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Read Ebook: Introduction to the Study of History by Langlois Charles Victor Seignobos Charles Berry George Godfrey Translator
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Ebook has 785 lines and 99285 words, and 16 pages
Necessity of separating the two operations--Danger of reading opinions into a text 143
The analysis of documents--The method of slips--Completeness necessary 145
Necessity of linguistic study--General knowledge of a language not enough--Particular variety of a language as used at a given time, in a given country, by a given author--The rule of context 146
Different degrees of difficulty in interpretation 149
Oblique senses: allegory, metaphor, &c.--How to detect them--Former tendency to find symbolism everywhere--Modern tendency to find allusion everywhere 151
Results of interpretation--Subjective inquiries 153
Natural tendency to trust documents--Criticism originally due to contradictions--The rule of methodical doubt--Defective modes of criticism 155
Documents to be analysed, and the irreducible elements criticised separately 159
The "accent of sincerity"--No trust to be placed in impressions produced by the form of statements 161
Criticism examines the conditions affecting the composition of the document as a whole; the making of each particular statement--In both cases using a previously made list of possible reasons for distrust or confidence 162
Reasons for doubting good faith: the author's interest; the force of circumstances, official reports; sympathy and antipathy; vanity; deference to public opinion; literary distortion 166
Reasons for doubting accuracy: the author a bad observer, hallucinations, illusions, prejudices; the author not well situated for observing; negligence and indifference; fact not of nature to be directly observed 172
How critical operations are shortened in practice 189
THE DETERMINATION OF PARTICULAR FACTS
The conceptions of authors, whether well or ill founded, are the subject-matter of certain studies--They necessarily contain elements of truth, which, under certain restrictions, may sometimes be inferred from them 191
Contradictions between statements, real and apparent 198
Agreement of statements--Necessity of proving them to be independent--Perfect agreement not so conclusive as occasional coincidence--Cases where different observations of the same fact are not independent--General facts the easiest to prove 199
Different facts, each imperfectly proved, corroborate each other when they harmonise 204
Disagreement between documents and other sources of knowledge--Improbable statements--Miracles--When science and history conflict, history should give way 205
GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION
The materials of Historical Construction are isolated facts, of very different kinds, of very different degrees of generality, each belonging to a definite time and place, of different degrees of certainty 211
Subjectivity of History 214
The facts learnt from documents relate to living beings and material objects; actions, individual and collective; motives and conceptions 217
The facts of the past must be imagined on the model of those of the present--Danger of error especially in regard to mental facts 219
Some of the conditions of human life are permanent--The study of these provides a framework into which details taken from documents are to be fitted--For this purpose systematic lists of questions are to be used, drawn up beforehand, and relating to the universal conditions of life 224
Outline of Historical Construction--The division of labour--Historians must use the works of their colleagues and predecessors, but not without critical precautions 228
THE GROUPING OF FACTS
The selection of facts for treatment--The history of civilisation and "battle-history"--Both needed 236
The determination of groups of men--Precautions to be observed--The notion of "race" 238
The study of institutions--Danger of being misled by metaphors--The questions which should be asked 241
Evolutions: operations involved in the study of them--The place of particular facts in evolution--Important and unimportant facts 244
Periods--How they should be defined 249
CONSTRUCTIVE REASONING
Incompleteness of the facts yielded by documents--Cautions to be observed in filling up the gaps by reasoning 252
The argument from silence--When admissible 254
Positive reasoning based on documents--The general principles employed must enter into details, and the particular facts to which they are applied must not be taken in isolation 256
THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL FORMULAE
History, like every science, needs formulae by which the facts acquired may be condensed into manageable form 262
Descriptive formulae--Should retain characteristic features--Should be as concrete as possible 264
Formulae describing general facts--How constructed--Conventional forms and realities--Mode of formulating an evolution 266
Formulae describing unique facts--Principle of choice--"Character" of persons--Precautions in formulating them--Formulae describing events 270
Quantitative formulae--Operations by which they may be obtained: measurement, enumeration, valuation, sampling, generalisation--Precautions to be observed in generalising 274
Formulae expressing relations--General conclusions--Estimation of the extent and value of the knowledge acquired--Imperfection of data not to be forgotten in construction 279
Groups and their classification 282
The "solidarity" of social phenomena--Necessity of studying causes--Metaphysical hypothesis--Providence--Conception of events as "rational"--The Hegelian "ideas"--The historical "mission"--The theory of the general progress of humanity 285
The conception of society as an organism--The comparative method--Statistics--Causes cannot be investigated directly, as in other sciences--Causation as exhibited in the sequence of particular events 288
The study of the causes of social evolution must look beyond abstractions to the concrete, acting and thinking men--The place of hereditary characteristics in determining evolution 292
EXPOSITION
Former conceptions of history-writing--The ancient and mediaeval ideal--The "history of civilisation"--The modern historical "manual"--The romantic ideal at the beginning of the century--History regarded as a branch of literature up to 1850 296
The modern scientific ideal--Monographs--Right choice of subject--References--Chronological order--Unambiguous titles--Economy of erudition 303
CONCLUSION
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