nk, from Greek and Latin literature, and latterly from
the researches of quite modern scholars and archaeologists. So that it
may be affirmed that authentic history began in Europe, and that to
Europe it has ever since been practically confined. At this day the
history of all parts of the world is being written by Europeans. The
result has been that for the last 2500 years historical material,
collected from and relating to all parts of the world, has been
accumulating in Europe.

Such masses of records and monuments necessarily require methodical
treatment by men of trained intelligence and of untiring industry,
learned, and accurate. Their systematic labours, their acute and
intelligent criticism, have created what is now usually termed the
Science of History, which abstracts general conclusions from the mass
of particulars. And so, I think, we may agree with Renan, who has
declared that to the nineteenth century may be accorded the title of
the Age of Historians, and that this has been the special distinction
of that century's literature.

Now I believe that the question, whether history is an art or a
science, is not yet universally settled. But whatever may be the case
in these modern days, I submit that in earlier times, and certainly
when history began to be written, it was mainly an art. Indeed, it
could hardly have been otherwise. In all ages and countries, from the
time when men first attained to some stage of elementary culture, they
have been curious about the past, they have enjoyed hearing of the
deeds and fame of their ancestors, of far-off things and battles long
ago. But the primitive chronicler had very slight material for his
stories of bygone times--he had few, if any, documents--he was himself
creating the documentary evidence for those who came after him; he
could only compile his narratives from tradition, legends, anecdotes
of heroic ancestors, from information picked up by travel to famous
places, and so on. Yet from sources of this kind he composed tales of
inestimable value as representing the ideas, habits, and social
condition of preceding generations that were very like his own.
Herodotus, who is our best example of the class, reconstructs,
revives, and relates conversations that neither he nor his informants
could have actually heard; but he does this in order to give a
dramatic version of great events. In the opening sentence of his first
book he says that he has written in order that t