The intuitive faculty in historical exposition. Similarity of history and art.
The intuitive faculty, indispensable in research, is not less indispensable in historical exposition; since it is necessary to intuite the actual fact, not in a fugitive and sketchy manner, but so firmly as to be able to express it and to fix it in words, in such a way as to transmit its genuine life to others. Hence the specially artistic character that must be possessed by true historians. Here they resemble pure artists, painting pictures, as they do, composing poems and writing tragic dialogues. Certainly, every thought, even that of the most abstruse philosopher and mathematician, becomes concrete in artistic form. But the historian (in the somewhat empirical sense of the word) approximates much more nearly to those who express pure intuitions, since he gives literary preference to the subject over the predicate. This has been generally recognized both by historians, who have freely presented themselves as bards of their race invoking the Muse who represents History upon Parnassus, while there is there no representative of Philosophy, Mathematics, or Science; and by theorists, who have constantly debated the question as towhether history is art.It seems indeed to beart, when the predicate or logical element is so well concealed that hardly any attention is paid to it.
Difference between history and art. The predicate or logical element in history.
I sayhardly; because if no attention whatever be paid to it, if literary emphasis become logical mutilation, art will remain, but history will have gone. A book of history will no longer merelyresemblea poem or romance, but willbea poem or a romance. What is it that, from the point of view of intuition, distinguishes an imaginative vision and an historical narrative? If we open theDivine Comedyor theRimeof Petrarch and read: "In the middle pathway of our life, I found myself in a dark forest ...," or, "I raised my thought to where she whom I seek was and find not upon earth ..."; and if we open Livy'sHistory,at the place where he recounts the battle of Cannae, and read: "Consules satis exploratis itineribus sequentes Poenum, ut ventum ad Cannas est, ubi in conspecta Poenum habebant, bina, castra communiunt,"nothing at first seems changed; both are narratives. Yet everything is changed. If we read Livy as we read Dante or Petrarch, the battle of Cannae in the same way as the voyage of Dante to the Inferno, or the passage of the spirit of Petrarch to the third heaven, Livy is no longer Livy, but a storybook. In like manner, if we read a book of stories, as, for example, theKings of Franceor theGuerin Meschino,in the same way as they are read by the uneducated man of the people, who seeks history in them, the story book becomes transformed into a historical book, although of a kind that must be criticized and refuted when a higher degree of culture has been attained. This suffices to show the importance of that predicate, which is sometimes left to be understood in the words, but whose effective presence transforms the pure intuition into the individual judgment and makeshistoryof apoem.
Vain attempts to eliminate it.
The necessity of the logical element has been several times denied, and it has been affirmed that the historian must let things speak for themselves and put into them nothing of his own. This fine phrase may have some reference to a-certain truth, as we shall see. But if it is understood as the exclusion of the logical element in favour of pure intuition (and worse still, if it intends to exclude also the category of intuition, for in that case we have simplemuteness),it proclaims the death of history. Without the logical element it is not possible to say that even the smallest, the most ordinary fact, belongingto our individual and everyday life, hasoccurred;as, for instance, that I rose this morning at eight o'clock and took luncheon at twelve. For (to give no other reasons) these historical propositions imply the concept of existence or actuality and the correlative concept of non-existence or possibility, since in affirming them I also deny that I only dreamed of rising at eight or of taking luncheon at twelve. All will agree that we cannot speak of a historical fact if we do not know that it is a fact, that is to say, something that has happened; even stories become the object of history, in so far as their existence as stories is attributed to them. A story, told without knowing or deciding whether it be or be not a story, is poetry; perceived and told as a story, it is mythography, that is to say, history; the author of theIliador the author of theNiebelungenis not Adalbert Kuhn, Jacob Grimm or Max Müller.
Extension of historical predicates beyond that of mere existence.
But the criterion of existentiality does not itself suffice, as some believe, for the effectual constitution of historical narrative. For what sort of narrative should we have, if we merely said that something had happened, without sayingwhathad happened? That something has happened and does happen at every instant,is not, as we know, the content of historical narrative, because it is the affirmation that being is, or that becoming is. What has been said of the individual judgment, namely, that it is constituted by all the predicates together, that is, of the whole concept, and not by the predicate of existence alone, torn from the others, must also be said of historical narrative. It is truly complete and therefore realized, when the intuition, which supplied it with the rough material, is completely penetrated by the concept, in its universality, particularity and singularity. That the consuls, after having sufficiently explored the routes, followed the Carthaginian, entered Cannae, and seeing themselves face to face with the army of Hannibal, pitched and fortified their camp (as runs Livy's narrative), implies a crowd of concepts, equal in number to the historical affirmations collected in that sentence. No one ignorant as to what is man, war, army, pursuit, route, camp, fortification, dream, reality, love, hatred, fatherland, and so on, is capable ofthinkingsuch a sentence as this. And the obscurity of one of those concepts is sufficient to make it impossible to form the narrative as a whole, just as any one who does not understand the meaning of the wordcastrais not in a position to understand what forms the argument of Livy's narrative. If the sources are changed, the historical narrative changes; but this latter changes no less, if our convictions as to the concepts are changed. The same matter is differently arranged and gives rise to different histories, if it is narrated by a savage or a cultured European, by an anarchist or a conservative, by a protestant or a catholic, by the me of this moment or the same me of ten years hence. Given that all have the same documents before them, each one reads in them a different happening.
Alleged insuperable variation in judging and presenting historical facts, and consequent claim for a history without judgments.
But the fact here stated seems to lead straight to despair as to the fate of history, or at least as to its fate, so long as it is bound to the logical element, to convictions about the concepts. When it is observed that the same facts are narrated in the most different way; that what for some is the work of God is for others the work of the Devil; that what for some is the manifestation of spiritual forces is for others the product of material movements of the brain, according as it is well or ill-nourished; that to some the good of life lies in every explosion and revolt, while to others it lies only in regular work under the tutelage of laws rigorously observed and madeto be observed,—we arrive at the conclusion of historical scepticism, namely, that history as usually narrated is nothing but a story woven from such a state of degeneration seems to be a return to the pure and simple reproduction of the document, or at least to the pure intuition, which introduces no element ofjudgment,or of what is calledsubjective.But this salvation is only a figure of speech, for pure intuition is poetry and not history, and to return to it is equivalent to abolishing history. This, however, is clearly impossible, for the human race has always narrated its doings, and none of us can dispense with establishing at every instant how things have happened, what has really happened, and in what actual or historical conditions he finds himself.
Restriction of variations and exclusion of apparent variations.
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 asideapparentdivergences, 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 torealdifferences) 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 makea 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.
The overcoming of variations by means of deepening the concepts.
As to the remedy, it is clear that if the divergences as to the concepts arise from ignorance, prejudice, negligence, illegitimate private or national interests, and from other disturbing passions, that is to say, frominsufficient conceiving of the concepts,or from inexact thought, the remedy is certainly not to be sought in the abandonment of concepts and of thought, but in correcting the former and making perfect the latter. Abandonment would not only be cowardly, but impossible. Having left the Eden of pure intuition and entered the field of history, it is not given us to retrace our steps. There is no returning to blessed and ingenuous ignorance; innocence is lost for ever, and we must no longer aspire to it, but to virtue, which is neither innocent nor ingenuous. Why does what seems good to the Protestant seem bad to the Catholic? Evidently, owing to the different conception that each forms as to this world and the world above us, death and life, reason and revelation, criticism and authority, and so on. It is necessary, then, to open the discussion with the enquiry as towhether the truth is with the Protestants or with the Catholics, or whether it be not found rather in a third view, which goes beyond both. Once a definite result has been obtained, perplexity will be at an end (at least for him who has attained it), and the narrative can be constructed with as much security as the available historical sources permit. The way indicated will seem hard; but it is the only way. Whoever decides to retain his own opinions, received without criticism, will perhaps provide for his own convenience, but he will renounce history and truth. For the rest, we do not here draw up a programme for the future, but simply establish what history is in its true nature, and consequently how it is manifested and hasalwaysbeen manifested. Men in every age have discussed the concepts with which historical reality has been interpreted and have agreed upon very many points, as to which there is no longer any discussion. Both Catholics and Protestants, Revolutionaries and conservatives are, as has been already remarked, more in agreement than they were formerly; because something has passed and penetrated from each to each, or rather thehumanity,which is in both, has become elevated. Scepticism accomplishes an easy task, but uses an illusory argument, in history as inphilosophy, when it catalogues the points of disagreement. These are before the eyes of all, just because they represent the problems which it is important to solve. Would it not be worth while to keep in view as of equal importance the points already solved, and to say, for example, that historians are henceforth agreed that Anchises did not sleep with Aphrodite, that the wolf did not suckle Romulus and Remus, and that William Tell did not establish the liberty of the Swiss Cantons? In short, it would not be easy to find either those who support or those who deny Mary's immaculate conception. The Catholic writers who insist upon such disputes are rare, and those who deny are found only in little democratic journals of the inferior sort or of degraded taste.
Subjectivity and objectivity in history: their meaning.
To drivesubjectivityout of history, in order to obtainobjectivity,cannot therefore mean to drive away thought to obtain intuition, or worse still, to obtain brute matter, which is altogether inexpressible; but to drive away false thought, or passion that usurps the place of truth, and to mount to true thought, rigorous and complete. If we attain to intuition, instead of saving ourselves from passion we shall burn in its flames. For intuition says nothing but what we asindividuals experience, suffer, and desire. It is just intuition which, when unduly introduced into history, becomes subjectivitysensu deteriori;whereas thought istrue subjectivity,that of the universal, which is at the same timetrue objectivity.
Historical judgments of value, and normal or neutral values. Critique.
We have thus also solved the question (so much discussed in our day) as to thecriterion of valuein history, and whether judgments of values, as well as judgments of fact belong to the province of the historian. It is solved, because true judgments of fact, individual judgments, are precisely judgments of value, or determinations of the proper quality, and therefore of the meaning and value of the fact. We admit no other criterion of value than the concept itself. For this reason, we must also reject the distinction of thehistoryof fact and thecriticism(or valuation) of it. Every history is also criticism, and every criticism is also history; to say that a thing is the fact which we call theDivine Comedyis to say what its value is, and so to criticize it. To thinknormalorneutralvalues, as to which (according to the most modern historical theories) men of different points of view should agree, seems at the most a meresymbolof that agreement which men areconstantly seeking and realizing in the subjectivity objectivity of thought. This will never be afactcompletely agreed upon, because it is a perpetualfieri.It cannot be expected of the future, because it will belong to the future, as it belongs and has belonged to the present and to the past.
Various legitimate meanings of the protests against historical subjectivity.
If the protest against the intrusion of subjectivity into history cannot logically be said to have any legitimate meaning save that of a polemic against false subjectivity in favour of true subjectivity, it may also imply, on the literary side, a question of expediency, namely, that in the historical work of art greater importance should be given to the representation of facts than to the theoretical discussion of concepts. A historical should not be transformed into a philosophical work. But this is a question that must be studied case by case; for what harm could it do, if a historian, beginning by writing a history, were to end by writing a philosophic treatise? Certainly, it would not be a greater evil than if a philosopher, becoming passionate about the facts he gives as instances, were gradually to abandon his first plan and produce a history in place of a system. At bottom it would do no harm, or very little, provided that such philosophy or such historicalrepresentation were good; and this is precisely what must be examined case by case. A more appropriate meaning of the polemic against the subjectivity of history is the recommendation that in narrating history,emphatic, negative,anddesiderativeforms should accompany logical judgments which, as such, are judgments of value, as little as possible. These forms, it is argued, are justifiable in relation to the present or immediate past, because they indicate the direction of the future, but in relation to the remote past they are usually empty and superfluous. Indeed, to rage against Marius or Sulla, Cæsar or Pompey, Frederick Barbarossa or the burgesses of Lombardy, is somewhat vain, because those historical personages have, in general, no near or practical interest. But, on the other hand, it is also true that these characters always have some near and practical interest, and in that measure we cannot prevent history, even of the remote past, being here and there revived with the accents of our present and of our future. Still more legitimate is the significance of that polemic when the intention is to blame the habit of those who assume the functions of praise or blame, in relation not only to men, but to historical events. They applaud paganism, abuseChristianity, weep over the fall of the Roman Empire, deplore the formation of Islamism, regret that Buddhism should not have been disseminated in Europe, sympathize with the Reformation, or disapprove of Catholicism after the Council of Trent. To them was addressed the saying that history is not to be judged but to be narrated. But it would be more accurate to say that history is not to be judged by the categories by which we judge the actions of individuals, which are subject to the dialectic of good and evil, because the action of an individual differs from the historical event, which transcends individual wills. But the definition of individuality and of event goes outside the gnoseology of history, and more properly belongs to the Philosophy of the Practical.[1]
The demand for a theory of historical facts.
The conviction that has been gained as to the necessity of the logical element, of concepts, criteria, or values, for the formation of narrative, has induced some to demand, not only that the historian should continually have clearly and firmly in mind the concepts that he employs and his intention in employing them, but that atheory of historical factorsor, asothers call it, atable of values,should be constructed, which should serve as foundation for historical narrative in general. The demand is exactly similar to that of the man who, observing that electricians or metal-founders employ physical forces, demands the construction of a physical theory to serve as the basis of industry; as if Physics did not exist and supply the basis for industry; or as if the sciences changed their nature, according to the men who employ them. The theory of historical factors, or the table of values, exists, and is calledPhilosophy,whose precise business it is to defineuniversals,which arefactorsand not facts, and to give the table ofvalues,which arecategories.At the most this demand might be taken to suggest the recommendation of a popular philosophy, for the use of professional historians; but this too exists and is naturalgood sense. Ahistorian who entertains doubts as to the deliverances of good sense begins to philosophize (in the restricted and professional sense of the word), and once he has done this, what is called popular philosophy no longer suffices him, or serves only to make his mental condition worse, with its insufficient nourishment. Books on the teaching of history which abound in our literature of to-day are proof of this.Disquisitions as to thepredominanceor thefundamentalcharacter of this or that historical factor belong to this popular and more or less dilettante literature. In strict philosophy, such problems do not arise, or are promptly dissolved, because it is known that, since every fact of reality depends upon another fact, so also every factor, or every constitutive element of the spirit and of reality, is such only in union with other factors and elements. None of them predominates, because measures of greater or less are not used in philosophy, and none is fundamental, because all are fundamental.
Impossibility of dividing history according to its intuitive and reflective elements.
The representative and conceptual elements in historical judgment are not separable or even, strictly, distinguishable unless it is intended to dissolve the historical narrative in order to return to pure intuition. This too is a corollary of what has been said on the individual judgment. For this reason, every division of history, based upon the presence or absence of one or other of these elements, must be held to be without truth. Of this kind is the once popular division intopicturesqueandreflectiveorthinkinghistory. But this division designates not two kinds of history, but rather, on the one hand, the return to indiscriminate intuition, and on the other, true history,which is intuition thought or reflected. The same false division is sometimes expressed in the termschronicleandhistory,ornarrativeandphilosophichistory.
Empirical nature of the division of the historical process into four stages.
Outside the individual judgment, there is neither subject nor predicate. Outside the narrative, which synthesizes representation and concept, and by representing gives existence and judgment, there is no history. Technical manuals usually divide the process of historical composition into four stages. The first isheuristic,consisting of the collection of historical material; the secondcriticismorseparationof it; the third isinterpretationorcomprehension,the fourthexpositionornarrative.These distinctions portray the professional historian's method of work.First,he examines archives and libraries,thenhe verifies the authenticity of the documents found,thenhe seeks to understand them, andfinallyhe puts his thoughts on paper and pays attention to the beauty of form of the exposition. These are doubtless useful didactic distinctions. But it must be observed that so long as we do not have a historical source before us (the first stage) the very condition of the birth of history is wanting. Hence the first stage does not belong to historical work, but to the practicalstage of him who goes in search of a material object. The second stage is already a complete historical work in itself, since it consists in establishing, whether a given fact, called sincere evidence, has really taken place. The third coincides logically with the second, since it is the same thing to ascertain the value of a piece of evidence and to pronounce on the reality and quality of the facts to which it witnesses. The fourth coincides with the second and third, because it is impossible to think a narrative without speaking it, that is, without giving to it expressive or verbal form.
Divisions founded upon the historical object.
If history be not divisible on the basis of the presence or absence of the reflective or representative element, it may well be divided by taking as basis, either the concept that determines the particular historical composition, or the representative material that enters into it.
Logical division according to the forms of the spirit.
The first mode of distinction is rigorous, because founded upon the character of unity-in-distinction, proper to the pure concept. Thus, the human mind cannot think history as a whole, save by distinguishing it at the same time into the history of doing and the history of knowing, into the history of the practical activity and the history of æsthetic production, of philosophicthought, and so on. In like manner, it cannot think any one of these distinctions, save by placing it in relation with the others, or with the whole, and thinking it in complete history. Naturally, this intimate, logical unity and distinction has nothing to do with thebookswhich are called histories of the practical, philosophic, artistic activities, and the like. There the correspondence with the division of which we speak is only approximate, owing to the operation of what we called practical or economic motives. But every historical proposition, like every individual judgment, qualifies the real according to one aspect of the concept, and excludes another, or it qualifies it indeed according to all its aspects, but distinguishes them, and therefore prevents the one from intruding upon the other. The literary division of books into books of practical, philosophic, and artistic history, and so on, gets its importance from this fundamental distinction, according to which are also divided the different points of view of historians and the various interests of their readers.
Empirical division of representative material.
The second mode is, of necessity, empirical, and cannot be carried out without the introduction of empirical concepts. For otherwise it would not be possible to keep the representationsof reality separate, since they constitute a continuous and compact series. By means of empirical concepts, history is divided into the history of the State, of the Church, of society, of the family, of religion (as distinct from philosophy), or of philosophy (as distinct from religion). Or, as the history of philosophy, it is divided into the history of idealism, of materialism, of scepticism; or as the history of art, into the history of painting, of poetry, of the drama, of fiction. Or again, as the history of civilization, it is divided into oriental history—history of Greece, of Rome, of the Middle Ages, of the Renaissance, of the Reformation, and so on. Even these last mentioned criteria (Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, etc.) are empirical concepts and not representations, because, as we know,[2]the representation is individual, and when it is made constant and general it is changed into a concept of the individual, the summary and symbol of several representations, in fact, the empirical concept. Each one of these divisions is valid in so far as it is useful; and equally valid, under a like condition, are all the divisions that have been conceived, and the infinite number that are conceivable.
Empirical concepts in history and the false theory as to the function that they have there.
But the failure to understand that the true function of the introduction of empirical concepts is to divide the mass of historical facts and to regroup them conveniently for mnemonic purposes, has greatly interfered with the ideas of logicians as to the writing of history. Just as the individual judgment presupposes neither the empirical concept, nor the judgment of classification, nor the abstract concept, nor the judgment of enumeration, whereas all these forms presuppose just the individual judgment; so history does not presuppose classifications conducted from the practical point of view, or enumerations and statistics, whereas on the other hand all of these do presuppose history, and without it could not appear. We should not be deceived by finding them fused in historical works (which continually have recourse to such aids to memory), nor allow ourselves to forget that their function issubservient,notconstitutive.There can be no abstract idea of the Greek, unless we have first known the individual life of the men called Pericles and Alcibiades. Nor can there be any enumeration of the Three Hundred of Thermopylæ or of the Three Hundred of Cremera, except in so far as each was known in his individual features, and then classified as a citizenof Sparta or a Roman of the Fabiangens.To avail oneself of these simplifications is not to narrate history, which is already present to the spirit, but to fix it in the memory and to communicate it to others in an easier way. Those others, if they have not the capacity to recover the individual fact beneath those concepts of class and of number, will understand nothing of history, thus simplified and reduced to a skeleton for the purposes of communication.
Hence comes also the claim to reduce history to a natural science;
The positivist fiction thathistory can be reduced to a science(natural science is of course meant) arises from the false interpretation of the subsidiary character of the pseudoconcepts in history and from making them a constitutive part of it. History, on this view, would be rendered a perfect example of what it has hitherto been only in imperfect outline, a classification and statistical table of reality. The many practical attempts at such a reduction have damaged contemporary historical writing not a little, by substituting colourless formulæ and empty abstractions which are applicable to several epochs at once or to all times, for the narration of individual reality. The same tendency appears in what is calledsociologism,and in its polemic against what it callspsychologicalorindividualhistory, and in favour ofinstitutionalorsocialhistory. Against these materialistic reductions of history, the doctrines ofaccidentor oflittle causeswhich upset the effects ofgreatcauses, are efficacious and valuable, for these and suchlike absurdities have the merit of reducing that false reduction to absurdity.
and the thesis of the practical character of history.
By reason of the same erroneous interpretation there has come from philosophers who are not positivists, the theory that history is rendered possible only by the intervention ofthe practicalspirit. On this view, the practical spirit, after establishing practical values, arranges beneath them the formless material and shapes it into historical narrative. But the practical spirit is impotent to produce anything in the field of knowledge; it can act only as the custodian and administrator of what has already been produced. For this reason, the theory here referred to, by appealing to the practical spirit, resolves itself into a complete negation of the value of history as knowledge. And this negation, though it was certainly not foreseen or desired by those who maintain the theory, yet is unavoidable.
Distinction between historical facts and facts that are not historical, and its empirical value.
In this connection, there has also been maintained the importance of the distinction between historical events and events not worthyof history, between historical and non-historical, or between teleological and ateleological personages. Such a distinction, it has been affirmed, is afforded by the practical spirit. This is true, but for the reason already given, it amounts to removing all theoretical importance from the distinction, by emptying it of all cognitive content. In reality, for the practical economy of social work, for selecting subjects for books, or for being easily understood in our own speech, it is necessary to speak of a definite event or of a definite individual as a thing and person altogether common and unworthy of history. But it asks the brain of a pedant to imagine that the individual or the event has thereby been suppressed, we do not say from the field of reality (which would be too manifestly absurd), but from that of thenarrative of reality,or from history. What is understood forms part of what is said; and if we did not always imply a mental reference to the men we call commonplace, and to insignificant facts, which are more or less excluded from our words, great men and significant events would also lose all meaning. Such implications are so little eliminated or eliminable, that they break out and are even verbally expressed, according to the variousinterests that determine books on history at various times. Thus we have seen domestic and social life, neglected by the old historians, not only gradually assume importance, but throw wars and diplomatic negotiations into the shade. We have seen the so-called masses, neglected in favour of the individual genius, in their turn conquer, and almost eclipse, the heroes (which does not mean that these latter will not have their revenge). We have seen names, once hardly mentioned, become attractive and popular, and others, at one time celebrated, lose their colour and disappear from view. Even Italian histories of the most recent events afford instances of such fluctuations. For instance, in the period of the Risorgimento, the prevailing interest regarded as supremely important and historical, the formation of Italian nationality, the constitution of the middle class and of the commune, and popular rebellions against foreigners or against tyrants. Now it is the social problem and the socialist movement that dominate, and preference is given to histories of economic facts, of class struggles and of movements of the proletariat.
Professional prejudice and the theory of the practical character of history.
Practical preoccupations are so strong with any one engaged in a given trade, even though it is that of a maker of books of history, as tosuggest almost inevitably the strange doctrine of thepracticalcharacter of history, or the non-theoretic character of that form, which is the crowning result of the theoretic spirit, and which alone gives full truth—if truth is the Knowledge of Reality, and if Reality is history.
[1]See on this point myPhilosophy of the Practical,part i. sect. ii. chaps, v.-vi.
[1]See on this point myPhilosophy of the Practical,part i. sect. ii. chaps, v.-vi.
[2]See above, Part I. Sect. I.Chap. IV.
[2]See above, Part I. Sect. I.Chap. IV.
Necessity of the historical element in philosophy.
The necessity of philosophy as a condition of history has been made evident from the preceding considerations. It is now necessary to affirm with no less clearness the necessity of history for philosophy. If history is impossible without the logical, that is, the philosophical, element, philosophy is not possible without the intuitive, or historical element.
For a philosophic proposition, or definition, or system (as we have called it), appears in the soul of a definite individual at a definite point of time and space and in definite conditions. It is therefore historically conditioned. Without the historical conditions that demand it, the system would not be what it is. The Kantian philosophy was impossible at the time of Pericles, because it presupposes, for instance, exact natural science, which developed from the Renaissance onward. And this presupposes geographicaldiscoveries, industry, capitalist or civil society, and so on. It presupposes the scepticism of David Hume, which in its turn presupposes the deism of the beginning of the eighteenth century, which in its turn is connected with the religious struggles in England and in all Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and so on. On the other hand, if Kant were to live again in our time, he could not write theCritique of Pure Reasonwithout modifications so profound as to make of it, not only a new book, but an altogether new philosophy, though containing within itself his old philosophy. Stiff with old age, he was even capable of ignoring the interpretations and developments of Fichte, and of ignoring Schelling. But to-day he could not ignore either of these, nor Hegel, nor Herbart, nor Schopenhauer. He could not even ignore the representatives of the mediæval philosophy, which followed the classical period of modern philosophy; the authors of positivist myths, Kantian and Hegelian scholastics, the new combinations of Platonism and Aristotelianism, that is, of pre-Kantian with post-Kantian philosophy, the new sophists and sceptics, the new Plotinians and Mystics, nor the states of soul and the facts, which condition all thesethings. For the rest, Kant truly lives again in our days, with a different name (and what is individuality, countersigned with the name, save a juxtaposition of syllables?) He is the philosopher of our times, in whom is continued that philosophic thought, which once took, among others, the Scoto-German name of Kant. And the philosopher of our day, whether he will it or no, cannot abandon the historical conditions in which he lives, or so act as to make that not to have happened which happened before his time. Those events are in his bones, in his flesh and blood, and it is impossible to drive them out. He must therefore take account of them, that is, know them historically. The breadth of his philosophy will depend upon the breadth of his historical knowledge. If he did not know them, but merely carried them in him as facts of life, his condition would not differ from that of any animal (or of ourselves in so far as we are animals or beings that are, or rather seem to be, completely immersed in will and practice). For the animal is precisely conditioned by the whole of nature and the whole of history, but does not know it. The meaning of the demand must therefore be understood that a truthful answer may be obtained.Historymust be known in order to obtain the truth ofphilosophy.
Historical quality of the culture required in the philosopher.
This demand is usually expressed in the formula that the philosopher must be cultured, though it is not clear what is the quality of this culture that is said to be requisite. Some, especially in our own days, would wish the philosopher to be a physiologist, a physicist, a mathematician, that is, that his brain should be full of abstractions, which are certainly not useless (everything is worth knowing, even the triviality of girls, for even that is a part of life and of reality), but which are in no direct relation to that form of knowledge which must be the condition of philosophy. This form of knowledge is, on the contrary, history; or, as it is said (with ana potioriintention), the history of philosophy, which of necessity as the history of a moment of the spirit, includes all history in itself, as we have shown above, when criticizing the divisions of history. That is to say, it is necessary to know the meaning of the problems of our own time, and this implies knowing also those of the past, in order not to take the former for the latter and so cause inextricable confusion. And to the extent that they can be of use according to the requirements of the problem,we must know also the natural, physical, and mathematical sciences. But we mustnotknow themas stickand develop them as such, but ratheras historical knowledgeconcerning the state of the natural sciences, of physics, and of mathematics, in order to understand the problems that they help to raise for philosophy.
Apparent objections.
It is vain to set against this the example of great philosophers without historical culture, as it is vain in the case of the necessity of historical knowledge for æsthetic criticism to bring forward instances of those who, although without any historical knowledge, have yet given far more true and more profound judgments upon art than the historically learned. If those judgments are true, then the critic supposed to be ignorant of history is not ignorant of it. He has somehow absorbed, scented in the air, divined with rapid perception those actual facts that were applicable to the given case. And, on the other hand, the so-called learned man will not be cultured, because his erudition is not lively and synthetic. The same happens in the case of those acute philosophers, who are said to be ignorant of the world and of history and of the thoughts of other philosophers. It cannot be denied that much or little history may be learned outsidethe usual course of teaching by manuals and by orderly mnemonic methods. But here, too, the exceptional mode of learning confirms the rule and does not obviate the usefulness for the majority of the customary modes of learning. On the other hand, if he who is said empirically to be without historical knowledge, but is not so in a given instance, should nevertheless prove really ignorant in other instances, where his unusual way of learning is not open to him, his philosophy also suffers. For this reason, those philosophers who are ignorant of history exhibit deficiencies that have often been deplored. They burst open doors already opened, they do not avail themselves of important results, they ignore grave difficulties and objections, they fail to probe certain problems sufficiently deeply, and show themselves too insecure and too superficial in others, and so on. Thus is the customary learning of history avenged upon them: and Herbert Spencer, who would never read Plato or Kant, is rejected, while Schelling and Hegel are again in the hands of students.
Communication of history as changing of history.
Philosophy also changes with the change of history, and since history changes at every moment, philosophy at every moment is new. This can be observed even in the fact of thecommunication of philosophy from one individual to another by means of speech or writing. Change at once takes place in that transmission. When we have simply created again in ourselves the thought of a philosopher, we are in the same condition as he who has enjoyed a sonnet or a melody, by suiting his spirit to that of the poet or composer. But this does not suffice in philosophy. We may attain to ecstasy by the recitation of a poem or the execution of a piece of music, just as it is, without altering it anywhere. But it does not seem possible to possess a philosophic proposition, save when we havetranslatedit, as we say,into our own language,when in reality, relying upon its results, we formulate new philosophic propositions and solve new problems that have presented themselves in our souls. For this reason no book ever completely satisfies us. Every book quenches one thirst, only to give us a new one. So true is this, that when we have finished reading or are in course of reading, we often regret that it is impossible to speak with the author. We are led to say, like Socrates in thePhædrus,[1]that written discourses are like pictures and do not answer questions, but always repeat what has alreadybeen said. Or we lose patience, like that Paduan professor of the fifteenth century, who, commenting on the jurist Paolo, and annoyed at the difficulties, exclaimed at a certain point:"Iste maledictus Paulus tam obscure loquitur ut, si haberem eum in manibus, eum per capillos interrogarem!"But if instead of the dumb book, we had before us a living man, a Paolo obliged to be clear, the process would still be the same: his speech would be translated into our speech, his problem would arouse in our spirit our own problem.