It is thus a very thankworthy task to try to
rescue something--the memory of interesting and important events, or
the leading features and personages of some epoch--from the general
shipwreck of the world.
From another point of view, we might look upon history as the sequel
to zoology; for while with all other animals it is enough to observe
the species, with man individuals, and therefore individual events
have to be studied; because every man possesses a character as an
individual. And since individuals and events are without number or
end, an essential imperfection attaches to history. In the study of
it, all that a man learns never contributes to lessen that which he
has still to learn. With any real science, a perfection of knowledge
is, at any rate, conceivable.
When we gain access to the histories of China and of India, the
endlessness of the subject-matter will reveal to us the defects in the
study, and force our historians to see that the object of science is
to recognize the many in the one, to perceive the rules in any given
example, and to apply to the life of nations a knowledge of mankind;
not to go on counting up facts _ad infinitum_.
There are two kinds of history; the history of politics and the
history of literature and art.
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