Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/180

176 satisfied Greek warriors or medieval monks. He must tell us what we wish to know and also what we need to know; he must write not merely for his readers, but for science.

Within history itself there may be boundaries mapping it off into departments, as political history, the history of literature, the history of philosophy. But these very names imply that beyond them there is a broader science, history, investigating the past in its entirety so far as it concerns man. Whatever in the past influenced human life appreciably then, or has significance for human life of the present day, may well be included in the science of history, or in some great science. The historian's task, writes Robinson, "is nothing less than the synthesis of the results of special sciences." Moreover, it is something more than this. The architect, for example, studies the history of architecture for the sake of his art of building; the historian includes the past of architecture in his study because of its relation to human life and progress. While, therefore, the technical researches in such partial fields as the past of architecture, of literature or of philosophy may be of great assistance to the historian, he ca"n not content himself with compiling their results, for the reason that their technical interests are different from his broader aim. He must refashion and interpret their results before they will be available for his purpose and he must do original work of his own.

Returning to consideration of the phrases, "the facts of history" and "what actually happened," it is to be noted that they may further involve a stricture as to method. Their implication is that the investigator must occupy himself for the present with the content of history, with phenomena; that the time has not yet come for discovering its form, that is, laws and general truths. This is perhaps the fairer way to interpret Adams's utterance, and there is prudence in the attitude. The beginnings of the science of history must be cautious; science must not be impatient and race after irresponsible speculation and theorizing. It also must not be backward and rest content with aimless empiricism. It is true, as Adams says, that we must have foundations before we can build; but we must lay them with a view to building. A fact we have seen to be a vague and arbitrary division since in history's continuity and complexity no particulars having reality have yet been discovered. Consequently for investigators merely to cut out "facts" from the sources and store them up for future study is unlikely to lead to much progress, since there is no significance in the detached parts and since it will scarcely be possible to fit them together again into anything except the original chaos from which they were cut. "Facts," then, will not do as an intermediate stage in historic research any more than as a final goal. There must be something to give form to research. A more purposeful and direct method will be to