ABSTRACT
No science can escape from the conditions imposed by the constitution of the thinking mind which gives it birth. Even History, for all its striving after exactitude, objectivity, and minuteness of investigation, does not escape from such conditions. History is just the whole life experience of our race, which we have to remember as long and as well, to apply to our present existence as well and as closely, as we can. Every historical investigation works tacitly with these coefficients; and it is avowedly the highest goal of history wherever history is conscious of itself as an organic science with a definite significance for the whole of our knowledge. Subjects which do not admit of such a relation to the present belong to the antiquarian, and investigations which entirely and on principle leave such considerations out of account have value only for the virtuoso, or as work for work's sake.
