leads to the final conclusions of history, and crowns the work of historical construction from the scientific point of view.
But as historical knowledge, which is by nature complex and unwieldy, is exceptionally difficult to communicate, we still have to look for the methods of expounding historical results in appropriate form.
VII. This series of operations, easy to conceive in the mind, has never been more than imperfectly performed. It is beset by material difficulties which theories of methodology do not take into account, but which it would be better to face, with the purpose of discovering whether they are after all insurmountable.
The operations of history are so numerous, from the first discovery of the document to the final formula of the conclusion, they require such minute precautions, so great a variety of natural gifts and acquired habits, that there is no man who can perform by himself all the work on any one point. History is less able than any other science to dispense with the division of labour; but there is no other science in which labour is so imperfectly divided. We find specialists in critical scholarship writing general histories in which they let their imagination guide them in the work of construction; and, on the other hand, there are constructive historians who use for their work materials whose value they have not tested. The reason is that the division of labour implies a common understanding among the workers, and in history no such understanding exists. Except in the preparatory operations of external criticism, each worker follows the guidance of his own private inspiration; he is at no pains to work on the same lines as the others, nor does he pay any