The origin of history may be attributed to that spirit of conservatism, largely inher ent in human nature and readily- developed in the progress of civilization. which incites to the preservation of at record of human life, its acts and occurrences. Our familiarity with the past is derived in the first instance from tradition, and later through the per petuation of tradition and also of contemporary occurrence, by means of mural or monumental sculptures, inscribed tablets, or such other means as were feasible to those who desired to form the record. Naturally the first efforts in this direction were towards the preservation of a narrative of single events. These were sometimes inci dents in natural phenomena of a startling nature—as floods, earthquakes, eclipses, etc. —and at oilier: relations of momentous events in the lives of prominent iedividnals usually potentates or wise men. Restricted by the means at hand, such a record was of course for a long time fragmentary and episodic. Bricks or tablets, the walls of buildings, and monumental piles served for the material, as symbolic or representative figures of birds, aaimnals, and other suggestive objects answered for the manner. The first step in advance was taken when the discovery of the possible use of papyrus gave i opportunity for the introduction of the elements of continuity and sequence into the preservation of intelligence, and actual history began. At first this took the form of annals, or chronicles, and it was not until after the middle ages that this form was abandoned for it more philosophical and systematic method of construction. And cer tainly the most charming and instructive works which undertake the purpose merely of bringing the future into contact and acquaintance with the past are those of the chroniclers of the middle ages. The names of Froissa•t, Monstrelet. Geoffrey of Mon mouth, Matthew Paris, Holinshed, and the rest, should be remembered with reverence, and their writings studied with earnest appreciation. For these were the men who revived the historic element, after it had lain dormant during the stagnant period of the dark ages. To them, groping conscientiously, but naturally infused with the super stition and credulity of their time, we are indebted—not only for the histories Much they wrote, after much severe and painstaking labor, lint also for the encouragement which they afforded to future writers, and for the exi-mnee of the later and greater historical efforts which they made possible. And it would lie doing injustice to a most important class of workers not to raeunlen the Writers Of .menwirs. is-to the authors of the long series of works of this character, covering a large portion of the history of France, that we owe the preservation of a knowledge of events, and of the character of prominent personages. absolutely essential to the writing of a complete French history.
Indeed those mousing investigators who spend their lives in searching out the truth of narration, in recording anecdotes and current manners and customs, and in generally contemplating the minor details of life with a view to the preservation of seine accurate account of them, are of inestimable service to the historian. History, however, is of two kinds—narrative and philosophical. And it should be remembered that of these two species of history the latter is far the more important. "History," we are told, is "philosophy teaching by example." Merely narrative history is of no value whatever, of however much interest it may be in the way of satisfying a perfectly justifiable curiosity, except in so far as it teaches the lessons afforded by experience, and enables succeeding generations to profit by the lives of those which preceded them. It is, there fore, that species of history whose deductions from the events it records serve as a basis for the discovery and formulating of natural social laws, that possesses real value for humanity. Modern, like ancient, historians have generally become more justly famous for the vigor or polish of their style, the care they have displayed in time collection of their material, and the comprehensiveness of their design, than for philosophical anal ysis of the natural causes and bearing of the actions of men. Henry `Thomas Buckle sad Herbert Spencer are instances of the philosophical historian, as Sismondi, Tillers, Michelet, Hume and Smollett, and Bancroft are of the strictly narrative. Such writers as Macaulay, Prescott, Motley, and Fronde have displayed the romantic side of his tory, and have discovered the possibilities of language in rendering its record glowing and fascinating, without departing from the limits of veracity. history is but the combination and interweaving of human biography, it follows that works of a bio• graphical character are among the most important implements of the historian. So also the division of history by classification—as of literature, ecclesiastical, history of art, bibliography, which is the history of books, etc.—aids greatly id modifying the mechan ical labors of the historian, and enables him to give more time and thought to the phi losophy of the events and lives he chronicles, and thus evolve from them their trite merit, and usefulness to man.
HIT (the Is of Herodotus), a t. of Turkey in Asia, is situated on the right bank of the Euphrates, in the pashalic of Bagdad. and 110 in. w.n.w. of the city of that It is estimated to contain about 1500 houses, and is remarkable for the fountains of bitumen in the neighborhood. These fountains or pits are as abundantly productive at the present day as they were in the earliest ages. From them bitumen and naphtha are obtained in great quantity, and exported.