Introduction to the Study of History Part 11

V. A series, even a complete series, of all the states of all societies and of all their evolutions would not be enough to exhaust the subject-matter of history. There remains a number of unique facts which we cannot pa.s.s over, because they explain the origin of certain states of society, and form the starting-points of evolutions. How could we study the inst.i.tutions or the evolution of France if we ignored the conquest of Gaul by Caesar and the invasion of the Barbarians?

This necessity of studying unique facts has caused it to be said that history cannot be a science, for every science has for its object that which is general. History is here in the same situation as cosmography, geology, the science of animal species: it is not the abstract knowledge of the general relations between facts, it is a study which aims at _explaining_ reality. Now, reality exists but once. There has been but a single evolution of the world, of animal life, of humanity. In each of these evolutions the successive facts have not been the product of abstract laws, but of the concurrence, at each moment, of several circ.u.mstances of different nature. This concurrence, sometimes called chance, has produced a series of accidents which have determined the particular course taken by evolution.[195] Evolution can only be understood by the study of these accidents; history is here on the same footing as geology or palaeontology.

Thus scientific history may go back to the accidents, or events, which traditional history collected for literary reasons, because they struck the imagination, and employ them for the study of evolution. We may thus look for the facts which have influenced the evolution of each one of the habits of humanity. Each event will be arranged under its date in the evolution which it is supposed to have influenced. It will then suffice to bring together the events of every kind, and to arrange them in chronological and geographical order, to have a representation of historical evolution as a whole.

Then, over and above the _special_ histories in which the facts are arranged under purely abstract categories (art, religion, private life, political inst.i.tutions), we shall have constructed a concrete _general_ history, which will connect together the various special histories by exhibiting the main stream of evolution which has dominated all the special evolutions. None of the species of facts which we study apart (religion, art, law, const.i.tutions) forms a closed world within which evolution takes place in obedience to a kind of internal impulse, as specialists are p.r.o.ne to imagine. The evolution of a usage or of an inst.i.tution (language, religion, church, state) is only a metaphor; a usage is an abstraction, abstractions do not evolve; it is only _existences_ that evolve, in the strict sense of the word.[196] When a change takes place in a usage, this means that the men who practise it have changed. Now, men are not built in water-tight compartments (religious, juridical, economic) within which phenomena can occur in isolation; an event which modifies the condition of a man changes his habits in a great variety of respects. The invasion of the Barbarians influenced alike language, private life, and political inst.i.tutions. We cannot, therefore, understand evolution by confining ourselves to a special branch of history; the specialist, even for the purpose of writing the complete history of his own branch, must look beyond the confines of his own subject into the field of general events. It is the merit of Taine to have a.s.serted, with reference to English literature, that literary evolution depends, not on literary events, but on facts of a general character.

The general history of individual facts was developed before the special histories. It contains the residue of facts which have not found a place in the special histories, and has been reduced in extent by the formation and detachment of special branches. As general facts are princ.i.p.ally of a political nature, and as it is more difficult to organise these into a special branch, general history has in practice been confounded with political history (_Staatengeschichte_).[197] Thus political historians have been led to make themselves the champions of general history, and to retain in their constructions all the general facts (migrations of peoples, religious reforms, inventions, and discoveries) necessary for the understanding of political evolution.

In order to construct general history it is necessary to look for all the facts which, because they have produced changes, can explain either the state of a society or one of its evolutions. We must search for them among all cla.s.ses of facts, displacements of population, artistic, scientific, religious, technical innovations, changes in the _personnel_ of government, revolutions, wars, discoveries of countries.

That which is important is that the fact should have had a decisive influence. We must therefore resist the natural temptation to divide facts into great and small. It goes against the grain to admit that great effects may have had small causes, that Cleopatra's nose may have made a difference to the Roman Empire. This repugnance is of a metaphysical order; it springs from a preconceived opinion on the government of the world. In all the sciences which deal with an evolution we find individual facts which serve as starting-points for series of vast transformations. A drove of horses brought by the Spanish has stocked the whole of South America. In a flood a branch of a tree may dam a current and transform the aspect of a valley.

In human evolution we meet with great transformations which have no intelligible cause beyond an individual accident.[198] In the sixteenth century England changed its religion three times on the death of a sovereign (Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary). Importance not to be measured by the initial fact, but by the facts which resulted from it. We must not, therefore, deny _a priori_ the action of individuals and discard individual facts. We must examine whether a given individual was in a position to make his influence strongly felt. There are two cases in which we may a.s.sume that he was: (1) when his action served as an example to a ma.s.s of men and created a tradition, a case frequent in art, science, religion, and technical matters; (2) when he had power to issue commands and direct the actions of a ma.s.s of men, as is the case with the heads of a state, an army, or a church. The episodes in a man's life may thus become important facts.

Accordingly, in the scheme of historical cla.s.sification a place should be a.s.signed for persons and events.

VI. In every study of successive facts it is necessary to provide a number of halting-places, to distinguish beginnings and ends, in order that chronological divisions may be made in the enormous ma.s.s of facts.

These divisions are _periods_; the use of them is as old as history. We need them, not only in general history, but in the special branches of history as well, whenever we study an extent of time long enough for an evolution to be sensible. It is by means of events that we fix their limits.

In the special branches of history, after having decided what changes of habits are to be considered as reaching deepest, we adopt them as marking _dates_ in the evolution; we then inquire what event produced them. The event which led to the formation or the change of a habit becomes the beginning or the end of a period. Sometimes these boundary events are of the same species as the facts whose evolution we are studying--literary facts in the history of literature, political facts in political history. But more often they belong to a different species, and the special historian is obliged to borrow them from general history.

In general history the periods should be divided according to the evolution of several species of phenomena; we look for events which mark an epoch simultaneously in several branches (the Invasion of the Barbarians, the Reformation, the French Revolution). We may thus construct periods which are common to several branches of evolution, whose beginning and whose end are each marked by a single event. It is thus that the traditional division of universal history into periods has been effected. The sub-periods are obtained by the same process, by taking for limits events which have produced consequences of secondary importance.

The periods which are thus constructed according to the events are of unequal duration. We must not be troubled by this want of symmetry; a period ought not to be a fixed number of years, but the time occupied by a distinct phase of evolution. Now, evolution is not a regular movement; sometimes a long series of years pa.s.ses without notable change, then come moments of rapid transformation. On this difference Saint-Simon has founded a distinction between _organic_ periods (of slow change) and _critical_ periods (of rapid change).

CHAPTER III

CONSTRUCTIVE REASONING

I. The historical facts supplied by doc.u.ments are never enough to fill all the blanks in such schemes of cla.s.sification and arrangement as we have been considering. There are many questions to which no direct answer is given by the doc.u.ments; many features are lacking without which the complete picture of the various states of society, of evolutions and events, cannot be given. We are irresistibly impelled to endeavour to fill up these gaps.

In the sciences of direct observation, when a fact is missing from a series, it is sought for by a new observation. In history, where we have not this resource, we seek to extend our knowledge by the help of reasoning. Starting from facts known to us from the doc.u.ments, we endeavour to reach new facts by inference. If the reasoning be correct, this method of acquiring knowledge is legitimate.

But experience shows that of all the methods of acquiring historical knowledge, reasoning is the most difficult to employ correctly, and the one which has introduced the most serious errors. It should not be used without the safeguard of a number of precautions calculated to keep the danger continually before the mind.

(1) Reasoning should never be combined with the a.n.a.lysis of a doc.u.ment.

The reader who allows himself to introduce into a text what the author has not expressly put there ends by making him say what he never intended to say.[199]

(2) Facts obtained by the direct examination of doc.u.ments should never be confused with the results obtained by reasoning. When we state a fact known to us by reasoning only, we must not allow it to be supposed that we have found it in the doc.u.ments; we must disclose the method by which we have obtained it.

(3) Unconscious reasoning must never be allowed; there are too many chances of error. It will be enough to make a point of putting every argument into logical form; in the case of bad reasoning the major premiss is generally monstrous to an appalling degree.

(4) If the reasoning leaves the least doubt, no attempt must be made to draw a conclusion; the point treated must be left in the conjectural stage, clearly distinguished from the definitively established results.

(5) It is not permissible to return to a conjecture and endeavour to transform it into a certainty. Here the first impression is most likely to be right. By reflection upon a conjecture we familiarise ourselves with it, and end by thinking it better established; while the truth is, we are merely more accustomed to it. This is a frequent mishap with those who devote themselves to long meditation on a small number of texts.

There are two ways of employing reasoning, one negative, the other positive; we shall examine them separately.

II. The negative mode of reasoning, called also the "argument from silence," is based on the absence of indications with regard to a fact.[200] From the circ.u.mstance of the fact not being mentioned in any doc.u.ment it is inferred that there was no such fact; the argument is applied to all kinds of subjects, usages of every description, evolutions, events. It rests on a feeling which in ordinary life is expressed by saying: "If it were true, we should have heard of it;" it implies a general proposition which may be formulated thus: "If an alleged event really had occurred, there would be some doc.u.ment in existence in which it would be referred to."

In order that such reasoning should be justified it would be necessary that every fact should have been observed and recorded in writing, and that all the records should have been preserved. Now, the greater part of the doc.u.ments which have been written have been lost, and the greater part of the events which happen are not recorded in writing. In the majority of cases the argument would be invalid. It must therefore be restricted to the cases where the conditions implied in it have been fulfilled.

(1) It is necessary not only that there should be now no doc.u.ments in existence which mention the fact in question, but that there should never have been any. If the doc.u.ments are lost we can conclude nothing.

The argument from silence ought, therefore, to be employed the more rarely the greater the number of doc.u.ments that have been lost; it is of much less use in ancient history than in dealing with the nineteenth century. Some, desiring to free themselves from this restriction, are tempted to a.s.sume that the lost doc.u.ments contained nothing interesting; if they were lost, say they, the reason was that they were not worth preserving. But the truth is, every ma.n.u.script is at the mercy of the least accident; its preservation or destruction is a matter of pure chance.

(2) The fact must have been of such a kind that it could not fail to be observed and recorded. Because a fact has not been recorded it does not follow that it has not been observed. Any one who is concerned in an organisation for the collection of a particular species of facts knows how much commoner those facts are than people think, and how many cases pa.s.s unnoticed or without leaving any written trace. It is so with earthquakes, cases of hydrophobia, whales stranded on the sh.o.r.e.

Besides, many facts, even those which are well known to those who are contemporary with them, are not recorded, because the official authorities prevent their publication; this is what happens to the secret acts of governments and the complaints of the lower cla.s.ses. This silence, which proves nothing, greatly impresses unreflecting historians; it is the origin of the widespread sophism of the "good old times." No doc.u.ment relates any abuse of power by officials or any complaints made by peasants; therefore, everything was regular and n.o.body was suffering. Before we argue from silence we should ask: Might not this fact have failed to be recorded in any of the doc.u.ments we possess? That which is conclusive is not the absence of any doc.u.ment on a given fact, but silence as to the fact in a doc.u.ment in which it would naturally be mentioned.

The negative argument is thus limited to a few clearly defined cases.

(1) The author of the doc.u.ment in which the fact is not mentioned had the intention of systematically recording all the facts of the same cla.s.s, and must have been acquainted with all of them. (Tacitus sought to enumerate the peoples of Germany; the _Not.i.tia dignitatum_ mentioned all the provinces of the Empire; the absence from these lists of a people or a province proves that it did not then exist.) (2) The fact, if it was such, must have affected the author's imagination so forcibly as necessarily to enter into his conceptions. (If there had been regular a.s.semblies of the Frankish people, Gregory of Tours could not have conceived and described the life of the Frankish kings without mentioning them.)

III. The positive mode of reasoning begins with a fact established by the doc.u.ments, and infers some other fact which the doc.u.ments do not mention. It is an application of the fundamental principle of history, the _a.n.a.logy_ between present and past humanity. In the present we observe that the facts of humanity are connected together. Given one fact, another fact accompanies it, either because the first is the cause of the second, or because the second is the cause of the first, or because both are effects of a common cause. We a.s.sume that in the past similar facts were connected in a similar manner, and this a.s.sumption is corroborated by the direct study of the past in the doc.u.ments. From a given fact, therefore, which we find in the past, we may infer the existence of the other facts which were connected with it.

This reasoning applies to facts of all kinds, usages, transformations, individual incidents. We may begin with any known fact and endeavour to infer unknown facts from it. Now the facts of humanity, having a common centre, man, are all connected together, not merely facts of the same cla.s.s, but facts belonging to the most widely different cla.s.ses. There are connections, not merely between the different facts relating to art, to religion, to manners, to politics, but between the facts of religion on the one hand and the facts of art, of politics, and of manners on the other; thus from a fact of one species we may infer facts of all the other species.

To examine those connections between facts on which reasonings may be founded would mean tabulating all the known relations between the facts of humanity, that is, giving a full account of all the empirical laws of social life. Such a labour would provide matter for a whole book.[201]

Here we shall content ourselves with indicating the general rules governing this kind of reasoning, and the precautions to be taken against the most common errors.

The argument rests on two propositions: one is general, and is derived from experience of human affairs; the other is particular, and is derived from the doc.u.ments. In practice, we begin with the particular proposition, the historical fact: Salamis bears a Phoenician name. We then look for a general proposition: the language of the name of a city is the language of the people which founded it. And we conclude: Salamis, bearing a Phoenician name, was founded by the Phoenicians.

In order that the conclusion may be certain, two conditions are necessary.

(1) The general proposition must be accurately true; the two facts which it declares to be connected must be connected in such a way that the one is never found without the other. If this condition were completely satisfied we should have a _law_, in the scientific sense of the word; but in dealing with the facts of humanity--apart from those physical conditions whose laws are established by the regular sciences--we can only work with empirical laws obtained by rough determinations of general facts which are not a.n.a.lysed in such a manner as to educe their true causes. These empirical laws are approximately true only when they relate to a numerous body of facts, for we can never quite know how far each is necessary to produce the result. The proposition relating to the language of the name of a city does not go enough into detail to be always true. Petersburg is a German name, Syracuse in America bears a Greek name. Other conditions must be fulfilled before we can be sure that the name is connected with the nationality of the founders. We should, therefore, only employ such propositions as go into detail.

(2) In order to employ a general proposition which goes into detail, we must have a detailed knowledge of the particular fact; for it is not till after this fact has been established that we look for an empirical general law on which to found an argument. We shall begin, then, by studying the particular conditions of the case (the situation of Salamis, the habits of the Greeks and Phoenicians); we shall not work on a single detail, but on an a.s.semblage of details.

Thus, in historical reasoning it is necessary to have (1) an accurate general proposition; (2) a detailed knowledge of a past fact. It is bad workmans.h.i.+p to a.s.sume a false general proposition--to suppose, for example, as Augustin Thierry did, that every aristocracy had its origin in a conquest. It is bad workmans.h.i.+p, again, to found an argument on an isolated detail (the name of a city). The nature of these errors indicates the precautions to be taken.

(1) The spontaneous tendency is to take as a basis of reasoning those "common-sense truths" which form nearly the whole of our knowledge of social life. Now, the greater part of these are to some extent false, for the science of social life is still imperfect. And the chief danger in them lies in the circ.u.mstance that we use them unconsciously. The safest precaution will be always to formulate the supposed law on which we propose to base an argument. In every instance where such and such a fact occurs, it is certain that such and such another fact occurs also.

If this proposition is obviously false, we shall at once see it to be so; if it is too general, we shall inquire what new conditions may be introduced to make it accurate.

(2) A second spontaneous impulse leads us to draw consequences from isolated facts, even of the slightest kind (or rather, the idea of each fact awakens in us, by a.s.sociation, the idea of other facts). This is the natural procedure in the history of literature. Each circ.u.mstance in the life of an author supplies material for reasoning; we construct by conjecture all the influences which could have acted upon him, and we a.s.sume that they did act upon him. All the branches of history which study a single species of facts, isolated from every other species (language, arts, private law, religion), are exposed to the same danger, because they deal with fragments of human life, not with comprehensive collections of phenomena. But few conclusions are firmly established except those which rest on a comprehensive body of data. We do not make a diagnosis from a single symptom, but from a number of concurrent symptoms. The precaution to be taken will be to avoid working with an isolated detail or an abstract fact. We must have before our minds actual men, as affected by the princ.i.p.al conditions under which they lived.

We must be prepared to realise but rarely the conditions of a certain inference; we are too little acquainted with the laws of social life, and too seldom know the precise details of an historical fact. Thus most of our reasonings will only afford presumptions, not certainties. But it is with reasonings as with doc.u.ments.[202] When several presumptions all point in the same direction they confirm each other, and end by producing a legitimate cert.i.tude. History fills up some of its gaps by an acc.u.mulation of reasonings. Doubts remain as to the Phoenician origin of various Greek cities, but there is no doubt about the presence of the Phoenicians in Greece.

CHAPTER IV