Login or Join
|
|
Read Ebook: Introduction to the Study of History by Langlois Charles Victor Seignobos Charles Berry George Godfrey Translator
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev PageEbook has 785 lines and 99285 words, and 16 pagesNecessity of separating the two operations--Danger of reading opinions into a text 143 The analysis of documents--The method of slips--Completeness necessary 145 Necessity of linguistic study--General knowledge of a language not enough--Particular variety of a language as used at a given time, in a given country, by a given author--The rule of context 146 Different degrees of difficulty in interpretation 149 Oblique senses: allegory, metaphor, &c.--How to detect them--Former tendency to find symbolism everywhere--Modern tendency to find allusion everywhere 151 Results of interpretation--Subjective inquiries 153 Natural tendency to trust documents--Criticism originally due to contradictions--The rule of methodical doubt--Defective modes of criticism 155 Documents to be analysed, and the irreducible elements criticised separately 159 The "accent of sincerity"--No trust to be placed in impressions produced by the form of statements 161 Criticism examines the conditions affecting the composition of the document as a whole; the making of each particular statement--In both cases using a previously made list of possible reasons for distrust or confidence 162 Reasons for doubting good faith: the author's interest; the force of circumstances, official reports; sympathy and antipathy; vanity; deference to public opinion; literary distortion 166 Reasons for doubting accuracy: the author a bad observer, hallucinations, illusions, prejudices; the author not well situated for observing; negligence and indifference; fact not of nature to be directly observed 172 How critical operations are shortened in practice 189 THE DETERMINATION OF PARTICULAR FACTS The conceptions of authors, whether well or ill founded, are the subject-matter of certain studies--They necessarily contain elements of truth, which, under certain restrictions, may sometimes be inferred from them 191 Contradictions between statements, real and apparent 198 Agreement of statements--Necessity of proving them to be independent--Perfect agreement not so conclusive as occasional coincidence--Cases where different observations of the same fact are not independent--General facts the easiest to prove 199 Different facts, each imperfectly proved, corroborate each other when they harmonise 204 Disagreement between documents and other sources of knowledge--Improbable statements--Miracles--When science and history conflict, history should give way 205 GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION The materials of Historical Construction are isolated facts, of very different kinds, of very different degrees of generality, each belonging to a definite time and place, of different degrees of certainty 211 Subjectivity of History 214 The facts learnt from documents relate to living beings and material objects; actions, individual and collective; motives and conceptions 217 The facts of the past must be imagined on the model of those of the present--Danger of error especially in regard to mental facts 219 Some of the conditions of human life are permanent--The study of these provides a framework into which details taken from documents are to be fitted--For this purpose systematic lists of questions are to be used, drawn up beforehand, and relating to the universal conditions of life 224 Outline of Historical Construction--The division of labour--Historians must use the works of their colleagues and predecessors, but not without critical precautions 228 THE GROUPING OF FACTS The selection of facts for treatment--The history of civilisation and "battle-history"--Both needed 236 The determination of groups of men--Precautions to be observed--The notion of "race" 238 The study of institutions--Danger of being misled by metaphors--The questions which should be asked 241 Evolutions: operations involved in the study of them--The place of particular facts in evolution--Important and unimportant facts 244 Periods--How they should be defined 249 CONSTRUCTIVE REASONING Incompleteness of the facts yielded by documents--Cautions to be observed in filling up the gaps by reasoning 252 The argument from silence--When admissible 254 Positive reasoning based on documents--The general principles employed must enter into details, and the particular facts to which they are applied must not be taken in isolation 256 THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL FORMULAE History, like every science, needs formulae by which the facts acquired may be condensed into manageable form 262 Descriptive formulae--Should retain characteristic features--Should be as concrete as possible 264 Formulae describing general facts--How constructed--Conventional forms and realities--Mode of formulating an evolution 266 Formulae describing unique facts--Principle of choice--"Character" of persons--Precautions in formulating them--Formulae describing events 270 Quantitative formulae--Operations by which they may be obtained: measurement, enumeration, valuation, sampling, generalisation--Precautions to be observed in generalising 274 Formulae expressing relations--General conclusions--Estimation of the extent and value of the knowledge acquired--Imperfection of data not to be forgotten in construction 279 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 EXPOSITION Former conceptions of history-writing--The ancient and mediaeval 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 The modern scientific ideal--Monographs--Right choice of subject--References--Chronological order--Unambiguous titles--Economy of erudition 303 CONCLUSION Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page |
Terms of Use Stock Market News! © gutenberg.org.in2025 All Rights reserved.