Mandell Creighton on John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

“To-morrow I am going to London to meet at dinner Lord Acton, whom I have long been pining to see. He is a Roman Catholic, and is the most learned Englishman now alive, but he never writes anything.”

“I have had a long correspondence with Lord Acton, and now begin to understand him. He demands that history should be primarily a branch of the moral sciences, and should aim at proving the immutable righteousness of the ideas of modern Liberalism—tolerance and the supremacy of conscience. He has used me as a peg to indicate that belief. He is revising his original remarks, but I do not expect that much clearness will ensue, though it will be very interesting.”