1. A single person.
2. A single people—whole known period or a part of it.
3. The whole world—universal history.
b. General conceptions of history writing.
1. A narrative of memorable events. Aim, mainly to please. Content determined by taste of authors and their public. Epic poets and story-tellers early contributors. Classical type fixed by Herodotus, the “father of history.”
2. A collection of precedents supposed to be useful to statesmen, generals, and others. Aim, didactic. Content determined by the kind of examples or lessons needed. But these, according to early conceptions, to be valuable must be true to the facts. Facts largely political and military. A conception introduced by Thucydides and developed by Polybius.
3. Scientific history. Aim, to exhibit the past as it was and to explain how it came to be what it was. Content determined by what is regarded as significant in illustrating the idea of development in human affairs.
c. These general conceptions correspond roughly to stages of human culture.
d. History generally regarded merely as a branch of literature up to 1850.