Historical Causes

Extract

The question in philosophy of whether History is a Science is rather like the question in Politics of the expediency of a Channel Tunnel: it is one which provides a perennial subject for debate, there is no indication that it will ever be decided one way or the other, and it does not after all seem to matter much even if it never is decided; we can get along well enough by neglecting it altogether. One might argue indeed that the dispute is not much more than a matter of words, of the intension and extension of terms. It is evident that the method and aim of the historian differ widely from those of the physicist, and on the other hand resemble closely those of the geologist. Why trouble to go splitting hairs?