[BowMAN] FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 135 
and obligation to take a place with the other sciences, is established by 
showing that, though the historian deals ultimately with the facts of 
the past, he does this strictly from a present stand-point and through 
materials now in existence and available: for which reason his problems 
and materials are as much present problems and present materials as 
are those of all other, including the so called exact, sciences; and he, 
as a man of science, can and must fashion his activity in unwavering 
allegiance to those general requirements or fundamental principles that 
govern operators in the so called exact and all other sciences. If, on 
the contrary, the problems of the historian were strictly past problems 
and his materials non-existent or not available, he would be excused 
from meeting these scientific requirements, because he could not; but 
in that case history would of necessity be banned from the general 
company of sciences: for the problems of science, whatever may be 
their ultimate bearing, are invariably present problems and are studied 
only through materials existent and available. 
Section IT defines four general requirements or fundamental prin- 
ciples applicable in all the sciences, and each definition is accompanied 
by one or more of the simplest and clearest illustrations of the principle 
that the author could find. The principles so defined and illustrated are 
applied in the treatment of the problem of historical trustworthiness in 
Sections III and IV, entitled respectively the Requisites for Trustworthi- 
ness in the Individual and the Correct Processes and their Applicative 
Principles in Historical Science. Summarily stated, the position there 
taken in the strength of these four principles is that in historical as in 
all other science only those conclusions should be accepted which are estab- 
lished as necessary by processes that, rightly followed, lead necessarily to 
correct results; and where an operator is accredited as applying such 
processes, his results must be accepted as correct unless the contrary be 
proven. In point of fact, an essential feature of any science properly 
so called is that its conclusions are reached by processes which, if 
applied without error by the operator, lead necessarily to a correct 
result. The most effective illustrations of this principle are supplied. by 
mathematical processes: the operator, by deviating from the require- 
ments of these processes, may introduce an error into the result; but 
in the processes themselves, apart from such deviation, there is no room 
for error. 
The author, in order thus to locate if possible any such correct 
process or processes for attaining to historical trustworthiness, instituted 
an experimental test or study of those individuals whose statements are 
accepted as trustworthy in actual intercourse. This experimental test 
is described in Section III. It shows that the characteristics required of 
such individuals in actual intercourse and experience can be classified 
