e case of some
ancient periods, for which documents are rare, we can now see that in a
generation or two it will be time to stop. Historians will then be
obliged to take refuge more and more in modern periods. Thus history
will not fulfil the dream which, in the nineteenth century, inspired the
romantic school with so much enthusiasm for the study of history: it
will not penetrate the mystery of the origin of societies; and, for want
of documents, the beginnings of the evolution of humanity will always
remain obscure.

The historian does not collect by his own observation the materials
necessary for history as is done in the other sciences: he works on
facts the knowledge of which has been transmitted by former observers.
In history knowledge is not obtained, as in the other sciences, by
direct methods, it is indirect. History is not, as has been said, a
science of observation, but a science of reasoning.

In order to use facts which have been observed under unknown conditions,
it is necessary to apply criticism to them, and criticism consists in a
series of reasonings by analogy. The facts as furnished by criticism are
isolated and scattered; in order to organise them into a structure it is
necessary to imagine and group them in accordance with their
resemblances to facts of the present day, an operation which also
depends on the use of analogies. This necessity compels history to use
an exceptional method. In order to frame its arguments from analogy, it
must always combine the knowledge of the particular conditions under
which the facts of the past occurred with an understanding of the
general conditions under which the facts of humanity occur. Its method
is to draw up special _tables_ of the facts of an epoch in the past, and
to apply to them sets of _questions_ founded on the study of the
present.

The operations which must necessarily be performed in order to pass from
the inspection of documents to the knowledge of the facts and evolutions
of the past are very numerous. Hence the necessity of the division and
organisation of labour in history. It is requisite, on the one hand,
that those specialists who occupy themselves with the search for
documents, their restoration and preliminary classification, should
co-ordinate their efforts, in order that the preparatory work of
critical scholarship may be finished as soon as possible, under the best
conditions as to accuracy and economy of labour. On the other hand,