Popular Science Monthly/Volume 76/February 1910/The Scientific Presentation of History

by Lynn Thorndike

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THE SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION OF HISTORY

By LYNN THORNDIKE, Ph.D.

INSTRUCTOR IN WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

THE question, "Is history a science or can it become a science?" has long both fascinated and irritated historical students. A few think that they have already discovered a science of history, but in reality have made only a premature and primarily speculative attempt at a philosophy of history. Some would limit their ideal to indiscriminate verification of the greatest possible number of "facts" and to indiscriminate exposure of the greatest possible number of historical Actions—sometimes adding the hard requirement of setting forth their unsystematic results in attractive literary form. Some are pessimistic because the historian can not perform experiments in the past and because even his observation is seriously limited by the scantiness of the material at his disposal. This is true, but of course does not exempt the historian from dealing with the data he does have in a scientific spirit. It only renders it the more imperative. Others more hopefully point to the progress made in modern times in the publication and criticism of sources as a sign of history's conversion to scientific method. But of scientific method in the process by which the sources are transformed into history and presented to the public one hears little. On the contrary, one finds prominent writers on historical method not merely admitting but almost rejoicing in, the impossibility of fixed principles of research, of scientific exposition of results.

Bernheim, in his "Lehrbuch der historischen Methode" after designating history as "Wissenschaft" and describing its purpose as not esthetic but informing, in proceeding to speak of the process of converting the sources into history draws all his similes from the fine arts. History is like a pianoforte rendition of an orchestral performance; it should, like a painting, make use of perspective; in it, as in a drama, the characters should lie silent part of the time; gaps to fill in as between the scenes of a play should be left to the reader's imagination. In short, the turning out of the finished product is a fine art according to Bernheim, despite his denial. He says that it ought not to be poetry, but implies that it must be prose. His model historian's aim is to present the past vividly, not necessarily to prove anything. He should give specific bits from the sources occasionally, but more in order to make a story realistic than to make an exposition scientific. This story should follow either chronology or geography or "the logic of events." It should emphasize some "facts" as essential, treat others as subordinate, omit others entirely. The only standard in this process of selection and discrimination, the sole guide in finding what the logic of events may be, seems to be the source material itself which Bernheim expects will suggest modes of treating the "facts" derived from it. These vague and inadequate recommendations as to method in historical writing at least show Bernheim's ideal of history to be not a detailed and systematic investigation of the past by analysis and classification but a well-proportioned narrative bringing events, characters and conditions vividly before the reader. Indeed he goes so far as to say, "Die litterarische Form der Darstellung welche man wählt. in entsprechender Weise die Auswahl des Mitzuteilenden bestimmt."^[1]

Justin Winsor, writing in 1890 in The Atlantic Monthly on "The Perils of Historical Narrative,"^[2] affirms distinctly that history's proper method is epic and that connected action should be its exclusive theme. He wants no "maundering method"; he desires with Milton an absence of "frequent interspersions of sentiment or a prolix dissertation on transactions which interrupt the series of events"; he demands "training and large familiarity," but instead of scientific presentation is content with a "story that travels steadily to the end." "To tell the story with Herodotus," he says, "is what we have come to, after all experimenting." In the writer of history Winsor thinks desirable the same faculties that make for the merchant his fortune, by which is probably meant a sort of snap judgment. Indeed we presently hear of the historian's divination. Moreover, the historian's personality and environment are sure to affect his work. "The interlacing of the ages makes the new telling of old stories a part of the intellectual development cf the race and this retelling is necessarily subject to the writer's personality and to the influence upon him of his clay and generation." But Winsor does not draw the conclusion that in an age of science history too should attain to scientific form.

M. Gabriel Monod, in two recent articles in La Revue Bleue on "La Méthode en Histoire" writes in much the same vein.^[3] For him again the historian seems to be the spinner of one connected story and rather more of an artist than scientist. He "reconstructs in his brain the image of the past."^[4] Again we hear of the essential facts, of others merely accessory to these, of still others to be omitted entirely from the history, though all should be present in the historian's thought to influence his selection or to aid his constructive imagination in bridging the gaps in the sources by logical inference. Monod, however, believes that the historian can not only pick out the nuggets of "essential fact" from the chaos of ore before him, but also mint the coin of general truths.^[5] Indeed he is hopeful of deriving a sound generalization even from a mass of particular facts some of which are doubtful. He recognizes further that to accomplish this is no simple matter, as when, for instance, he says that the evaluation of the relative worth of the facts is a problem "délicate et sujette à mille causes d'erreurs." But it is also in his opinion a problem where "rules are insufficient" and where individual genius is called for, where sometimes "even a sort of intuition penetrates further than study and reflection."^[6]

That is that divination of which Winsor spoke—a feeling-it-in-one's bones method. History written thus would be more like a feat of magic than the work of science. To identify historian and magician is of course absurd, yet it must be said that a certain mystery enveloping the labors of the historian lends further color to the fancy. The historian has too much the air of entering a holy of holies of the sources where none but he dare tread and whence he will in due time emerge bearing precious secrets from beyond the veil. Rather cabbalistic footnotes make the mystery the more esoteric. He judges the past not in open court with the evidence made public, the press admitted, a jury hearing all the facts and then rendering its verdict, but in secret inquisition where he alone is both advocate and judge—and sometimes torturer. Another historian may retry the case if he wish, but will need to start again almost from the beginning. So sixteenth century mathematicians published their new formulas but kept from the world the processes by which they had been attained. Only there is the difference that those formulas justified themselves in use; the historian's results must be taken entirely on faith. Of course the conscientious historian of to-day has no desire to cover his tracks, he makes by bibliography and references an endeavor to indicate them to the reader, but he seems to despair of a complete scientific exposition of his labors. Yet even if he can not always hit the truth, even if history has no scientific laws, surely his thought about history can give an account of itself. Surely, too, its methods must be ones of which it can give an account.

Monod, to do him justice, to some extent realizes the former possibility if not the latter requirement. He finally gives three "general rules" of historical presentation. First, the sources used by the historian should be indicated; second, proof of his statements should be furnished as far as possible; third, he should sharply distinguish those points of which he feels sure from those which are more or less uncertain. These rules, vague in their wording and inadequate in their scope, are a faithful reflection of the present unsatisfactory and indefinite status of historical presentation. "Indicate" the sources:— what does that mean; how far should such indication go? "Furnish proof":—how is it to be got in order to be furnished? What constitutes proof? "As far as possible":—surely a weak-kneed and halfhearted phrase, but probably meant to leave way for the undemonstrable results of intuition and divination. As for the third rule:—how shall he make the sharp distinction, and further, ought he not rather to supply that which will make his readers certain or uncertain than merely to state his own convictions and doubts. Professor James Harvey Robinson writes on this point, "The historian has no accurate means of representing his own dubiety, strongly as he may be conscious of it. Much less can he impart his doubts and uncertainties to his reader"^[7] since history "possesses no special terminology adapted to its specific uses and historical writers content themselves with vague and uncertain expressions which are in their nature literary rather than scientific."^[8] Robinson, it should be said, both in the article just cited and in a lecture on "History" published in 1908 by the Columbia University Press, makes several incidental suggestions stimulating to one interested in scientific presentation, although his main aim is to expose the defects of the literary method of presenting history and he does not go on to attempt a theory of scientific presentation.

The most recent noteworthy instance of discouragement of endeavor to present history scientifically was the last annual address by a president of the American Historical Association. Professor George Burton Adams did not, like Bernheim and Winsor, disregard the possibility of scientific history; he clearly put the question, "In ascertaining and classifying the objective facts with which history deals can methods which are really scientific be employed . . . "?^[9] But he went on to say coolly, "History must remain one of the branches of literature"—a servitude incompatible with scientific status. Then a little later, when wisely discouraging present attempts to philosophize history, he tended towards the opposite extreme and declared that, "The field of the historian is and must long remain the discovery and recording of what actually happened,"^[10]—thereby abandoning Monod's hope of attaining to general truths and taking up a position not much more consoling to scientist than to philosopher.

On the other hand, there are tendencies toward scientific presentation outside the pages of writers on historical method. Even those who would incontinently discover some one hypothesis—for instance, the economic interpretation of history—to charm the "facts" of history from a chaos into a system, have at least invoked the name of science. True, these makers of hypotheses may be in too great haste to reach their goal and base their results on dubious and insufficient data rather than undertake a thorough examination of the source material. They may resemble the Ionian philosophers with their single world grounds rather than the slow, painstaking observers and experimenters of modern science. But, like the Greek sages, those who would conquer history at a blow have not led their forlorn hope quite in vain. However faulty their execution, they have at least corrected the assumption of Bernheim and Winsor that history is merely something to narrate and have held it to be something to study, to classify, to evaluate.

Nor does present orthodox historical practise lag behind with historical theory as sketched above. Original research of to-day would generally scorn intuitive methods, and the presentation of the results of such research is seldom primarily literaiy. But unfortunately, since the methods of research employed are seldom fully exposed, even if we take their validity for granted so far as the particular results are concerned, we are still left without the needed data for a theory of scientific presentation. No common and accepted methods have been formulated. Moreover, while such preliminary work as the editing of the sources is painstaking and while original research is done more or less scientifically, there is a marked tendency to limit the sphere of scientific investigation to the bare "facts," to "what actually happened"—to use Adams's phrase—and to look at least for the present upon further analysis and synthesis, upon the composition of history for the public, upon the manufacture of the final product, as an art either not needing or not permitting regulation, and as sufficiently scientific if it employs the results of the two earlier processes, no matter how it may use them. Thus is built on rock a house of sand. But that is not all. The flimsy superstructure is two-storied, for there are no bare "facts" of history.

The first step towards a correct theory of scientific investigation and presentation is then to show that there are no separate and particular objective facts of history; that consequently investigation having them as its object must be fruitless; and that methods of writing history based—as were all those which have been outlined—upon the assumption that they exist are wrong. When this is done, we shall be in a position to see much better what is the task of historical investigation and hence what is its fitting method. Only when we understand that "ascertaining and classifying objective facts" is not history's true business, may we with hope of success put the question, "Can methods which are really scientific be employed?"

What then are meant by the "facts" of history? Is there in the field of history any such definite and fundamental unit as the cell in biology? Are facts indivisible, elemental entities, found hanging ripe as it were on the branches of the sources and needing only to be plucked and picked over according to their essentiality and then to be canned in works of particular research until the day when all fruit shall have been gathered and shall be crushed together to make one surpassing syrup—the philosophy of history? No; as yet no historical units have been discovered. The word "fact" is, like the word "event," merely a convenient but exceedingly indefinite term. A fact is any fragment of historic truth just as an event is an arbitrary division of the past. To speak of "objective facts" of history then is impermissible. How much a fact or an event shall include is an entirely subjective matter. A war is a fact or event, so is any battle in it, so is the death of any soldier in the battle.

Qualitatively a fact or an event is quite as difficult to limit. Bernheim and Winsor displayed a tendency to restrict the "facts" of history to epic material and Adams seems at first sight to give the same thought its most recent expression in saying, "The field of the historian is and must long remain the discovery and recording of what actually happened." But it is idle to try to study "past action" by itself. We must know the milieu, the material, social and intellectual environment in which an event happened, in order properly to understand the event. But why single out "events" for our attention? Why not study the past without qualification? And again, what are "events"? Every external act had its inner concomitant, cause or result. Science and art have their "connected action," as well as states and dynasties. The very conditions which form the milieu for some act are themselves really in constant flux and so "happening" from day to day. In the last analysis, therefore, "what actually happened," like "facts," is no other limitation upon the scope of history than the negative one of excluding fictions and philosophizing. Truth and unvarnished truth are all they mean. Everything in the past is still left as the province of history.

There is, however, another possible explanation of the expression "the facts of history." One might narrow the definition of history by accepting roughly the limited scope of past historians and trying to discover only "facts" of the sort which they give. Of course, exactly to define what sorts of past phenomena they recorded would be difficult but it is also not easy apparently for modern investigators to strike out along new lines. The tradition though vague is powerful. Herodotus and his successors too often not merely—witness Winsor—suggest to moderns their method, but also their matter. Yet if history were narrowed down from its possible scope as investigation of the past in the interest of and with especial reference to man to a study of only the writings of those men in the past who were called historians, it evidently would become mere scholasticism, a barren commentary upon traditional authorities. It is only less unsatisfactory to confine history to material additional to but similar to that with which they dealt. Their standards can be bettered, not merely as they have been by the modern attitude to sources and the modern historical sense, but also in point of the content of history and the mode of presenting it. The historian to-day must not impose on the public the limited round of topics which satisfied Greek warriors or medieval monks. He must tell us what we wish to know and also what we need to know; he must write not merely for his readers, but for science.

Within history itself there may be boundaries mapping it off into departments, as political history, the history of literature, the history of philosophy. But these very names imply that beyond them there is a broader science, history, investigating the past in its entirety so far as it concerns man. Whatever in the past influenced human life appreciably then, or has significance for human life of the present day, may well be included in the science of history, or in some great science. The historian's task, writes Robinson, "is nothing less than the synthesis of the results of special sciences."^[11] Moreover, it is something more than this. The architect, for example, studies the history of architecture for the sake of his art of building; the historian includes the past of architecture in his study because of its relation to human life and progress. While, therefore, the technical researches in such partial fields as the past of architecture, of literature or of philosophy may be of great assistance to the historian, he ca"n not content himself with compiling their results, for the reason that their technical interests are different from his broader aim. He must refashion and interpret their results before they will be available for his purpose and he must do original work of his own.

Returning to consideration of the phrases, "the facts of history" and "what actually happened," it is to be noted that they may further involve a stricture as to method. Their implication is that the investigator must occupy himself for the present with the content of history, with phenomena; that the time has not yet come for discovering its form, that is, laws and general truths. This is perhaps the fairer way to interpret Adams's utterance, and there is prudence in the attitude. The beginnings of the science of history must be cautious; science must not be impatient and race after irresponsible speculation and theorizing. It also must not be backward and rest content with aimless empiricism. It is true, as Adams says, that we must have foundations before we can build; but we must lay them with a view to building. A fact we have seen to be a vague and arbitrary division since in history's continuity and complexity no particulars having reality have yet been discovered. Consequently for investigators merely to cut out "facts" from the sources and store them up for future study is unlikely to lead to much progress, since there is no significance in the detached parts and since it will scarcely be possible to fit them together again into anything except the original chaos from which they were cut. "Facts," then, will not do as an intermediate stage in historic research any more than as a final goal. There must be something to give form to research. A more purposeful and direct method will be to seek to demonstrate scientific propositions immediately from the sources. Surely we have questions to put to the past, problems whose solution will be of scientific value far beyond any epic recital. Anything approaching a complete philosophy of history is and long will be out of the question, but none the less we may even now deal in a small and humble and tentative way with generalizations and hypotheses, provided we never make them except to test them by the source material at our disposal and by rigorous scientific methods, and make them only of such extent as our original investigation can compass.

There is another reason why the historical investigator must take the initiative and address inquiries to the source material rather than count upon it for indication of "the logic of events" or for other direction and guidance. It is the scantiness and fragmentary character of the source material. If we had fairly complete records we might from a mere reading of them, from mere "study and reflection"—to use Monod's phrase—get a fairly complete picture, provided the mind could comprehend and digest so great a mass of data. But with things as they are a different method than that of mere open-mindedness and absorption is practically forced upon us. Hypothesis and analysis are called for. The fragments by themselves often suggest little or nothing; it is, at least as yet, impossible to reconstruct from them the original complex whole; it accordingly remains to take up point after point which we wish to know about man and the world and see how far the fragments will contribute to the solution of these simpler and partial problems. This is not to say that we shall take no hints from the source material as to the themes of our investigation. Where the fragments suggest some generalization, some hypothesis of value, the historian may well follow it up; where they do not, let him be the aggressor.

With such the aim of historical investigation, what shall be its method? Is present historical presentation adequate to portray this method? If not, what will be the new scientific presentation that will effect this? These are the questions that remain to be considered.

Since the historian is to ask definite questions of the past instead of indiscriminately collecting "facts," his method both in investigation and presentation will gain greatly in definiteness and unity. He will know what source material is essential and what not, since his inquiry furnishes a standard; Bernheim's historian had only the source material to tell him what source material was essential. The historian will not be at a loss for a plan by which he may conduct his investigation and order the presentation of his work, since he has a definite subject and also a definite method—to prove or to disprove. He will not be left to grapple with a theme as it may chance to present itself, to discover this or that phase or fragment, and to present these discoveries to his readers according to any plan that hits his fancy. He will escape that frequent failing of German scholarship—the squandering of Herculean labor in the compilation of specific details, "facts," in other words, upon an inadequate conception of the general bearings of the subject. There comes to mind a "standard" work upon the humanism of the Renaissance, a book cited among the best in bibliographies. It consists almost entirely of a series of little essays on various humanists, containing very miscellaneous information and tacked together by artificial literary transitions. One might take a large sheet of paper, write the names of the humanists in a vertical column, set against these in succeeding columns such points as date of birth and death, parentage, patrons, pupils, chief writings, purity of Latinity, knowledge of Greek, religious attitude, and have before one not merely the whole volume but more, since now one would be in a better position to grasp the subject as a whole and see to some slight extent how individuals worked together to make a movement

The scientific historian will see not only that his theme must be developed systematically, but also that every concept which may be implicated in his investigation must be sharply defined and henceforth consistently treated from that one point of view. The field must be fenced in, if any truth is to be corralled. If one is trying to bring out characteristics of a given period of time, evidently one must limit oneself to it. If a "movement" or an institution is concerned, it should be as exactly defined as possible in terms of those phenomena, qualities, and tendencies which are peculiar to it. Thus its gradual beginning, height and fading may be adequately recognized and discriminated from each other and from events contemporary but unconnected with either. Indeed, the historian who has denied the existence of "facts" will be inclined to look askance also at periods, movements and institutions. He will shake himself free from unjustifiable historical conglomerates as well as from false historical units. We shall get from his pen no dreary historical miscellanies, no omnibus biographies. He will be trying to prove something and will assume nothing.

While then the scientific historian will sharply define every concept and field, he will not make the mistake of thinking that some portion of the historical field can be fenced off and studied by itself, as investigators of periods and places too often do now. In history's continuity and complexity not only have particulars no reality, but generalizations have no truth unless followed through the whole stream. They may take on a different significance when brought into contact with other truths. Historical measurements have relative rather than absolute value. They must be in more than one dimension. Is this asking too much? Must the historical investigator know everything before he can find out anything? Not if he does not attempt to discover too much or to measure that which has too many relations—as does a period. Not if he takes a problem sufficiently precise and limited to be covered, as it should be, by considering everything that is likely to have any relation to it. This is the direction in which original research has been tending but has not wholly attained, owing to its attachment to the false conceptions of historical "facts" and groups of facts, and to its dependence upon the source material for form as well as for matter.

In short, the historian should take the measure of everything he has to deal with, just as the scientist takes into account every factor affecting his experiment. That he can not measure as accurately and completely as the chemist or the physicist is the very worst reason for his not measuring at all. If periods, movements and human motives are so uncertain—as historians sometimes tell us by way of excuse—how can one venture to assume them instead of trying to remove to some extent that uncertainty or of frankly recording it as an element of error in the investigation? Much could be measured that never has been. While some of the researches in which historians are engaged give no promise of sure results and offer rather a broad choice of plausible or ingenious theories, extensive past literatures teeming with human prejudices, motives and ideas are waiting for accurate measurement and estimation. Were extant Greek literature, for instance, sifted thoroughly and its utterances on different topics collated and evaluated, many existing notions about Greek civilization might be modified, many new truths about it and its relations to the culture of other periods might be revealed. Or at least we should gain firm ground to stand on. For while classical scholarship is intent on minute points of ancient customs and language, for ancient ideas we have no statistics, only opinions. Such opinions have been formed no doubt as a result of acquaintance with the source material, but that fact alone is not enough. Science is not satisfied by a sort of alchemistic process in which various ingredients of source material are thrown by the historian into the seething kettle of his intellect, whence, after long subjection to the fires of unconscious cerebration and the juices of ripe reflection, they are supposed to emerge fused and transmuted into historical truth. There must be a complete and-accurate analysis and measurement of that material and a sound process of deducing historical truth therefrom. This may be illustrated in more detail.

The necessity of qualitative measurement of statements not only per se, but with reference to the sources from which they are drawn, is generally recognized: but historians as yet seldom heed the twin requirement of quantitative measurement of our data in comparison with the sources whence they come. It is well understood that one must take into account the reliability of the source from which the statement comes, the circumstances under which it was written, the attitude of its author—whether superstitious or sceptical, rhetorical or sober, gossipy or official, spiteful or eulogistic, contemporary or hearsay, doctrinaire or unconscious and objective. On the other hand, while the scarcity of source material is often noticed, the amount of relevant material is seldom discounted to affect the worth of a particular point supported by specific statement in the sources. Yet a point is not proved by two or three bits of favorable evidence if the available sources are such that ten or twelve confirmations might be expected. Or the available source material may be so scanty that it does not offer sufficient basis for any positive conclusions. One should try to determine not only how much evidence there is on the point in question and in what degree it bears upon that point, but also how much there ought to be. The quantity of evidence pro and con must be measured not only absolutely, but also in proportion to the available source material, and further with regard to the source material which is missing.

After adopting and working out in full detail through practise the method of research which has here been but suggested, historians will still have the duty of showing others, not only their results but the solid foundations on which these rest and the process by which they were attained. This obligation is recognized to-day to the extent that a historical work without bibliography, footnotes or references to the sources is not considered scholarly. But this is not enough. A list of the books that the historian has used is far from fulfilling the requirement which science makes of a complete analysis of the source material. It gives little idea of the character, scope, applicability and reliability of the source material, even though some word of comment be attached to each title. Fault may be found, moreover, with the footnote as a means of proof. And here is criticized the footnote at its best, rather than when, with pretentiously long quotations in foreign tongues and with superfluity of scholarly digression and learned small talk, it degenerates from a pillar by which science supports its results into a pedestal upon which erudition poses; or when, instead of bearing upon the main point, it gives specific references merely for some accompanying illustrative detail which proves nothing. At its best the footnote less actually proves a point than furnishes indications how one can set about proving it for oneself. Then, owing to the erroneous notion about "facts" of history, each footnote attaches itself to some one point in the text. Thus all the notes taken together supply means for verifying particular statements, but do not substantiate general truths nor lead us to scientific propositions. That must be done in the text, if at all. But here is a third disadvantage that the proof contained in the notes, besides being subdivided there and so losing the strength of union, is further detached from the proof in the text. Yet the very existence of the footnote bears witness that the literary method of presentation at present employed in the text is unsatisfactory for scientific purposes, testifying that the whole would become even clumsier and more confused were the attempt made to embody the notes in the text.

The remedy is a presentation primarily scientific, a unified and uninterrupted presentation of the complete historical process from raw material to finished product. The historian will reveal his investigations as well as their results. After stating and defining his problem with scientific exactness, he will make perfectly clear the material available and utilized for the solution of the problem, and will inform us of the plan b}-which that material will be exploited. Then will follow naturally the subjection of that material to these methods and the consequent results, positive or negative, partial or complete. Presentation will follow investigation step by step.

Moreover, since investigation will be so completely a matter of accurate measurement and of accurate conclusion therefrom, the method of presentation will probably somewhat resemble that employed by mathematics and the sciences. We shall come, not merely to the historical terminology which Robinson desires, but also to standards of historical measurement, modes of historical reckoning, historical symbols, curves, charts and other graphic means of presenting briefly and accurately what prose could compass only in many pages or fail to express with requisite precision and discrimination. Thus, while historians will present proof as well as results, this greater detail than is at present given will be so put that it can be looked over in less time. Historians will no longer be handicapped as were the medieval algebraists who wrote out their equations in words. Other sciences of human life, psychology, economics, sociology, have already turned to such methods; history alone remains backward and awkward. Yet the scantiness of the material at its disposal, in comparison with the abundant opportunity for experiment and observation possessed by the others, requires from it even more accurate inspection, calculus and presentation.

Even in historical manuals, text-books, general treatments of countries and ages, and other works of too pretentious scope and abbreviated form to be based directly on the source material and use of scientific processes, there will be no reason why scientific propositions may not in increasing measure constitute the contents, the field be definite, the form in accord with the true spirit of history. Possibly fewer persons would study the reformed presentation than read histories at present, but they would learn more truth of value, gain a deeper insight into the true nature of history, and have a greater respect for it. One could not then dismiss it as "a branch of literature." Its utterances would rest neither on vague consensus of opinion, nor on the reputation, nor on the footnotes of this and that individual; but upon a common method, open to the scrutiny of all and worked out in its fullness by generations of scholars, though applied in each particular investigation by an individual mind.

1. Bernheim, "Lehrbuch der Historischen Methode," Leipzig, 1903, p. 724.
2. Volume 66. pp. 289 et seq. The quotations which follow in the text occur on pp. 292-294.
3. Fifth Series, Vol. IX.. April 11 and 18. 1908.
4. Ibid., p. 487.
5. The metaphor is mine, not Monod's.
6. Ibid., p. 489.
7. "The Conception and Methods of History." Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 1904. Vol. II., p. 46.
8. Ibid., p. 41.
9. "History and the Philosophy of History," American Historical Review, January, 1909, p. 232.
10. Ibid., p. 236.
11. "The Conception and Methods of History," p. 51.