From Alan Atkinson The Europeans in Australia Volume 2: Democracy
It is not the duty of historians to be objective, in the strictest meaning of that word, because the material they work with is not object but human- a distinction of crucial importance for the period of this volume. It is not their duty to be dispassionate at every stage because in their research and writing they handle and memorialise passions like their own. It is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative (using moral imagination above all), and even-handed. (p.xix)
