our reasonings will only afford presumptions, not certainties. But it
is with reasonings as with documents.[202] When several presumptions
all point in the same direction they confirm each other, and end by
producing a legitimate certitude. History fills up some of its gaps by
an accumulation of reasonings. Doubts remain as to the Phoenician
origin of various Greek cities, but there is no doubt about the presence
of the Phoenicians in Greece.

CHAPTER IV

THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL FORMULAE

I. Suppose we had methodically arranged all the historical facts
established by the analysis of documents, or by reasoning; we should
possess a systematised inventory of the whole of history, and the work
of construction would be complete. Ought history to stop at this point?
The question is warmly debated, and we cannot avoid giving an answer,
for it is a question with a practical bearing.

Critical scholars, who are accustomed to collect all the facts relating
to their speciality, without any personal preference, are inclined to
regard a complete, accurate, and objective collection of facts as the
prime requisite. All historical facts have an equal right to a place in
history; to retain some as being of greater importance, and reject the
rest as comparatively unimportant, would be to introduce the subjective
element of choice, variable according to individual fancy; history
cannot sacrifice a single fact.

Against this very reasonable view there is nothing to be urged except a
material difficulty; this, however, is enough, for it is the practical
motive of all the sciences: we mean the impossibility of acquiring or
communicating complete knowledge. A body of history in which no fact
was sacrificed would have to contain all the actions, all the thoughts,
all the adventures of all men at all times. It would form a total which
no one could possibly make himself master of, not for want of materials,
but for want of time. This, indeed, applies, as things are, to certain
voluminous collections of documents: the collected reports of
parliamentary debates contain the whole history of the various
assemblies, but to learn their history from these sources would require
more than a lifetime.

Every science must take into consideration the practical conditions of
life, at least so far as it claims to be a real science, a science which
it is possible to know. Any ideal which ends by making knowledge
impossible impedes the establ