in the mind, has never
been more than imperfectly performed. It is beset by material
difficulties which theories of methodology do not take into account, but
which it would be better to face, with the purpose of discovering
whether they are after all insurmountable.

The operations of history are so numerous, from the first discovery of
the document to the final formula of the conclusion, they require such
minute precautions, so great a variety of natural gifts and acquired
habits, that there is no man who can perform _by himself_ all the work
on any one point. History is less able than any other science to
dispense with the division of labour; but there is no other science in
which labour is so imperfectly divided. We find specialists in critical
scholarship writing general histories in which they let their
imagination guide them in the work of construction;[185] and, on the
other hand, there are constructive historians who use for their work
materials whose value they have not tested.[186] The reason is that the
division of labour implies a common understanding among the workers, and
in history no such understanding exists. Except in the preparatory
operations of external criticism, each worker follows the guidance of
his own private inspiration; he is at no pains to work on the same lines
as the others, nor does he pay any regard to the whole of which his own
work is to form a part. Thus no historian can feel perfectly safe in
adopting the results of another's work, as may be done in the
established sciences, for he does not know whether these results have
been obtained by trustworthy methods. The most scrupulous go so far as
to admit nothing until they have done the work on the documents over
again for themselves. This was the attitude adopted by Fustel de
Coulanges. It is barely possible to satisfy this exacting standard in
the case of little-known periods, the documents relating to which are
confined to a few volumes; and yet some have gone so far as to maintain
the dogma that no historian should ever work at second hand.[187] This,
indeed, is what an historian is compelled to do when the documents are
too numerous for him to be able to read them all; but he does not say
so, to avoid scandal.

It would be better to acknowledge the truth frankly. So complex a
science as history, where facts must ordinarily be accumulated by the
million before it is possible to formulate conclusions, cannot be built
up on this pri