SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION OF HISTORY 179 



relation to it. This is the direction in which original research has been 

 tending but has not wholly attained, owing to its attachment to the 

 false conceptions of historical -facts** and groups of facts, and to its 

 dependence upon the source material for form as well as for matter. 



In short, the historian should take the measure of everything he has 

 to deal with, just as the scientist takes into account every factor affect- 

 ing his experiment. That he can not measure as accurately and com- 

 pletely as the chemist or the physicist is the very worst reason for his 

 not measuring at all. If periods, movements and human motives are so 

 uncertain — as historians sometimes tell us by way of excuse — how can 

 one venture to assume them instead of trying to remove to some extent 

 that uncertainty or of frankly recording it as an element of error in the 

 investigation? Much could be measured that never has been. While 

 some of the researches in which historians are engaged give no promise 

 of sure results and offer rather a broad choice of plausible or ingenious 

 theories, extensive past literatures teeming with human prejudices, 

 motives and ideas are waiting for accurate measurement and estimation. 

 Were extant Greek literature, for instance, sifted thoroughly and its 

 utterances on different topics collated and evaluated, many existing no- 

 tions about Greek civilization might be modified, many new truths about 

 it and its relations to the culture of other periods might be revealed. 

 Or at least we should gain firm ground to stand on. For while classical 

 scholarship is intent on minute points of ancient customs and language, 

 for ancient ideas we have no statistics, only opinions. Such opinions 

 have been formed no doubt as a result of acquaintance with the source 

 material, but that fact alone is not enough. Science is not satisfied 

 by a sort of alchemistic process in which various ingredients of source 

 material are thrown by the historian into the seething kettle of his 

 intellect, whence, after long subjection to the fires of unconscious cere- 

 bration and the juices of ripe reflection, they are supposed to emerge 

 fused and transmuted into historical truth. There must be a complete 

 and- accurate analysis and measurement of that material and a sound 

 process of deducing historical truth therefrom. This may be illus- 

 trated in more detail. 



The necessity of qualitative measurement of statements not only 

 per se, but with reference to the sources from which they are drawn, is 

 generally recognized : but historians as yet seldom heed the twin require- 

 ment of quantitative measurement of our data in comparison with the 

 sources whence they come. It is well understood that one must take 

 into account the reliability of the source from which the statement 

 comes, the circumstances under which it was written, the attitude of its 

 author — whether superstitious or sceptical, rhetorical or sober, gossipy 

 or official, spiteful or eulogistic, contemporary or hearsay, doctrinaire 

 or unconscious and objective. On the other hand, while the scarcity of 

 source material is often noticed, the amount of relevant material is 

 seldom discounted to affect the worth of a particular point supported by 



