so in the case of those whom we observe in their lifetime, because we see too many characteristics in them which could not enter into a coherent formula. But the absence of documents, by suppressing those characteristics which would have checked us, encourages us to arrange the very small number of those which remain in the form of a stage-character. This is why the great men of antiquity seem to us to have been much more logical than our contemporaries are.
How are we to construct a formula for an event? The imperative need of simplification causes us to combine under a single name an enormous mass of minute facts which are perceived in the lump, and between which we vaguely feel that there is a connection (a battle, a war, a reform). The facts which are thus combined are such facts as have conduced to a common result. That is how the common notion of an event arises, and there is no more scientific conception to put in its place. Facts, then, are to be grouped according to their consequences; those which have had no visible consequences disappear, the others are fused into a certain number of aggregates which we call events.
In order to describe an event, it is necessary to give precise indications (I) of its character, (2) of its extent.
(I) By the character of an event we mean the features which distinguish it from every other event, not merely the external conditions of date and place, but the manner in which it occurred, and its immediate causes. The following are the items of information which the formula should contain. One or more men, in such and such mental states (conceptions, motives of