INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY

Is it a good thing in itself that some workers should, voluntarily or not, confine themselves to the researches of critical scholarship? Yes, without a doubt. In the study of history, the results of the division of labour are the same as in the industrial arts, and highly satisfactory—more abundant, more successful, better regulated production. Critics who have been long habituated to the restoration of texts restore them with incomparable dexterity and sureness; those who devote themselves exclusively to investigations of authorship and sources have intuitions which would not occur to others less versed in this difficult and highly specialised branch; those who have spent their lives in the construction of catalogues and the compilation of regesta construct and compile them more easily, more quickly, and better than the man in the street. Thus, not only is there no special reason for requiring every "historian" to be at the same time an active worker in the field of critical scholarship, but even those scholars who are engaged in the operations of external criticism come under different categories. Similarly, in a stoneyard there is no point in the architect being at the same time a workman, nor have all the workmen the same functions. Although most critical scholars have not rigorously specialised so far, and although they vary their pleasures by voluntarily executing different kinds of critical work, it would be easy to name some who are specialists in descriptive catalogues and indexes (archivists, librarians, and the like), others who are more particularly "critics" (purifiers, restorers, and editors of texts), and others who are pre-eminently compilers of regesta. "The moment it is admitted that erudition is only valuable for the sake of its results, it becomes