works present themselves? These
forms are, in fact, very numerous. Some of them are antiquated; not all
are legitimate; the best have their drawbacks. We should ask, therefore,
not only what are the forms in which historical works appear, but also
which of these represent truly rational types of exposition.

By "historical works" we mean here all those which are intended to
communicate results obtained by the labour of historical construction,
whatever may be the nature, the extent, and the bearing of these
results. The critical elaboration of documents, which is treated of in
Book II., and which is preparatory to historical construction, is
naturally excluded.

Historians may differ, and up to the present have differed, on several
essential points. They have not always had, nor have they all now, the
same conception of the end aimed at by historical work; hence arise
differences in the nature of the facts chosen, the manner of dividing
the subject, that is, of co-ordinating the facts, the manner of
presenting them, the manner of proving them. This would be the place to
indicate how "the mode of writing history" has evolved from the
beginning. But as the history of the modes of writing history has not
yet been written well,[216] we shall here content ourselves with some
very general remarks on the period prior to the second half of the
nineteenth century, confining ourselves to what is strictly necessary
for the understanding of the present situation.

I. History was first conceived as the narration of memorable events. To
preserve the memory and propagate the knowledge of glorious deeds, or of
events which were of importance to a man, a family, or a people; such
was the aim of history in the tune of Thucydides and Livy. In addition,
history was early considered as a collection of precedents, and the
knowledge of history as a practical preparation for life, especially
political life (military and civil). Polybius and Plutarch wrote to
instruct, they claimed to give recipes for action. Hence in classical
antiquity the subject-matter of history consisted chiefly of political
incidents, wars, and revolutions. The ordinary framework of historical
exposition (within which the facts were usually arranged in
chronological order) was the life of a person, the whole life of a
people, or a particular period in it; there were in antiquity but few
essays in general history. As the aim of the historian was to please or
to inst