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You can see at once that we are faced with the same problem that is posed by history itself. We cannot be sure that we are getting at the facts-we cannot be sure that we know what is happening now any more than we can be sure about what happened in the past. And yet we must try to know, so far as that is possible.

If we could be everywhere at once, overhear all conversations on earth, look into the heart of every living person, we might be able to make a stab at the truth of current events.

Being human and hence limited, we must fall back on the services of reporters. Reporters are persons who are supposed to know what is happening in a small area. They report it in newspaper stories, in magazines, or in books. What we can know depends on them.

Ideally, a reporter, of whatever kind, is a clear glass in which reality is reflected-or through which it shines. But the human mind is not a clear glass. It is not a good reflector, and when reality shines through it, the mind is not a very good filter. It separates out what it considers to be unreality, un-250 HOW TO READ A BOOK

truth. That is proper, of course; a reporter should not report what he thinks is false. But he may be mistaken.

Thus the most important thing to know, when reading any report of current happenings, is who is writing the report.

What is involved here is not so much an acquaintance with the reporter himself as with the kind of mind he has. The various sorts of filter-reporters fall into groups. To understand what kind of filter our reporter's mind is, we must ask a series of questions about it. This amounts to asking a series of questions about any material dealing with current events. The questions are these:

1. What does the author want to prove?

2. Whom does he want to convince?

3. What special knowledge does he assume?

4. What special language does he use?

5. Does he really know what he is talking about?

For the most part it is safe to assume that all current events books want to prove something. Often it is easy enough to discover what this is. The blurb often states the main contention or thesis of such books. If it does not appear there, it may be stated by the author in a preface.

Having asked what the book is trying to prove, you should next ask whom the author is trying to convince. Is the book intended for those "in the know" -and are you in that category?

Is it for that small group of persons who can do something, and quickly, about the situation the author describes? Or is it for everyone? If you do not belong to the audience for which the book is intended, you may not want to read it.

You must next discover what special knowledge the author assumes that you have. The word ''knowledge" is intended here to cover a lot of ground. "Opinion" or "prejudice"

might have been a better choice. Many authors write only for readers who agree with them. If you disagree sharply with a reporter's assumptions, you may only be irritated if you try to read his book.

How to Read History 251

The assumptions that an author makes, and that he assumes you share, are sometimes very difficult to discover.

In The Seventeenth Century Background, Basil Willey has this to say:

. . . it is almost insuperably difficult to become critically conscious of one's own habitual assumptions; "doctrines felt as facts" can only be seen to be doctrines, and not facts, after great efforts of thought, and usually only with the aid of a first-rate metaphysician.

He goes on to suggest that it is easier to discover the "doctrines felt as facts" of an age different from our own, and that is what he attempts to do in his book. In reading books about our own time, however, we do not have the advantage of distance. Thus we must try to see through the filter not only of the author-reporter's mind, but also of our own.

Next, you must ask if there is a special language that the author uses. This is particularly important in reading magazines and newspapers, but it also applies to all books