Chapter I

STATEMENT OF THE RESOURCES FOR INVESTIGATING HISTORY, AND PROOFS OF THE
REGULARITY OF HUMAN ACTIONS. THESE ACTIONS ARE GOVERNED BY MENTAL AND
PHYSICAL LAWS: THEREFORE BOTH SETS OF LAWS MUST BE STUDIED, AND THERE
CAN BE NO HISTORY WITHOUT THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

PAGE

Materials for writing history 1-3

Narrow range of knowledge possessed by historians 4-5

Object of the present work 6

Human actions, if not the result of fixed laws, must be due
to chance or to supernatural interference 8

Probable origin of free-will and predestination 9-12

Theological basis of predestination, and metaphysical basis
of free-will 12-16

The actions of men are caused by their antecedents, which
exist either in the human mind or in the external world 18-20

Therefore history is the modification of man by nature, and
of nature by man 20-21

Statistics prove the regularity of actions in regard to
murder and other crimes 22-26

Similar proof respecting suicides 27-29

Also respecting the number of marriages annually contracted 31-32

And respecting the number of letters sent undirected 32

The historian must ascertain whether mind or nature has most
influenced human actions; and therefore there can be no
history without physical science 33-35

NOTE A. Passages from Kant on free-will and necessity 35-38