HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS 165 



bringing it back again. 1 But for "loose talk," interpreting the phrase 

 to mean picturesque and rhetorical language, there surely is nothing 

 in Green which goes beyond this. 



Whatever scoffers may urge to the contrary, history has one 

 thing in common with truth, since both are extremely polygonal; 

 and if, as the wizard sang to Bellicent, " truth is this to me and that 

 to thee," the day is probably long hence when our conception of the 

 summum bonum in history will be reduced to the dead level of same- 

 ness. Had Leibnitz carried his brilliant project a little farther 

 and taught mankind to think in symbols instead of words, he wxnild 

 have rendered history a greater service than he did by writing the 

 Annals of the House of Brunswick. Then we should not waste time 

 over definitions and beat the air in the hope of establishing a useful 

 conclusion. Professor Flint is writing a history of the philosophies 

 of history. His task would have been greater still had he called his 

 work a history of the conceptions of history, for many conceptions 

 worth taking note of never crystallized into the polished diamond of 

 a philosophy. Basing our forecast of the future upon the experience 

 of the past, may we not surmise that conceptions of history will be 

 modified in each generation by the expanding consciousness of 

 mankind? At present many of the ablest and most learned historians 

 restrict their efforts to the determination of facts by scientific pro- 

 cess and deem it futile to attempt more. Doubtless this contention 

 represents an extremely important point of view. It only remains 

 to ask whether the vista towards coordination is finally and irre- 

 vocably closed. 



Not long ago Professor Fling, in a thoughtful paper on historical 

 synthesis, discussed the relationship of history and science as it has 

 appeared to writers like Droysen, Rhomberg, Lamprecht, Rickert, 

 Miinsterberg, and Xenopol. His own deliverance in the matter is 

 supported by considerations regarding the logic of the historical 

 concept, and may be stated briefly as follows: "If historians and 

 sociologists can agree that both deal with the past of society, but 

 from different points of view; that one looks at it from the point of 

 view of a unique evolution, and the other from the point of view of 

 general facts and laws; that as their ends differ, their methods must 

 differ; that there would be no confusion if we retained the term 

 history for the older point of view and employed the term sociology 

 for the later if these fundamental points could be agreed upon, 

 the debate would be over." Such is his general conclusion, which is 

 attended also by a corollary: "As long as men seek for knowledge 

 of the unique evolution of their social past, just so long will the 

 historical method be justifiable and the historical synthesis, the 

 synthesis of Thucydides, of Tacitus, of Gibbon, and of Ranke, will 

 1 Letters of John Richard Green, edited by Leslie Stephen, p. 425. 



