what _philosophy_ is, as the others lack the knowledge of _poetry_ and _art_. Anyone desirous of arriving at a rapid knowledge of the difference between the history of philosophy and the history of poetry should observe how the one, owing to the nature of its object, is led to examine theories in so far as they are the _work of pure mind,_ and therefore to develop a history in which thoughts represent the _dramatis personæ,_ while the other is led by the nature of its object to examine works of art in so far as they are works of imagination, which gives expression to movements of feeling, and therefore to develop a history of imaginative and sensitive points of view. The former, therefore, though it does not neglect actions, events, and imagination, regards them as the _humus_ of pure thought and takes the form of a history of concepts _without persons,_ either real or imaginary, while the latter, which also does not neglect actions, events, and thoughts in its turn regards them as the humus of imaginary creations and takes the form of a history of ideal or imaginary _personalities,_ which have divested themselves of the ballast of practical interests and of the curb of concepts. The plans, too, which they draw up and with which they cannot dispense, any more than can any human dialectic, answer to these different tendencies--that is to say, with the one they are schemes or general types of modes of thinking, with the other schemes containing ideal personalities. If the history of philosophy has several times tried to devour the history of poetry and art, it may also be said to have several times tried to devour the _history of practice,_ that of politics and ethics, or 'social history,' as people prefer to call it in our day. It has also been asserted that such history should be set free from the chroniclism in which it had become involved and assume a scientific and rigorous form. To do this, it was heedful to reduce it to a history of 'ideas,' which are the true and essential practical acts, because they generate them--that is to say, the error which we noted above in respect to poetry and art has here been repeated. What is peculiar to practical acts has been neglected, and only the 'ideas,' which are their antecedents and consequents, have been retained. But on other occasions the 'ideas' to which it was claimed to reduce practical acts were not really ideas or intellectual formations, but truly practical acts, sentiments, dispositions, customs, institutions. The originality of political and ethical history was thus unconsciously confirmed. Its object is just what can be designated with the single word _institutions,_ taking the word in its widest signification--that is to say, understanding by it all practical arrangements of human individuals and societies, from the most recondite sentiments to the most obvious modes of life (which, too, are always will in action). All are equally historical productions, the sole effective historical