THE ‘COMMON-LAW MIND’, CONSIDERED AS MENTALITÉ

THE book published in 1957 belongs to two fields of historical enquiry: the history of British political thought, which has grown and changed dramatically since that date, and the history of historiography, whose development has not been so rapid. The term ‘historiography’ is frequently employed in the preface and throughout the text, but the use of ‘English historical thought’ in the sub-title conveys— or seems to convey now—the message that writing about the past was not always carried on or developed by the writing of ‘histories’, as that plural might in the seventeenth century be used to denote a certain literary form. One may seek to distinguish between ‘historical thought’ and ‘historiography’ perhaps better—since the word ‘historiography’ can be used to comprehend more than one genre—one may say that the writing of ‘history’ was not always carried on by the writing of ‘histories’. It is a further question, however, whether the history of a diversity of genres recognizable (to us) as ‘historiography’ can be written as though it were a single ‘history’. To say that the ‘history of historiography’ should be written as proceeding through a diversity of channels may well be prudent; but it does not prevent our saying that these channels can be seen, at various points and in various combinations, to flow together.