Spirit Of The Historian

What was said about the 11th Edition Encyclopædia Britannica should be noted with relation to Wikis

The Spirit of the historian.

In considering the substance, rather than the form, of the Eleventh Edition, it may be remarked first that, as a work of reference no less than as a work for reading and study, its preparation has been dominated throughout by the historical point of view. Any account which purports to describe what actually goes on to-day, whether in the realm of mind or in that of matter, is inevitably subject to change as years or even months pass by; but what has been, if accurately recorded, remains permanently true as such.

In the larger sense the historian has here to deal not only with ancient and modern political history, as ordinarily understood, but with past doings in every field, and thus with the steps by which existing conditions have been reached. Geography and exploration, religion and philosophy, pure and applied science, art and literature, commerce and industry, law and economics, war and peace, sport and games, all subjects are treated in these volumes not only on their merits, but as in continual evolution, the successive stages in which are of intrinsic interest on their own account, but also throw light on what goes before and after.

The whole range of history, thus considered, has, however, been immensely widened in the Eleventh Edition as compared with the Ninth. The record of the past, thrown farther and farther back by the triumphs of modern archaeology, is limited on its nearer confines only by the date at which the Encyclopædia Britannica is published. Any contemporary description is indeed liable to become inadequate almost as soon as it is in the hands of the reader; but the available resources have been utilized here to the utmost, so that the salient facts up to the autumn of the year 1910 might be included throughout, not merely as isolated events, but as part of a consistent whole, conceived in the spirit of the historian.

Thus only can the fleeting present be true to its relation with later developments, which it is no part of the task of an encyclopaedia to prophesy.

Now in the PublicDomain

CategoryHistory