48 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



that'll does not in general attempt to estimate the reliability of 

 sources of undeniable authenticity as regards their author and unity 

 of composition. 



It is possible that psychology may some time come to the aid of 

 history. Not only may the study of the psychology of the individual 

 suggest better methods of dealing with the character, aspirations, 

 and motives of historical persons, but that new and interesting sub- 

 section of psychology to which German thinkers are turning their 

 attention, the psychology of evidence or report, die Psychologic 

 der Aussage, may furnish a scientific method for estimating more 

 exactly than we have hitherto been able to do the relation between 

 the sources and the objective facts which they purport to record. 



Yet in spite of these hopes history is and must always remain, from 

 the standpoint of the scientific observer, a highly inexact and frag- 

 mentary science. This is due not only to the fact that it concerns 

 itself with man, his devious ways and wandering desires, which can 

 never all be brought within the compass of clearly defined laws, but 

 also because it must forever rest upon scattered and unreliable data, 

 the truth of which we too often have no means of testing. Popular 

 historiography has in the past been smugly unconscious of this melan- 

 choly truth, and in writing for the public even conscientious scholars 

 find themselves suppressing their doubts and uncertainties, conceal- 

 ing their pitiable ignorance, and yielding to the temptation to ignore 

 yawning gaps at Avhose brink history must halt even though litera- 

 ture can bridge them with ease. 



Let us now turn from the painful theme of our ignorance, over 

 which literature has persistently sought to throw a kindly veil, to 

 the influence which literary motives have exercised upon the content 

 of history. Obviously this influence must predominate so long as 

 history depends for its interest and charm first and foremost upon 

 the story that it has to tell. The anecdote or reminiscence, the start- 

 ling situation, the signal calamity, the deeds of heroes, the machin- 

 ations of the wicked, are the primitive materials for history, and are 

 readily elaborated into literary form. In this type of composition 

 superficiality and inaccuracy are readily condoned. If the reader is 

 amused, he is satisfied; he scarcely thinks of asking whether the 

 information which comes to him easily and pleasantly has any inward 

 meaning or even whether it is probably true. 



The newspapers afford us a daily illustration of history whose 

 proportion and perspective is determined by literary ideals, of a 

 somewhat low order to be sure; but they are the same motives that 

 determined the selection of events to be recorded a thousand years 

 ago. The spirit is the same in the Annals of Xanten of the ninth 

 century and in the New York Times, which lies on my desk as I 

 write. From the former we learn that on the fourth of February, 848, 



