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2 - The Sciences of History

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Summary

Method, not genius, or eloquence, or erudition, makes the historian.

Lord Acton, ‘Mr. Goldwin Smith's Irish History’, Rambler, 6 (1862)

Even though the early reaction to Buckle's work was generally mixed, the burgeoning historical community was much more willing and able to reach a consensus opinion. ‘Have you seen Buckle on Civilization Vol. 1[?]’, historian William Stubbs (1825–1901) wrote to his friend and fellow historian, Edward A. Freeman (1823–92). ‘There are to be Ten. I do not believe in the Philosophy of History so do not believe in Buckle’. He went on to imply, however, that he assumed Freeman would like the work as it promoted history to the ranks of science, a proposition that Stubbs himself found attractive. He simply found Buckle's science of history to be more philosophy than it was science. ‘I fear you will make me out to be a heretic indeed after such a confession.’

However, it would be Buckle's science of history that would be denounced as heretical while Stubbs's opinion of Buckle's work would become the orthodox response from English historians. At issue was not whether or not history should become a science. This was a moot question for most. At issue, rather, was what kind of science history should become, what kind of methods history should employ, and what kind of identity the historian should adopt in order to be trusted to impart historical and scientific knowledge to peers and to the wider public.

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The Science of History in Victorian Britain
Making the Past Speak
, pp. 35 - 54
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

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