240 SCIENTIFIC METHOD AS 



scientific appliances than this, that the whole world is 

 now in our context. 



If in any period of more distant history we had similar 

 knowledge of the environment, we could deal no less 

 easily with the historical statements which come down 

 to us out of the past. But this is just what we never 

 have. Events occur, and the people who are con- 

 temporary with them either have, or can easily acquire, 

 the links which connect them with the rest of the world 

 of the day. But time as it goes on drops endless 

 numbers of these links, and after a certain number of 

 years certain events seem to stand out, isolated and 

 remote, as rocks stand out of the monotonous surface 

 of the sea. It is the task of the historian especially 

 the scientific historian to recreate, as far as he can, 

 the lost context of these remote facts, to find their 

 necessity a posteriori, to show how inevitably they are 

 involved in the present no a priori necessity, as we 

 have seen, can be shown in history to make the ancient 

 period alive and coherent. No one can do this with 

 absolute success, though here I should like to remind 

 you of the enormous debt which history owes to the 

 archaeologists. It is almost certain that there will 

 remain always some details which seem disconnected 

 and irrational ; but the man who has really mastered 

 and steeped his mind in the history of some one period 

 will have some of the skill of a contemporary : he will 

 be less likely to be deceived by false lights, and he will 

 have intuitions as to what probably did occur, which are 

 in large measure worthy of trust. No man can value 

 adequately, or even grasp enough to believe in, what he 

 does not understand : the historian's purpose is to make 

 the past credible by making it intelligible : to show its 

 effects in the present which we know, if that is possible : 



