[bowman! fundamental PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 569 



if possible, his own conclusions, he thereby submits himself to the 

 authority of pure science. In this position he can invite acceptance of 

 his conclusions, even where space and perspective forbid his giving 

 the grounds of a decision, not on his authority as an expert, but simply 

 on his fidelity as a reporter. Where, on the contrary, he uses reasoned 

 probability as a positive criterion, and inserts balanced probable 

 conclusions and other probabilities in his narrative, the historian, 

 not having submitted himself to scientific requirements, invites 

 acceptance of his results, not in the name of science, but on his own 

 personal authority. This is true even where he cites the sources or 

 gives the grounds of his probable opinion, because such sources may 

 cease to exist, or access to them may be unreasonably inconvenient 

 to others, and in any event ordinary readers will not consider these 

 sources and grounds independently of his opinion, but will feel largely 

 bound by his views as an expert; and yet another historian, fully 

 as capable as he, might consider a different, or even an opposite, con- 

 clusion quite as probable, or more probable, on the same sources and 

 grounds. In some fields of historical criticism, probability has fuller 

 sway than in others; and in one particular field, all conclusions are 

 acknowledged to be only probable. It is significant that in this field 

 there is strong complaint that no scholar or investigator, however 

 good his argument, can get even a hearing from a fellow scholar 

 occupying an academic post a little more prominent that his own. 

 Such an effort to decide scientific questions on the basis of a sort of 

 academic hierarchy, and not on their own merits, is the negation of 

 science^ Under probability as a positive criterion, there is also a 

 constant appeal, especially noticeable in this field, to any consensus 

 of opinion between a group of scholars, and particularly between a 

 majority of them. This is also a form of deciding questions by author- 

 ity, and not on their merits; and as a test it is illusive and unscientific, 

 for there was once a consensus of opinion, not only between a group 

 or a majority of scholars, but universally among them, that the earth 

 was flat and not round; that the sun moved about us, and not we 

 about the sun; and that our planet was the great, engrossing centre 

 of the universe, and not one of the smaller members of a system that 

 forms but a fraction of space. 



2. Scepticism. The increasing scepticism among historical 

 investigators, which was noted in the introduction to the present part 

 of this paper, is a natural result of the present criteria and decisions by 

 authority in history. Where the method of a science is fundamentally 

 erroneous, the mere repetition of its threadbare formulae will not 

 avail in the end to hide the error; and in science the fate of all de- 

 cisions by mere authority is either to be questioned ultimately by 



