Page:Annual Report of the American Historical Association.pdf/141

136 excellent for increasing our knowledge of books and of how they are constructed. But at the present time, when many thoughtful men, both within the guild and out of it, are asking what is the value of so many learned volumes that nobody reads, we need a criticism that shall go beyond technique. If such a criticism should take us even into the domain of the philosophy of history, let us not be dismayed; for it is possible that in seeking to avoid having a philosophy of history the historian does not succeed in not having one; perhaps after all he succeeds only in having a bad one.