ft.

But though many works on the principles of method justify the distrust
with which such works are generally regarded, and though most professed
historians have been able, apparently with no ill results, to dispense
with reflection upon historical method, it would, in our opinion, be a
strained inference to conclude that specialists and historians
(especially those of the future) have no need to make themselves
acquainted with the processes of historical work. The literature of
methodology is, in fact, not without its value: gradually there has been
formed a treasury of subtle observations and precise rules, suggested by
experience, which are something more than mere common sense.[13] And,
admitting the existence of those who, without having ever learnt to
reason, always reason well, by a gift of nature, it would be easy to set
against these exceptions innumerable cases in which ignorance of logic,
the use of irrational methods, want of reflection on the conditions of
historical analysis and synthesis, have robbed the work of specialists
and historians of much of its value.

The truth is, that, of all branches of study, history is without a doubt
the one in which it is most necessary for students to have a clear
consciousness of the methods they use. The reason is, that in history
instinctive methods are, as we cannot too often repeat, irrational
methods; some preparation is therefore required to counteract the first
impulse. Besides, the rational methods of obtaining historical knowledge
differ so widely from the methods of all other sciences, that some
perception of their distinctive features is necessary to avoid the
temptation of applying to history the methods of those sciences which
have already been systematised. This explains why mathematicians and
chemists can, more easily than historians, dispense with an
"introduction" to their subject. There is no need to insist at greater
length on the utility of historical methodology, for there is evidently
nothing very serious in the attacks which have been made on it. But it
behooves us to explain the reasons which have led to the composition of
the present work. For the last fifty years a great number of intelligent
and open-minded men have meditated on the methods of the historical
sciences. Naturally we find among them many historians, university
professors, whose position enables them to understand better than others
the intellectual needs of the young; but at t