Introduction to the Study of History

Introduction to the Study of History

16 17 PRELIMINARY STUDIES THE SEARCH FOR DOCUMENTS (HEURISTIC) The historian works with documents. Documents are the traces which have been left by the thoughts and actions of men of former times. Of these thoughts and actions, however, very few leave any visible traces, and these traces, when there are any, are seldom durable; an accident is enough to efface them. Now every thought and every action that has left no visible traces, or none but what have since disappeared, is lost for history; is as though it had never been. For want of documents the history of immense periods in the past of humanity is destined to remain for ever unknown. For there is no substitute for documents: no documents, no history. In order to draw legitimate inferences from a document to the fact of which it is the trace, numerous precautions are requisite which will be indicated in18 the sequel. But it is clear that, prior to any critical examination or interpretation of documents, the question presents itself whether there are any documents at all, how many there are, and where they are. If I undertake to deal with a point of history,[22] of whatever nature, my first step will be to ascertain the place or places where the documents necessary for its treatment, if any such exist, are to be found. The search for and the collection of documents is thus a part, logically the first and most important part, of the historian's craft. In Germany it has received the convenient, because short, name of Heuristik. Is there any need to prove the capital importance of Heuristic? Assuredly not. It is obvious that if it is neglected, if the student does not, before he sets to work on a point of history, place himself in a position to command all accessible sources of information, his risk (no small one at the best) of working upon insufficient data is quite unnecessarily increased: works of erudition or history constructed in accordance with the rules of the most exact method have been vitiated, or even rendered worthless, by the accidental circumstance that the author was unacquainted with the documents by which those which he had within reach, and with which he was content, might have been illustrated, supplemented, or discredited. The scholars and historians of to-day, standing, as they19 do, in other respects on an equality with their predecessors of the last few centuries, are only enabled to surpass them by their possession of more abundant means of information.[23] Heuristic is, in fact, easier to-day than it used to be, although the honest Wagner has still good grounds for saying: ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 29637
Author: Langlois, Charles Victor
Release Date: Aug 8, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Seignobos, Charles, 1854-1942


Translator: Berry, George Godfrey, 1867-