Closer inspection of our materials, the employment of the comparative method, occasionally the bringing to light of new authorities--all contribute to an increase of real knowledge, and historical studies in this respect do not differ from other branches of research.

But this is not the sole or the chief cause of the renovation and transformation constantly needed in historic work.

That depends on the ever-moving standpoint from which the past is regarded, so that society in looking back on its previous history never sees it for long together at quite the same angle, never sees, we may say, quite the same thing.

The past changes to us as we move down the stream of time, as a distant mountain changes through the windings of the road on which we travel away from it.

To drop figure and use language now becoming familiar, the social organism is in constant growth, and receiving new additions, and each new addition causes us to modify our view of the whole.