Excerpt from Caesar: A Sketch What, then, is the use of history, and what are its lessons? If it is largely uncertain of the past, and wholly uncertain of the future, why waste time over so barren a study? One lesson, and only one, history teaches with distinctness; this lesson is, that the world is built on moral foundations; that, in the long run, it is well with the good and ill with the wicked. But this is no science; it is noth ing but the old doctrine long ago taught by the Hebrew prophets. Another lesson is, that we should draw no horoscopes, that we should expect little, for what we ex peet will not come to pass. The revolutions and reforma tions into which patriots and saints have thrown themselves have not borne the fruit they looked for. Millenniums are still far away in the future. Luther would have had less heart to confront the Diet of Worms if he had foreseen the Thirty Years' War, and Washington might not have drawn his sword if he could have foreseen the year 1861. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.