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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. [206] A good example will be found in Lacombe, De l'Histoire Considérée Comme Science, p. 146.
  2. [207] We have thought it useless to discuss here the question whether history ought, in accordance with the ancient tradition, to fulfil yet another function, whether it ought to pass judgment on men and events, that is to supplement the description of facts by expressions of approbation or censure, either from the point of view of a moral ideal, general or particular (the ideal of a sect, a party, or a nation), or from the practical point of view, by examining, as Polybius did, whether historical actions were well or ill adapted to their purpose. An addition of this kind could be made to any descriptive study: the naturalist might express his sympathy with or his admiration for an animal, he might condemn the ferocity of the tiger, and praise the devotion of the hen to her chickens. But it is obvious that in history, as in every other subject, judgments of this kind are foreign to science.
  3. [208] Comparison between two facts of detail belonging to very different aggregates (for example the comparison of Abd-el-Kader with Jagurtha, of Napoleon with Sforza) is a striking method of exposition, but not a means of reaching a scientific conclusion.
  4. [209] This system is still followed by several contemporary authors, the Belgian jurist Laurent in his Études sur l'histoire de l'humanité, the German Rocholl, and even Flint, the English historian of the philosophy of history.
  5. [210] Thus Taine, in Les origines de la France Contemporaine, explains the origin of the privileges of the ancien régime by the services formerly rendered by the privileged classes.
  6. [211] A good criticism of the theory of progress will be found in P. Lacombe, De l'histoire Considérée Comme Science.
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