We cannot say for
certain what was the tie which brought the members of the original group
together, any more than we can name the exact time and the exact place
when and where they came together.
We may thus seem to be landed in a howling wilderness of scientific
uncertainty. The result of pushing our inquiries so far may seem to be
to show that we really know nothing at all. But in truth the uncertainty
is no greater than the uncertainty which attends all inquiries in the
historical sciences. Though a historical fact may be recorded in the
most trustworthy documents, though it may have happened in our own
times, though we may have seen it happen with our own eyes, yet we
cannot have the same certainty about it as the mathematician has about
the proposition which he proves to absolute demonstration. We cannot
have even that lower degree of certainty which the geologist has with
regard to the order of succession between this and that _stratum_. For
in all historical inquiries we are dealing with facts which themselves
come within the control of human will and human caprice, and the
evidence for which depends on the trustworthiness of human informants,
who may either purposely deceive or unwittingly mislead.
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