Introduction to Historical Method

"History' said Charles Seignobos "is not a science, it is a method". By that, he meant that the historical method may be applied to the subject matter of any discipline whatsoever as a means of ascertaining facts. The historical method is a scientific technique for selecting an area of study, gathering information related to the topic, collecting relevant data, analysing and critically evaluating the data and arriving at conclusions and generalizations or theories. The historical method is a tool of research and facilitates the framing of a hypothesis and testing the conclusions on the basis of the hypothesis.

Richerd F. Clarke defined the Historical Method as 'a system of procedures for the attainment of historical truth.' The discovery of truth and the procedure involved therein is generally called the historical method. It uses the research procedures commonly adopted by all Social Sciences and Philosophy in general. G.J. Renier wrote: 'Historical Method consists of the following stages - the selection of a topic, preparation of a bibliography, collection or research data relevant to the topic, criticism of the data, presentation of the data in a systematic manner and drawing of conclusions or generalizations. J. Garraghan viewed the historical method as a 'systematic body of principles and rules designed to assist in the effective gathering of source materials, appraising them critically and presenting a synopsis'. 

The historical method in modern times is said to scientifically consist of four parts: 

(1) Selection of a topic and preparation of a bibliography 

(2) Criticism of the data collected - external and internal

(3) Synthesis

(4) Exposition as generalized truth or theory 

It was the Greeks who first used the scientific modern methodology to some extent As R.G. Collingwood puts it: Greek historiography was rational, scientific and self-explanatory. Thucydides was the first scientific historiographer of Clio, the goddess of history.

In the modern age, it was Leopold Von Ranke who raised history to the level of science. It was he who gave history a definite methodology. He insisted on source criticism and reigned interpretation. Empirical data or corroborating evidence was o prime importance to him. Arthur Marwick, in his Nature of History, wrote that Ranke gave form and shape to a new and refined historical methodology by the use of critical techniques.

The scientific revolution and the positivists aided in making the historical method a scientific one for credibility, accuracy and objectivity. Theorization and conceptualization of history along with textual criticism reduced subjectivity to a great extent. Postmodern criticism and the linguistic turn of the historian's methodology have led to much introspection and rectification in exposition. With the changes in society and advancements in science, the historical method has been undergoing changes and incorporating statistical data and quantitative techniques for analysis. The historians, method continuously strives for perfection and accuracy in rebuilding the past.

Historian and His Facts

The relationship between the historian and his facts is sacred and inextricable. It involves reciprocity. The historian without his facts is rootless and futile and the facts without their historian are dead and meaningless.

In ancient times the question was not given serious thought and the relation between a historian and his facts was taken for granted. In the 19" century, facts got primary over the historian and interpretation. 'What I want, said Gradgrind in 'Hard Times', 'is facts ... facts alone are wanted in life'. The 19th-century historians as the whole agreed with Ranke, who remarked that the task of the historian was 'simply to show how it really was' ... 'history had nothing to do with the opinion and interpretation of the historian'. Three generations of German, British and French historians enthusiastically followed the words of Ranke. The positivists' claim for history as a science, supported this cult of Facts. 'First, ascertain the all-important facts, then draw your conclusions from them' argued the positivists.

The empirical school clearly separates the facts from the historian and his conclusions. It defines the Facts as 'comes from experience as distinct from conclusions'. This may be called the commonsensical view of history. "History consists of a corpus of ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions, and so on, like fish on the fishmongers' slab. The historian collects them, takes them home and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him". Lord Acton wanted them 'served plain'. It recalls the dictum of the great liberal journalist C.P. Scott " Facts are sacred, opinion is free'. 

This brings us to the question of what is a historical fact? According to the common-sense view, there are certain basic facts that are the same for all historians and form the backbone of history. The historian is entitled to rely on what has been called the 'auxiliary sciences' of history - archaeology, numismatics, epigraphy, chronology, etc. These so-called basic facts, commonly belong to the category of the raw materials of the historian rather than of history itself. 

It used to be said that the facts speak for themselves. This is untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them; it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor and in what order or context. A fact is like a sack, it won't stand up till you have put something in it. First, a historian picks up an insignificant fact of the past and uses it in support of his interpretation in his work. This fact is like being proposed by the concerned historian for membership of the street club of historical Facts. It now awaits a sponsor. After some time this Fact may appear first in Footnotes, then in the text of articles and books, and become a well-established historical fact. Its status as a historical fact will turn into a question of interpretation. This element of interpretation enters into every fact of history. The Facts of the ancient and medieval periods have come down to us after a vast winnowing process. 

In the 19th century, it was From Germany that the first challenge of the doctrine of the primacy and autonomy of facts in history originates. From that, the torch passed on to Italy. 

(1) Croce declared that "all history is contemporary history" meaning that history consists essentially in seeing the past through the eyes of the present ... and the main work of the historian is not to record but to evaluate.  

(2) Collingwood declared that "all history is the history of thought and history is the enactment in the historian's mind. 

(3) Prof. Oakeshott, says 'history is the historian's experience. 

(4) E.H. Carr says that 'the facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean, and what the historian catches will depend partially on chance, but mainly depend on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use - these two factors being of course determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of fish he wants to catch. History means interpretation'.

Thus the earlier dictum 'giving sole primacy to the facts’ was challenged and primacy was given to the interpretation of the facts. Here are some points to be noted:    

(1) The facts of history never come to us 'pure' since they do not and cannot exist in a  pure form; they are always going through the mind of the recorder    

(2) The historian needs an imaginative understanding of the people's minds when he dealing the thought behind their acts. History cannot be written unless the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those when he is writing

(3) The historian can view the past only through the eyes of the present. The very words which he uses like democracy, empire, war, and revolution have current connotations from which he cannot divorce them. 

How then, in this modern period are we to define the obligation of a historian to his facts? E.H. Carr opines that 'the duty of the historian is to bring all known or knowable facts relevant to the theme on which he is engaged and to the interpretation proposed'.

The relation of man to his environment is the relation of the historian to his theme. The historian is neither the humble slave nor the tyrannical master of his facts. The relation between the historian and his facts is of equality, of giving and take. The historian is engaged in a continuous process of moulding his Facts to his interpretation. It is impossible to assign primacy to one over the other. The historian starts with a provisional selection of facts and a provisional interpretation. As he works, both the interpretation and the selection and ordering of facts undergo subtle and perhaps partly unconscious changes through the reciprocal action of one on the other. This reciprocal action also involves reciprocity between the present and the past, since the historian is the part of the present and the facts belong to the past. The historian and the facts of history are necessary to one another. The historian without his facts is rootless and futile; the facts without their historian are dead and meaningless. History becomes a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past.