Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/105

 METHODS OF HISTORICAL STUDY.

(May 18, 1877.)

N my Lecture delivered the other day, in discharge of a duty which, in the case of a Professor who is willing to work, might well be dispensed with, I attempted to arrange some few thoughts on the subject of Historical study which had occurred to me, on some sort of a plan, carefully disavowing however any attempt at complete or even systematic treatment; I used the division of the subject which I then proposed, simply as furnishing pegs on which to hang divers desultory observations. The principle of division which I adopted was merely this; that we should view our subject in three lights; first looking on the study of history as pursued for its own sake, secondly regarding it as an instrument of education or training of the mind, and thirdly regarding it in reference to the ulterior uses to which the results of such study could be most advantageously applied; in other words, the student or professorial view, the educatorial or tutorial view, and the popular or utilitarian view. Without, as I said, attempting any systematic treatment, I made the question of History for its own sake an occasion of saying a word or two on the current ideas touching the study; the investigation of original materials, the doctrine of the necessary unity and continuity of History, and the much-debated possibility of the creation of a science of History, in the sense of science which involves the discovery of general laws and the classification of human wills and events out of which the men of the future may prophesy. I have still the other two heads of my division to trifle with, and, as it is now too late to modify my plan, I can only ask for your tolerant attention and proceed, in the hope that what I may have to say on the