44 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



lation of the relations of the administrative bodies and a happy 

 adjustment of the finances of the country, both of which exercised 

 a deep influence upon the French; and yet compared to the sum 

 total of the interests of the French people at that time which are 

 susceptible of historical investigation, this revolution was almost in- 

 significant. Domestic habits, artistic instincts, agricultural methods, 

 philosophical tenets, popular religious beliefs, none of these were 

 directly affected by Napoleon's accession to power. 



Periods of history have, then, in the past depended for their 

 plausibility upon the emphasis laid upon conspicuous events or upon 

 a single class of human interests to the exclusion or neglect of the 

 great body of normal and slowly changing preoccupations. Behind 

 the craving for definite periods lay the literary sense rather than the 

 scientific. Even to-day the historian would be lost were he to be 

 deprived of such convenient expressions as the Middle Ages, the 

 Renaissance, the Reformation, the Revolution. Yet all of these, 

 from the standpoint of the conscientious scholar, are only slipshod 

 literary subterfuges which we must constantly explain and qualify 

 until they lose any scientific meaning which they may appear at first 

 sight to enjoy. 



Here we come face to face with one of the chief problems which 

 historical students must attempt to solve. How far is periodizing 

 scientifically possible in view of the inexorable continuity in human 

 affairs which we all know to exist? What shall be substituted for the 

 old misleading divisions? This matter has received far less attention 

 than it merits. I have no solution to offer for a difficulty which has 

 taxed master minds. I can do little more than foster discontent with 

 the current phraseology the first step toward better things. 



Periods in history may perhaps be best viewed as mere divisions 

 into chapters, indications on the part of the writer of those stages 

 in his narrative where the reader may most safely and conveniently 

 lay down his book for the moment. The reader must not be misled 

 into thinking that they correspond to real breaks in the course of 

 human affairs. He should see that they are first and foremost literary 

 expedients. Moreover, the divisions should be so made as to substan- 

 tiate rather than shatter the historical continuity. Like the cunningly 

 devised serial romance, each installment should so end as to avoid any 

 impression of finality. The reader's suspense corresponds with the 

 historian's deep-seated sense of continuity. 



It is clear that the periods commonly adopted in treating general 

 European history are open to many serious objections, and there are 

 indications that they will be gradually discarded or fundamentally 

 modified. The chief difficulties are perhaps the following: The early 

 Middle Ages are disassociated from the later Roman history in a way 

 seriously to hamper the student. For a great part of those ideas and 



