INTRODUCTION

Once historians have reconstructed historical objects by studying the relics available to them, they usually want to explain why the past was as it was. Ultimately historians hope to do more than describe a mere succession of events: they hope to explain these events to show us why things happened as they did. After historians have used various relics to reconstruct the past, they typically try to explain why the past was as it was, and they do so in a process that itself can lead them to modify their understanding of the past. Historians usually combine several of the historical objects they have recovered in asingle narrative. After historians of ideas have reconstructed beliefs, they typically try to explain why people held those beliefs. Historians of ideas usually make sense of the meanings they have ascribed to works by relating them to their historical antecedents. Imagine, for example, a historian who discovers that Besant wrote about her intention to highlight the unity of the religions of the world, and rightly takes her sincerely to have meant what she said. Surely the historian will want to know why Besant believed the religions of the world were fundamentally similar. How should the historian set about satisfying his curiosity?

Questions of understanding ask what a work means or what beliefs an individual expressed in a work. Questions of explanation ask why a work has the meaning it does or why an individual believed what he did.