THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 115 



each single occurrence to be indisputably genuine; it is then polished 

 up, rubbed clear of its rusty casing, and presented to the world. 



On the other hand, there is great need for the enormous accumu- 

 lations of the classified and isolated traditional data produced by 

 the unceasing mills of naturalistic criticism: these data must be 

 turned to account as material for a more general positive structure 

 of history with its divisions and emendations. Of course this is to 

 be done under the direction of an authoritative and constructive 

 mind, and not without the aid of the imagination. How else is a 

 control of the enormous material possible? But the mere memoriz- 

 ing of details and a linking together of particulars, a handling such as 

 was referred to, is clearly proved to be impossible. It is necessary 

 that we employ some means of mechanical combination of the parts 

 of the huge world of facts which knowledge alone can supply, cer- 

 tain forms of criticism to classify the mass of material and thereby 

 control it. And naturally this constructive criticism must deal in 

 the first place with individuals who may still be considered as the 

 only fundamental psychic motor powers of history. If their deeds, 

 their single achievements, and the collective achievements of single 

 persons, if these can be regarded as parts of a completed series of 

 facts in official service or in an independent profession, they must 

 be grouped according to a system which does not overlook the uni- 

 versal course of things and which makes the whole only the more 

 intelligible. This is the origin of pragmatics. 



But the Divide et impera embraced in the application of the prag- 

 matic principle proves itself to be insufficient in the face of the mass 

 of traditional material, continually increasing in scope as it does. 

 Above those groups which pragmatism has thus formed to facilitate 

 the handling of events, above the whole survey of heroic deeds, 

 incidents of wars or diplomatic negotiations, we see appearing by 

 degrees the outlines of a better system of classification of material, 

 a system which groups series of events of entire ages within the 

 domain of whole nations and families of nations; as, for example, 

 the outlines of certain oft-recurring incidents in the history of the 

 Papacy, or the types of similar occurrences in the development of 

 the Prussian monarchy, or the main characteristics of religious 

 movements in all respects alike and which are to be detected in the 

 piety of all denominations of Protestantism. It is clearly possible 

 to follow these also in the paths of formative criticism far beyond 

 the simple domain of pragmatism. The common landmarks, too, of 

 historical happenings, especially when pragmatically grouped, can 

 be massed together on the higher plane. With this accomplished, 

 the work of the historian begins at the point where the development 

 of the so-called historic theory of ideas sets in. The term "idea" 

 arises from the application of the word to the historic elements 



