ABSTRACT
The historian must decide whether it was then ‘immature’, containing within itself the needs of later successes; or whether the subsequent innovations were so deep as to involve the transformation and rejection of the essential features of the inquiry as then practised. The problem of assessment is even more acute in the case of a field which is currently ineffective, but whose leaders claim it to be on the point of emerging from immaturity. The ineffectiveness of a field, as revealed by the absence of facts, is a trying state of affairs in the best of circumstances. The weaknesses in the social aspects of inquiry also contribute to the self-perpetuating condition of ineffectiveness. One reason for the difficulties of immature and ineffective fields is that their model of genuine science is a very specialized one, which may be quite inappropriate to their own tasks.
