or an abstract fact. We must have before our minds actual men, as affected by the principal conditions under which they lived.
We must be prepared to realise but rarely the conditions of a certain inference; we are too little acquainted with the laws of social life, and too seldom know the precise details of an historical fact. Thus most of our reasonings will only afford presumptions, not certainties. But it is with reasonings as with documents. When several presumptions all point in the same direction they confirm each other, and end by producing a legitimate certitude. History fills up some of its gaps by an accumulation of reasonings. Doubts remain as to the Phœnician origin of various Greek cities, but there is no doubt about the presence of the Phœnicians in Greece.
CHAPTER IV
THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL FORMULÆ
I. Suppose we had methodically arranged all the historical facts established by the analysis of documents, or by reasoning; we should possess a systematised inventory of the whole of history, and the work of construction would be complete. Ought history to stop at this point? The question is warmly debated, and we cannot avoid giving an answer, for it is a question with a practical bearing.
Critical scholars, who are accustomed to collect all the facts relating to their speciality, without any personal preference, are inclined to regard a complete, accurate, and objective collection of facts as the prime requisite. All historical facts have an equal right to a place in history; to retain some as being of greater importance, and reject the rest as comparatively unimportant, would be to introduce the subjective element of choice, variable according to individual fancy; history cannot sacrifice a single fact.
Against