anuals," and "scientific
histories." In a repertory a number of verified facts belonging to a
given class are collected and arranged in an order which makes it easy
to refer to them. If the facts thus collected have precise dates,
chronological order is adopted: thus the task has been undertaken of
compiling "Annals" of German history, in which the summary entry of the
events, arranged by dates, is accompanied by the texts from which the
events are known, with accurate references to the sources and the works
of critics; the collection of the _Jahrbuecher der deutschen Geschichte_
has for its object the elucidation, as far as is possible, of the facts
of German history, including all that is susceptible of scientific
discussion and proof, but omitting all that belongs to the domain of
appreciation and general views. When the facts are badly dated, or are
simultaneous, alphabetical arrangement must be employed; thus we have
Dictionaries: dictionaries of institutions, biographical dictionaries,
historical encyclopaedias, such as the _Realencyclopaedie_ of
Pauly-Wissowa. These alphabetical repertories are, in theory, just as
the _Jahrbuecher_, collections of proved facts; if, in practice, the
references in them are less rigorous, if the apparatus of texts
supporting the statements is less complete, the difference is without
justification.[226] _Scientific manuals_ are also, properly speaking,
repertories, since they are collections in which established facts are
arranged in systematic order, and are exhibited objectively, with their
proofs, and without any literary adornment. The authors of these
"manuals," of which the most numerous and the most perfect specimens
have been composed in our days in the German universities, have no
object in view except to draw up minute inventories of the acquisitions
made by knowledge, in order that workers may be enabled to assimilate
the results of criticism with greater ease and rapidity, and may be
furnished with starting-points for new researches. Manuals of this kind
now exist for most of the special branches of the history of
civilisation (languages, literature, religion, law, _Alterthuemer_, and
so on), for the history of institutions, for the different parts of
ecclesiastical history. It will suffice to mention the names of
Schoemann, of Marquardt and Mommsen, of Gilbert, of Krumbacher, of
Harnack, of Moeller. These works are not marked by the dryness of the
majority of the primitiv