nciple of continually beginning afresh. Historical
construction is not work that can be done with documents, any more than
history can be "written from manuscripts," and for the same reason--the
shortness of time. In order that science may advance it is necessary to
combine the results of thousands of detail-researches.

But how are we to proceed in view of the fact that most researches have
been conducted upon methods which, if not defective, are at least open
to suspicion? Universal confidence would lead to error as surely as
universal distrust would make progress impossible. One useful rule, at
any rate, may be stated, as follows: The works of historians should be
read with the same critical precautions which are observed in the
reading of documents. A natural instinct impels us to look principally
for the conclusions, and to accept them as so much established truth; we
ought, on the contrary, to be continually applying analysis, we ought to
look for the facts, the _proofs_, the fragments of documents--in short,
the materials. We shall be doing the author's work over again, but we
shall do it very much faster than he did, for that which takes up time
is the collection and combination of the materials; and we shall accept
no conclusions but those we consider to have been proved.

CHAPTER II

THE GROUPING OF FACTS

I. The prime necessity for the historian, when confronted with the chaos
of historical facts, is to limit the field of his researches. In the
ocean of universal history what facts is he to choose for collection?
Secondly, in the mass of facts so chosen he will have to distinguish
between different groups and make subdivisions. Lastly, within each of
these subdivisions he will have to arrange the facts one by one. Thus
all historical construction should begin with the search for a principle
to guide in the selection, the grouping, and the arrangement of facts.
This principle may be sought either in the external conditions of the
facts or in their intrinsic nature.

The simplest and easiest mode of classification is that which is founded
on external conditions. Every historical fact belongs to a definite time
and a definite place, and relates to a definite man or group of men: a
convenient basis is thus afforded for the division and arrangement of
facts. We have the history of a period, of a country, of a nation, of a
man (biography); the ancient historians and those of the Renaissance
used no oth