mulating events and constructing periods. They know causes partly
from the authors of documents who observed the facts, partly from the
analogy of the causes which we all observe at the present day. The whole
history of events is a chain of obviously and incontrovertibly connected
incidents, each one of which is the determining cause of another. The
lance-thrust of Montgomery is the cause of the death of Henry II.; this
death is the cause of the accession to power of the Guises, which again
is the cause of the rising of the Protestants.

The observation of causes by the authors of documents is limited to the
interconnection of the accidental facts observed by them; these are, in
truth, the causes which are known with the greatest certainty. Thus
history, unlike the other sciences, is better able to ascertain the
causes of particular incidents than those of general transformations,
for the work is found already done in the documents.

In the investigation of the causes of general facts, historical
construction is reduced to the analogy between the past and the present.
Whatever chance there is of finding the causes which explain the
evolution of past societies must lie in the direct observation of the
transformations of present societies.

This is a branch of study which is not yet firmly established; here we
can only state the principles of it.

(1) In order to ascertain the causes of the solidarity between the
different habits of one and the same society, it is necessary to look
beyond the abstract and conventional form which the facts assume in
language (dogma, rule, rite, institution), and attend to the real
concrete centres, which are always thinking and acting men. Here only
are found together the different species of activity which language
separates by abstraction. Their solidarity is to be sought for in some
dominating feature in the character or the environment of the men which
influences all the different manifestations of their activity. We must
not expect the same degrees of solidarity in all the species of
activity; there will be most of it in those species where each
individual is in close dependence on the actions of the mass (economic,
social, political life); there will be less of it in the intellectual
activities (arts, sciences), where individual initiative has freer
play.[215] Documents mention most habits (beliefs, customs,
institutions) in the lump, without distinguishing individuals; and yet,