[Bowman] FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 137 
to his teacher is fundamental. This ultimate issue or question is whether 
necessity as opposed to probability ought to be taken as the criterion 
of conclusions in the study of history. In any attempted solution of that 
question the first step must be to establish if possible a basis for necessity 
as an historical criterion by ascertaining whether, and how, in historical 
conclusions, necessity can be scientifically attained. The present part 
of this paper is essentially an effort to lay such a basis; and if viewed 
in that light, this part of the paper may be regarded as a thesis, argued 
from a positive stand-point, in favor of necessity. This argument will 
be continued, but from a negative stand-point, in Part IT, where the 
author hopes to examine the scientific status, the origin and the results 
of probability as an historical criterion. 
The author’s purpose, it may be added, in making here the same 
acknowledgment to Professor Buchholz as was made in connection with 
the former paper on discrepancy is now as little as it was then to evade 
responsibility incurred by publication of these papers. In so far as 
views therein advanced may differ from prevailing opinion, the author 
wishes indeed to make a frank and emphatic avowal of indebtedness to 
his esteemed and beloved instructor: he accepts, however, the obliga- 
tion of their defence. He wishes also to take at this time the opportunity 
to repeat his sincere and warm thanks to Dr. W. D. LeSueur, the 
President of the Royal Society of Canada, by whose advice and encour- 
agement he was led first to attempt each of these papers; and whose 
sympathetic interest and assistance are the more appreciated because 
the work involved in their preparation is done under difficulty. 
I. THE FUNCTION OF HISTORICAL SCIENCE. 
When an historian in print or otherwise gives an account of an event 
he does not say, in presenting his conclusions, “These are the facts”? 
but, “This is what is worthy of belief concerning the facts.” Concerning 
such an event what is worthy of belief at any particular time depends 
on the existing records and other evidence then available. 
An historian may have published only yesterday an accurate 
account of the event according to the evidence then available, and 
to-day the discovery of a record which yesterday was unknown may 
necessitate a change in his conclusions. If in publishing yesterday’s 
narrative he had professed to say, “These are the facts,” he could not 
