nd ideas, and political history, contemptuously nicknamed
"battle-history" by its opponents.

This opposition is explained by the difference between the documents
which the workers on either side were accustomed to deal with. The
historians, principally occupied with political history, read of
individual and transient acts of rulers in which it was difficult to
detect any common feature. In the special histories, on the contrary
(except that of literature), the documents exhibit none but general
facts, a linguistic form, a religious rite, a rule of law; an effort of
imagination is required to picture the man who pronounced the word, who
performed the rite, or who applied the rule in practice.

There is no need to take sides in this controversy. Historical
construction in its completeness implies the study of facts under both
aspects. The representation of men's habits of thought, life, and action
is obviously an important part of history. And yet, supposing we had
brought together all the acts of all individuals for the purpose of
extracting what is common to them, there would still remain a residue
which we should have no right to reject, for it is the distinctively
historical element--the circumstance that a particular action was the
action of a given man, or group of men, at a given moment. In a scheme
of classification which should only recognise the general facts of
political life there would be no place for the victory of Pharsalia or
the taking of the Bastille--accidental and transient facts, but without
which the history of Roman and French institutions would be
unintelligible.

History is thus obliged to combine with the study of general facts the
study of certain particular facts. It has a mixed character, fluctuating
between a science of generalities and a narrative of adventures. The
difficulty of classing this hybrid under one of the categories of human
thought has often been expressed by the childish question: Is history a
science or an art?

III. The general table given above may be used for the determination of
all the species of habits (usages or institutions) of which the history
may be written. But before applying this general scheme to the study of
any particular group of habits, language, religion, private usages, or
political institutions, there is always a preliminary question to be
answered: Whose were the habits we are about to study? They were common
to a great number of individuals; and