496 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



in smart paradoxes which unless refuted must become a source of dis- 

 turbance." 



Bernheim's attitude here is typical of all the "orthodox" who wish 

 to preserve an erroneous system because they fill in it what they re- 

 gard as a creditable niche. Before their eyes the structure that houses 

 them may crumble, but they cannot see. If a Lorenz reminds them 

 of its decay, he is a "disturber," and they will not hear. But the 

 crumbling and the decay continue. The extent of it and the 

 result in general of the emphasis and use of the above test and 

 other probable instead of correct processes in history may be in- 

 ferred from the fact that Professor Dunning in the presidential ad- 

 dress above mentioned, when describing the "subject-matter of the 

 science," frankly added the qualifying words, "if science it be." 



Is History under the Prevailing Method a Science ? 



The doubt of Professor Dunning is the more significant because 

 he speaks as a sympathetic adherent of the method. But this crucial 

 question should not be left at the stage of sympathetic doubts. There 

 should be a definite test; and the way by which it is proposed here to 

 make that test is by stating, from the utterances of supporters of the 

 present method, (i) the minimum requirements of history as a science, 

 and (ii) the manner in which those requirements have been met. 



place where the record originated is not nearly so important as that of the time" (p. 398) ; 

 but (3) that "most important is the determination of the author" (p. 400) because the 

 "decision as to trustworthiness depend chiefly (in erster Linie) upon whether the 

 record is an original source" or "as the question is usually formulated, upon whether 

 the author is a contemporary," and "secondarily {in zweiter Linie) upon correct 

 observation, or in the absence of direct observation, upon correct report" (pp. SOT- 

 SOS). In other words, by Bernheim himself, notwithstanding his language toward 

 Lorenz, not only is much stress, but much the most stress, is laid upon contemporari- 

 ness as the test for trustworthiness in records. And notwithstanding his state- 

 ment concerning investigators with little intellect and half-ways sensible historians, 

 the same stress is laid on the same test by men of much intelligence and who are a 

 great deal more than half-sensible. Professor W. A. Dunning, in the presidential 

 address of the American Historical Association (1913; cf. American Historical Re- 

 view, January, 1914, p. 219) said, "He (the scientific historian) must know precisely 

 what happened and he must know it from the original contemporary evidence." 

 And Professor F. M. Fling, in illustrating the use of his Source Book of Greek History 

 {History Teacher's Magazine, September, 1909, p. 7) rated Aeschylus' Persians 

 as a more valuable account of the battle of Salamis than that of Herodotus because 

 the play was presented only a few years after the event but Herodotus wrote about 

 fifty years later. An extremer application of the test by contemporaneousness 

 could scarcely be conceived; for solely on the ground of that test the palm is awarded 

 to a poetical drama when in fact no historical value ought to be ascribed to it in it- 

 self, and still less in comparison with an historian, because the purpose of theatri- 

 cal productions is not necessarily to convey historical information at all. 



