492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



is that in which history is interested, the individual fact with all the 

 differences, marking it as something unique in the past. Sociology 

 studies the same phenomena, but draws from present and past in her 

 search for conditions of like kind, disregarding individual variations, 

 and therefore hopes — so far without much success — to find types and 

 even discover laws. What sociology with its different point of view and 

 method may hope to acomplish is not a part of the historical problem. 



The demand has been made of the science, however, that it disclose 

 the laws of social dynamics. The futility of such an attempt will be 

 more fully seen after the discussion of the method of reasoning in his- 

 tory; but at the present moment it is sufficient to note that to dis- 

 cover a law by observation — the only method capable of being employed 

 by the historian — there is need of finding a type or typical development, 

 the law of which will be the law of all similar phenomena. It is not to 

 be denied that there have been in the past certain recurrences of similar 

 forms which some philosophers have eagerly asserted to be typical 

 regularities of social development from which laws may be learned. On 

 account of the complexity of the phenomena, in which these similar ele- 

 ments are closely interwoven with variants, and because the observations 

 at best are unreliable and can never be corrected by repeated trial, a com- 

 plete knowledge of the conditions or of the occurrence is not possessed 

 by the historian and there is, therefore, no secure basis for an induc- 

 tion. Besides the collection of a number of similar facts from various 

 periods is not the usual method of the historian in whose eyes events are 

 individual in character, never combining the same conditions, never 

 following the same course. These very differences are those which he 

 seeks. Even here he must acknowledge himself baffled in his search for 

 the sufficient cause of these variations which mark them unique. He 

 finds their beginnings and traces their development, but, as far as his 

 knowledge goes, it is conceivable that quite another succession of events 

 might have been enacted, and then he would have zealously shown how 

 it too fitted into the evolution past and present and interdigitated so 

 accurately with the other phenomena. From the observation of an 

 isolated event, dissimilar to all others, no law can be formulated. 



From another point of view attempts have been made to discover the 

 laws controlling historical development. The world's history is con- 

 tinuous ; each nation, each period forms but a part of the grand whole ; 

 on this broader field can we find laws of historical evolution. We his- 

 torians stand in a very different relation to our phenomena than does 

 the natural scientist; in the twisting and squirmings of the microcosm 

 we read our own destiny. Never can we get outside of the course of the 

 evolution of which we are ourselves a part, and view it as something 

 entirely foreign to our wills. An objective criterion of the truth, 

 although not wholly lacking, is still by no means so perfect as that 

 offered the natural scientists. But a still greater difficulty confronts 



