232 SCIENTIFIC METHOD AS 



a highly complicated way for the extension and co-ordina- 

 tion of knowledge. When we ask, therefore, what is 

 the nature of scientific method as applied to history, 

 we are at once thrown back upon two preliminary ques- 

 tions : What are the facts which history includes ? and 

 What are the ordinary processes of the mind by which 

 we attain the knowledge of them ? I shall consider 

 these two questions first, and then proceed to inquire 

 in what way the ordinary methods of knowledge may 

 be so strengthened and cleared up as to give us what 

 may be called scientific history. 



I. In one sense, of course, any event occurring in 

 the course of the world's movement may be a fact for 

 history. The mole that threw up the mole-hill over 

 which William III met his death is, as we say, historic : 

 he appears in history as ' the little gentleman in black 

 velvet,' whose health was enthusiastically drunk by 

 Jacobites. But, ordinarily speaking, arts such as that 

 of the mole's, and merely physical events, do not come 

 within the purview of history. History concerns itself 

 primarily with human acts, and with physical facts as 

 they affect and are woven into the fabric of human life. 



Now it is obvious that in dealing with historic facts 

 in this sense it is easy to classify them to trace simi- 

 larities of various kinds in them, to represent them as 

 illustrations of general tendencies. The murder of 

 Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the murder 

 of Julius Caesar, the murder of the Czar Alexander II 

 in 1 88 1 may all be described as cases of tyrannicide. 

 We may, if we choose, draw comparisons between the 

 political circumstances which lead to such acts, and trace 

 parallels and contrasts between the various cases. So 

 far as history aims at setting out the general laws which 

 govern human life, such processes must be applied to 



