uthor,
wishing to conceal his indebtedness, has introduced deviations in order
to put his readers off the scent, or when the author has combined
statements taken from different documents.

[175] Here we merely indicate the principle of the method of
confirmation; its applications would require a very lengthy study.

[176] Pere de Smedt has devoted to this question a part of his
_Principes de la critique histoire_ (Paris, 1887, 12mo).

[177] The solution of the question is different in the case of the
sciences of direct observation, especially the biological sciences.
Science knows nothing of the possible and the impossible; it only
recognises facts which have been correctly or incorrectly observed:
facts which had been declared impossible, as the existence of aerolites,
have been discovered to be genuine. The very notion of a miracle is
metaphysical; it implies a conception of the universe as a whole which
transcends the limits of observation. (See Wallace, "Miracles and Modern
Spiritualism.")

[178] See above, p. 194.

[179] In the experimental sciences an hypothesis is a form of question
accompanied by a provisional answer.

[180] Fustel de Coulanges saw the necessity of this. In the preface to
his _Recherches sur quelques problemes d'histoire_ (Paris, 1885, 8vo) he
announces his intention of presenting his researches "in the form which
all my works have, that is, in the form of questions which I ask myself,
and on which I endeavour to throw light."

[181] Fustel de Coulanges himself seems to have been misled by them:
"History is a science; it does not imagine, it only sees" (_Monarchie
franque_, p. 1). "History, like every science, consists in a process of
discerning facts, analysing them, comparing them, and noting their
connections.... The historian ... seeks facts and attains them by the
minute observation of texts, as the chemist finds his in the course of
experiments conducted with minute precision" (Ibid., p. 39).

[182] The subjective character of history has been brought out into
strong relief by the philosopher G. Simmel, _Die Probleme der
Geschichtsphilosophie_ (Leipzig, 1892, 8vo).

[183] This has been eloquently put by Carlyle and Michelet. It is also
the substance of the famous expression of Ranke: "I wish to state how
that really was" (_wie es eigentlich gewesen_).

[184] Cf. pp. 219-23.

[185] Curtius in his "History of Greece," Mommsen in his "History of
Rome" (before the Empire), Lampre