Historical scepticism is, however, as inexact and one-sided in the observation of fact as it is puerile in the suggestion of a remedy. Certainly, there are divergences between the various accounts of the same fact; but (setting aside _apparent_ divergences, derived from the different interest taken in a given fact, owing to which verbal prominence is given to one or to another aspect of it, and limiting ourselves here to _real_ differences) we must, for the sake of exactitude, take account of all the no less real agreements, to be found side by side with these divergences. In virtue of them, for instance, Protestant and Catholic are unanimous in recognizing that Luther and Leo X. existed, that the one produced a definite movement in Germany and that the other had recourse to certain definite prohibitions; and, finally, both Protestant and Catholic recognize (now at least) the corruption of the ecclesiastical orders at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the mundane and political interests of the German princes in the wars of religion. In like manner no one, however revolutionary or conservative he is, will question the bad condition of French finances at the eve of the Revolution; or that Louis XVI. convoked the States General; or that he attempted flight and was stopped at Varennes; or that he was guillotined on the 21st of January 1793; or that the French Revolution was an event which profoundly changed the social and moral life of the whole of Europe. Owing to this substantial agreement between two historians in very many points, and indeed in the greater part of the narrative, it happens that we can often read and advise others to read histories that are tainted with the passions of the partisan, while merely recommending the reader to make a mental allowance for these passions. In like manner, we can usefully employ a defective instrument of measurement, provided we include in the calculation the coefficient of aberration. [Sidenote: _The overcoming of variations by means of deepening the concepts._]