The more of a student he is—and no one can be a historian without being a very devoted student—the more he is removed from that intimate contact with… - Samuel Rawson Gardiner

The statesman uses his imagination to predict the result of changes to be produced in the actually existing state of society, either by the natural forces which govern it, or by his own action. The historian uses his imagination in tracing out the causes which produced that existing state of society.

By those who stand aloof from us we are represented as grasping at wealth and territory, incapable of imaginative sympathy with subject races, and decking our misconduct with moral sentiments intended to impose on the world. From our own point of view, the extension of our rule is a benefit to the world, and subject races have gained far more than they have lost by submission to a just and beneficent administration, whilst our counsels have always, or almost always, been given with a view to free the oppressed and to put a bridle in the mouth of the oppressor.

Whatever the future may have in reserve, this present work has constantly reminded me by how deep a gulf we are separated from the time when I commenced my labours, now some twenty-two years ago. Macaulay and Forster were then in possession of the field. The worship of the Puritans was in the ascendant, and to suggest that it was possible to make out a reasonable case for Bacon and Strafford was regarded as eccentric. All this is changed now. Few are to be found to say a good word for Puritanism, and the mistakes of the Long Parliament are unveiled with an unsparing hand. A dislike of agitation and disturbance has in some quarters taken the place of a dislike of arbitrary power, whilst reverence for culture has often left little room for reverence for liberty.