SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION OF HISTORY m 



seek to demonstrate scientific propositions immediately from the sources. 

 Surely we have questions to put to the past, problems whose solution 

 will be of scientific value far beyond any epic recital. Anything ap- 

 proaching a complete philosophy of history is and long will be out of 

 the question, but none the less we may even now deal in a small and 

 humble and tentative way with generalizations and hypotheses, provided 

 we never make them except to test them by the source material at our 

 disposal and by rigorous scientific methods, and make them only of 

 such extent as our original investigation can compass. 



There is another reason why the historical investigator must take 

 the initiative and address inquiries to the source material rather than 

 count upon it for indication of "the logic of events" or for other 

 direction and guidance. It is the scantiness and fragmentary character 

 of the source material. If we had fairly complete records we might 

 from a mere reading of them, from mere "study and reflection" — to 

 use Monod's phrase — get a fairly complete picture, provided the mind 

 could comprehend and digest so great a mass of data. But with things 

 as they are a different method than that of mere open-mindedness and 

 absorption is practically forced upon us. Hypothesis and analysis are 

 called for. The fragments by themselves often suggest little or nothing; 

 it is, at least as yet, impossible to reconstruct from them the original 

 complex whole; it accordingly remains to take up point after point 

 which we wish to know about man and the world and see how far the 

 fragments will contribute to the solution of these simpler and partial 

 problems. This is not to say that we shall take no hints from the 

 source material as to the themes of our investigation. Where the 

 fragments suggest some generalization, some hypothesis of value, the 

 historian may well follow it up; where they do not, let him be the 

 aggressor. 



With such the aim of historical investigation, what shall be its 

 method? Is present historical presentation adequate to portray this 

 method ? If not, what will be the new scientific presentation that will 

 effect this ? These are the questions that remain to be considered. 



Since the historian is to ask definite questions of the past instead of 

 indiscriminately collecting "facts," his method both in investigation 

 and presentation will gain greatly in definiteness and unity. He will 

 know what source material is essential and what not, since his inquiry 

 furnishes a standard; Bernheim's historian had only the source ma- 

 terial to tell him what source material was essential. The historian will 

 not be at a loss for a plan by which he may conduct his investigation 

 and order the presentation of his work, since he has a definite subject 

 and also a definite method — to prove or to disprove. He will not be 

 left to grapple with a theme as it may chance to present itself, to dis- 

 cover this or that phase or fragment, and to present these discoveries 

 to his readers according to any plan that hits his fancy. He will 



