NA TURE 



[January 25, 1906 



stationary like those of the experimental sciences which 

 can be called up at will at any moment ; they are in 

 constant movement. Moreover, their movements are not 

 cyclical, like the movements of the planets ; they are pro- 

 gressive in an infinite series. Every event which occurs 

 adds something to the environment of every subsequent 

 event and is a factor in its causation ; so that the mere fact 

 that a thing has happened once presents an insuperable 

 barrier to its ever happening again. We of the present 

 day, for instance, are divided by an impenetrable wall of 

 new ideas, new discoveries, new conditions from our pre- 

 decessors of but the last generation. Not even the most 

 deliberate and carefully planned attempts to revert to 

 earlier orders of things — social, religious, political — can 

 possibly result in anything but hopeless failure. History 

 can never be made to repeat itself. 



That being the case, it is obvious that whatever may 

 be the general principles which historians may deduce 

 from their study of historic phenomena, they will be 

 very different from the rigid and invariable laws <>l 

 natural science which enable the expert not only to 

 explain the past, but also to predict the future. History, 

 in fact, has closer analogies with the mental and moral 

 sciences than with the natural sciences. It is to the 

 human race almost exactly what memory is to the in- 

 dividual man. No individual man ever finds himself twice 

 in precisely the same situation, nor can anyone discover 

 unvarying sequences ..I cause and effect in the relations 

 between himself and his fellows ; yet, notwithstanding this, 

 every man in his mature life is very largely guided and 

 governed by his experiences as recorded by his memory 

 and by the principles of conduct which his judgment has 

 deduced from them. As with the individual so with the 

 race ; but subject to this important difference, that the 

 rare lacks that personality, that continuity of self-conscious- 

 i»'«, which marks the individual. It has no natural 

 memory, and in order that it may not lose the vast 

 accumulated wealth of the experiences of the past a 

 memory has to be created for it. That race-memory is 

 history] Through history mankind attains to self-con- 

 sciousness. As Droysen puts it : — " Die Geschichte ist das 

 yvw8i aavrbv der Menschheit, ihr Gewissen." By means 

 of this self-knowledge humanity is able to become to a 

 degree otherwise wholly impossible the master of its 

 fate; it is able to control its destiny, and to move de- 

 liberately forward on the pathway of progress. 



Now if history is to perform adequately its high func- 

 tion, and to serve the purpose of a universal memory to 

 man, it is plain that it must no longer be left in the 

 hands of the literary artist to be built up of anecdotes, be 

 thev told never so brilliantly, or in the hands of the 

 party-politician to be constructed of half truths, be they 

 i). ver si. honestly held to be the whole truth. History 

 must be elaborated by the strictest methods of scieni e, 

 even though it is concerned with facts which are beyond 

 the reach of observation and with principles which are 

 not reducible to the satisfying simplicity of law. To state 

 the matter in the briefest outline, which is all that is 

 possible here, scientific method must be applied to history, 

 first, in the discovery of farts ; secondly, in the selective 

 classification of fact's ; and thirdly, in the drawing of 

 inferences from facts. 



(1) Tin- Discovery of Facts. 

 In history, the discovery of fact resolves itself mainly 

 into the criticism of documents. So important are docu- 

 ments in historical research that MM. Langlois and 

 Seignobos go so far as to say, in the opening paragraph 

 of their book, " L'histoire se fait avec des documents," 

 and " Pas de documents, pas d'histoire." There are, how- 

 ever, other sources of information, for example, oral tradi- 

 tion in the case of contemporary or recent events : 

 archaeological, architectural, and monumental remains in 

 the case of more remote eras. Nevertheless, it is correct 

 to say that documents are the primary source of historical 

 knowledge. Concerning documents, the first thing which 

 has to be determined by criticism is their origin — that is 

 to say, their authorship, the date and place of their com- 

 position, and their genuineness. Many things have to be 

 taken into account in the determination of these important 

 matters, e.g. handwriting and writing materials, vocabulary, 



internal evidence of knowledge displayed and opinions ex- 

 pressed. When, so far as is possible, the origin of a 

 document has been fixed and its genuineness proved, the 

 problem of the accuracy of its statements has to be entered 

 into. Such questions have to be asked as : — Had the writer 

 opportunities of knowing what he wrote about? Had he 

 sufficient ability to avail himself of his opportunities? 

 Had he any prejudices to distort his judgment? Had he 

 anv reason to conceal or pervert the truth? Does his 

 testimony agree with that of other witnesses? Is what he 

 says inherently credible? 



(j I Selection mid Classification of Fads. 

 The fact that a fact is a fact does not make it important. 

 The historian has to select the facts which are significant 

 from vast masses of the insignificant. What shall be his 

 principle of choice? Shall he select anecdotes which may 

 amuse his readers, or incidents which support the views 

 of some party or sect to which he belongs? The day 

 when he could adopt either of these principles of selection 

 is gone. But even now historians do not by any means 

 agree as to the exact kind of facts that it is the function 

 of history to record. Nor is it necessary that they should 

 agree; no two people store their memory with precisely 

 the same kind of recollections. Seeley and Freeman 

 limited themselves to facts of past politics ; Green and 

 Macaulay recorded facts of past social conditions ; Droysen 

 and Dbllinger, following Schopenhauer and Hegel re- 

 spectively, looked below the surface of events, the one for 

 the acts of will, the other for the movements of ideas of 

 which events were the manifestation. Any one of these 

 principles, or any similar principle, is sufficient to give 

 a scientific unity to historical research. 



(3) The Drawing of Inferences from Facts. 

 Although, as already seen, historical inferences can never 

 have the characteristics of physical laws, and although the 

 completest philosophy of history could never enable the 

 historian to predict revolutions with that unerring certainty 

 with which the astronomer predicts eclipses, yet historical 

 inferences may be thoroughly scientific, and the philosophy 

 of history of the greatest practical value. Given the 

 permanent and unchanging facts of human nature, and 

 known the peculiar circumstances of any particular event, 

 that event can be explained ; and though it is true that 

 these circumstances can never by any possibility recur 

 again, yet others will certainly occur sufficiently similar 

 to make the explanations discovered in the one case valuable 

 guides to conduct in the others. Social and political 

 progress and the development of civilisation depend very 

 largely on tie- adequate learning by the human race of the 

 .lessons of experience remembered by means of history. 



If in our days kings are benevolent, churches are 

 tolerant, armies are obedient, and policemen are civil; if 

 colonies are well governed ; if taxation is equitable ; if 

 Ministers of State are honest — all this is due no little to 

 the recorded and thus remembered fates of tyrants, per- 

 secutors, rebels, and the rest. Similarly if the admitted 

 imperfections of the present are to be removed, and if 

 progress is to continue, history, rich with its lessons of 

 the past, must remain the light and guide of the future. 

 But it must be not the history of superstition and pre- 

 judice and romance, not the boon companion of astrology 

 and alchemy, but the history of exact knowledge and calm 

 judgment, the recognised members of the hierarchy of the 

 si iem es. F. ]. C. Hearnshaw. 



CI BLIC SCHOOLS SCIENCE MASTERS' 

 CONFERENCE. 



^PIIK annual meeting and conference of the Publii 

 Si hools Science Masters' Association was held on 

 Saturday, January 20, at Westminster School. Owing to 

 ill-health, which had forced him to go abroad, the presi- 

 dent, Sir Oliver Lodge, was unable to be present, and the 

 Rev. E. C. Sherwood (Westminster), chairman of com- 

 mittee, presided at the business meeting, his place being 

 afterwards taken by the retiring president, Sir Michael 

 Foster, K.C.B. The honorary secretary, Mr. W. A. Shen- 

 stone (Clifton), relinquished his post, and the Rev. E. i_. 

 Sherwood (Westminster) and Mr. Hugh de Havilland 



NO. I 89 I, VOL. 73] 



