Confession before 1215

Abstract

Because research calls for work, and work for specialisation, the study of history tends always to subdivide. The deepest of its subdivisions is that between the ‘outer’ and the ‘inner’: between things like war, politics, business and law on one side, and on the other, thoughts and emotions. ‘History’ tout simple has come thus to refer mainly to the external, things usually handled in the past by men, while from the side of this Adam have sprung separate disciplines with names like die history of ideas, or mentalités,—not to mention the literatures in various languages. A glance even at the buildings of a university will confirm this.