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Ethnic Ideals Of The British Isles, Constance Rummons

University of Nebraska Studies in Language, Literature, and Criticism

The history of a people can be read truly only in the light of its ideals. To study only the recorded acts of men is to see only a series of phenomena that are often incomprehensible and apparently erratic. What a mad affair the Crusades must seem to one who knows nothing of mediaeval religious ideals! How inexplicable would appear the courageous resistance of Belgium to a student in a later age who should have no knowledge of contemporary thought, and should be unable to see the principles for which she stood! Any judgment of a human action which leaves …