er type. Within this general scheme the subdivisions are
formed on the same principle, and facts are arranged in chronological
and geographical order, or according to the groups to which they
relate. As to the selection of facts to be arranged in this scheme, for
a long time it was made on no fixed principle; historians followed their
individual fancy, and chose from among the facts relating to a given
period, country, or nation all that they deemed interesting or curious.
Livy and Tacitus mingle accounts of floods, epidemics, and the birth of
monsters with their narratives of wars and revolutions.

Classification of facts by their intrinsic nature was introduced very
late, and has made way but slowly and imperfectly. It took its rise
outside the domain of history, in certain branches of study dealing with
special human phenomena--language, literature, art, law, political
economy, religion; studies which began by being dogmatic, but gradually
assumed an historical character. The principle of this mode of
classification is to select and group together those facts which relate
to the same species of actions; each of these groups becomes the
subject-matter of a special branch of history. The totality of facts
thus comes to be arranged in compartments which may be constructed _a
priori_ by the study of the totality of human activities; these
correspond to the set of general questions of which we have spoken in
the preceding chapter.

In the following table we have attempted to provide a general scheme for
the classification[188] of historical facts, founded on the nature of
the _conditions_ and of the _manifestations_ of activity.

I. MATERIAL CONDITIONS. (1) _Study of the body_: _A._ Anthropology
(ethnology), anatomy, and physiology, anomalies and pathological
peculiarities. _B._ Demography (number, sex, age, births, deaths,
diseases). (2) _Study of the environment_: _A._ Natural geographical
environment (orographic configuration, climate, water, soil, flora, and
fauna). _B._ Artificial environment, forestry (cultivation, buildings,
roads, implements, &c.).

II. INTELLECTUAL HABITS (not obligatory). (1) _Language_ (vocabulary,
syntax, phonetics, semasiology). Handwriting. (2) _Arts_: _A._ Plastic
arts (conditions of production, conceptions, methods, works). _B._ Arts
of expression, music, dance, literature. (3) _Sciences_ (conditions of
production, methods, results). (4) _Philosophy and Morals_ (conceptions,
precepts