176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



satisfied Greek warriors or medieval monks. He must tell us what we 

 wish to know and also what we need to know; he must write not merely 

 for his readers, but for science. 



Within history itself there may be boundaries mapping it off into 

 departments, as political history, the history of literature, the history 

 of philosophy. But these very names imply that beyond them there is 

 a broader science, history, investigating the past in its entirety so far 

 as it concerns man. Whatever in the past influenced human life ap- 

 preciably then, or has significance for human life of the present day, may 

 well be included in tbe science of history, or in some great science. The 

 historian's task, writes Eobinson, " is nothing less than the synthesis of 

 the results of special sciences." " Moreover, it is something more than 

 this. The architect, for example, studies the history of architecture 

 for the sake of his art of building; the historian includes the past 

 of architecture in his study because of its relation to human life and 

 progress. While, therefore, the technical researches in such partial fields 

 as the past of architecture, of literature or of philosophy may be of 

 great assistance to the historian, he ca"n not content himself with com- 

 piling their results, for the reason that their technical interests are 

 different from his broader aim. He must refashion and interpret their 

 results before they will be available for his purpose and he must do 

 original work of his own. 



Returning to consideration of the phrases, "the facts of history" 

 and " what actually happened," it is to be noted that they may further 

 involve a stricture as to method. Their implication is that the in- 

 vestigator must occupy himself for the present with the content of his- 

 tory, with phenomena; that the time has not yet come for discovering 

 its form, that is, laws and general truths. This is perhaps the fairer 

 way to interpret Adams's utterance, and there is prudence in the atti- 

 tude. The beginnings of the science of history must be cautious; 

 science must not be impatient and race after irresponsible speculation 

 and theorizing. It also must not be backward and rest content with 

 aimless empiricism. It is true, as Adams says, that we must have foun- 

 dations before we can build; but we must lay them with a view to 

 building. A fact we have seen to be a vague and arbitrary division 

 since in history's continuity and complexity no particulars having reality 

 have yet been discovered. Consequently for investigators merely to cut 

 out " facts " from the sources and store them up for future study is 

 unlikely to lead to much progress, since there is no significance in the 

 detached parts and since it will scarcely be possible to fit them together 

 again into anything except the original chaos from which they were 

 cut. " Facts," then, will not do as an intermediate stage in historic 

 research any more than as a final goal. There must be something to 

 give form to research. A more purposeful and direct method will be to 



""The Conception and Methods of History," p. 51. 



