LXXVI THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



English translation has l)con published. This work carries out ex- 

 cellently the aim announced in the Preface. "We propose here," say 

 the authors, "to examine the conditions and the modes of procedure, 

 and to indicate the character and the limits of historical knowledge. 

 How do we contrive to learn what it is possible to learn, and what it 

 is important to learn, of the past? What constitutes a document? 

 How shall documents be treated for historical purposes? What are 

 historical facts? How should they be grouped with a view to historical 

 construction?" Beginners, they state, and persons who have never 

 reflected on the principles of historic method, work instinctively on lines 

 of their own, which, generally speaking, are not, in the full sense, 

 logical, and cannot, therefore, give really scientific results. An excellent 

 work on Historical Synthesis (La Synthèse en Histoire) was brought 

 out two years ago by M. Henri Berr, of the University of Toulouse, 

 editor of the "Revue de Synthèse Historique." Too many historians, 

 the author says, have never reflected on the nature of their science, 

 any more than those unenlightened persons (ce.s 'profanes) who ask 

 historians to amuse them. The book is technical and philosophical in 

 character, but is of undoubted value to any one who desires to look 

 closely into the logical conditions for the evolution and exposition of 

 historical truth. 



A more popular book that has lately come into my hands, dealing 

 with the same subject, is one by Prof. J. N. Vincent of Johns Hopkins 

 University, entitled "Historical Research." It, too, is mainly a series 

 of warnings against the pitfalls of history referred to a moment ago. 

 MM, Langlois and Seignobos raise the question : what constitutes a docu- 

 ment? Professor Vincent cites administrative documents which prove 

 how far "official utterances" are from being as "unanswerable" as was 

 supposed by the Captain of H. M. S. Pinafore. It would be interesting 

 to cite a few illustrative cases, but time forbids. 



An important section of the historian's art is treated by the French 

 authors mentioned under the head of "Heuristique", a word which may 

 be Anglicised as "Heuristic", and which signifies the art or science of 

 finding (evpiaKeLv) what you want in the way of documents or other 

 historical material. If we fail to give adequate attention to this 

 division of our labour, any work that we attempt to do will rest on 

 an insufficient basis, and is likely to contain numerous errors, which a 

 wider consultation of documentary sources would have prevented. 



A history so written would, in these days, expose its author to no 

 little ridicule. ]*]arly writers cannot be held to equally strict account, 

 for they laboured under very great disadvantages in this respect. Such 

 documents as existed were scattered here and there and everywhere, 

 and learned men laboriously corresponded with one another, when as. 



