'HE POSTULATES OF THE HISTORICAL METHOD. 1 73 



has been such that In most branches of science a 

 rejection of the Historic Method would justly be 

 regarded as a conclusive mark of unscientific per- 

 versity. And in its origin evolutionism is nothing 

 but a special application and development of the 

 Historical Method, the metaphysical assumptions 

 of which it shares. Those assumptions are so few 

 and so simple that ordinary thought would hardly 

 think of calling them metaphysical ; and yet they 

 really involve some very grave metaphysical diffic- 

 ulties. 



The fundamental assumption on which every 

 form of the Historical Method is based is that the 

 thing Investigated has had a history. And to say 

 that a thing has had a history is to assert, not only 

 that it has had a past, but that this past has a 

 bearing upon and a connexion with its present 

 condition. 



These postulates are so easily granted on ord- 

 inary occasions that we are apt to overlook the 

 metaphysical assumptions to which they commit us. 

 The reality of history implies the reality of the 

 past ; i.e., the reality of Time and the causality of 

 the past with respect to the present. For the con- 

 ditions which render the application of the Historical 

 Method valid are absent, if a thing has not existed 

 in the past, or if its past Is not causally connected 

 with its present. And these conditions, which make 

 it possible to speak of a history at all, will be found 

 ultimately to involve, not only the reality, but also, 

 as a further metaphysical postulate, the limitation 

 of Time, or, at all events, of the past of the thing 

 to which a history is ascribed. 



But this very important point deserves further 

 elucidation. 



