Chapter I: The Search for Documents

Documents: their nature, use, necessity 17

Utility of _Heuristic_, or the art of discovering documents 18

The difficulties of Heuristic--Ancient times--H. H. Bancroft--State of things at the Renaissance 19

Growth of libraries--Collectors--Effects of revolutionary confiscation in promoting the concentration and the accessibility of documents 20

Possible future progress--Need for the cataloguing and indexing of documents 27

Students and bibliographical knowledge--Effect of present conditions in deterring men from historical work 32

The remedies--Official cataloguing of libraries--Activity of learned societies--of governments 34

Different kinds of bibliographical works needed by students 37

Different degrees of difficulty of Heuristic in different parts of History--to be kept in view when choosing a subject of research 38

CHAPTER II

"AUXILIARY SCIENCES"

Documents are raw material, and need a preliminary elaboration 42

Obsolete views on the historian's apprenticeship--Mably, Daunou 43

Commonplace and exaggeration on this subject--Freeman--Various futilities 45

The scientific conception of the historian's apprenticeship--Palæography--Epigraphy--Philology--Diplomatic 48

History of Literature--Archæology 51

Criticism of phrase "auxiliary sciences"--The subjects not all _sciences_--None of them auxiliary to the _whole_ of History 52

This scientific conception is of recent growth--The École des Chartes--Modern manuals of Palæography, Epigraphy, &c.--List of the chief of them 55

BOOK II

_ANALYTICAL OPERATIONS_

CHAPTER I

GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

Direct and indirect knowledge of facts 63

History not a science of direct observation--Its data obtained by chains of reasoning 64

Twofold division of Historical Criticism: _External_, investigating the transmission and origin of documents and the statements in them; _Internal_, dealing with the content of the statements and their probability 66

Complexity of Historical Criticism 67

Necessity of Criticism--The human mind naturally uncritical 68