ic importance of the subject and the amount of
preliminary work which must be done before it can be treated: there are
some subjects of the highest interest, for example the history of the
origin and early development of Christianity, which could not be
properly attacked till after the completion of investigations which
occupied several generations of scholars; but the material criticism of
the sources of the history of the French Revolution, another subject of
the first rank, gave much less trouble; and there are comparatively
unimportant problems in mediaeval history which will not be solved till
after an immense amount of external criticism shall have been performed.

In the two first cases the expediency of a division of labour does not
come in question. But take the third case. A man of ability discovers
that the documents which are necessary for the treatment of a point of
history are in a very bad condition; they are scattered, corrupt, and
untrustworthy. He must take his choice; either he must abandon the
subject, having no taste for the mechanical operations which he knows to
be necessary, but which, as he foresees, would absorb the whole of his
energy; or else he resolves to enter upon the preparatory critical work,
without concealing from himself that in all probability he will never
have time to utilise the materials he has verified, and that he will
therefore be working for those who will come after him. If he adopts the
second alternative he becomes a critical scholar by profession, as it
were in spite of himself. _A priori_, it is true, there is nothing to
prevent those who make great collections of texts and publish critical
editions from using their own compilations and editions for the writing
of history; and we see, as a matter of fact, that several men have
divided themselves between the preparatory tasks of external criticism
and the more exalted labours of historical construction: it is enough to
mention the names of Waitz, Mommsen, and Haureau. But this combination
is very rare, for several reasons. The first is the shortness of life;
there are catalogues, editions, _regesta_ on a great scale, the
construction of which entails so much mechanical labour as to exhaust
the strength of the most zealous worker. The second is the fact that,
for many persons, the tasks of critical scholarship are not without
their charm; nearly every one finds in them a singular satisfaction in
the long run; and some have