- [155] For example, the statistics on the population, the commerce, and the wealth of European countries given by the Venetian ambassadors of the sixteenth century, and the descriptions of the usages of the Germans in the Germania of Tacitus.
- [156] It would be interesting to examine how much of Roman or Merovingian history would be left if we rejected all documents but those which represent direct observation.
- [157] It will be seen why we have not separately defined and studied "first-hand documents." The question has not been raised in the proper manner in historical practice. The distinction ought to apply to statements, not to documents. It is not the document which comes to us at first, second, or third hand; it is the statement. What is called a "first-hand document" is nearly always composed in part of second-hand statements about facts of which the author had no personal knowledge. The name "second-hand document" is given to those which, like the work of Livy, contain nothing first-hand; but the distinction is too crude to serve as a guide in the critical examination of statements.
- [158] There is much less modification where the oral tradition assumes a regular or striking form, as is the case with verses, maxims, proverbs.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY
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