[bowman] fundamental PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 579 



and came thence to Berlin, in the (present) Ontario, how can a reader 

 depending on the obituary for his information know, unless I tell it, 



that years before A K 's death I had sufficient interest to take 



notes of the principal events of his life, and that the above statement 

 rested on these notes ? How could the reader know, unless I tell it, 

 that A K , when he gave me the notes, was a capable, trust- 

 worthy man, sound in mind, and with unimpeachable evidence to 

 fortify his memory concerning the year of this removal ? The reader, 

 apart from being told, can only guess in a general way at the writer's 

 sources and opportunities of information; but it is only an exact, 

 detailed knowledge, such as the writer himself possessed, and not 

 blind guesses in a general way, that can show scientifically whether 

 or not the sources were sufficient ground for the statement. 



2. The recorder or narrator cannot interrupt the record or narrative 

 to explain the exact, detailed grounds of his statements, nor can he give 

 these explanations, or cite the sources of his statements, systematically 

 in foot-notes. In the above instance, one such interruption alone, to 

 explain about the taking of the notes and about A K 's trust- 

 worthiness, and his mental capacity at the time, and his unimpeach- 

 able evidence for the date of the removal, would turn the obituary 

 into a literary monstrosity. A systematic resort to such explanations 

 for each successive statement would bring the obituary or any other 

 record or narrative practically to a stand-still ; and such explanations, 

 if only more or less frequently embodied in the narrative, would destroy 

 all its perspective and cause such confusion that the whole would be 

 rated as^ the product of a disordered mind, not worth the attention of 

 any reader, and not having the quality of trustworthiness, because no 

 narrative in confusion and without perspective could be accepted as 

 trustworthy. A similar result would follow if the detailed explana- 

 tions were given systematically in foot-notes: the narrative itself 

 would practically cease because the foot-notes would then monopolize 

 the page to the exclusion of almost everything else. 



Even the bare citation of sources as sustaining references in foot- 

 notes, if given exhaustively for each and every statement, would have 

 pretty much the same effect; nor would such citations in themselves, 

 however full, prove or confirm anything for users who, because the 

 sources cease presently to exist, or for any other reason, have no access 

 to these. The dependence of such a user would still necessarily be upon 

 the recorder or narrator and on the trustworthiness of his record or 

 narrative. 



This systematic citation of sources, moreover, would be essentially 

 improper and scientifically not permissible in a record or narrative 

 as such, because such a practice would have no scientific status in a 



