166 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE 



be scientific, although it will never be the synthesis of the natural 

 sciences." l 



In echoing Professor Fling's sentiments concerning the worth of 

 the historical classics, I would not for a moment assume that there is 

 in any quarter a disposition to disparage the best work done before 

 1825 or to deny that it has high merit of some kind. Nor would I 

 approach this subject in a spirit the most faintly resembling con- 

 troversy. Frankly speaking, I doubt whether academic utterances 

 as to what history is or should be, help us very far forward. We all 

 understand the fundamental value of truthful information, and 

 prize the processes by which alone it can be gained. Likewise we 

 prefer a thoughtful presentation of facts to a shallow one, and good 

 writing to bad. Ranke, with his wonted saneness, has said nearly all 

 there is to say. Referring to the difficulty of writing a continuous 

 national history, he observes: "Who could apply critical research, 

 such as the progress of study now renders necessary, to the mass 

 of materials already collected, without being lost in its immensity? 

 Who again could possess the vivid susceptibility requisite for doing 

 justice to the several epochs, for appreciating the actions, the modes 

 of thought, and the moral standard of each of them, and for under- 

 standing their relations to universal history? We must be content in 

 this department as in others if we can but approximate the ideal we 

 set up. The best written histories will be accounted the best." 2 



Is it not fair to describe the state of the case under some such 

 form as this? Many have the kind of capacity which is needed to 

 collect and sift historical facts. On the other hand, the number of 

 those who can turn these facts to any use above mere compilation is 

 relatively small. The conditions are the same elsewhere. Mr. Bryce, 

 for one, has remarked and commented upon them. " Knowledge 

 fossilized in a concrete invention," he says, "or even in a mathemat- 

 ical formula, is a sort of tool ready to every hand. But a method, 

 though serviceable to everybody, becomes eminently fruitful only 

 when wielded by the same kind of original genius as that which made 

 discoveries by the less perfect methods of older days. This is appar- 

 ent even in inquiries which seem to reside chiefly in collection and 

 computation. Everybody tries nowadays to use statistics. But the 

 people who by means of statistics can throw really fresh and brilliant 

 light on a problem are as few as ever they were." 3 



For few is it reserved to write great histories, whether these be 

 labeled works of science, or of art, or of sociology. And yet one cannot 

 think that study of the past bears its best fruit save where the student 

 has a habit of mind which impels him to consider connections as 



1 American Historical Renew, vol. ix, pp. 20-22. 



J History of England. English translation (Clarendon Press), vol. i, pp. v, vi. 



8 Helmolt's History of the World (English translation), vol. i, p. xlix. 



