbelieved in the universal applicability of general truths.
Here, perhaps, he is hardly just to himself.

The introductory chapter to his History of the Reformation, especially the impressive contrast between modern and mediaeval England, is essentially philosophical, so much so that one sees in it the student of Thucydides, Tacitus, and Gibbon.

History to Froude, like the world to Jaques, was a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
But a lover of Goethe knows well enough that the drama can be philosophical, and Shakespeare, the master of human nature, has drawn nothing more impressive than the close of Wolsey's career.
"The history of mankind is the history of great men," was Carlyle's motto, and Froude's.