CH. V. LANGLOIS & CH. SEIGNOBOS

	Page
Groups and their classification	282
The "solidarity" of social phenomena—Necessity of studying causes—Metaphysical hypothesis—Providence—Conception of events as "rational"—The Hegelian "ideas"—The historical "mission"—The theory of the general progress of humanity	285
The conception of society as an organism—The comparative method—Statistics—Causes cannot be investigated directly, as in other sciences—Causation as exhibited in the sequence of particular events	288
The study of the causes of social evolution must look beyond abstractions to the concrete, acting and thinking men—The place of hereditary characteristics in determining evolution	292
CHAPTER V
EXPOSITION
Former conceptions of history-writing—The ancient and mediæval ideal—The "history of civilisation"—The modern historical "manual"—The romantic ideal at the beginning of the century—History regarded as a branch of literature up to 1850	296