Transactions of The Royal Society of Canada 



SECTION II 



Series III MAY, 1921 Vol. XY 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 



The Study of History and the Interpretation of Documents 



By Brig. -General E. A. Cruikshank, LL.D., F.R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1921) 



"History," writes Jacob Burckhardt, "is the most unscientific 

 of sciences." Other writers of even greater eminence have denied 

 that it is entitled to be termed a science at all. 



Yet as Motley remarked in one of his letters, "History-writing 



must be pursued honestly as a science, if it is to be permanently 



■ valuable, and notas a trade." "By such a course only can it be made," 



to use the language of Guizot, "a great school of truth, reason, and 



virtue." 



By the ancients Clio was styled "the eldest daughter of Memory 

 and the chief of the Muses." 



Carlyle has told us in an eloquent passage that: 



"History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first 

 product of man's spiritual nature, his earliest expression of what can 

 be called thought. . . . Let us search more and more into the past; 

 let all men explore it as the true fountain of knowledge, by whose 

 light alone, consciously or unconsciously emplo^^ed, can the present or 

 the future be interpreted or guessed at." 



The study of history ought, therefore, not only to satisfy our 

 curiosity about past events, but essentially modify our views of the 

 present, as it deals with the great principles upon which the every- 

 day life of the world is still carried on. 



Whether the study or the writing of history can be regarded as 

 an exact science in the literal sense of the word may be a subject of 

 reasonable doubt, but it can hardly be disputed that there is an 

 increasing tendency to treat both in a scientific spirit, just as there is 

 similar inclination to treat the study of science, historically. This 

 is undeniably a modern development. A century ago, history, 

 treated as a science, was unknown, on this continent at least. What 

 passed under that name was a mere collection of fables, of heroic and 

 sentimental legends, of unauthenticated traditions, or records. 



—14 



