L

The only source

causes, which we are about to consider. of uncertainty and error which can be fairly traced to the observing process is the multitude and variety of objects to be observed, and the number of relations in which they require to be viewed; thus rendering it difficult to observe all, though the observation of each is easy.

Before, however, we begin the inquiry into the method of investigating facts, in order to determine the order of political causation, we shall resume the subject of political history, which we have only been able hitherto to examine in a general point of view, but which, on account of its importance, as the principal record of political observations, requires a special and distinct consideration.

described, he prefixes the title of 'experimental investigation' (p. 449), thus making experimental include simple observation as well as experiment. The confusion of experiment and experience may be clearly perceived in the following passage: It should be observed that Bacon does not charge the physics of antiquity with being absolutely regardless of experiment. No system, indeed, however fantastical, has ever existed, to which that reproach could be applied in its full extent; because, without regard to fact, no theory can ever become, in the least degree, plausible. The fault lies not, therefore, in the absolute rejection of experience, but in the unskilful use of it; in taking up principles lightly from an inaccurate and careless observation of many things; or, if the observations have been more accurate, from those made on a few facts, unwarrantably generalized.' -Playfair's Dissertation, p. 456.

Playfair describes the precepts in the second book of the Novum Organum, as the rules which Bacon laid down for the conduct of experimental inquiries' (p. 468); he calls the Baconian method an experimental logic' (p. 465). Yet among the examples with which he illustrates these rules, he includes many which are not experiments in the ordinary sense of the word; neither experimenta lucifera, nor experimenta fructifera; thus, in p. 465, he borrows an instantia crucis from astronomy. Elsewhere, Playfair recognises the received distinction between simple experience, or servation, and experiment. Thus, speaking of the ancient physics, he says: Though observations were sometimes made, experiments were never instituted; and philosophers who were little attentive to the facts which spontaneously offered, did not seek to increase their number by artificial combinations.'-Diss. p. 453.

ob

The ambiguity in question is clearly explained by Sir James Mackintosh: This word experimental' has the defect of not appearing to comprehend the knowledge which flows from observation, as well as that which is obtained by experiment. The German word 'empirical' is applied to all the information which experience affords; but it is in our language degraded by another application. I therefore must use 'experi mental' in a larger sense than its etymology warrants.'-On Bacon and Locke; Works, vol. i. p. 333.

181

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE TREATMENT OF POLITICAL HISTORY.*

THE

HE essence of history is to be true. It ought to be a recital of facts determined either by the personal observation and knowledge of the historian himself, or by that of original witnesses, on whose testimony he relies. Unless it reproduces the result of actual observation; unless it narrates events which occurred within reach of the senses of percipient witnesses, who related or recorded what they saw and heard, it is not history. It is as necessary for the political historian to register real transactions and matters of actual fact in human affairs, as for the astronomical observer to record the successive times and places of the heavenly bodies, for the medical observer to note the successive stages and symptoms in a case of disease, or for the navigator to enter the true course of a ship in his log-book.

Let us, then, consider what are the rules which the historian must observe as to the evidence requisite for accrediting the facts to be admitted into his narrative; and we will, in the first place, confine ourselves to the contemporary historian.

§ 2 He who writes the history of his own time may, if he has been an actor in the events which he describes, rely, to a certain extent, upon his own personal observations, and upon original documents obtained from authentic sources. (')

For

(1) Respecting historical autopsy, see Wachsmuth, Theorie der Ge schichte, p. 83. Some of the ancients wished to restrict the word historia to compositions in which the author described events at which he was himself present (Gell. Noct. Att. v. 18). Lessing has approved of this limitation of the word (see Wachsmuth, ib.) It appears (as Wachsmuth remarks) to have been derived from the original sense of the word iσropía, viz., personal inquiry. Neither ancient nor modern usage, however, sanctions the denial of the name of a history to a recital of the events of past ages; nor has such a restricted use of the term anything to recommend it. It would be a capricious use of language which would refuse to Livy or Gibbon the appellation of a historian (see Rühs, Propädeutik, p. 182). On the qualifications necessary for a trustworthy contemporary

example, much of Xenophon's History of the Expedition of the Ten Thousand, of the history of Polybius, (2) and of Cæsar's History of the Gallic War, was written from personal knowledge of the facts: and Lord Clarendon informs his readers that his History of the Rebellion had, in general, the same foundation. (3)

historian, see Ernesti, De Fide Historicâ recte æstimandâ, § 37-8; in his Opuscula Philologica Critica (Lug. Bat. 1776), p. 64; and as to the testimony of contemporary historians, see Griffet, Traité des Differentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent à établir la Vérité de l'Histoire (Rouen, 1775), c. 6-7.

(2) Polybius states that he was not only a spectator of most of the events described in his history, but a participator in, and even the author of many (iii. c. 4. ad fin.) Plutarch refers to Philistus as having been an eye-witness of the Athenian siege of Syracuse—τῶν πραγμάτων ὁρατὴς γενόμενος, Nic. 19.

Cicero (De Off. iii. 32), in quoting Polybius with reference to the ten Romans sent by Hannibal to the senate, after the battle of Cannæ, calls him bonus auctor in primis; that is to say, a witness highly deserving of credit,'-'fide dignus,' as the words are interpreted by Zumpt. Cicero remarks that there are different versions of the story-one is that of Polybius, whose authority he seems to prefer; another is that of a writer named Acilius.-Ib. c. 26. Cicero opposes Homer, as optimus auctor,' to the account of the tragic poets, for the conduct of Ulysses. Here also a witness of high authority is meant. Livy again, in quoting Polybius for a fact respecting King Syphax, calls him haudquaquam spernendus auctor,' a witness of no mean authority.'-xxx. 45. In xxxiii. 10, he follows the testimony of Polybius with respect to the numbers killed at the battle of Cynoscephala, in preference to the testimony of Valerius Antias and Claudius Quadrigarius, and calls him non incertus auctor quum omnium Romanarum rerum, tum præcipue in Græcia gestarum.' Here again the credibility of his testimony is alone in question. Nevertheless, these passages have been supposed to refer to the general character of Polybius as a writer and a historian; and to indicate a disparaging estimate of his merits.-See Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. n. 1182. Auctor, in classical Latin, is never equivalent to scriptor.

(3) The particulars of all that affair (viz., the invasion of the Scots and movements of the Marquis of Newcastle, in 1643), and the whole transaction of the northern parts, where the writer of this history was never present, nor had any part in those counsels, are fit for a relation apart, which a more proper person will employ himself in.'-History of the Rebellion, b. vii. vol. iv. p. 328; ed. 12mo. Again, speaking of the events of the year 1645, he says, in the introduction to b. ix., I knew most of the things myself which I mention, and therefore can answer for the truth of them; and other most important particulars, which were transacted in places very distant from me, were transmitted to me by the king's immediate direction and order, even after he was in the hands and power of the enemy, out of his own memorials and journals' (vol. v. p. 123). Compare Clarendon's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 288, 9.

Ranke (Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber: Leipzig and Berlin, 1824, p. 8) examines how far Guicciardini was a witness of the events which he narrates.

But as a history of a nation comprehends events occurring almost simultaneously, as well as unexpectedly, in different places, even the contemporary historian must derive a large portion of his nar- | rative from the accounts of others. He cannot have been present at all the public deliberations, the judicial proceedings, the popular tumults, the conflicts of armed men, which he has to describe. Especially is this the case with military operations in foreign countries, and with naval engagements or the movements of ships at sea.

Thucydides thus describes the manner in which he collected the materials of his history: He did not (he says) write down the events of the war from the account of any casual person, nor according to his own supposition; but he formed an accurate narrative, from his personal knowledge, and (as far as possible) from personal witnesses. This process' (he adds) ' was a laborious one; because those who were present on each occasion did not give the same account of the same event, but differed according to the bias of their minds or the accuracy of their memory.'(') Theopompus, again, we are told, made collections at great expense for his history. He was, indeed, an eye-witness of many events; but he obtained the accounts of others from the leading men of the time, generals, demagogues, and philosophers. (") St. Luke, in the preface to his Gospel, refers to accounts founded on the testimonies of eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.'() Even for transactions at which an historian was himself present, he would, in modern times, often rely rather upon the reports of other witnesses, who attended professionally to record the pro

(4) i. 22. Dionysius observes that Thucydides did not compose his history from accidental rumours; but, with respect to the events at which he was present, from personal knowledge, and with respect to those from which he was excluded by his banishment, from inquiry of the best informed persons.-De Thuc. Hist. Jud. c. 6.

(5) Dionys. Epist. ad Pomp. c. 6. Aristotle speaks of geographical works being formed partly by personal observation, and partly out of the accounts collected by the author from those on the spot, dλov d'éσTì TOÛTO θεωμένοις τὰς τῆς γῆς περιόδους· ταύτας γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ πυνθάνεσθαι παρ' ἑκάστων οὕτως ἀνέγραψαν, ὅσων μὴ συμβέβηκεν αὐτόπτας εἶναι τοὺς λέγοντας.—Meteor. i. 13.

(6) i. 1-4.

ceedings (for example, short-hand writers) than upon his own notes or recollection. (7)

A contemporary historian must, therefore, to a considerable extent, found his narrative upon the testimony of witnesses. Historical autopsy can never be carried so far that the historian is not more indebted to the senses of others than to his own senses, for the facts which he records. (8) With respect to the historian of a former age, it need scarcely be remarked that his narrative must be exclusively framed from the evidence of others.

Whether, therefore, the historian narrates the events of his own or of a former age, it is necessary that he should be fur

(7) Strabo remarks that a map of the world can only be constructed by combining the reports of different eye-witnesses, and hence, he adds, for scientific purposes, the ear is a more important sense than the eye-ó dáέı@v μόνους εἰδέναι τοὺς ἰδόντας ἀναιρεῖ τὸ τῆς ἀκοῆς κριτήριον, ἥτις πρὸς ἐπιστήμην oplaλμoù πоλÙ KрEittwv éσti, II. 5, § 11. It is difficult to make these comparisons where both senses are necessary; for the facts which are assumed to be reported to the ear were observed originally by the eye. Polybius, however, dwells on the importance of personal observation in a historian, and disapproves of a history written merely from books, xii. 27-8.

(8) In the following criticism on the Commentaries of Cæsar, preserved by Suetonius, this distinction is indicated-Pollio Asinius parum diligen ter parumque integrâ veritate compositos putat: quum Cæsar pleraque, et quæ per alios erant gesta, temere crediderit, et qua per se, vel consulto vel etiam memoriâ lapsus perperam ediderit.'-Cæsar, c. 56.

The same distinction is taken in the following remark on Clarendon's History of the Rebellion :— There is no doubt that so much of the Earl of Clarendon's history, as relates to facts that fell immediately under his own cognizance, may be writ with great exactness, and much regard to truth; but, without any imputation on his character, it may be affirmed that where he took things on the credit of other people, he might be imposed upon or mistaken.'-Biog. Brit. art. Campbell, M. of Argyle,' note A. Speaking of Sarpi and Pallavicini, Ranke says:- We cannot regard as his own all that appears in the works of a historian, especially in those so rich in matter, and so full of digressions; he is a mere receiver of the mass of his facts. It is his manner of apprehending and handling his stuff that shows the man, whose individual character it is that gives originality and unity to his work.'-Hist. of the Popes, vol. iii. app. p. 56, Engl. tř. Neither Sarpi nor Pallavicini, however, could have been personal witnesses of the transactions which they have narrated. The Council of Trent lasted from 1542 to 1563, whereas Šarpi was only born in 1552, and Pallavicini not till 1607. Sarpi describes himself, at the beginning of his history, as having derived his facts from printed works, and from the manuscripts of deceased prelates and others who had taken part in the proceedings of the Council.-See Ranke, ib. p. 58. Compare the remarks of Daunou, tom. vii. p. 321, 334, and of Rühs, Entwurf einer Propädeutik des Historischen Studiums, p. 181 (Berlin, 1811).