e "manuals," which were published in Germany a
hundred years ago, and which were little more than tables of subjects,
with references to the books and documents to be consulted; in the
modern type the exposition and discussion are no doubt terse and
compact, but yet not abbreviated beyond a point at which they may be
tolerated, even preferred by cultivated readers. They take away the
taste for other books, as G. Paris very well says:[227] "When one has
feasted on these substantial pages, so full of facts, which, with all
their appearance of impersonality, yet contain, and above all suggest,
so many thoughts, it is difficult to read books, even books of
distinction, in which the subject is cut up symmetrically to fit in with
a preconceived system, is coloured by fancy, and is, so to speak,
presented to us in disguise, books in which the author continually comes
between us and the spectacle which he claims to make intelligible to us,
but which he never allows us to see." The great historical "manuals,"
uniform with the treatises and manuals of the other sciences (with the
added complication of authorities and proofs), ought to be, and are,
continually improved, emended, corrected, brought up to date: they are,
by definition, works of science and not of art.

The earliest repertories and the earliest scientific "manuals" were
composed by isolated individuals. But it was soon recognised that a
single man cannot correctly arrange, or have the proper mastery over a
vast collection of facts. The task has been divided. Repertories are
executed, in our days, by collaborators in association (who are
sometimes of different nationalities and write in different languages).
The great manuals (of I. von Mueller, of G. Groeber, of H. Paul, and
others) are collections of special treatises each written by a
specialist. The principle of collaboration is excellent, but on
condition (1) that the collective work is of a nature to be resolved
into great independent, though co-ordinated, monographs; (2) that the
section entrusted to each collaborator has a certain extent; if the
number of collaborators is too great and the part of each too limited,
the liberty and the responsibility of each are diminished or disappear.

_Histories_, intended to give a narrative of events which happened but
once, and to state the general facts which dominate the whole course of
special evolutions, still have a reason for existence, even after the
multiplicatio