st regards each social group as an entity or individual,
and endeavors to place clearly before his mind its similarities and
differences with other groups. Taking objective facts as his guides,
such as laws, arts, institutions and language, he seeks from these to
understand the mental life, the psychical welfare of the people, and
beyond this to reach the ideals which they cherished and the ideas which
were the impulses of their activities. Events and incidents, such as are
recorded in national annals, have for him their main, if not only value,
as indications of the inner or soul life of the people.

By the comparison of several social groups he reaches wider
generalizations; and finally to those which characterize the common
consciousness of Humanity, the psychical universals of the species. By
such comparison he also ascertains under what conditions and in what
directions men have progressed most rapidly toward the cultivation and
the enjoyment of the noblest elements of their nature; and this strictly
inductive knowledge is that alone which he would apply to furthering the
present needs and aspirations of social life.

This is the method which he would suggest for history in the broad
meaning of the term. It should be neither a mere record of events, nor
the demonstration of a thesis, but a study, through occurrences and
institutions, of the mental states of peoples at different epochs,
explanatory of their success or failure, and practically applicable to
the present needs of human society.

Such explanation should be strictly limited in two directions. First, by
the principle that man can be explained only by man, and can be so
explained completely. That is, no super-human agencies need be invoked
to interpret any of the incidents of history: and, on the other hand, no
merely material or mechanical conditions, such as climate, food and
environment, are sufficient for a full interpretation. Beyond these lie
the inexhaustible sources of impulse in the essence of Mind itself.

Secondly, the past can teach us nothing of the future beyond a vague
surmise. All theories which proceed on an assumption of knowledge
concerning finalities, whether in science or dogma, are cobwebs of the
brain, not the fruit of knowledge, and obscure the faculty of
intellectual perception. It is wasteful of one's time to frame them, and
fatal to one's work to adopt them.

These are also two personal traits which, it seems to me, are requi