r science ...; in history there is
no such thing as a trivial subject;" consequently, "it is not the nature
of the subject which makes work valuable, but the method employed."[123]
The important thing in history is not "the ideas one accumulates; it is
the mental gymnastics, the intellectual training--in short, the
scientific spirit." Even supposing that there are degrees of importance
among the data of history, no one has a right to maintain _a priori_
that a document is "useless." What, pray, is the criterion of utility in
these matters? How many documents are there not which, after being long
despised, have been suddenly placed in the foreground by a change of
standpoint or by new discoveries? "All exclusion is rash; there is no
research which it is possible to brand beforehand as necessarily
sterile. That which has no value in itself may become valuable as a
necessary means." Perhaps a day may come when, science being in a sense
complete, indifferent documents and facts may be safely thrown
overboard; but we are not at present in a position to distinguish the
superfluous from the necessary, and in all probability the line of
demarcation will never be easy to trace. This justifies the most special
researches and the most futile in all appearance. And, if it come to the
worst, what does it matter if there is a certain amount of work wasted?
"It is a law in science, as in all human effort," and indeed in all the
operations of nature, "to work in broad outlines, with a wide margin of
what is superfluous."

We shall not undertake to refute these arguments to the full extent in
which this is possible. Besides, Renan, who has put the case for both
sides of the question with equal vigour, definitively closed the debate
in the following words: "It may be said that some researches are useless
in the sense of taking up time which would have been better spent on
more serious questions.... Although it is not necessary for an artisan
to have a complete knowledge of the work he is employed to execute, it
is still to be desired that those who devote themselves to special
labours should have some notion of the more general considerations which
alone give value to their researches. If all the industrious workers to
whom modern science owes its progress had had a philosophical
comprehension of what they were doing, how much precious time would have
been saved!... It is deeply to be regretted that there should be such an
immense waste