Froude, J. A., 125, 126
Geiger, W., 56
Gellius, Aulus, 300
Georgisch, P., 106
Giannone, Pietro, 104
Gibbon, E., 44
Gilbert, Gustav, 309
Giry, A., 57
Glasson, E., 149
Goethe, J. W. von, 19, 319
Gow, J., 75
Graux, C., 123
Gregory of Corinth, 78
Gregory of Tours, 144, 146, 158, 180, 198, 256
Groeber, G., 57, 310
Grote, G., 183, 310
Grotius, Hugo, 44
Guicciardini, Francesco, 44
Guiraud, P., 230
Hagen, H., 78
Hardouin, Pere, 99
Harnack, A., 309
Havet, Julien, 12, 56, 97, 123, 128
Havet, Louis, 12
Haureau, B., 84, 111, 118, 123
Hegel, G. W. F., 286
Henry VIII. of England, 249
Henry II. of France, 292
Henry, V., 289
Herodotus, 44, 171, 179, 197
Horace, 99
Hoveden, John, 88
Hroswitha, 99
Hugo, Victor, 88, 89
Hume, D., 44
Jaffe, P., 106
Jameson, J. F., 136
Jerome, St., 112
Jesus Christ, 188
Joan of Arc, 188
John, King of England, 187
Jullian, C., 297
Krumbacher, K., 309
Kuhn, E., 56
Lacombe, T., 2, 233, 241, 277, 288
Lamprecht, K., 230, 247, 284, 290, 314
Langlois, Ch. V., 19, 38, 111, 135, 192, 345
Lasch, B., 68
Laurent, F., 285
Lavisse, E., 134, 328, 333, 337, 341, 342
Lavoisier, A. L., 302
Leibnitz, G. W., 121, 122
Lee, Sidney, 308
Le Moyne, Pere, 7
Lenglet de Fresnoy, N., 6
Leonardo da Vinci, 88, 89
Liard, L., 335, 341
Lindner, T., 81
Lindsay, W. M., 78, 79, 84
Livy, 44, 178, 180, 233, 297, 298
Locke, John, 44
Loebell, J. W., 180
Lorenz, O., 10
Loudun, the nuns of, 208
Louis VIII. of France, 187
Louis of Granada, 88
Luard, H. R., 98
Luther, Martin, 203
Mably, G. B. De, 43, 44
Macaulay, Lord, 303
Macchiavelli, N., 44
Madvig, J. N., 78
Mariani, L., 4
Marquardt, J., 309
Marselli, N., 2
Mary Magdalene, St., 88
Mary, Queen, 249
Matthew of Paris, 98
Matthew of Westminster, 97
Mayr, J. von, 274
Merimee, P., 301
Mesha Inscription, the, 212
Meusel, H., 148
Meyer, E., 158
Meyer, P., 29
Mezeray, F. E. de, 298
Michelet, J., 230, 271, 286, 287, 301, 303, 327, 336
Moeller, W., 309
Mommsen, T., 108, 118, 230, 286, 309, 314
Monod, G., 100, 144, 297, 302
Montesquieu, C. de S., 44, 257, 284, 299
Montfaucon, Pere Bernard de, 29
Montgomery, Gabriel de, 292
Mortet, Ch. and V., 11
Mourin, E., 302
Mueller, I. von, 56, 74, 310
Mylaeus, 6
Napoleon I., 26, 282
Newton, Isaac, 302
Niebuhr, B. G., 158, 182
Nietzsche, F., 319
Nitzsch, C. W., 180
Oncken, W., 311
Orosius, 298
Ossian, 91
Otto I., 175
Paris, G., 309
Patrizzi, Francesco, 6
Pattison, Mark, 115
Paul, H., 75, 310
Pauly, A., 308
Pausanias, 74
Peckham, John, 88
Peiresc, N. F. C. de, 22
Pflugk-Harttung, J. von, 10, 130
Philippi, A., 129
Piaget, A., 91
Pisistratus, 207
Plato, 153
Plutarch, 44, 297
Polybius, 44, 279, 297
Potthast, A., 106
Prou, M., 57
Ranke, L., 140, 286
Raynal, J., 44
Reinach, S., 75, 79
Renan, E., 9, 29, 30, 40, 105, 114, 119, 122, 132, 134, 183
Retz, Cardinal de, 44, 162, 169
Rilliet, A., 162
Robertson, J. M., 115, 241
Robertson, W., 44
Rocholl, R., 285
Rousseau, J. J., 44
Rulhiere, C. C. de, 44
Saglio, E., 308
Saint-Simon, C. H. de, 251
Sallust, 44
Sanchoniathon, 91
Schiller, J. C. F. von, 162
Schlosser, F. C., 311
Schoemann, G. F., 309
Seguier, J. F., 109
Seignobos, Ch., 11, 66, 196, 257, 333, 334
Seneca, 78
Sforza, Ludovico, 282
Sickel, T. von, 56
Simmel, G., 217
Smedt, Pere de, 10, 156, 207, 254
Spencer, Herbert, 287
Stephen, Leslie, 308
Stubbe, W., 10
Suetonius, 94
Suger, Abbot, 170
Suidas, 158
Sully, M., 169
Surville, Clotilde de, 91
Tacitus, 44, 141, 144, 171, 177, 194, 233, 256
Taine, H. A., 140, 143, 247, 286
Tardif, A., 5, 7, 156
Taylor, J., 75
Thierry, Augustin, 98, 140, 230, 259, 265, 301, 302, 303
Thomas, A., 73
Thucydides, 19, 44, 158, 183, 197, 297
Tobler, A., 75
Tschudi, J. H., 162, 171
Turenne, H. de la T. d'A., 162
Vercingetorix, 88
Vergil, 84, 99
Vertot, R. A. de, 44
Villemarque, H. de, 181
Vincent de Paul, St. 326
Voltaire, F. M. A. de, 44, 299
Vrain-Lucas, 88
Waitz, G., 110, 118
Wallace, A. R., 207
Waltzing, J. P., 108
Wattenbach, W., 73
Wauters, A. C., 106
Weber, G., 311
Wegele, F. X. von, 122, 297
Wendover, Roger de, 98
Wissowa, G., 308
Wittekind, 175
Wright, T., 84
Xenophon, 44
Zumpt, A. W., 108
FOOTNOTES:
[1] W. B. Boyce, "Introduction to the Study of History, Civil,
Ecclesiastical, and Literary," London, 1894, 8vo.
[2] For example, P. J. B. Buches, in his _Introduction a la science de
l'histoire_, Paris, 1842, 2 vols. 8vo.
[3] The history of the attempts which have been made to understand and
explain philosophically the history of humanity has been undertaken, as
is well known, by Robert Flint. Mr. Flint has already given the history
of the Philosophy of History in French-speaking countries: "Historical
Philosophy in France and French Belgium and Switzerland," Edinburgh and
London, 1893, 8vo. It is the first volume of the expanded re-edition of
his "History of the Philosophy of History in Europe," published
twenty-five years ago. Compare the retrospective (or historical) part of
the work of N. Marselli, _La scienza della storia_, i., Torino, 1873.
The most important original work which has appeared in France since the
publication of the analytical repertory of R. Flint is that of P.
Lacombe, _De l'histoire consideree comme science_, Paris, 1894, 8vo. Cf.
_Revue Critique_, 1895, i. p. 132.
[4] _Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature_, 1892, i. p. 164.
[5] _Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature_, 1888, ii. p. 295. Cf.
_Le Moyen Age_, x. (1897), p. 91: "These books [treatises on historical
method] are seldom read by those to whom they might be useful, amateurs
who devote their leisure to historical research; and as to professed
scholars, it is from their masters' lessons that they have learnt to
know and handle the tools of their trade, leaving out of consideration
the fact that the method of history is the same as that of the other
sciences of observation, the gist of which can be stated in a few words.
[6] In accordance with the principle that historical method can only be
taught by example, L. Mariani has given the humorous title _Corso
pratico di metodologia della storia_ to a dissertation on a detail in
the history of Fermo. See the _Archivio della Societa romana di storia
patria_, xiii. (1890), p. 211.
[7] See an account of Freeman's work, "The Methods of Historical Study,"
in the _Revue Critique_, 1887, i. p. 376. This work, says the critic, is
empty and commonplace. We learn from it "that history is not so easy a
study as many fondly imagine, that it has points of contact with all the
sciences, and that the historian truly worthy of the name ought to know
everything; that historical certitude is unattainable, and that, in
order to make the nearest approach to it, it is necessary to have
constant recourse to the original sources; that it is necessary to know
and use the best modern historians, but never to take their word for
gospel. That is all." He concludes: Freeman "without a doubt taught
historical method far better by example than he ever succeeded in doing
by precept."
Compare _Bouvard et Pecuchet_, by G. Flaubert. Here we have two
simpletons who, among other projects, propose to write history. In order
to help them, one of their friends sends them (p. 156) "rules of
criticism taken from the _Cours_ of Daunou," such as: "It is no proof to
appeal to rumour and common opinion; the witnesses cannot appear. Reject
impossibilities: Pausanias was shown the stone swallowed by Saturn. Keep
in mind the skill of forgers, the interest of apologists and
calumniators." Daunou's work contains a number of truisms quite as
obvious, and still more comic than the above.
[8] Flint (ibid. p. 15) congratulates himself on not having to study the
literature of _Historic_, for "a very large portion of it is so trivial
and superficial that it can hardly ever have been of use even to persons
of the humblest capacity, and may certainly now be safely confined to
kindly oblivion." Nevertheless, Flint has given in his book a summary
list of the principal works of this kind published in French-speaking
countries from the earliest times. A more general and complete account
(though still a summary one) of the literature of this subject in all
countries is furnished by the _Lehrbuch der historischen Methode_ of E.
Bernheim (Leipzig, 1894, 8vo), pp. 143 _sqq._ Flint (who was acquainted
with several works unknown to Bernheim) stops at 1893, Bernheim at 1894.
Since 1889 the _Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft_ have
contained a periodical account of recent works on historical
methodology.
[9] This seventh volume was published in 1844. But Daunou's celebrated
_Cours_ was delivered at the College de France in the years 1819-30.
[10] The Italians of the Renaissance (Mylaens, Francesco Patrizzi, and
others), and after them the writers of the last two centuries, ask what
is the relation of history to dialectic and rhetoric; to how many laws
the historical branch of literature is subject; whether it is right for
the historian to relate treasons, acts of cowardice, crimes, disorders;
whether history is entitled to use any style other than the sublime; and
so on. The only books on _Historic_, published before the nineteenth
century, which give evidence of any original effort to attack the real
difficulties, are those of Lenglet de Fresnoy (_Methode pour etudier
l'histoire_, Paris, 1713), and of J. M. Chladenius (_Allgemeine
Geschichtswissenschaft_, Leipzig, 1752). The work of Chladenius has been
noticed by Bernheim (ibid. p. 166).
[11] He has not always shown even good sense, for, in the _Cours
d'etudes historiques_ (vii. p. 105), where he treats of a work, _De_
_l'histoire_, published in 1670 by Pere Le Moyne, a feeble production,
to say the least, bearing evident traces of senility, he expresses
himself as follows: "I cannot adopt all the maxims and precepts
contained in this treatise; but I believe that, after that of Lucian, it
is the best we have yet seen, and I greatly doubt whether any of those
whose acquaintance we have still to make has risen to the same height of
philosophy and originality." Pere H. Cherot has given a sounder estimate
of the treatise _De l'histoire_ in his _Etude sur la vie et les
oeuvres du P. Le Moyne_ (Paris, 1887, 8vo), pp. 406 _sqq._
[12] Bernheim declares, however (ibid. p. 177), that this little work
is, in his opinion, the only one which stands at the present level of
science.
[13] Flint says very well (ibid. p. 15): "The course of Historic has
been, on the whole, one of advance from commonplace reflection on
history towards a philosophical comprehension of the conditions and
processes on which the formation of historical science depends.
[14] By P. Guiraud, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, March 1896, p. 75.
[15] Renan has said some of the truest and best things that have ever
been said on the historical sciences in _L'Avenir de la science_ (Paris,
1890, 8vo), written in 1848.
[16] Some of the most ingenious, some of the most logical, and some of
the most widely applicable observations, on the method of the historical
sciences, have so far appeared, not in books on methodology, but in the
reviews--of which the _Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature_ is
the type--devoted to the criticism of new works of history and
erudition. It is a very useful exercise to run through the file of the
_Revue Critique_, founded, at Paris, in 1867, "to enforce respect for
method, to execute justice upon bad books, to check misdirected and
superfluous work."
[17] The first edition of the _Lehrbuch_ is dated 1889.
[18] The best work that has hitherto been published (in French) on
historical method is a pamphlet by MM. Ch. and V. Mortet, _La Science de
l'histoire_ (Paris, 1894, 8vo), 88 pp., extracted from vol. xx. of the
_Grande Encyclopedie_.
[19] One of us, M. Seignobos, proposes to publish later on a complete
treatise of Historical Methodology, if there appears to be a public for
this class of work.
[20] It cannot be too often stated that the study of history, as it is
prosecuted at school, does not presuppose the same aptitudes as the same
study when prosecuted at the university or in after life. Julien Havet,
who afterwards devoted himself to the (critical) study of history, found
history wearisome at school. "I believe," says M. L. Havet, "that the
teaching of history [in schools] is not organised in such a manner as to
provide sufficient nourishment for the scientific spirit.... Of all the
studies comprised in our school curricula, history is the only one in
which the pupil is not being continually called upon to verify
something. When he is learning Latin or German, every sentence in a
translation requires him to verify a dozen different rules. In the
various branches of mathematics the results are never divorced from
their proofs; the _problems_, too, compel the pupil to think through the
whole for himself. Where are the _problems_ in history, and what
schoolboy is ever trained to gain by independent effort an insight into
the interconnection of events?" (_Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des chartes_,
1896, p. 84).
[21] M. Langlois wrote Book I., Book II. as far at Chapter VI., the
second Appendix, and this Preface; M. Seignobos the end of Book II.,
Book III., and the first Appendix. Chapter I. in the second book,
Chapter V. of the third book, and the Conclusion, were written in
common.
[22] In practice one does not as a rule resolve to treat a point of
history before knowing whether there are or are not documents in
existence which enable it to be studied. On the contrary, it is the
accidental discovery of a document which suggests the idea of thoroughly
elucidating the point of history to which it relates, and thus leads to
the collection, for this purpose, of other documents of the same class.
[23] It is pitiable to see how the best of the early scholars struggled
bravely, but vainly, to solve problems which would not even have existed
for them if their collections had not been so incomplete. This lack of
material was a disadvantage for which the most brilliant ingenuity could
not compensate.
[24] "How hard it is to gain the means whereby we mount to the sources"
(Goethe, _Faust_, i. 3).
[25] See C. V. Langlois, _H. H. Bancroft et Cie._, in the _Revue
universitaire_, 1894, i. p. 233.
[26] The earlier scholars were conscious of the unfavourable character
of the conditions under which they worked. They suffered keenly from the
insufficiency of the instruments of research and the means of
comparison. Most of them made great efforts to obtain information. Hence
these voluminous correspondences between scholars of the last few
centuries, of which our libraries preserve so many precious fragments,
and these accounts of scientific searches, of journeys undertaken for
the discovery of historical documents, which, under the name of _Iter_
(_Iter Italicum_, _Iter Germanicum_, &c.), were formerly fashionable.
[27] We may remark, in passing, a delusion which is childish enough but
very natural, and very common among collectors: they all tend to
exaggerate the intrinsic value of the documents they possess, simply
because they themselves are the possessors. Documents have been
published with a sumptuous array of commentaries by persons who had
accidentally acquired them, and who would, quite rightly, have attached
no importance to them if they had met with them in public collections.
This is, we may add, merely a manifestation, in a somewhat crude form,
of a general tendency against which it is always necessary to guard: a
man readily exaggerates the importance of the documents he possesses,
the documents he has discovered, the texts he has edited, the persons
and the questions he has studied.
[28] See L. Delisle, _Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque
nationale_, Paris, 1868-81, 3 vols. 4to. The histories of ancient
depositories of documents, which have been recently published in
considerable number, have been modelled on this admirable work.
[29] Many of the ancient documents still in circulation are the proceeds
of ancient thefts from state institutions. The precautions now taken
against a recurrence of such depredations are stringent, and, in nearly
every instance, as effective as could be desired.
As to modern (printed) documents, the rule of legal deposit [compulsory
presentation of copies to specified libraries], which has now been
adopted by nearly all civilised countries, guarantees their preservation
in public institutions.
[30] It is known that Napoleon I. entertained the chimerical design of
concentrating at Paris the archives of the whole of Europe, and that,
for a beginning, he conveyed to that city the archives of the Vatican,
the Holy Roman Empire, the crown of Castile, and others, which later on
the French were compelled to restore. Confiscation is now out of the
question. But the ancient archives of the notaries might be centralised
everywhere, as in some countries they are already, in public
institutions. It is not easy to explain why at Paris the departments of
Foreign Affairs, of War, and of Marine preserve ancient papers whose
natural place would be at the Archives Nationales. A great many more
anomalies of this kind might be mentioned, which in certain cases
impede, where they do not altogether preclude, research; for the small
collections, whose existence is not required, are precisely those whose
regulations are the most oppressive.
[31] The international exchange of documents is worked in Europe
(without charge to the public) by the agency of the various Foreign
Offices. Besides this, most of the great institutions have agreements
with each other for mutual loans; this system is as sure and sometimes
more rapid in its operation than the diplomatic system. The question of
lending original documents for use outside the institution where they
are preserved has of late years been frequently mooted at congresses of
historians and librarians. The results so far obtained are eminently
satisfactory.
[32] These are sometimes large collections of formidable bulk; it is
more natural to undertake the cataloguing of small accumulations which
demand less labor. It is for the same reason that many insignificant but
short cartularies have been published, while several cartularies of the
highest importance, being voluminous, have still to be edited.
[33] See his autobibliography, published by E. de Broglie, _Bernard de
Montfaucon et les Bernardins_, ii. (Paris, 1891, 8vo), p. 323.
[34] E. Renan, _L'Avenir de la science_, p. 217.
[35] _Romania_, xxi. (1892), p. 625.
[36] In the passage quoted above.
[37] Mr. H. H. Bancroft, in his Memoirs, entitled "Literary Industries"
(New York, 1891, 16mo), analyses with sufficient minuteness some
practical consequences of the imperfection of the methods of research.
He considers the case of an industrious writer proposing to write the
history of California. He easily procures a few books, reads them, takes
notes; these books refer him to others, which he consults in the public
libraries of the city where he resides. Several years are passed in this
manner, at the end of which he perceives that he has not a tenth part of
the resources in his hands; he travels, maintains correspondences, but,
finally despairing of exhausting the subject, he comforts his conscience
and pride with the reflection that he has done much, and that many of
the works he has not seen, like many of those he has, are probably of
very slight historic value. As to newspapers and the myriads of United
States government reports, all of them containing facts bearing on
Californian history; being a sane man, he has never dreamed of searching
them from beginning to end: he has turned over a few of them, that is
all; he knows that each of these fields of research would afford a
labour of several years, and that all of them would fill the better part
of his life with drudgery. As for oral testimony and manuscripts, he
will gather a few unpublished anecdotes in chance conversations; he will
obtain access to a few family papers; all this will appear in his book
as notes and authorities. Now and again he will get hold of a few
documentary curiosities among the state archives, but as it would take
fifteen years to master the whole collection, he will naturally be
content to glean a little here and there. Then he begins to write. He
does not feel called upon to inform the public that he has not seen
_all_ the documents; on the contrary, he makes the most of what he has
been able to procure in the course of twenty-five years of industrious
research.
[38] Some dispense with personal search by invoking the assistance of
the functionaries charged with the administration of depositories of
documents; the indispensable search is, in these cases, conducted by the
functionaries instead of by the public. Cf. _Bouvard et Pecuchet_, p.
158. Bouvard and Pecuchet resolve to write the life of the Duke of
Angouleme; for this purpose "they determined to spend several days at
the municipal library of Caen to make researches. The librarian placed
general histories and pamphlets at their disposal...."
[39] These considerations have already been presented and developed in
the _Revue universitaire_, 1894, i. p. 321 _sqq._
[40] It is well known that, since the opening of the Papal Archives,
several governments and learned societies have established Institutes at
Rome, the members of which are, for the most part, occupied in
cataloguing and making known the documents of these archives, in
co-operation with the functionaries of the Vatican. The French School at
Rome, the Austrian Institute, the Prussian Institute, the Polish
Mission, the Institute of the "Goerresgesellschaft," Belgian, Danish,
Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and other scholars, have performed, and
are performing, cataloguing work of considerable extent in the archives
of the Vatican.
[41] Catalogues of documents sometimes, but not always, mention the fact
that such and such a document has been edited, dealt with critically,
utilised. The generally received rule is that the compiler mentions
circumstances of this kind when he is aware of them, without imposing on
himself the enormous task of ascertaining the truth on this head[sic] in
every instance where he is ignorant of it.
[42] E. Bernheim, _Lehrbuch der historischen Methode_, 2nd ed., pp.
196-202.
[43] C. V. Langlois, _Manuel de Bibliographie historique_: I.
_Instruments bibliographiques_, Paris, 1896, 16mo.
[44] E. Renan, _Feuilles detachees_ (Paris, 1892, 8vo), pp. 96 _sqq._
[45] vii. p. 228 _sqq._
[46] E. A. Freeman, _The Methods of Historical Study_ (London, 1885,
8vo), p. 45.
In France geography has long been regarded as a science closely related
to history. An _Agregation_, which combines history and geography,
exists at the present day, and in the _lycees_ history and geography are
taught by the same professors. Many people persist in asserting the
legitimacy of this combination, and even take umbrage when it is
proposed to separate two branches of knowledge united, as they say, by
many essential connecting links. But it would be hard to find any good
reason, or any facts of experience, to prove that a professor of
history, or an historian, is so much the better the more he knows of
geology, oceanography, climatology, and the whole group of geographical
sciences. In fact, it is with some impatience, and to no immediate
advantage, that students of history work through the courses of
geography which their curricula force upon them; and those students who
have a real taste for geography would be very glad to throw history
overboard. The artificial union of history with geography dates back, in
France, to an epoch when geography was an ill-defined and ill-arranged
subject, regarded by all as a negligeable branch of study. It is a relic
of antiquity that we ought to get rid of at once.
[47] "Historiography" is a branch of the "History of Literature;" it is
the sum of the results obtained by the critics who have hitherto studied
ancient historical writings, such as annals, memoirs, chronicles,
biographies, and so forth.
[48] This is only true under reservation; there is an instrument of
research which is indispensable to all historians, to all students,
whatever be the subject of their special study. History, moreover, is
here in the same situation as the majority of the other sciences: all
who prosecute original research, of whatever kind, need to know several
living languages, those of countries where men think and work, of
countries which, from the point of view of science, stand in the
forefront of contemporary civilisation.
In our days the cultivation of the sciences is not confined to any
single country, or even to Europe. It is international. All problems,
the same problems, are being studied everywhere simultaneously. It is
difficult to-day, and to-morrow it will be impossible, to find a subject
which can be treated without taking cognisance of works in a foreign
language. Henceforth, for ancient history, Greek and Roman, a knowledge
of German will be as imperative as a knowledge of Greek and Latin.
Questions of strictly local history are the only ones still accessible
to those who do not possess the key to foreign literatures. The great
problems are beyond their reach, for the wretched and ridiculous reason
that works on these problems in any language but their own are sealed
books to them.
Total ignorance of the languages which have hitherto been the ordinary
vehicles of science (German, English, French, Italian) is a disease
which age renders incurable. It would not be exacting too much to
require every candidate for a scientific profession to be at least
_trilinguis_--that is, to be able to understand, fairly easily, two
languages besides his mother-tongue. This is a requirement to which
scholars were not subject formerly, when Latin was still the common
language of learned men, but which the conditions of modern scientific
work will henceforth cause to press with increasing weight upon the
scholars of every country.[*]
[*] Perhaps a day will come when it will be necessary to know the most
important Slavonic language; there are already scholars who are setting
themselves to learn Russian. The idea of restoring Latin to its old
position of universal language is chimerical. See the file of the
_Phoenix, seu nuntius latinus universalis_ (London, 1891, 4to).
The French scholars who are unable to read German and English are
thereby placed in a position of permanent inferiority as compared with
their better instructed colleagues in France and abroad; whatever their
merit, they are condemned to work with insufficient means of
information, to work badly. They know it. They do their best to hide
their infirmity, as something to be ashamed of, except when they make a
cynical parade of it and boast of it; but this boasting, as we can
easily see, is only shame showing itself in a different way. Too much
stress cannot be laid upon the fact that a practical knowledge of
foreign languages is auxiliary in the first degree to all historical
work, as indeed it is to scientific work in general.
[49] When the "auxiliary sciences" were first inserted in the curricula
of French universities, it was observed that some students whose special
subject was the French Revolution, and who had no interest whatever in
the middle ages, took up palaeography as an "auxiliary science," and that
some students of geography, who were in no way interested in antiquity,
took up epigraphy. Evidently they had failed to understand that the
study of the "auxiliary sciences" is recommended, not as an end in
itself, but because it is of practical utility to those who devote
themselves to certain special subjects. See the _Revue universitaire_,
1895, ii. p. 123.
[50] On this point note the opinions of T. von Sickel and J. Havet,
quoted in the _Bibliotheque l'Ecole des chartes_, 1896, p. 87. In 1854
the Austrian Institute "fuer oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung" was
organised on the model of the French Ecole des chartes. Another
institution of the same type has lately been created in the "Istituto di
studi superiori" at Florence. "We are accustomed," we read in England,
"to hear the complaint that there is not in this country any institution
resembling the Ecole des chartes" (_Quarterly Review_, July 1896, p.
122).
[51] This is a suitable place to enumerate the principal "manuals"
published in the last twenty-five years. But a list of them, ending at
1894, will be found in Bernheim's _Lehrbuch_, pp. 206 sqq. We will only
refer to the great "manuals" of "Philology" (in the comprehensive sense
of the German "Philologie," which includes the history of language and
literature, epigraphy, palaeography, and all that pertains to textual
criticism) now in course of publication: the _Grundriss far
indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde_, edited by G. Buehler; the
_Grundriss der iranischen Philologie_, edited by W. Geiger and E. Kuhn;
the _Handbuch der classichen Altertumswissenschaft_, edited by I. von
Mueller; the _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, edited by H. Paul,
the second edition of which began to appear in 1896; the _Grundriss der
romanischen Philologie_, edited y G. Groeber. In these vast repertories
there will be found, along with a short presentment of the subject,
complete bibliographical references, direct as well as indirect.
[52] The French "manuals" of MM. Prou (Palaeography), Giry (Diplomatic),
Cagnat (Latin Epigraphy), and others, have diffused among the public the
idea and knowledge of the auxiliary subjects of study. New editions have
enabled, and will enable, them to be kept up to date--a very necessary
operation, for most of these subjects, though now settled in the main,
are being enriched and made more precise every day. Cf. _supra_, p. 38.
[53] What exactly are we to understand by this "incommunicable
knowledge," of which we speak? When a specialist is very familiar with
the documents of a given class or period, associations of ideas are
formed in his brain; and when he examines a new document of the same
class or species, analogies suddenly dawn upon him which would escape
any one of less experience, however well furnished he might be with the
most perfect repertories. The fact is, that not all the peculiarities of
documents can be isolated; there are some which cannot be classified
under any intelligible head, and which, therefore, cannot be found in
any tabulated list. But the human memory, when it is good, retains the
impression of these peculiarities, and even a faint and distant stimulus
suffices to revive the apprehension of them.
[54] _Supra_, p. 17.
[55] This expression, which frequently occurs, needs explanation. It is
not to be taken to apply to a _species_ of facts. There are no
historical facts in the sense in which we speak of chemical facts. The
same fact is or is not historical according to the manner in which it is
known. It is only the mode of acquiring knowledge that is historical. A
sitting of the Senate is a fact of direct observation for one who takes
part in it; it becomes historical for the man who reads about it in a
report. The eruption of Vesuvius in the time of Pliny is a geological
fact which is known historically. The historical character is not in the
facts, but in the manner of knowing them.
[56] Fustel de Coulanges has said it. Cf. _supra_, p. 4, note 1.
[57] In the sciences of observation it is the fact itself, observed
directly, which is the starting-point.
[58] _Infra_, ch. vii.
[59] We shall not treat specially of the criticism of material documents
(objects, monuments, &c.) where it differs from the criticism of written
documents.
[60] For the details and the logical justification of this method see
Seignobos, _Les Conditions psychologiques de la connaissance en
histoire_, in the _Revue philosophique_, 1887, ii. pp. 1, 168.
[61] The most favourable case, that in which the document has been drawn
up by what is called an ocular "witness," is still far short of the
ideal required for scientific knowledge. The notion of _witness_ has
been borrowed from the procedure of the law-courts; reduced to
scientific terms, it becomes that of an _observer_. A testimony is an
observation. But, in point of fact, historical testimony differs
materially from scientific observation. The observer proceeds by fixed
rules, and clothes his report in language of rigorous precision. On the
other hand, the "witness" observes without method, and reports in
unprecise language; it is not known whether he has taken the necessary
precautions. It is an essential attribute of historical documents that
they come before us as the result of work which has been done without
method and without guarantee.
[62] See B. Lasch, _Das Erwachen und die Entwickelung der historischen
Kritik im Mittelalter_ (Breslan, 1887, 8vo).
[63] Natural credulity is deeply rooted in indolence. It is easier to
believe than to discuss, to admit than to criticise, to accumulate
documents than to weigh them. It is also pleasanter; he who criticises
documents must sacrifice some of them, and such a sacrifice seems a dead
loss to the man who has discovered or acquired the document.
[64] _Revue philosophique_, l.c., p. 178.
[65] A member of the _Societe des humanistes francais_ (founded at Paris
in 1894) amused himself by pointing out, in the _Bulletin_ of this
society, certain errors amenable to verbal criticism which occur in
various editions of posthumous works, especially the _Memoires
d'outre-tombe_. He showed that it is possible to remove obscurities in
the most modern documents by the same methods which are used in
restoring ancient texts.
[66] On the habits of the mediaeval copyists, by whose intermediate
agency most of the literary works of antiquity have come down to us, see
the notices collected by W. Wattenbach, _Das Schriftwesen im
Mittelalter_, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1896, 8vo).
[67] See, for example, the _Coquilles lexicographiques_ which have been
collected by A. Thomas, in _Romania_, xx. (1891), pp. 464 _sqq._
[68] See E. Bernheim, _Lehrbuch der historischen Methode_, 2nd ed., pp.
341-54. Also consult F. Blass, in the _Handbuch der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, edited by I. von Mueller, I., 2nd ed. (1892), pp.
249-89 (with a detailed bibliography); A. Tobler, in the _Grundriss der
romanischen Philologie_, I. (1888), pp. 253-63; H. Paul, in the
_Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, I., 2nd ed. (1896), pp. 184-96.
In French read the section _Critique des textes, in Minerva,
Introduction a l'etude des classiques scolaires grecs et latins_, by J.
Gow and S. Reinach (Paris, 1890, 16mo), pp. 50-65.
The work of J. Taylor, "History of the Transmission of Ancient Books to
Modern Times" (Liverpool, 1889, 16mo), is of no value.
[69] This rule is not absolute. The editor is generally accorded the
right of unifying the spelling of an autograph document--provided that
he informs the public of the fact--wherever, as in most modern
documents, the orthographical vagaries of the author possess no
philological interest. See the _Instructions pour la publication des
textes historiques_, in the _Bulletin de la Commission royale d'histoire
de Belgique_, 5th series, vi. (1896); and the _Grundsaetze fuer die
Herausgabe von Actenstuecken zur neueren Geschichte_, laboriously
discussed by the second and third Congresses of German historians, in
1894 and 1895, in the Deutsche _Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft_,
xi. p. 200, xii. p. 364. The last Congresses of Italian historians, held
at Genoa (1893) and at Rome (1895), have also debated this question, but
without result. What are the liberties which it is legitimate to take in
reproducing autograph texts? The question is more difficult than is
imagined by those who are not professionally concerned with it.
[70] Interpolations will be treated of in chapter iii p. 92.
[71] The scribes of the Carlovingian Renaissance and of the Renaissance
proper of the fifteenth century endeavoured to furnish intelligible
texts. They therefore corrected everything they did not understand.
Several ancient works have been in this manner irretrievably ruined.
[72] The principal of these are, for the classical languages, besides
the above-mentioned work of Blass (_supra_, p. 74, note), the
_Adversaria critica_ of Madvig (Copenhagen, 1871-74, 3 vols. 8vo). For
Greek, the celebrated _Commentatio palaeographica_ of F. J. Bast,
published as an appendix to an edition of the grammarian Gregory of
Corinth (Leipzig, 1811, 8vo), and the _Variae lectiones_ of Cobet
(Leiden, 1873, 8vo). For Latin, H. Hagen, _Gradus ad criticen_ (Leipzig,
1879, 8vo), and W. M. Lindsay, "An Introduction to Latin Textual
Emendation based on the Text of Plautus" (London, 1896, 16mo). A
contributor to the _Bulletin de la Societe des humanistes francais_ has
expressed, in this publication, a wish that a similar collection might
be compiled for modern French.
[73] Cf. _Revue Critique_, 1895, ii. p. 358.
[74] Quite recently our scholars used to neglect this elementary
precaution, in order, as they said, to avoid an "air of pedantry." M. B.
Haureau has published, in his _Notices et extraits de quelques
manuscrits latins de la Bibliotheque nationale_ (vi. p. 310), a piece of
rhythmic verse, "De presbytero et logico." "It is not unedited," says
he; "Thomas Wright has already published it.... But this edition is very
defective; the text is occasionally quite unintelligible. We have,
therefore, considerably amended it, making use, for this purpose, of two
copies, which, it most be conceded, are neither of them faultless...."
The edition follows, with no variants. Verification is impossible.
[75] "Textual emendation too often misses the mark through want of
knowledge of what may be called _the rules of the game_" (W. M. Lindsay,
p.v. in the work referred to above).
[76] It has often been asked whether _all_ texts are worth the trouble
of "establishing" and publishing them. "Among our ancient texts," says
M. J. Bedier, referring to French mediaeval literature, "which ought we
to publish? Every one. But, it will be asked, are we not already
staggering under the weight of documents?... The following is the reason
why publication should be exhaustive. As long as we are confronted by
this mass of sealed and mysterious manuscripts, they will appeal to us
as if they contained the answer to every riddle; every candid mind will
be hampered by them in its flights of induction. It is desirable to
publish them, if only to get rid of them and to be able, for the future,
to work as if they did not exist...." (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, February
15, 1894, p. 910). All documents ought to be catalogued, as we have
already pointed out (p. 31), in order that researchers may be relieved
of the fear that there may be documents, useful for their purposes, of
which they know nothing. But in every case where a summary analysis of a
document can give a sufficient idea of its contents, and its form is of
no special interest, there is nothing gained by publishing it _in
extenso_. We need not overburden ourselves. Every document will be
analysed some day, but many documents will never be published.
[77] Editors of texts often render their task still longer and more
difficult than it need be by undertaking the additional duty of
commentators, under the pretext of explaining the text. It would be to
their advantage to spare themselves this labour, and to dispense with
all annotation which does not belong to the "apparatus criticus" proper.
See, on this point, T. Lindner, _Ueber die Herausgabe von
geschichtlichen Quellen_, in the _Mittheilungen des Instituts fuer
oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung_, xvi., 1895, pp. 501 _sqq._
[78] To realise this it is enough to compare what has hitherto been done
by the most active societies, such as the Society of the _Monumenta
Germaniae historica_ and the _Istituto storico italiano_, with what still
remains for them to do. The greater part of the most ancient documents
and the hardest to restore, which have long taxed the ingenuity of
scholars, have now been placed in a relatively satisfactory condition.
But an immense amount of mechanical work has still to be done.
[79] R. de Gourmont, _Le Latin mystique_ (Paris, 1891, 8vo), p. 258.
[80] See these alleged autographs in the _Bibliotheque nationale_, nouv.
acq. fr., No. 709.
[81] F. Blass has enumerated the chief of these motives with reference
to the pseudepigraphic literature of antiquity (pp. 269 _sqq._ in the
work already quoted).
[82] E. Bernheim (_Lehrbuch_, pp. 243 _sqq._) gives a somewhat lengthy
list of spurious documents, now recognised as such. Here it will be
enough to recall a few famous hoaxes: Sarchoniathon, Clotilde de
Surville, Ossian. Since the publication of Bernheim's book several
celebrated documents, hitherto exempt from suspicion, have been struck
off the list of authorities. See especially A. Piaget, _La Chronique des
chanoines de Neuchatel_ (Neuchatel, 1896, 8vo).
[83] When the modifications of the primitive text are the work of the
author himself, they are "alterations." Internal analysis, and the
comparison of different editions, bring them to light.
[84] See F. Blass, ibid., pp. 254 _sqq._
[85] As a rule it matters little whether the _name_ of the author has or
has not been discovered. We read, however, in the _Histoire_ _litteraire
de la France_ (xxvi. p. 388): "We have ignored anonymous sermons:
writings of this facile character are of no importance for literary
history when their authors are unknown." Are they of any more importance
when we know the authors' names?
[86] In very favourable cases the examination of the plagiarist's
mistakes has made it possible to determine even this style of
handwriting, the size, and the manner of arrangement of the manuscript
source. The deductions of the investigation of sources, like those of
textual criticism, are sometimes supported by obvious palaeographical
considerations.
[87] The Investigations of Julien Havet (_Questions merovingiennes_,
Paris, 1896, 8vo) are regarded as models. Very difficult problems are
there solved with faultless elegance. It is also well worth while to
read the memoirs in which M. L. Delisle has discussed questions of
origin. It is in the treatment of these questions that the most
accomplished scholars win their triumphs.
[88] See the edition of H. R. Luard (vol. i., London, 1890, 8vo) in the
_Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores_. Matthew of Westminster's
_Flores historiarum_ figure in the Roman "Index," because of the
passages borrowed from the _Chronica majora_ of Matthew of Paris, while
the _Chronica majora_ themselves have escaped censure.
[89] It would be instructive to draw up a list of the celebrated
historical works, such as Augustin Thierry's _Histoire de la Conquete de
l'Angleterre par les Normands_, whose authority has been completely
destroyed after the authorship of their sources has been studied.
Nothing amuses the gallery more than to see an historian convicted of
having built a theory on falsified documents. Nothing is more calculated
to cover an historian with confusion than to find that he has fallen
into the error of treating seriously documents which are no documents at
all.
[90] One of the crudest (and commonest) forms of "uncritical method" is
that which consists in employing as if they were documents, and placing
on the same footing as documents, the utterances of modern authors on
the subject of documents. Novices do not make a sufficient distinction,
in the works of modern authors, between what is added to the original
source and what is taken from it.
[91] See a list of examples in Bernheim's _Handbuch_, pp. 283, 289.
[92] It is because it is necessary to subject documents of mediaeval and
ancient history to the most searching criticism in respect of authorship
that the study of antiquity and the middle ages passes for more
"scientific" than that of modern times. The truth is, that it is merely
hampered by more preliminary difficulties.
[93] _Revue philosophique_, 1887, ii. p. 170.
[94] The theory of the critical investigation of authorship is now
settled, _ne varietur_; it is given in detail in Bernheim's _Lehrbuch_,
pp. 242-340. For this reason we have had no scruple in dismissing it
with a short sketch. In French, the introduction of M. G. Monod to his
_Etudes critiques sur les sources de l'histoire merovingienne_ (Paris,
1872, 8vo) contains elementary considerations on the subject. Cf. _Revue
Critique_, 1873, i. p. 308.
[95] Renan, _Feuilles detachees_, p. 103.
[96] It would be very interesting to have information on the methods of
work of the great scholars, particularly those who undertook long tasks
of collection and classification. Some information of this kind is to be
found in their papers, and occasionally in their correspondence. On the
methods of Du Cange, see L. Feugere, _Etude sur la vie et les ouvrages
de Du Cange_ (Paris, 1858, 8vo), pp. 62 _sqq._
[97] See J. G. Droysen, _Grundriss der Historik_, p. 19: "Critical
classification does not exclusively adopt the chronological point of
view.... The more varied the points of view which criticism uses to
group materials, the more solid are the results yielded by converging
lines of inquiry."
The system has now been abandoned of grouping documents in a _Corpus_ or
in _regesta_, as was done formerly, because they have the common
characteristic of being unedited, or possibly for the exactly opposite
reason. At one time the compilers of _Analecta, Reliquiae
manuscriptorum_, "treasuries of _anecdota_," _spicilegia_, and so on,
used to publish all the documents of a certain class which had the
common feature of being unedited and of appearing interesting to them;
on the other hand, Georgisch (_Regesta Chronologico-diplomatica_),
Brequigny (_Table chronologique des diplomes, chartes et actes imprimes
concernant l'histoire de France_), Wauters (_Table chronologique des
chartes et diplomes imprimes concernant l'histoire de Belgique_), have
grouped together all the documents of a certain species which had the
common character of having been printed.
[98] J. P. Waltzing, _Recueil general des inscriptions latines_
(Louvain, 1892, 8vo), p. 41.
[99] Ibid. When the geographical order is adopted, a difficulty arises
from the fact that the origin of certain documents is unknown; many
inscriptions preserved in museums have been brought there no one knows
whence. The difficulty is analogous to that which results, for
chronological _regesta_, from documents without date.
[100] Here the only difficulty arises in the case of documents whose
_incipit_ has been lost. In the eighteenth century Seguier devoted a
great part of his life to the construction of a catalogue, in the
alphabetical order of the _incipit_, of the Latin inscriptions, to the
number of 50,000, which had at that time been published: he searched
through some twelve thousand works. This vast compilation has remained
unpublished and useless. Before undertaking work of such magnitude it is
well to make sure that it is on a rational plan, and that the
labour--the hard and thankless labour--will not be wasted.
[101] See G. Waitz, _Ueber die Herausgabe und Bearbeitung von Regesten_,
in the _Historische Zeitschrift_, xl. (1878), pp. 280-95.
[102] In the absence of a predetermined logical order, and when the
chronological order is not suitable, it is sometimes an advantage to
provisionally group the documents (that is, the slips) in the
alphabetical order of the words chosen as headings (_Schlagwoerter_).
This is what is called the "dictionary system."
[103] See Langlois, _Manuel de bibliographie historique_, i. p. 88.
[104] This argument is easy to develop, and often has been, recently by
M. J. Bedier, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, February 15, 1894, pp. 932
_sqq._
There are some who willingly admit that the labours of erudition are
useful, but ask impatiently whether "the editing of a text" or "the
deciphering of a Gothic parchment" is "the supreme effort of the human
mind," and whether the intellectual ability implied by the practice of
external criticism does or does not justify "all the fuss made over
those who possess it." On this question, obviously devoid of importance,
a controversy was held between M. Brunetiere, who recommended scholars
to be modest, and M. Boucherie, who insisted on their reasons for being
proud, in the pages of the _Revue des langues romanes_, 1880, vols. i
and ii.
[105] There have been men who were critics of the first water where
external criticism alone was concerned, but who never rose to the
conception of higher criticism, or to a true understanding of history.
[106] Renan, _Essais de morale et de critique_, p. 36.
[107] "If it were only for the sake of the severe mental discipline, I
should not think very highly of the philosopher who had not, at least
once in his life, worked at the elucidation of some special point"
(_L'Avenir de la science_, p. 136).
[108] On the question whether it is necessary for every one to do "all
the preliminary grubbing for himself," cf. J. M. Robertson, "Buckle and
His Critics" (London, 1895, 8vo), p. 299.
[109] Renan, _L'Avenir de la science_, p. 230.
[110] A university professor is in a very good position for discouraging
and encouraging vocations; but "it is by personal effort that the goal
(critical skill) must be attained by the students, as Waitz well said in
an academic oration; the teacher's part in this work is small...."
(_Revue Critique_, 1874, ii. p. 232).
[111] Quoted by Fr. X. von Wegele, _Geschichte der deutschen
Historiographie_ (Muenchen, 1885, 8vo), p. 653.
[112] Renan, ibid., p. 125.
[113] B. Haureau, _Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de
la Bibliotheque nationale_, i. (Paris, 1890, 8vo). p. v.
[114] _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des chartes_, 1896, p. 88. Compare
analogous traits in the interesting intellectual biography of the
Hellenist, palaeographer, and bibliographer, Charles Graux, by E. Lavisse
(_Questions d'enseignement national_, Paris, 1885, 18mo, pp. 265
_sqq._).
[115] See H. A. L. Fisher in the _Fortnightly Review_, Dec. 1894, p.
815.
[116] Most of those who have a vocation for critical scholarship possess
both the power of solving problems and the taste for collecting. It is,
however, easy to divide them into two categories according as they show
a marked preference for textual criticism and investigation of
authorship on the one hand, or for the more absorbing and less
intellectual labours of collection on the other. J. Havet, a past-master
in the study of erudite problems, always declined to undertake a general
collection of Merovingian royal charters, a work which his admirers
expected from him. In this connection he readily admitted his "want of
taste for feats of endurance" (_Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des chartes_,
1896, p. 222).
[117] It is common to hear the opposite of this maintained, namely, that
the labours of critical scholarship (external criticism) have this
advantage over other labours in the field of history that they are
within the range of average ability, and that the most moderate
intellects, after a suitable preliminary drilling, may be usefully
employed in them. It is quite true that men with no elevation of soul or
power of thought can make themselves useful in the field of criticism,
but then they must have special qualities. The mistake is to think that
with good will and a special drilling every one without exception can be
fitted for the operations of external criticism. Among those who are
incapable of these operations, as well as among those who are fitted for
them, there are both men of sense and blockheads.
[118] A. Philippi, _Einige Bemerkungen ueber den philologischen
Unterricht_, Giessen, 1890, 4to. Cf. _Revue Critique_, 1892, i. p. 25.
[119] J. von Pflugk-Harttung, _Geschichtsbetrachtungen_, Gotha, 1890,
8vo.
[120] Ibid., p. 21.
[121] Cf. _supra_, p. 99.
[122] Renan, _L'Avenir de la science_, p. xiv.
[123] _Revue historique_, lxiii. (1897), p. 320.
[124] Renan, ibid., pp. 122, 243. The same thought has been more than
once expressed, in different language, by E. Lavisse, in his addresses
to the students of Paris (_Questions d'enseignement national_, pp. 14,
86, &c.).
[125] One of us (M. Langlois) proposes to give elsewhere a detailed
account of all that has been done in the last three hundred years, but
especially in the nineteenth century, for the organisation of historical
work in the principal countries of the world. Some information has
already been collected on this subject by J. Franklin Jameson, "The
Expenditures of Foreign Governments in behalf of History," in the
"Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1891," pp.
38-61.
[126] L. Feugere, _Etude sur la vie et les ouvrages de Du Cange_, pp.
55, 58.
[127] Even the specialists in external criticism themselves, when they
do not take the line of despising all synthesis _a priori_, are almost
as easily dazzled as anybody else by incorrect syntheses, by a show of
"general ideas," or by literary artifices, in spite of their
clear-sightedness where works of critical scholarship are concerned.
[128] The sciences of observation do, however, need a species of
criticism. We do not accept without verification results obtained by
anybody, but only results obtained by those who know how to work. But
this criticism is made once for all, and applies to the author, not to
his works; historical criticism, on the contrary, is obliged to deal
separately with every part of a document.
[129] Cf. _supra_, book ii. chap. i. p. 67.
[130] Cf. _supra_, p. 122.
[131] Taine appears to have proceeded thus in vol. ii, _La Revolution_,
of his _Origines de la France contemporaine_. He had made extracts from
unpublished documents and inserted a great number of them in his work,
but it would seem that he did not first methodically analyse them in
order to determine their meaning.
[132] Fustel de Coulanges explains very clearly the danger of this
_method_: "Some students begin by forming an opinion ... and it is not
till afterwards that they begin to read the texts. They run a great risk
of not understanding them at all, or of understanding them wrongly. What
happens is that a kind of tacit contest goes on between the text and the
preconceived opinions of the reader; the mind refuses to grasp what is
contrary to its idea, and the issue of the contest commonly is, not that
the mind surrenders to the evidence of the text, but that the text
yields, bends, and accommodates itself to the preconceived opinion....
To bring one's personal ideas into the study of texts is the subjective
method. A man thinks he is contemplating an object, and it is his own
idea that he is contemplating. He thinks he is observing a fact, and the
fact at once assumes the colour, and the significance his mind wishes it
to have. He thinks he is reading a text, and the words of the text take
a particular meaning to suit a ready-made opinion. It is this subjective
method which has done most harm to the history of the Merovingian
epoch.... To read the texts was not enough; what was required was to
read them before forming any convictions...." (_Monarchie franque_, p.
31). For the same reason Fustel de Coulanges deprecated the reading of
one document in the light of another; he protested against the custom of
explaining the _Germania_ of Tacitus by the barbaric laws. In the _Revue
des questions historiques_, 1897, vol. i, a lesson on method, _De
l'analyse des textes historiques_, is given apropos of a commentary by
M. Monod on Gregory of Tours: "The historian ought to begin his work
with an exact analysis of each document.... The analysis of a text ...
consists in determining the sense of each word and eliciting the true
meaning of the writer.... Instead of searching for the sense of each of
the historian's words, and for the thought he has expressed in them, he
[M. Monod] comments on each sentence in the light of what is found in
Tacitus or the Salic law.... We should understand what analysis really
is. Many talk about it, few use it.... The use of analysis is, by an
attentive study of every detail, to elicit from a text all that is in
it; not to introduce into the text what is not there."
After reading this excellent advice it will be instructive to read M.
Monod's reply (in the _Revue historique_); it will be seen that Fustel
de Coulanges himself did not always practise the method he recommended.
[133] Cf. _supra_, p. 103.
[134] The work of analysis may be entrusted to a second person; this is
what happens in the case of _regesta_ and catalogues of records; if the
analysis has been correctly performed by the compiler of _regesta_,
there is no need to do it over again.
[135] Practical examples of this procedure will be found in Deloche, _La
Trustis et l'antrustion royal_ (Paris, 1873, 8vo), and, above all, in
Fustel de Coulanges. See especially the study of the words _marca_
(_Recherches sur quelques problemes d'histoire_, pp. 322-56), _mallus_
(ibid., 372-402), _alleu_ (_L'Alleu et le domaine rural_, pp. 149-70),
_portio_ (ibid., pp. 239-52).
[136] The theory and an example of this procedure will be found in
Fustel de Coulanges, _Recherches sur quelques problemes d'histoire_ (pp.
189-289), with reference to the statements of Tacitus about the Germans.
See especially pp. 263-89, the discussion of the celebrated passage on
the German mode of culture.
[137] Fustel de Coulanges formulates it thus: "It is never safe to
separate two words from their context; this is just the way to mistake
their meaning" (_Monarchie franque_, p. 228, note I).
[138] This is how Fustel de Coulanges condemns this practice: "I am not
speaking of pretenders to learning who quote second-hand, and at most
take the trouble to verify whether the phrase they have seen quoted
really occurs in the passage indicated. To verify quotations is one
thing and to read texts quite another, and the two often lead to
opposite results" (_Revue des questions historiques_, 1887, vol. i.).
See also (_L'Alleu et le domaine rural_, pp. 171-98) the lesson given to
M. Glasson on the theory of the community of land: forty-five quotations
are studied in the light of their context, with the object of proving
that none of them bears the meaning M. Glasson attributed to it. We may
also compare the reply: Glasson, _Les Communaux et le domaine rural a
l'epoque franque_, Paris, 1890.
[139] All that is original in Fustel de Coulanges rests on his
interpretative criticism; he never did personally any work in external
criticism, and his critical examination of authors' good faith and
accuracy was hampered by a respect for the statements of ancient authors
which amounted to credulity.
[140] A parallel difficulty occurs in the interpretation of illustrative
monuments; the representations are not always to be taken literally. In
the Behistun monument Darius tramples the vanquished chiefs under foot:
this is a metaphor. Mediaeval miniatures show us persons lying in bed
with crowns on their heads: this is to symbolise their royal rank; the
painter did not mean that they wore their crowns to sleep in.
[141] A. Boeckh, in the _Encyclopaedie und Methodologie der
philologischen Wissenschaften_, second edition (1886), has given a
theory of _hermeneutic_ to which Bernheim has been content to refer.
[142] The method of extracting information on external facts from a
writer's conceptions forms part of the theory of constructive reasoning.
_See_ book iii.
[143] For example, Pere de Smedt, Tardif, Droysen, and even Bernheim.
[144] Descartes, who came at a time when history still consisted in the
reproduction of pre-existing narratives, did not see how to apply
methodical doubt to the subject; he therefore refused to allow it a
place among the sciences.
[145] Fustel de Coulanges himself did not rise above this kind of
timidity. With reference to a speech attributed to Clovis by Gregory of
Tours, he says: "Doubtless we are unable to affirm that these words were
ever pronounced. But, all the same, we ought not to affirm, in
contradiction to Gregory of Tours, that they were not.... The wisest
course is to accept Gregory's text" (_Monarchie franque_, p. 66). The
wisest, or rather the only scientific course, is to admit that we know
nothing about the words of Clovis, for Gregory himself had no knowledge
of them.
[146] Quite recently, E. Meyer, one of the most critically expert
historians of antiquity, has in his work, _Die Entstehung des
Judenthums_ (Halle, 1896, 8vo), revived this strange juridical argument
in favour of the narrative of Nehemiah. M. Bouche-Leclercq, in a
remarkable study on "The Reign of Seleucus II. (Callinicus) and
Historical Criticism" (_Revue des Universites du Midi_, April-June
1897), seems, by way of reaction against the hypercriticism of Niebuhr
and Droysen, to incline towards an analogous theory: "Historical
criticism, if it is not to degenerate into agnosticism--which would be
suicidal--or into individual caprice, must place a certain amount of
trust in testimony which it cannot verify, as long as it is not flatly
contradicted by other testimony of equal value." M. Bouche-Leclercq is
right as against the historian who, "after having discredited all his
witnesses, claims to put himself in their place, and sees with their
eyes something quite different from what they themselves saw." But when
the "testimony" is insufficient to give us the scientific knowledge of a
fact, the only correct attitude is "agnosticism," that is, a confession
of ignorance; we have no right to shirk this confession because chance
has permitted the destruction of the documents which might have
contradicted the testimony.
[147] The "Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz" furnish a conclusive instance:
the anecdote of the ghosts met by Retz and Turenne. A. Feillet, who
edited Retz in the _Collection des Grands Ecrivains de la France_, has
shown (vol. i. p. 192) that this story, so vividly narrated, is false
from beginning to end.
[148] A good example of the fascination exerted by a circumstantial
narrative is the legend respecting the origin of the League of the three
primitive Swiss cantons (Gessler and the Gruetli conspirators), which was
_fabricated_ by Tschudi in the sixteenth century, became classical on
the production of Schiller's "William Tell," and has only been
extirpated with the greatest difficulty. (See Rilliet, _Origines de la
Confederation suisse_, Geneva, 1869, 8vo.)
[149] Striking example of falsehoods due to vanity are to be found in
abundance in the _Economies royales_ of Sully and the _Memoires_ of
Retz.
[150] Fustel de Coulanges himself went to the formulae of the
inscriptions in honour of the emperors for a proof that the peoples
liked the imperial _regime_. "If we read the inscriptions, the sentiment
which they exhibit is always one of satisfaction and gratitude.... See
the collection of Orelli, the most frequent expressions are...." And the
enumeration of the titles of respect given to the emperors ends with
this strange aphorism: "It would show ignorance of human nature to see
nothing but flattery in all this." There is not even flattery here;
there is nothing but formulae.
[151] Suger, in his life of Louis VI., is a model of this type.
[152] The _Chronicon Helveticum_ of Tschudi is a striking instance.
[153] Aristophanes and Demosthenes are two striking examples of the
power great writers have of paralysing critics and obscuring facts. Not
till the close of the nineteenth century has any one ventured to
recognise frankly their lack of good faith.
[154] For example, the account of the election of Otto I. in the _Gesta
Ottonis_ of Wittekind.
[155] For example, the statistics on the population, the commerce, and
the wealth of European countries given by the Venetian ambassadors of
the sixteenth century, and the descriptions of the usages of the Germans
in the _Germania_ of Tacitus.
[156] It would be interesting to examine how much of Roman or
Merovingian history would be left if we rejected all documents but those
which represent direct observation.
[157] It will be seen why we have not separately defined and studied
"first-hand documents." The question has not been raised in the proper
manner in historical practice. The distinction ought to apply to
_statements_, not to documents. It is not the document which comes to us
at first, second, or third hand; it is the statement. What is called a
"first-hand document" is nearly always composed in part of second-hand
statements about facts of which the author had no personal knowledge.
The name "second-hand document" is given to those which, like the work
of Livy, contain nothing first-hand; but the distinction is too crude to
serve as a guide in the critical examination of statements.
[158] There is much less modification where the oral tradition assumes a
regular or striking form, as is the case with verses, maxims, proverbs.
[159] Sometimes the _form_ of the phrase tells its own tale, when, in
the midst of a detailed narrative, obviously of legendary origin, we
come across a curt, dry entry in annalistic style, obviously copied from
a written document. That is what we find in Livy (see Nitzsch, _Die
roemische Annalistik_, Leipzig, 1873, 8vo), and in Gregory of Tours (see
Loebell, _Gregor von Tours_, Leipzig, 1868, 8vo).
[160] The events which strike the popular imagination and are
transmitted by legend are not generally those which seem to us the most
important. The heroes of the _chansons de gestes_ are hardly known
historically. The Breton epic songs relate, not to the great historical
events, as Villemarque's collection led people to believe, but to
obscure local episodes. The same holds of the Scandinavian sagas; for
the most part they relate to quarrels among the villagers of Iceland or
the Orkneys.
[161] The theory of legend is one of the most advanced parts of
criticism. Bernheim (in his _Lehrbuch_, pp. 380-90) gives a good summary
and a bibliography of it.
[162] "History of Greece," vols. i. and ii. Compare Renan, _Histoire du
peuple d'Israel_, vol. i. (Paris, 1887, 8vo), Introduction.
[163] And yet Niebuhr made use of the Roman legends to construct a
theory, which it was afterwards necessary to demolish, of the struggle
between the patricians and the plebeians; and Curtius, twenty years
after Grote, looked for historical facts in the Greek legends.
[164] See _supra_, pp. 93 _sqq._
[165] Cf. _supra_, p. 166.
[166] It is often said, "The author would not have dared to write this
if it had not been true." This argument does not apply to societies in a
low state of civilisation. Louis VIII. dared to write that John Lackland
had been condemned by the verdict of his peers.
[167] See above, p. 153. Similarly, the particular facts which compose
the history of forms (palaeography, linguistic science) are directly
established by the analysis of the document.
[168] Primitive Greece has been studied in the Homeric poems. Mediaeval
private life has been reconstructed principally from the _chansons de
gestes_. (See C. V. Langlois, _Les Traditions sur l'histoire de la
societe francaise au moyen age d'apres les sources litteraires_, in the
_Revue historique_, March-April, 1897.)
[169] Most historians refrain from rejecting a legend till its falsity
has been proved, and if by chance no document has been preserved to
contradict it, they adopt it provisionally. This is how the first five
centuries of Rome are still dealt with. This method, unfortunately still
too general, helps to prevent history from being established as a
science.
[170] For the logical justification of this principle in history see C.
Seignobos, _Revue Philosophique_, July-August 1887. Complete scientific
certitude is only produced by an agreement between observations made on
different _methods_; it is to be found at the junction of two different
paths of research.
[171] This case is studied and a good example given by Bernheim,
_Lehrbuch_, p. 421.
[172] It is hardly necessary to enter a caution against the childish
method of counting the documents on each side of a question and deciding
by the majority. The statement of a single author who was acquainted
with a fact is evidently worth more than a hundred statements made by
persons who knew nothing about it. The rule has been formulated long
ago: _Ne numerentur, sed ponderentur_.
[173] Cf. _supra_, p. 94.
[174] It is hardly possible to study here the special difficulties which
arise in the application of these principles, as when the author,
wishing to conceal his indebtedness, has introduced deviations in order
to put his readers off the scent, or when the author has combined
statements taken from different documents.
[175] Here we merely indicate the principle of the method of
confirmation; its applications would require a very lengthy study.
[176] Pere de Smedt has devoted to this question a part of his
_Principes de la critique histoire_ (Paris, 1887, 12mo).
[177] The solution of the question is different in the case of the
sciences of direct observation, especially the biological sciences.
Science knows nothing of the possible and the impossible; it only
recognises facts which have been correctly or incorrectly observed:
facts which had been declared impossible, as the existence of aerolites,
have been discovered to be genuine. The very notion of a miracle is
metaphysical; it implies a conception of the universe as a whole which
transcends the limits of observation. (See Wallace, "Miracles and Modern
Spiritualism.")
[178] See above, p. 194.
[179] In the experimental sciences an hypothesis is a form of question
accompanied by a provisional answer.
[180] Fustel de Coulanges saw the necessity of this. In the preface to
his _Recherches sur quelques problemes d'histoire_ (Paris, 1885, 8vo) he
announces his intention of presenting his researches "in the form which
all my works have, that is, in the form of questions which I ask myself,
and on which I endeavour to throw light."
[181] Fustel de Coulanges himself seems to have been misled by them:
"History is a science; it does not imagine, it only sees" (_Monarchie
franque_, p. 1). "History, like every science, consists in a process of
discerning facts, analysing them, comparing them, and noting their
connections.... The historian ... seeks facts and attains them by the
minute observation of texts, as the chemist finds his in the course of
experiments conducted with minute precision" (Ibid., p. 39).
[182] The subjective character of history has been brought out into
strong relief by the philosopher G. Simmel, _Die Probleme der
Geschichtsphilosophie_ (Leipzig, 1892, 8vo).
[183] This has been eloquently put by Carlyle and Michelet. It is also
the substance of the famous expression of Ranke: "I wish to state how
that really was" (_wie es eigentlich gewesen_).
[184] Cf. pp. 219-23.
[185] Curtius in his "History of Greece," Mommsen in his "History of
Rome" (before the Empire), Lamprecht in his "History of Germany."
[186] It will be enough to mention Augustin Thierry, Michelet, and
Carlyle.
[187] See P. Guiraud, _Fustel de Coulanges_ (Paris, 1896, 12mo), p. 164,
for some very judicious observations on this subject.
[188] The classification of M. Lacombe (_De l'histoire consideree comme
science_, chap. vi.), founded on the motives of actions and the wants
they are intended to satisfy, is very judicious from the philosophical
point of view, but does not meet the practical needs of historians; it
rests on abstract psychological categories (economic, reproductive,
sympathetic, ambitious, &c.), and ends by classing together very
different species of phenomena (military institutions along with
economics).
[189] Ecclesiastical institutions form part of the government; in German
manuals of antiquities they are found among institutions, while religion
is classed with the arts.
[190] Modes of transport, which are often put under commerce, form a
species of industry.
[191] Property is an institution of mixed character, being at once
economic, social, and political.
[192] For the history and biography of this movement see Bernheim,
_Lehrbuch_, pp. 45-55.
[193] It is no longer necessary to demonstrate the nullity of the notion
of _race_. It used to be applied to vague groups, formed by a nation or
a language; for race as understood by historians (Greek, Roman,
Germanic, Celtic, Slavonic races) has nothing but the name in common
with race in the anthropological sense--that is, a group of men
possessing the same hereditary characteristics. It has been reduced to
an absurdity by the abuse Taine made of it. A very good criticism of it
will be found in Lacombe (ibid., chap. xviii.), and in Robertson ("The
Saxon and the Celt," London, 1897, 8vo).
[194] There is no general agreement on the proper place in history of
retrograde changes, of those oscillations which bring things back to the
point from which they started.
[195] The theory of chance as affecting history has been expounded in a
masterly manner by M. Cournot, _Considerations sur la marche des idees
et des evenements dans les temps modernes_ (Paris, 1872, 2 vols. 8vo).
[196] Lamprecht, in a long article, _Was ist Kulturgeschichte_,
published in the _Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft_, New
Series, vol. i., 1896, has attempted to base the history of civilisation
on the theory of a collective soul of society producing "social-psychic"
phenomena common to the whole society, and differing from period to
period. This is a metaphysical hypothesis.
[197] The expression _national_ history, introduced in the interests of
patriotism, denotes the same thing. The history of the nation means
practically the history of the State.
[198] See Cournot, ibid., i. p. iv.
[199] We have already (p. 143) treated of this fault of method.
[200] The discussion of this argument, which was formerly much used in
religious history, was a favourite subject with the earlier writers who
treated of methodology, and still occupies a considerable space in the
_Principes de la critique historique_ of Pere de Smedt.
[201] This is what Montesquieu attempted in his _Esprit des Lois_. In a
course of lectures at the Sorbonne, I have endeavoured to give a sketch
of such a comprehensive account.--[Ch. S.]
[202] See p. 204.
[203] Michelet has discredited the study of physiological influences by
the abuse which he has made of it in the last part of his "History of
France"; it is, however, indispensable for the understanding of a man's
career.
[204] On the subject of statistics, a method which is now perfected, a
good summary with a bibliography will be found in the _Handwoerterbuch
der Staatswissenschaften_, Jena, 1890-94, Ia. 8vo. and two good
methodical treatises, J. von. Mayr, _Theoretische Statistik_ and
_Bevoelkerungsstatistik_, in the collection of Marquardsen and Seydel,
Freiburg, 1895 and 1897, Ia. 8vo.
[205] As is done by Boardeau (_l'Histoire et les Historiens_, Paris,
1888, 8vo), who proposes to reduce the whole of history to a series of
statistics.
[206] A good example will be found in Lacombe, _De l'Histoire Consideree
Comme Science_, p. 146.
[207] We have thought it useless to discuss here the question whether
history ought, in accordance with the ancient tradition, to fulfil yet
another function, whether it ought to pass judgment on men and events,
that is to supplement the description of facts by expressions of
approbation or censure, either from the point of view of a moral ideal,
general or particular (the ideal of a sect, a party, or a nation), or
from the practical point of view, by examining, as Polybius did, whether
historical actions were well or ill adapted to their purpose. An
addition of this kind could be made to any descriptive study: the
naturalist might express his sympathy with or his admiration for an
animal, he might condemn the ferocity of the tiger, and praise the
devotion of the hen to her chickens. But it is obvious that in history,
as in every other subject, judgments of this kind are foreign to
science.
[208] Comparison between two facts of detail belonging to very different
aggregates (for example the comparison of Abd-el-Kader with Jagurtha, of
Napoleon with Sforza) is a striking method of exposition, but not a
means of reaching a scientific conclusion.
[209] This system is still followed by several contemporary authors, the
Belgian jurist Laurent in his _Etudes sur l'histoire de l'humanite_, the
German Rocholl, and even Flint, the English historian of the philosophy
of history.
[210] Thus Taine, in _Les origines de la France Contemporaine_, explains
the origin of the privileges of the _ancien regime_ by the services
formerly rendered by the privileged classes.
[211] A good criticism of the theory of progress will be found in P.
Lacombe, _De l'histoire Consideree Comme Science_.
[212] See the very clear declarations of one of the principal
representatives of linguistic science in France, V. Henry, _Antinomies
linguistiques_, Paris, 1896, 8vo.
[213] See above, p. 284.
[214] Lamprecht, in the article quoted, p. 247, after having compared
the artistic, religious, and economic evolutions of mediaeval Germany,
and after having shown that they can all be divided into periods of the
same duration, explains the simultaneous transformations of the
different usages and institutions of a given society by the
transformations of the collective "social soul." This is only another
form of the same hypothesis.
[215] The historians of literature, who began by searching for the
connection between the arts and the rest of social life, thus gave the
first place to the most difficult question.
[216] For the earlier epochs, consult good histories of Greek, Roman,
and mediaeval literature which contain chapters devoted to "historians."
For the modern period, consult the Introduction of M. G. Monod to vol.
i. of the _Revue historique_; the work by F. X. v. Wegde, _Geschichte
der deutschen Historiographie_ (1885), relates only to Germany, and is
mediocre. Some "Notes on History in France in the Nineteenth Century"
have been published by C. Jullian as an Introduction to his _Extraits
des historiens francais du xixe siecle_ (Paris, 1897, 12mo). The
history of modern historiography has still to be written. See the
partial attempt by E. Bernheim, _Lehrbuch_, pp. 13 _sqq._
[217] It would be interesting to find out what are the earliest printed
books furnished with notes in the modern fashion. Bibliophiles whom we
have consulted are unable to say, their attention never having been
drawn to the point.
[218] It is clear that the romantic methods which are used for the
purpose of obtaining effects of local colour and "revising" the past,
often puerile in the hands of the ablest writers, are altogether
intolerable when they are employed by any others. See a good example
(criticism of a book of M. Mourin by M. Monod) in the _Revue Critique_,
1874, ii. pp. 163 _sqq._
[219] It is a commonplace, and an error all the same, to maintain the
exact opposite of the above, namely, that the works of critical scholars
live, while the works of historians grow antiquated, so that scholars
gain a more solid reputation than historians do: "Pere Daniel is now
read no longer, and Pere Anselme is always read." But the works of
scholars become antiquated too, and the fact that not all the parts of
the work of Pere Anselme have yet been superseded (that is why he is
still read), ought not to deceive us: the great majority of the works
written by scholars, like those of researchers in the sciences proper,
are provisional and doomed to oblivion.
[220] "It is in vain that those professionally concerned try to deceive
themselves on this point; not everything in the past is interesting."
"Supposing we were to write the Life of the Duke of Angouleme," says
Pecuchet. "But he was an imbecile!" answers Bouvard; "Never mind;
personages of the second order often have an enormous influence, and
perhaps he was able to control the march of events."--G. Flaubert,
_Bouvard et Pecuchet_, p. 157.
[221] As persons of moderate ability have a tendency to prefer
insignificant subjects, there is active competition in the treatment of
such subjects. We often have occasion to note the simultaneous
appearance of several monographs on the same subject. It is not rare for
the subject to be altogether devoid of importance.
[222] Interesting subjects for monographs are not always capable of
being treated: there are some which the state of the sources puts out of
the question. This is why beginners, even those who have ability,
experience so much embarrassment in choosing subjects for their first
monographs, when they are not aided by good advice or good fortune, and
often lose themselves in attempting the impossible. It would be very
severe, and very unjust, to judge any one from the list of his _first_
monographs.
[223] In practice it is proper to give at the beginning a list of the
sources used in the whole of the monograph (with appropriate
bibliographical information as to the printed works, and in the case of
manuscripts, a mention of the nature of the documents and their
shelf-marks); besides, each special statement should be accompanied by
its proof: the exact text of the supporting document should be quoted,
if possible, so that the reader may be in a position to verify the
interpretation; otherwise an analysis of it should be given in a note,
or, at the least, the title of the document, with its shelf-mark, or
with a precise indication of the place where it was published. The
general rule is to put the reader in a position to know the exact
reasons for which such and such conclusions have been adopted at each
stage of the analysis.
Beginners, resembling ancient authors in this respect, naturally do not
observe all these rules. Frequently, instead of quoting the text or the
titles of documents, they refer to these by their shelf-mark, or by the
title of the general collection in which they are printed, from which
the reader can learn nothing as to the nature of the text adduced. The
following is another mistake of the crudest kind, and yet of frequent
occurrence: Beginners, and persons of little experience, do not always
understand why the custom has been introduced of inserting footnotes; at
the bottom of the pages of the books they have they see a fringe of
notes; they think themselves bound to fringe their own books in the same
way, but their notes are adventitious and purely ornamental; they do not
serve either to exhibit the proof or to enable the reader to verify the
statements. All these methods are inadmissible, and should be vigorously
denounced.
[224] Almost all beginners have an unfortunate tendency to wander off
into superfluous digressions, to amass reflections and pieces of
information which have no relevance to the main subject; they would
recognise, if they reflected, that the causes of this tendency are bad
taste, a kind of naive vanity, sometimes mental confusion.
[225] We meet with declarations like the following: "I have been long
familiar with the documents of this period and this class. I have an
impression that such and such conclusions, which I cannot prove, are
true." Of two things one: either the author can give the reasons for his
impression, and then we can judge them, or he cannot give them, and we
may assume that he has none of serious value.
[226] This difference has a tendency to disappear. The most recent
alphabetical collections of historical facts (the _Realencyclopaedie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft_ of Pauly-Wissowa, the _Dictionnaire
des antiquites_ of Daremberg and Saglio, the _Dictionary of National
Biography_ of Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee) are furnished with a
sufficiently ample apparatus. It is principally in biographical
dictionaries that the custom of giving no proofs tends to persist; see
the _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, &c.
[227] _Revue Critique_, 1874, i. p. 327.
[228] The custom of appending to "histories," that is to narratives of
political events, summaries of the results obtained by the special
historians of art, literature, &c., still persists. A "History of
France" would not be considered complete if it did not contain chapters
on the history of art, literature, manners, &c., in France. However, it
is not the summary account of special evolutions, described at second
hand from the works of specialists, which is in its proper place in a
scientific "History"; it is the study of those general facts which have
dominated the special evolutions in their entirety.
[229] It is hard to imagine what it is possible for the most interesting
and best established results of modern criticism to become, in the hands
of negligent and unskilful popularisers. The persons who know most of
these possibilities are those who have occasion to read the improvised
"compositions" of candidates in history examinations: the ordinary
defects of inferior popularisation are here pushed sometimes to an
absurd length.
[230] Cf. _supra_, p. 266.
[231] We have spoken above of the element of subjectivity which it is
impossible to eliminate from historical construction, and which has been
misinterpreted to the extent of denying history the character of a
science: this element of subjectivity which troubled Pecuchet (G.
Flaubert, _Bouvard et Pecuchet_, p. 157) and Sylvestre Bonnard (A.
France, _Le crime de Silvestre Bonnard_, p. 310), and which causes Faust
to say:
"Die Zeiten der Vergangenheit
Sind uns ein Buch mit sieben Siegeln.
Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst,
Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist,
In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln."
["Past times are to us a book with seven seals. What you call the spirit
of the times is at bottom your own spirit, in which the times are
mirrored."--Goethe, _Faust_, i. 3.]
[232] A saying attributed to a "Sorbonne professor" by M. de la
Blanchere (_Revue Critique_, 1895, i. p. 176). Others have declaimed on
the theme that the knowledge of history is mischievous and paralyses.
See F. Nietzsche, _Unzeitgemaesse Betrachtungen_, II. _Nutzen und
Nachtheil der Historie fuer das Leben_, Leipzig, 1874, 8vo.
[233] History and the social sciences are mutually dependent on each
other; they progress in parallel lines by a continual interchange of
services. The social sciences furnish a knowledge of the present,
required by history for the purpose of making representations of the
facts and reasoning from documents. History gives the information about
evolutions which is necessary in order to understand the present.
[234] The same institution has been adopted in German-speaking countries
under the name of _Leitfaden_ (guiding-thread), and in English-speaking
countries under the name of _Text-book_.
[235] We must make an exception of Michelet's _Precis de l'histoire
moderne_, and do Duruy the justice to acknowledge that in his
school-books, even in the first editions, he has endeavoured, often
successfully, to make his narratives both interesting and instructive.
[236] For a criticism of this method, see above, p. 265.
[237] The most complete, and probably the most accurate, account of the
state of the secondary teaching of history after the reforms has been
given by a Spaniard, R. Altamira, _La Ensenanza de la historia_, 2nd
edition, Madrid, 1895, 8vo.
[238] We are here treating only of France. But, in order to dispel an
illusion of the French public, we may remark that historical pedagogy is
still less advanced in English-speaking countries, where the methods
used are still mechanical, and even in German-speaking countries, where
it is hampered by the conception of patriotic teaching.
[239] I have endeavoured, in a course of lectures at the Sorbonne, to do
a part of this work.--[Ch. S.]
[240] Let it be noted, however, that to the question put to the
candidates for the modern Baccalaureate in July 1897, "What purpose is
served by the teaching of history?" eighty per cent. of the candidates
answered, in effect, either because they believed it, or because they
thought it would please, "To promote patriotism."--[C. V. L.]
[241] This is what has been produced in Germany under the name of
_Quellenbuch_.
[242] The same pedagogic theory will be found in the preface to my
_Histoire narrative et descriptive des anciens peuples de l'Orient_,
Supplement for the use of professors, Paris, 1890, 8vo.--[Ch. S.]
[243] I have treated this question in the _Revue universitaire_, 1896,
vol. i.--[Ch. S.]
[244] On the organisation of higher education in France at this epoch
and on the first reforms, see the excellent work of M. L. Liard,
_l'Enseignement superieur en France_, Paris, 1888-94, 2 vols. 8vo.
[245] E. Lavisse, _Questions d'enseignement national_, p. 12.
[246] Cf. _supra_, p. 55.
[247] _Revue historique_, lxiii. (1897), p. 96.
[248] See the _Revue internationale d'enseignement_, Feb. 1893; the
_Revue universitaire_, June 1892, Oct. and Nov. 1894, July 1895; and the
_Political Science Quarterly_, Sept 1894.
[249] _Revue historique_, l.c. p. 98. I have developed elsewhere what I
have here contented myself with stating. See the _Revue internationale
de l'enseignement_, Nov. 1897.--[C. V. L.]