ollege de France--The
Faculties of Letters--The Ecole Normale--The Ecole des
Chartes--The Ecole pratique des hautes Etudes 335

Reform of the Faculties--Preparation for degrees--The
Examination question--Principles on which it is to be
solved--The _Diplome d'etudes superieures_ 340

Influence of the movement on the other institutions--Co-operation
of the institutions 345

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 347

AUTHORS' PREFACE

The title of this work is clear. However, it is necessary to state
succinctly both what our intention has, and what it has not been; for
under this same title, "Introduction to the Study of History," very
different books have already been published.

It has not been our intention to give, as Mr. W. B. Boyce[1] has done, a
summary of universal history for the use of beginners and readers of
scanty leisure.

Nor has it been our intention to add a new item to the abundant
literature of what is ordinarily called the "Philosophy of History."
Thinkers, for the most part not professed historians, have made history
the subject of their meditations; they have sought for its "analogies"
and its "laws." Some have supposed themselves to have discovered "the
laws which have governed the development of humanity," and thus to have
"raised history to the rank of a positive science."[2] These vast
abstract constructions inspire with an invincible _a priori_ mistrust,
not the general public only, but superior minds as well. Fustel de
Coulanges, as his latest biographer tells us, was severe on the
Philosophy of History; these systems were as repugnant to him as
metaphysics to the positivists. Rightly or wrongly (without doubt
wrongly), the Philosophy of History, not having been cultivated
exclusively by well-informed, cautious men of vigorous and sound
judgment, has fallen into disrepute. The reader will be reassured--or
disappointed, as the case may be--to learn that this subject will find
no place in the present work.[3]

We propose to examine the conditions and the methods, to indicate the
character and the limits, of historical knowledge. How do we ascertain,
in respect of the past, what part of it it is possible, what part of it
it is important, to know? What is a document? How are documents to be
treated with a view to historical work? What are historical fact