Danger in tory, saw in the Swiss Landesgemeinde which he attended the analogy of the popular assembly of Tacitus, but he overlooked the fact that for more than a thousand years this popular assembly disappeared and must have come to life again. The Landesgemeinde grew up in a feudal atmosphere and the first mention of it dates from the year 1294. Moreover, when one comes to examine it as it was then, and as it is now, it is not much like the assembly of Tacitus after all. We are often told that the ancient Germanic community of land and local selfgovernment found their way in a direct line of succession from the forests of Germany to the rockribbed shores of New England. The land system of Plymouth Colony does indeed offer a most convenient map with which one may clarify the descriptions in Tacitus, but it does not necessarily follow because these institutions came over to England with the Anglo-Saxons that they remained till opportunity arrived to cross the Atlantic. There is a possible continuity, but it looks as if popular government came nearly to a halt under the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, and it may be that the local institutions which the Pilgrims and Puritans carried to New England were born of the democratic selfgovernment in the Puritan church. Political history is open to similar dangers from the use of analogy. The motives of statesmen or the causes of revolutions cannot be lightly tossed from one point to another. Mr. James Bryce says that one of the chief uses of historical studies is to prevent one from being taken in by historical analogies. Put into the cold formula of philosophy, we are warned that the chief uses of analogy are to direct the observation to a particular fact which appears to resemble some other fact, and if the resemblance is perfect to inquire whether a property in one should not be found in the other.1 112 7 One temptation incident to the analogy habit is Logic. to supply facts which would be present if the comparison were complete. This is one of the troubles which honest logic may bring about if the investigator is not on guard. Guizot says: "Nothing falsifies history more than logic; when the human mind lights upon an idea, it draws from it all the possible consequences, makes it produce everything which it is able to produce, and then presents it in history with all this cortège. Things do not happen in this way; events are not so prompt in their deductions as the human mind.' This is, of course, a logic with the bits in its teeth, Abstract for we have seen often enough the necessity of an orderly logical sense in the interpretation of historical material. A runaway logic does not stop to see if the particulars are actually present, or if the details of the analogy are perfect. Thus there is danger in reasoning from abstract terms. A picture of an institution may be contained in a single word. "People," "sovereignty," "kingship," "legislature," for examples, are concentrated words, each of which contains a vast complex of detail. In the middle ages they meant one thing, and in the 1 J. C. Roger, Summary of Moral Evidence, p. 12. 2 Civilization in Europe, Leçon 5. Terms. eighteenth century something very different. To use these words without discriminations of time and place is to make false analogies, and to commit a sin of carelessness against which all the critics cry aloud. Although writers might presuppose some little discrimination on the part of readers, it will not do to leave much undefined. Even the passing allusion is an abbreviated analogy for which the historian should hold himself strictly accountable. Yet there is a reasoning from small things in history which calls for the highest gifts of the imagination and the keenest application of logic. As it is given to the zoologist to reconstruct a fossil animal from a single fragment of a bone, so the historian is called upon at times to build a racial habit from a relic, or an institution from a fragment of a law. No more exquisite pleasure can be found than is in the use of the trained imagination in the reproduction of a phase of life from the accidental remnants of the past. Herein lies the usefulness as well as the intellectual reward of the investigator. CHAPTER XXII THE CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS Up to this point these pages have been dealing with fragments of history, proving the quality and interpreting the value of materials at hand. The constructive process has, indeed, already begun, for in the interpretation of a document its connection with others almost necessarily comes to view. The position has now been reached where the larger conception of the whole field is required. After diligent search the investigator finds at his disposal a quantity of data, gathered, perhaps, from widely scattered sources. These materials are possibly selfexplanatory. Wherever not clear, or where positive information fails, the reason and the scientific imagination are called upon to bridge the gaps and establish the connections. It is not only necessary to piece together the documentary evidence, but, if one is to obtain the full conception of a period, there must be taken into consideration a body of general conditions which have had influence in moulding society and in directing the current of its history. The natural configuration of the country in which the scene is laid; the state of social opinion governing the actions of men; the psychologicalconditions guiding individuals and masses; all these Combination of Previous Labors. Divisions of must be weighed in searching for the larger estimate of the epoch or country chosen. These factors have all been taken up earlier in these chapters, but were employed in a different way. In the criticism of sources it was necessary to study social conditions or peculiarities of place and period, in order to find out why the author or document received and reflected the stated impressions of events or situations. On the other hand, in forming historical conceptions of an age or period one must study the influence of the same elements, in a larger way perhaps, in order to see why the people or events gave such an impression, or what caused them to act in a certain manner at that epoch. This is the reconstruction of the past with the aid of both documents and reason. The investigator puts himself in the place of the original observers, but with this advantage, that he often has command of more materials than any one of them, and, furthermore, that he stands outside of the limitations of their age. The fundamental process remains the same, whatever may be the form or portion of history taken as a task, notwithstanding the fact that the number and character of the materials may differ in each case. Historical construction construction may follow the order of time and place, or it may be made according to theme. The first is the ordinary narrative history in consecutive periods, taking either one country or another, or attempting to treat them synchronologically. When presented according to theme the result is constitutional history, legal history, |