2 MAC Leod, The Place of Science in History. 



teaching of history have been bettered. In consequence 

 of the progress of historical science, attention was drawn 

 more and more to those who were the subjects of the 

 sovereigns. More and more care was taken to bring 

 home to the pupil that each nation, each association of 

 men, has its history, which does not depend alone on the 

 will of kings, but in large measure on other forces, which 

 go far to make up what we call human nature. 



Let us suppose for a moment that we knew, for a 

 given country, for example at the end of the nineteenth 

 century, the legislation, the royal prerogatives, the dis- 

 tribution of wealth amongst the inhabitants, the conditions 

 of trade and labour in town and country, the language, 

 the literature, the works of art, the educational organi- 

 sation, the general level of education and the religious 

 beliefs of the people. Let us suppose also that we have 

 succeeded, by careful study of all the documentary evi- 

 dence which has come into our hands, in gaining a com- 

 plete knowledge of these various sides of the social life 

 in the same country at the end of the fifteenth century. 

 If now we were to make comparison between the two 

 periods, we should establish enormous differences on each 

 of the points mentioned above. 



The study of the intermediate periods teaches us that 

 the transition from one period to another did not take 

 place suddenly, but gradually : in other words that his- 

 torical evolution proceeds step by step. We could study 

 this evolution as a whole, or make division of the subject 

 and consider separately the line of evolution of each of 

 the phases of social life. 



We learn to consider the state of things in each suc- 

 cessive period as a direct consequence of the preceding 

 period, and we try to discover the causes which have 

 given rise to this subsequent state of things. 



