have gained a serene and absolute mastery over all the "auxiliary branches of knowledge:" we should never dare to begin.
It remains to know how to treat documents supposing one has successfully passed through the preliminary apprenticeship.
BOOK II
ANALYTICAL OPERATIONS
CHAPTER I
GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE
We have already stated that history is studied from documents, and that documents are the traces of past events. This is the place to indicate the consequences involved in this statement and this definition.
Events can be empirically known in two ways only: by direct observation while they are in progress; and indirectly, by the study of the traces which they leave behind them. Take an earthquake, for example. I have a direct knowledge of it if I am present when the phenomenon occurs; an indirect knowledge if, without having been thus present, I observe its physical