A historian's creed

the long version

This little book contains the final conclusion of a veteran historian whose life has been devoted to the currents of thought and feeling in the history of man's endeavor to realize whatever he has conceived as best. Dr. Taylor treats endeavor as the real human story, since endeavor is the man himself, his true attainment, while any palpable results are seldom in his control and usually extend beyond his ken. This story manifests itself in all manner of relations and continuities, physical and spiritual. It carries the purport and meaning of the world and is for us the least ambiguous expression of the will of God. The first chapter of the book stresses the continunity of the individual in himself; the second traces and analyzes continuities in history; the third considers the effect of personal choice and approval upon cosmic conceptions and the consciousness of self; the fourth is an imaginative illustration of these principles in the person of an ancient poet; and the fifth applies them to a fairly definite historical period. - Publisher's Note.