empirical. On the contrary, this far-seeing thinker, rightly
styled IL MAESTRO DI COLOR CHE SANNO, may be said to have

apprehended clearly that the true method is neither exclusively
empirical nor exclusivelyspeculative, but rather a union of both

in the process called Analysis or the Interpretation of Facts,
which has been defined as the application to facts of such general

conceptions as may fix the important characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristics of the
phenomena, and present them permanently in their true relations.

He too was the first to point out, what even in our own day is
incompletely appreciated, that nature, including the development of

man, is not full of incoherent episodes like a bad tragedy, that
inconsistency and anomaly are as impossible in the moral as they

are in the physical world, and that where the superficial observer
thinks he sees a revolution the philosophicalcriticdiscerns

merely the gradual and rationalevolution of the inevitable results
of certain antecedents.

And while admitting the necessity of a psychological basis for the
philosophy of history, he added to it the important truth that man,

to be apprehended in his proper position in the universe as well as
in his natural powers, must be studied from below in the

hierarchical progression of higher function from the lower forms of
life. The important maxim, that to obtain a clear conception of

anything we must 'study it in its growth from the very beginning,'
is formally set down in the opening of the POLITICS, where, indeed,

we shall find the other characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic features of the modern
Evolutionary theory, such as the 'Differentiation of Function' and

the 'Survival of the Fittest' explicitly set forth.
What a valuable step this was in the improvement of the method of

historicalcriticism it is needless to point out. By it, one may
say, the true thread was given to guide one's steps through the

bewildering labyrinth of facts. For history (to use terms with
which Aristotle has made us familiar) may be looked at from two

essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially different standpoints; either as a work of art whose
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced] or final cause is external

to it and imposed on it from without; or as an organism containing
the law of its own development in itself, and working out its

perfection merely by the fact of being what it is. Now, if we
adopt the former, which we may style the theological view, we shall

be in continual danger of tripping into the pitfall of some A
PRIORI conclusion - that bourne from which, it has been truly said,

no traveller ever returns.
The latter is the only scientific theory and was apprehended in its

fulness by Aristotle, whose application of the inductive method to
history, and whose employment of the evolutionary theory of

humanity, show that he was conscious that the philosophy of history
is nothing separate from the facts of history but is contained in

them, and that the rational law of the complexphenomena of life,
like the ideal in the world of thought, is to be reached through

the facts, not superimposed on them - [Greek text which cannot be
reproduced].

And finally, in estimating the enormous debt which the science of
historicalcriticism owes to Aristotle, we must not pass over his

attitude towards those two great difficulties in the formation of a
philosophy of history on which I have touched above. I mean the

assertion of extra-natural interference with the normal development
of the world and of the incalculable influence exercised by the

power of free will.
Now, as regards the former, he may be said to have neglected it

entirely. The special acts of providenceproceeding from God's
immediate government of the world, which Herodotus saw as mighty

landmarks in history, would have been to him essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially disturbing
elements in that universal reign of law, the extent of whose

limitless empire he of all the great thinkers of antiquity was the
first explicitly to recognise.

Standing aloof from the popular religion as well as from the deeper
conceptions of Herodotus and the Tragic School, he no longer

thought of God as of one with fair limbs and treacherous face
haunting wood and glade, nor would he see in him a jealous judge

continually interfering in the world's history to bring the wicked
to punishment and the proud to a fall. God to him was the

incarnation of the pure Intellect, a being whose activity was the
contemplation of his own perfection, one whom Philosophy might

imitate but whom prayers could never move, to the sublime
indifference of whose passionless wisdom what were the sons of men,

their desires or their sins? While, as regards the other
difficulty and the formation of a philosophy of history, the

conflict of free will with general laws appears first in Greek
thought in the usual theological form in which all great ideas seem

to be cradled at their birth.
It was such legends as those of OEdipus and Adrastus, exemplifying

the struggles of individual humanity against the overpowering force
of circumstances and necessity, which gave to the early Greeks

those same lessons which we of modern days draw, in somewhat less
artistic fashion, from the study of statistics and the laws of

physiology.
In Aristotle, of course, there is no trace of supernatural

influence. The Furies, which drive their victim into sin first and
then punishment, are no longer 'viper-tressed goddesses with eyes

and mouth aflame,' but those evil thoughts which harbour within the
impure soul. In this, as in all other points, to arrive at

Aristotle is to reach the pure atmosphere of scientific and modern
thought.

But while he rejected pure necessitarianism in its crude form as
essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially a REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM of life, he was fully conscious

of the fact that the will is not a mysterious and ultimate unit of
force beyond which we cannot go and whose special characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic is

inconsistency, but a certain creative attitude of the mind which
is, from the first, continually influenced by habits, education and

circumstance; so absolutely modifiable, in a word, that the good
and the bad man alike seem to lose the power of free will; for the

one is morally unable to sin, the other physically incapacitated
for reformation.

And of the influence of climate and temperature in forming the
nature of man (a conception perhaps pressed too far in modern days

when the 'race theory' is supposed to be a sufficient explanation
of the Hindoo, and the latitude and longitude of a country the best

guide to its morals(6)) Aristotle is completely unaware. I do not
allude to such smaller points as the oligarchical tendencies of a

horse-breeding country and the democratic influence of the
proximity of the sea (important though they are for the

consideration of Greek history), but rather to those wider views in
the seventh book of his POLITICS, where he attributes the happy

union in the Greek character of intellectual attainments with the
spirit of progress to the temperateclimate they enjoyed, and

points out how the extreme cold of the north dulls the mental
faculties of its inhabitants and renders them incapable of social

organisation or extended empire; while to the enervating heat of
eastern countries was due that want of spirit and bravery which

then, as now, was the characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic of the population in that
quarter of the globe.

Thucydides has shown the causal connection between political
revolutions and the fertility of the soil, but goes a step farther

and points out the psychological influences on a people's character
exercised by the various extremes of climate - in both cases the

first appearance of a most valuable form of historicalcriticism.
To the development of Dialectic, as to God, intervals of time are

of no account. From Plato and Aristotle we pass direct to
Polybius.

The progress of thought from the philosopher of the Academe to the
Arcadian historian may be best illustrated by a comparison of the

method by which each of the three writers, whom I have selected as
the highest expression of the rationalism of his respective age,

attained to his ideal state: for the latter conception may be in a
measure regarded as representing the most spiritual principle which

they could discern in history.
Now, Plato created his on A PRIORI principles; Aristotle formed his

by an analysis of existing constitutions; Polybius found his
realised for him in the actual world of fact. Aristotle criticised

the deductive speculations of Plato by means of inductive negative
instances, but Polybius will not take the 'Cloud City' of the

REPUBLIC into account at all. He compares it to an athlete who has
never run on 'Constitution Hill,' to a statue so beautiful that it

is entirely removed from the ordinary conditions of humanity, and