Autobiography of Edward Gibbon : as originally edited by Lord Sheffield / with an introduction by J.B. Bury.

  • Edward Gibbon
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Autobiography of Edward Gibbon : as originally edited by Lord Sheffield / with an introduction by J.B. Bury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers; it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. Fiftv or an hundred years may be allotted to an individual ; but we step forward beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgement will rather tend to moderate, than to suppress, the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach ; but reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits, which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind. Few there are who can sincerely despise in others, an advantage of which they are secretly ambitious to partake. The know¬ ledge of our own family from a remote period, will be always esteemed as an abstract pre-eminence, since it can never be promiscuously enjoyed; but the longest series of peasants and mechanics would not afford much gratification to the pride of their descen¬ dant. We wish to discover our ancestors, but we wish to discover them possessed of ample fortunes, adorned with honourable titles, and holding an eminent rank in the class of hereditary nobles, which has been maintained for the wisest and most beneficial pur¬ poses, in almost every climate of the globe, and in almost every modification of political society. Wherever the distinction of birth is allowed to form a superior order in the state, education and before his death, I suggested to him, that, if he should make them a full image of his mind, he would not have nerves to publish them, and therefore that they should be posthumous. He answered, rather eagerly, that he was determined to publish them in his lifetime. S.
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