191 1.] ROBINSON— THE NEW HISTORY. 187 



race, human nature, culture, religion, church, people. Renaissance, 

 Reformation. Revolution, almost as if they were the names of ani- 

 mistic forces. These terms must be analyzed and reinterpreted in 

 the light of the newer sciences of man. 



The kind of history, accordingly, the practical value of which we 

 shall attempt roughly to estimate, and which for convenience sake 

 we may call the " new " history, is scientific in its methods, exact- 

 ing in regard to the inferences it makes from its material ; it rejects 

 supernatural explanations and an anthropocentric conception of the 

 universe ; it studies by preference the normal and long enduring 

 rather than the transient and exceptional ; it accepts the descent of 

 man from the lower animals, many of whose psychological traits he 

 shares ; it recognizes that man has lived on the earth for not merely 

 five thousand but perhaps for five hundred thousand vears ; it avails 

 itself, when fully abreast of the time, of all the suggestions and criti- 

 cisms that are constantly being contributed by the newly developed 

 sciences of anthropolog}', comparative, social and functional psychol- 

 ogy, comparative religion, etc.^ So much for the attitude of mind 

 of the modern historian who realizes the changes which have over- 

 taken his subject during the past fifty or sixty years. 



But if "history" be re-defined as no longer a record of past 

 events but the attempt to describe with all possible scientific pre- 

 cision what we know of the nature and conditions of human institu- 

 tions, conduct and thought in the past, does not the term become 

 hopelessly vague — as vague at least as the term natural science? 

 Does not the historian sacrifice his only obvious clue to the past 

 when he gives up tracing a succession of conspicuous events, for only 

 these lend themselves to an obvious and orderly selection and 

 arrangement? Every human interest and achievement has its his- 

 tory, every accomplished, and every vain dream. It would seem as 

 if every attempt to deal with the past must necessarily imply an 

 arbitrary selection dictated by the investigator's particular humor 

 and tastes. This situation is still disguised by the continued pop- 

 ularity of a standard variety of history, mainly political, dynastic 

 and military, transmitted to us from the past and taught in our 



'See "The Relation of History to the Newer Sciences of Man" in The 

 Journal for Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. VIIL, No. 

 6, March, iQii, where I have elaborated this point. 



