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nydus/Introduction to the study of historyPublic
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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY

  1. [193] It is no longer necessary to demonstrate the nullity of the notion of race. It used to be applied to vague groups, formed by a nation or a language; for race as understood by historians (Greek, Roman, Germanic, Celtic, Slavonic races) has nothing but the name in common with race in the anthropological sense—that is, a group of men possessing the same hereditary characteristics. It has been reduced to an absurdity by the abuse Taine made of it. A very good criticism of it will be found in Lacombe (ibid., chap. xviii.), and in Robertson ("The Saxon and the Celt," London, 1897, 8vo).
  2. [194] There is no general agreement on the proper place in history of retrograde changes, of those oscillations which bring things back to the point from which they started.
  3. [195] The theory of chance as affecting history has been expounded in a masterly manner by M. Cournot, Considérations sur la marche des idées et des événements dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1872, 2 vols. 8vo).
  4. [196] Lamprecht, in a long article, Was ist Kulturgeschichte, published in the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, New Series, vol. i., 1896, has attempted to base the history of civilisation on the theory of a collective soul of society producing "social-psychic" phenomena common to the whole society, and differing from period to period. This is a metaphysical hypothesis.
  5. [197] The expression national history, introduced in the interests of patriotism, denotes the same thing. The history of the nation means practically the history of the State.
  6. [198] See Cournot, ibid., i. p. iv.
  7. [199] We have already (p. 143) treated of this fault of method.
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