{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_58179/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_58179","id":"gutenberg_58179","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58179","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","History -- Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by Turgut Dincer, Martin Pettit and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PURPOSE OF HISTORY\n\n\nCOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS\nSALES AGENTS\n\nNEW YORK:\nLEMCKE & BUECHNER\n30-32 WEST 27TH STREET\n\nLONDON:\nHUMPHREY MILFORD\nAMEN CORNER, E. C.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PURPOSE OF HISTORY\n\nBY\nFREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE\n\n[Illustration: Logo]\n\nNew York\nCOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS\n1916\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\nCopyright, 1916,\nBY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS.\n\nPrinted from type, July, 1916.\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\n\nThis book contains three lectures delivered at the University of North\nCarolina on the McNair Foundation in March of the current year. It\nexpresses certain conclusions about history to which I have been led by\nthe study of the history of philosophy and by reflection on the work of\ncontemporary philosophers, especially Bergson, Dewey, and Santayana.\n\nI am happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Faculty and Students of\nthe University of North Carolina for a most delightful visit at Chapel\nHill.\n\nF. J. E. W.\n\nCOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY\nIN THE CITY OF NEW YORK\nJUNE, 1916\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  I. FROM HISTORY TO PHILOSOPHY      1\n\n II. THE PLURALISM OF HISTORY       27\n\nIII. THE CONTINUITY OF HISTORY      58\n\n\n\n\nTHE PURPOSE OF HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nFROM HISTORY TO PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nThe serious study of history is characteristic of a certain maturity of\nmind. For the intellectually young, the world is too new and attractive\nto arouse in them a very absorbing interest in its past. Life is for\nthem an adventure, and the world is a place for excursions and\nexperiences. They care little about what men have done, but much about\nwhat they might do. History, to interest them, must be written as a\nromance which will fire their imagination, rather than as a philosophy\nwhich might make them wise. But maturity, somewhat disciplined and\ndisillusioned, confirms the suspicion, which even youth entertains at\ntimes, that the world, while offering an opportunity, hedges the offer\nabout with restrictions which must be understood and submitted to, if\neffort is to be crowned with success. The mature may thus become eager\nto understand life without ceasing to enjoy it. They may become\nphilosophical and show their wisdom by a desire to sympathize with what\nmen have done and to live rationally in the light of what is possible.\nThey may study history, convinced that it enlarges their sympathies and\npromotes rational living.\n\nWe might, therefore, conclude that the prevailing interest in historical\nstudies is a sign that the age is growing in maturity and is seeking an\noutlook upon life which is both sane and encouraging. This may well be\ntrue. But even if the study of history indicate a certain maturity of\nmind, it is not a guarantee that history will not be studied in the\nspirit of youth. History may do little more than afford a new world for\nwild adventure and undisciplined experience. Moreover, maturity is not\nnecessarily wise. Disgust, revolt, and loss of sympathy are not always\nstrangers to it. Historical studies may be pursued with little\ncomprehension of their aim or meaning; and history may be taught with\nlittle reflection on its philosophical significance. It would appear,\ntherefore, that the study of history itself affords an opportunity for\nphilosophical inquiry, and may profitably stimulate questions about the\ncharacter of those facts with which history is concerned.\n\nIn these lectures I intend to deal with the purpose of history. I would\nnot, however, be misunderstood. My aim is not, by making another attempt\nto find the increasing purpose running through the ages, to win\npermanently the laurel which, hitherto, ambitious philosophers have worn\nonly for a season. There is, no doubt, a kind of rapture in seeing\nhistory as St. Augustine saw it,--the progress of the City of God from\nearth to heaven; and there is a kind of pride not wholly ignoble, in\nseeing it as Hegel did,--the vibrating evolution from the brooding\nabsolution of the East to the self-conscious freedom of one's own\nphilosophy embraced and made universal by the civilizing energy of one's\nown state. My aim is more modest. It is not romantic, but technical.\nMetaphysics rather than poetry is to be my domain, although I cherish\nthe hope that poetry may not, therefore, be misprized. If it may\nultimately appear, not only as an ornament to living, but also as an\nexemplary method of living well, I may even now invoke the Muses to my\naid, but Clio first, and, afterwards, Calliope. It is my aim, through an\nexamination of what the historian himself proposes, to discover in what\nsense the idea of purpose in history is appropriate, and to what ideas\nwe are led when we think of history as the record of human progress.\n\nThe conclusions I hope to clarify, I may here anticipate. There is\ndiscoverable in history no purpose, if we mean by purpose some future\nevent towards which the whole creation moves and which past and present\nevents portend; but there is purpose in history, if we mean that the\npast is utilized as material for the progressive realization, at least\nby man, of what we call spiritual ends. More generally, history is\nitself essentially the utilization of the past for ends, ends not\nnecessarily foreseen, but ends to come, so that every historical thing,\nwhen we view it retrospectively, has the appearance of a result which\nhas been selected, and to which its antecedents are exclusively\nappropriate. In that sense purpose is discoverable in history. But this\npurpose is not single. History is pluralistic and implies a pluralistic\nphilosophy. There are many histories, but no one of them exists to the\nprejudice of any other. And, finally, progress is not aptly conceived as\nan evolution from the past into the future. Evolution is, rather, only a\nname for historical continuity, and this continuity itself is a fact to\nbe investigated and not a theory which explains anything, or affords a\nstandard of value. The past is not the cause or beginning of the\npresent, but the effect and result of history; so that every historical\nthing leaves, as it were, its past behind it as the record of its life\nin time. Progress may mean material progress when we have in mind the\nimprovement in efficiency of the instruments man uses to promote his\nwell-being; it may mean rational progress when we have in mind the\nidealization of his natural impulses. Then he frames in his imagination\nideal ends which he can intelligently pursue and which, through the\nattempt to realize them, justify his labors. Such are the conclusions I\nhope to clarify, and I shall begin by considering the purpose men\nentertain when they write histories.\n\nIt is natural to quote Herodotus. The Father of History seems to have\nbeen conscious of his purpose and to have expressed it. We are told that\nhe gave his history to the world \"in order that the things men have done\nmight not in time be forgotten, and that the great and wonderful deeds\nof both Greeks and barbarians might not become unheard of,--this, and\nwhy they fought with one another.\" This statement seems to be, in\nprinciple, an adequate expression of the purpose of writing histories,\neven if Herodotus did not execute that purpose with fidelity. The\nlimitations of its specific terms are obvious. One might expect that the\ngreat deeds were mainly exploits at arms, that the history would be\nmilitary, and that the causes exposed would be causes of war. But the\nhistory itself deals with geography and climate, with manners, customs,\ntraditions, and institutions, fully as much as with heroes and battles.\nProfessor Gilbert Murray says of it: \"His work is not only an account of\na thrilling struggle, politically very important, and spiritually\ntremendous; it is also, more perhaps than any other known book, the\nexpression of a whole man, the representation of all the world seen\nthrough the medium of one mind and in a particular perspective. The\nworld was at that time very interesting; and the one mind, while\nstrongly individual, was one of the most comprehensive known to human\nrecords. Herodotus's whole method is highly subjective. He is too\nsympathetic to be consistently critical, or to remain cold towards the\nearnest superstitions of people about him: he shares from the outset\ntheir tendency to read the activity of a moral God in all the moving\nevents of history. He is sanguine, sensitive, a lover of human nature,\ninterested in details if they are vital to his story, oblivious of them\nif they are only facts and figures; he catches quickly the atmosphere of\nthe society he moves in, and falls readily under the spell of great\nhuman influences, the solid impersonal Egyptian hierarchy or the\ndazzling circle of great individuals at Athens; yet all the time shrewd,\ncool, gentle in judgment, deeply and unconsciously convinced of the\nweakness of human nature, the flaws of its heroism and the excusableness\nof its apparent villainy. His book bears for good and ill the stamp of\nthis character and this profession.\"[1]\n\nThe history of Herodotus would, then, preserve a record of the world of\nhuman affairs as he discovered it and an exposition of the causes and\nconditions which have influenced human action. He would record what men\nhave done in order that their deeds might be remembered and in order\nthat they might be understood. Like all other historians he had his\nindividual limitations, but for all of them he seems to have expressed\nthe purpose of their inquiries. That purpose may be worked out in many\ndifferent fields. We may have military history, political history,\nindustrial history, economic history, religious history, the history of\ncivilization, of education, and of philosophy, the history, indeed, of\nany human enterprise whatever. But always the purpose is the same, to\npreserve a faithful record and to promote the understanding of what has\nhappened in the affairs of men. I need hardly add that, for the present,\nI am restricting history to human history. Its wider signification will\nnot be neglected, but I make the present limitation in order that\nthrough a consideration of the writing of human history, we may be led\non to the conception of history in its more comprehensive form.\n\nTo conceive the purpose of writing history adequately is not the same\nthing as to execute that purpose faithfully. If Herodotus may be cited\nin illustration of the adequate conception, he will hardly be cited by\nhistorians in illustration of its faithful execution. They have\ncomplained of him from time to time ever since Thucydides first accused\nhim of caring more about pleasing his readers than about telling the\ntruth. He is blamed principally for his credulity and for his lack of\ncriticism. Credulous he was and less critical than one could wish, but\nit is well to remember, in any just estimate of him, that he was much\nless credulous and much more critical than we should naturally expect a\nman of his time to be. He wrote in an age when men generally believed\nspontaneously things which we, since we reflect, can not believe, and\nwhen it was more congenial to listen to a story than to indulge in the\ncriticism of it. He frequently expresses disbelief of what he has been\ntold and is often at great pains to verify what he has heard. With all\nhis faults he remains among the extraordinary men.\n\nThese faults, when they are sympathetically examined, indicate far less\nblemishes in the character of Herodotus than they do the practical and\nmoral difficulties which beset the faithful writing of all history. That\nis why he is so illustrative for our purpose. A faithful and true record\nis the first thing the historian desires, but it is a very difficult\nthing to obtain. Human testimony even in the presence of searching\ncross-examination is notoriously fallible, and the dumb records of the\npast, with all their variations and contradictions, present a stolid\nindifference to our curiosity. The questions we ask of the dead, only we\nourselves can answer. Herodotus wrote with these practical and moral\ndifficulties at a maximum. We have learned systematically to combat\nthem. There has grown up for our benefit an abundant literature which\nwould instruct the historian how best to proceed. The methods of\nhistorians, their failures and successes, have been carefully studied\nwith the result that we have an elaborate science of writing history\nwhich we call historiography. Therein one may learn how to estimate\nsources, deal with documents, weigh evidence, detect causes, and be\nwarned against the errors to which one is liable. Moreover,\nanthropology, arch\u00e6ology, and psychology have come to the historian's\naid to help him in keeping his path as clear and unobstructed as\npossible. In other words, history has become more easy and more\ndifficult to write than it was in the days of Herodotus. The better\nunderstanding of its difficulties and of the ways to meet them has made\nit more easy; but the widening of its scope has made it more difficult.\nWe still face the contrast between the adequate conception of the\npurpose of writing history and the faithful execution of that purpose.\nBut it would seem that only practical and moral difficulties stand in\nthe way of successful performance. Ideally, at least, a perfect history\nseems to be conceivable.\n\nIt is, indeed, conceivable that with adequate data, with a wise and\nunbiased mind, and with a moderate supply of genius, an historian might\nfaithfully record the events with which he deals, and make us understand\nhow they happened. It is conceivable because it has in many cases been\nso closely approximated. Our standards of judgment and appraisement here\nare doubtless open to question by a skeptical mind. We may lack the\nevidence which would make our estimate conclusive. But what I mean is\nthis: histories have been written which satisfy to a remarkable degree\nthe spirit of inquiry. They present that finality and inevitability\nwhich mark the master mind. There are, in other words, authorities which\nfew of us ever question. They have so succeeded, within their\nlimitations, in producing the sense of adequacy, that their reputation\nseems to be secure. Their limitations have been physical, rather than\nmoral or intellectual, so that the defects which mar their work are less\ntheir own than those of circumstance. They thus appear to be substantial\nwitnesses that the only difficulties in the way of faithfully executing\nthe purpose of writing history are practical and moral--to get the\nadequate data, the wise and unbiased mind, and the moderate supply of\ngenius. There are no other difficulties.\n\nYet when we say that there are no other difficulties we may profitably\nbear in mind that Herodotus has been charged not only with being\ncredulous and uncritical, but also with not telling the truth. At first\nthis might not appear to indicate a new difficulty. For if Herodotus\nlied, his difficulty was moral. But it is not meant that Herodotus lied.\nIt is meant rather that within his own limitations he did not, and\npossibly could not, give us the true picture of the times which he\nrecorded. He saw things too near at hand to paint them in that\nperspective which truthfully reveals their proportions. His emphases,\nhis lights and shadows, are such as an enlightened man of his time might\ndisplay, but they are not the emphases, the lights and shadows which, as\nsubsequent historians have proved, give us ancient Greece with its true\nshading. We understand his own age much better than he did because Grote\nand other moderns have revealed to us what Greece really was. But what,\nwe may ask, was the real Greece? Who has written and who can write its\ntrue history? Grote's reputation as an historian is secure, but his\nhistory has already been superseded in many important respects. We are\ntold that, since its publication, \"a great change has come over our\nknowledge of Greek civilization.\" What then shall we say if neither\nHerodotus, who saw that civilization largely face to face, nor Grote,\nwho portrays it after an exceptionally patient and thorough study of its\nrecords, supplemented by what he calls scientific criticism and a\npositive philosophy, has given us the real Greece? Clearly it looks as\nif the perfect history is yet to be written, and as if every attempt to\nwrite it pushes it forward into the future. And clearly we face, if not\na new difficulty, a fact at least which is of fundamental importance in\nthe attempt to understand what history itself is.\n\nSo Herodotus becomes again illustrative. His history once written and\ngiven to the world becomes itself an item in the history of Greece,\nmaking it necessary that the story be retold. In the face of a fact, at\nonce so simple and so profound, how idle is the boast of the publisher\nwho could say of the author of a recent life of Christ[2] that she \"has\nreproduced the time of Christ, not as we would understand it, but as He\nhimself saw it. She has told what He believed and did, rather than what\nHe is reported to have said. She has stripped Him of tradition and\nshown Him as He was; she has given to literature an imperishable figure,\nnot of the wan Galilean of the Middle Ages, but of the towering figure\nof all history.\" How idle, I repeat, is such a boast of finality when we\nknow that this new history of Christ, instead of ending the matter, may\ncause another history to be written by some student who comes to the old\nrecord with a new insight and a new inspiration. It is possible, we may\nsay, to portray the Christ of His own day, or the wan Galilean of the\nMiddle Ages, or the figure which commands the attention of the twentieth\ncentury, but the real Christ, the towering figure of all history,--who\nwill portray that? It is yet to be done and done again. No historical\nfact can ever have its history fully written: and this, not because the\nadequate data, the wise and unbiased mind, and the moderate supply of\ngenius are lacking, but because it is itself the producer of new history\nthe more it is historically understood. It grows, it changes, it expands\nthe more adequately we apparently grasp it. We seem never to be at the\nend of its career and we must stop abruptly with its history still\nunfinished. Others may take up our task, but they will end as we have\nended. The history of nothing is complete.\n\nIt is well-nigh impossible to avoid the suspicion of paradox in such\nstatements as these. Yet I feel confident that every historical student\nkeenly alive to his task is abundantly sensible of this truth. Where\nwill he end the history of Greece or of Rome? What will be the final\nchapter of the French Revolution? No: there is no paradox here, but\nthere is an ambiguity. For history is not only a record written to\npreserve memory and promote understanding, it is also a process in time.\n\"With us,\" Professor Flint writes, \"the word 'history,' like its\nequivalents in all modern languages, signifies either a form of literary\ncomposition or the appropriate subject or matter of such\ncomposition--either a narrative of events, or events which may be\nnarrated. It is impossible to free the term of this doubleness and\nambiguity of meaning. Nor is it, on the whole, to be desired. The\nadvantages of having one term which may, with ordinary caution, be\ninnocuously applied to two things so related, more than counterbalance\nthe dangers involved in two things so distinct having the same name. The\nhistory of England which actually happened can not easily be confounded\nwith the history of England written by Mr. Green; while by the latter\nbeing termed history as well as the former, we are reminded that it is\nan attempt to reproduce or represent the course of the former.\nOccasionally, however, the ambiguity of the word gives rise to great\nconfusion of thought and gross inaccuracy of speech. And this occurs\nmost frequently, if not exclusively, just when men are trying and\nprofessing to think and speak with especial clearness and exactness\nregarding the signification of history--i.e., when they are labouring to\ndefine it. Since the word history has two very different meanings, it\nobviously can not have merely one definition. To define an order of\nfacts and a form of literature in the same terms--to suppose that when\neither of them is defined the other is defined--is so absurd that one\nwould probably not believe it could be seriously done were it not so\noften done. But to do so has been the rule rather than the exception.\nThe majority of so-called definitions of history are definitions only of\nthe records of history. They relate to history as narrated and written,\nnot to history as evolved and acted; in other words, although given as\nthe only definitions of history needed, they do not apply to history\nitself, but merely to accounts of history. They may tell us what\nconstitutes a book of history, but they can not tell us what the\nhistory is with which all books of history are occupied. It is, however,\nwith history in this latter sense that a student of the science or\nphilosophy of history is mainly concerned.\"[3]\n\nIt is because history is not only something \"narrated and written,\" but\nalso something \"evolved and acted\" that we are led to say that the\nhistory of nothing is complete. The narrative may begin and end where we\nplease; and might conceivably, within its scope, be adequate. But the\nbeginning and the end of the action are so interwoven with the whole\ntime process that adequacy here becomes progressive. That is the\nfundamental reason why Grote's history surpasses that of Herodotus in\nwhat we call historical truth. For the truth of history is a progressive\ntruth to which the ages as they continue contribute. The truth for one\ntime is not the truth for another, so that historical truth is something\nwhich lives and grows rather than something fixed to be ascertained once\nfor all. To remember what has happened, and to understand it, carries us\nthus to the recognition that the writing of history is itself an\nhistorical process. It, too, is something \"evolved and acted.\" It is\nperennially fresh even if the events with which it deals are long since\npast and gone. The record may be final, but our understanding of what\nhas been recorded can make no such claim. The accuracy of the record is\nnot the truth of history. We are well assured, for instance, that the\nGreeks defeated the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. The\nrecord on that point is not seriously questionable, although we have to\nrely on documents which have had a precarious fortune. And, coming to\nour own day, we can have little doubt that the record of this greater\nMarathon of Europe will surpass all others in fulness and accuracy.\nThere are, indeed, as Thucydides pointed out long ago, difficulties in\nthe way of exactness even when we are dealing with contemporaneous\nevents. \"Eye-witnesses of the same events speak differently as their\nmemories or their sympathies vary.\" Such difficulties we have learned\nhow to check until our records closely approach truth of fact.\nConsequently the records of what men have done, or may be doing, may be\nrelatively unimpeachable. But it is quite a different matter to\nunderstand what they have done and are doing. Without that\nunderstanding, history is no better than a chronicle, a table of events,\nbut not that \"thing to possess and keep always\" after which the\nhistorian aspires.\n\nTo understand is not simply difficult, it is also endless. But this fact\ndoes not make it hopeless. The understanding of history grows by what it\nfeeds on, enlarges itself with every fresh success, constantly reveals\nmore to be understood. Our illustrations may serve us again. From the\naccessible records of the battle of Marathon we can understand with\ntolerable success the immediate antecedents and consequents of that\ngreat event. But in calling the event great we do not simply eulogize\nits participants. We indicate, rather, that its antecedents and\nconsequents have been far-reaching and momentous. Greece, we say, was\nsaved. But what are we to understand by that salvation? To answer we\nmust write and rewrite her own history, the history of what she has been\nand is; and with every fresh writing the battle of Marathon becomes\nbetter understood. It becomes a different battle with a different truth.\nAnd more than this: with every rewriting we understand better what went\nbefore and what followed after until the battle itself becomes but the\nsymptom of deeper things. So, too, is it with Europe's present struggle.\nAlready its history has begun with many volumes. Following the example\nof Thucydides in the Peloponnesian war, men are writing it\ncontemporaneously by summers and winters. The consequences they can only\nguess at, but they have done much with the antecedents, so much that the\nlast fifty years of Europe are better understood than they were a year\nago. The record of them has changed little; our understanding of them\nhas changed much. It has changed so much that they have already become a\ndifferent half-century from what they were. The truth about them last\nyear is not the truth about them to-day. Fifty years hence what will the\ntruth about them be?\n\nI venture another illustration, one from the history of philosophy. I\nchoose Plato. He is such a commanding figure that the desire to\nunderstand him is exceptionally keen. The record of his life and of his\nconscious aims and purposes is very unsatisfactory. We have no assured\nauthorities on these points. That is greatly to be regretted, because a\ncorrect record is naturally the best of aids towards a correct\nunderstanding. But the unsatisfactory record is not very material to the\nillustration in hand. The record might be correct, but Plato would, even\nso, remain an historical figure to be understood. He would continue to\nbe the producer of what we call Platonism, and we should have to\nunderstand him as that producer. In that case, evidently, the details of\nhis life, his span of years, his immediate aims and activities would\ninvolve but the beginning of an inquiry which would last as long as\nPlato is studied by those who would understand him. Who, then, would be\nthe real Plato? The man about whom Aristotle wrote, or the man about\nwhom Professor Paul Shorey writes? Undoubtedly the real Plato is the man\nabout whom they both write, but that can mean only that he is the man\nabout whom writers can write so diversely. He is not the same man to\nProfessor Shorey that he was to Aristotle; and it is, consequently, a\nnice question which of the two disciples has given us the correct\nestimate of their master. Who was the real Plato? And that question\ncould still be asked even if the Platonic tradition were in its record,\nwhat it is not, a continuous and uniformly accepted tradition. For it is\nquite evident that the Platonic tradition has grown from age to age as\nstudents of Plato have tried to understand him and to understand also\nwhat other students have understood about him. The true Plato is still\nthe quest of Platonists.\n\nIt seems clear, therefore, that historical truth, if we do not mean by\nthat simply the truth of the records with which we deal, is something\nwhich can not be ascertained once for all. It is a living and dynamic\ntruth. It is genuinely progressive. We may say that it is like something\nbeing worked out in the course of time, and something which the sequence\nof events progressively exposes or makes clear. If, therefore, we\ndeclare that Herodotus, or any other historian, has not told the truth,\nand do not mean thereby that he has uttered falsehoods, we mean only\nthat the truth has grown beyond him and his time. For his time it might\nwell be that he told the truth sufficiently. Ancient Greece may then\nhave been precisely what he said it was. To blame him for not telling us\nwhat ancient Greece is now, is to blame him irrationally. In the light\nof historical truth, the Father of History and all his children have\nbeen, not simply historians of times old and new, but also contributors\nto that truth and progressive revealers of it. If they have been\nfaithful to their professed purpose of preserving the memory of what has\nhappened and in making what has happened understood, they are not rivals\nin the possession of truth. They have all been associated in a common\nenterprise, that of conserving the history of man in order that what\nthat history is and what it implies may be progressively better known.\n\nHistory is therefore not simply the telling of what has happened; it is\nalso and more profoundly the conserving of what has happened in order\nthat its meaning may be grasped. A book of history differs radically\nfrom a museum of antiquities. In the museum, the past is preserved, but\nit is a dead past, the flotsam and jetsam of the stream of time. It may\nafford material for history, and then it is quickened into life. In a\nbook of history, the past lives. It is in a very genuine sense\nprogressive. It grows and expands with every fresh study of it, because\nevery fresh study of it puts it into a larger, a more comprehensive, and\na new perspective, and makes its meaning ever clearer. The outcome of\nreflections like these is that history is constantly revealing something\nlike an order or purpose in human affairs, a truth to which they are\nsubject and which they express. History is, therefore, a career in time.\nThat is why no historical item can be so placed and dated that the full\ntruth of it is definitely prescribed and limited to that place and date.\nConformably with the calendar and with geography we may be able to\naffirm that a given event was or is taking place, but to tell what that\nevent is in a manner which ensures understanding of it, is to write the\nhistory of its career in time as comprehensively as it can be written.\nIt is to conserve that event, not as an isolated and detached specimen\nof historical fact, but as something alive which, as it continues to\nlive, reveals more and more its connections in the ceaseless flow of\nhistory itself.\n\nThe writer of history may, consequently, attain his purpose within the\nlimits of the practical and moral difficulties which beset it in either\nof two ways. He may give us the contemporaneous understanding of what\nhas happened in terms of the outlook and perspective of his own day,\ngiving us a vision of what has gone before as an enlightened mind of his\ntime might see it. His history might then be that of ancient peoples\nbeheld in the new perspective into which they have now been placed.\nCould he, by miracle, recall the ancients back to life, they would\ndoubtless fail to recognize their own history, truthful as it might be.\nBut comprehension might dawn upon them as they read, and they might\nexclaim: \"These were the things we were really doing, but we did not\nknow it at the time; we have discovered what we were; our history has\nrevealed to us ourselves.\" Or the historian, by the restrained exercise\nof his imagination, may give us what has happened in the perspective of\nthe time in which it happened, or in a perspective anterior to his own\nday. He may seek to recover the sense, so to speak, of past\ncontemporaneity, transplanting us in imagination to days no longer ours\nand to ways of feeling and acting no longer presently familiar. Such a\nhistory would be less comprehensive and complete than the former. It\nwould also be more difficult to write, because historical imagination of\nthis kind is rare and also because it is not easy to divest the past of\nits present estimate. Yet the imagination has that power and enables us\nto live again in retrospect what others have lived before us. But in\nboth cases the history would be an active conservation of events in\ntime; it would reveal their truth, their meaning, and their purpose.\n\nIf now we ask what may be this truth and meaning, or in what sense may\nwe appropriately speak of a purpose in history, we pass from history to\nphilosophy. No longer shall we be concerned with the purpose of writing\nhistory, but rather with the character of the facts which stimulate\nthat purpose and assist in its attainment. From history as the attempt\nto preserve memory and promote understanding we pass to history as a\ncharacteristic of natural processes. We shall try to analyze what the\ncareer of things in time involves; but we shall keep this career in mind\nin those aspects of it which bear most significantly upon the history of\nman.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Murray, Gilbert. \"Ancient Greek Literature.\" D. Appleton & Co.,\n1908. Page 133.\n\n[2] Austin, Mary. \"The Man Jesus.\" Harper, 1915.\n\n[3] Flint, Robert. \"History of the Philosophy of History.\" Charles\nScribner's Sons, 1894. Page 5.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE PLURALISM OF HISTORY\n\n\nHistory leads to philosophy when it raises in a fundamental way the\nquestion of truth. As we have seen, the term \"truth,\" when applied to\nhistory, has a double meaning. It may mean that the record of what has\nhappened is correct, and it may mean that the understanding of what has\nhappened is correct. If the record is correct, its truth seems to be\nsomething fixed once for all and unchanging. The perfect record may\nnever be possessed, but it seems to be ideally possible, because the\nevents which the record would keep in memory must have happened, and,\ntherefore, might have been recorded if fortune had been favorable. If,\nhowever, the understanding of what has happened is correct, its truth\ncan not be something fixed once for all. It is fixed only from time to\ntime. One correct understanding of what has happened does not displace\nanother as truth might displace error, but one supplements and enlarges\nanother. Histories which have gone before are not undone by those that\nfollow after. They are incorporated into them in a very real way.\nHistorical truth, therefore, when it does not mean simply the\ncorrectness of the records of history, is progressive. If the record of\nwhat has happened is correct, its truth is perpetual; if the\nunderstanding of what has happened is correct, its truth is\ncontemporaneous. Now what does this distinction involve? Does it involve\nmerely the recognition that facts may remain unchanged while our\nknowledge of them grows? A suspicion, at least, has been created that it\ninvolves something more, namely, the recognition that the facts\nthemselves, being something \"evolved and acted,\" are also progressive.\nHistorical facts are careers in time. It is their occurrence which is\nrecorded and it is their career which is understood. We may, therefore,\nundertake an inquiry into the nature of facts like these.\n\nWe may start from the distinction between facts and our knowledge of\nthem, for it is clear that whatever the character of the facts may be,\nour knowledge of them, at least, is progressive. The past is dead and\ngone. It is something over and done with, so that any change in it is\nforever impossible. We should then, if we would be precise, say, not\nthat it is the past which grows and enlarges, but only our knowledge of\nit. We recover and conserve it in memory and imagination only, and as we\nrecover it more and more completely and relate it more and more\nsuccessfully, we know and understand it better. Plato is dead, and not\none feature, circumstance, or action of his life can now be changed. He\nlives only in the memory of man; and because he lives there and\nstimulates the imagination, there is born a Plato of the imagination.\nThere are thus two Platos, the one real and the other historical. The\none lived and died long ago; the other still lives in human history. The\nreal Plato has produced the historical Plato and affords a check upon\nhistorians in their representation of him. That representation may\napproach progressively nearer to what the real Plato was like, but it\ncan never be the man who has passed away. History would be thus a branch\nof human knowledge, and grow with the growth of knowledge, while its\nobjects remain unchanged. That is why history has constantly to be\nrewritten. Furthermore, in the rewriting, new types of history appear\nwith new or altered emphases. The moral and religious type is\nsupplemented by the political, and the political by the economic and\nsocial. For with the growth of knowledge the past looks different to us\nand we discover that what appeared once adequate has to be revised.\n\nWe may admit, therefore, that history, whatever else it may be, is at\nany rate a kind of human knowledge. Like all knowledge it leads us to\nrecognize that there is a distinction between knowledge itself and its\nobjects, and that the progressive character of knowledge indicates an\napproximation to an adequate representation of the objects and not\nchanges in their own character. This distinction in its application to\nhistory is evidently not a distinction between literature and its\nsubject-matter. For the past, if we now take the past to be the proper\nsubject-matter of written history, appears to have a twofold character.\nIt is all that has happened precisely as it happened, and it is all that\nis remembered and known, precisely as it is remembered and known. There\nare, we may say, a real past and an historical past. The latter never is\nthe former, but always a progressively more adequate representation of\nthe former.\n\nNow this distinction between the real past and the historical past may\nbe fruitful. It may also be treacherous, for the terms in which it is\nexpressed are treacherous terms. For it is very easy to claim that the\nreal past is after all only the historical past, because the past itself\nbeing dead and gone is now real only as it is preserved in history. Yet\nproperly understood, the distinction is essential to any philosophical\ncomprehension of what history is. It points out that history is not the\npast, but is its recovery and conservation. Events begin and end; men\nare born and die; events and men disappear into the past in a manner and\nan order which are unalterable. But it is not their disappearance which\nconstitutes their existence in time a history. Their historical\nexistence is a kind of continuing life. It may be that it continues only\nin human knowledge, but, even so, it clearly illustrates the nature of\nhistory as a process in time. In other words the life of knowledge, of\nmemory and imagination, is itself a continual recording of what has\nhappened, a continual understanding of it, and a continual putting of it\nin a new and enlarged perspective. Here, too, within the narrow limits\nof man's perceiving and comprehending life to which we have now\nrestricted history, events begin and end, men are born and die, and\nevents and men disappear into the past in a manner and an order which\nare unalterable. Yet even as they disappear never to return in the\nprecise and identical manner of their first existence, they are\nconserved, and continue the process of dying as occurrences in order to\nlive as a history. Yesterday as yesterday is gone forever. Its\nopportunities are over and its incidents dead. As an historical\nyesterday it lives as material for to-day's employment. It becomes an\nexperience to profit by, a mistake to remedy, or a success to enjoy.\nHistory is thus the great destroyer and the great preserver. We must\nspeak of it in apparent paradoxes. The child becomes a man only by\nceasing to be a child; Plato becomes an historical figure only by dying;\nwhatever happens is conserved only by being first destroyed.\n\nBut the conservation of what happens is obviously not a perpetuation.\nHistory is not the staying of events, for time forbids that they stay.\nThe conservation is rather a utilization, a kind of employment or\nworking over of material. Through it discriminations and selections are\nmade and connections discovered; the moving panorama is converted into\nan order of events which can be understood, because consequences are\nseen in the light of their antecedents and antecedents are seen in the\nlight of the consequences to which they lead. There is thus a genuine\nincorporation of what has happened into what does happen, of yesterday\ninto to-day, so that yesterday becomes a vital part of to-day and finds\nits enlargement and fulfilment there. We can thus write our own\nbiographies. It is possible for us to discover what mistakes we have\nmade and what ends we have attained. Our history appears thus to be a\nutilization of material, a realization of ends, a movement with purpose\nin it. Selection is characteristic of it very profoundly. Other\nhistories, of other men, of times, of peoples, of institutions, we write\nin the same way because in the same way we discover and understand what\nhas happened in their case. Such a destroying, conserving, utilizing,\nselective, and purposeful movement in time, history appears to be when\nwe restrict it to the domain of human knowledge.\n\nIt seems, however, idle so to restrict it. For other things besides our\nknowledge grow--animals and plants, and the stars even. They, too, have\na history, and it may be that their history, being also an affair in\ntime, is not unlike in character to our own growth in knowledge. Or\nperhaps it were even better to say that both they and our knowledge\nillustrate equally what history is, discovering time itself to be the\ngreat historian. All time-processes, that is, appear to be, when we\nattentively consider them, processes which supplement, complete, or\ntransform what has gone before. They are active conservations and\nutilizations of the past as material. They save what has happened from\nbeing utterly destroyed, and, in saving it, complete and develop it.\nTime is, thus, constantly rounding out things, so to speak, or bringing\nthem to some end or fulfilment. That is why we call its movement\npurposeful.\n\nYet there have been philosophies which have tried to make of time a\nmagical device by which man might represent to himself in succession\nthat which in itself is never in succession. They picture his journey\nthrough life as a journey through space where all that he sees, one\nthing after another, comes successively into view like the houses on a\nstreet along which he may walk. But as the houses do not exist in\nsuccession, neither do the facts he discovers. They, too, come into view\nas he moves along. These philosophies, consequently, would have us think\nof a world in itself, absolute and complete, to which nothing can be\nadded and from which nothing can be subtracted. It is somehow fixed and\nfinished now; but our human experience, being incomplete and\nunfinished, gives to it the appearance of a process in time and\ndiscloses to us what it would be like if all its factors and the laws\nwhich hold them in perfect equilibrium were experienced in succession.\nHistory would thus be a kind of temporal revelation of the absolute and\nwe should read it as we read a book, from cover to cover, discovering\npage by page a story which is itself finished when we begin.\n\nOr philosophy, when it has not conceived the world to be thus finished\nand complete in itself and only appearing to us as a temporal\nrevelation, has often thought of movements in time as only the results\nof preceding movements. Whatever happens is thus conceived to be the\neffect of what has already happened, rather than the active conservation\nand working over of what has already happened. The past is made the\ncause and producer of the present, so that the state of the world at any\nmoment is only the result or outcome of what it was in the preceding\nmoment. To-day is thought to be the effect of yesterday and the cause of\nto-morrow, and is thus but a transition from one day to another.\nTime-processes are thus robbed of any genuine activity or productivity,\nand time itself is made to be nothing but the sequential order in which\nevents occur. Purpose, conservation, utilization, and all that active\nsupplementing and working over of the past on which we have dwelt,\nbecome illusions when applied to the world at large. They represent our\nway of conceiving things, but not nature's way of doing things.\n\nBut these philosophies, as Professor Bergson especially among recent\nphilosophers has pointed out,[4] gain whatever force they have\nprincipally from the fact that they think of time in terms of space.\nThey picture it as a line already drawn, when they should picture it as\na line in the process of being drawn. As already drawn, the line has a\nbeginning, an end, and consequently, a middle point. Let us call the\nmiddle point the present. All the line to the left of that point we will\ncall the past and all to the right of it the future. We thus behold time\nspatially with all its parts coexistent as the points on the line.\nEvents are then conceived to move from the past through the present into\nthe future, just as a pencil point may pass from the beginning of the\nline through its middle point to the end. But, unlike the pencil point,\nthey can not go backward. This fact gives us a characteristic by which\nwe may distinguish time from space even if we have represented time\nspatially. The spatial order is reversible, the temporal is not. Time is\nlike a line on which you can go forward, but on which you can not go\nbackward. But you can go forward. Everything goes from the past to the\nfuture. The present is but the transition point of their going.\n\nThere are, undoubtedly, advantages in thinking of time in this spatial\nway. Thereby we are able to make calendars and have a science of\nmechanics. It affords a basis for many successful predictions. But,\nquite evidently, time is neither such a line nor anything like it.\nNothing whatever goes from the past through the present into the future.\nWe can not make such a statement intelligible. For \"to go\" from the past\nto the future is not like going from New York to Boston. Boston is\nalready there to go to, but the future is not anywhere to go to. And New\nYork is there to leave, but the past is not anywhere to leave. What then\nis this mysterious \"going\" if its starting-point and its end are both\nnon-existent now? Clearly it is a \"going\" only in a metaphorical sense.\nWe call it a \"going\" because we can so represent it by dates and places.\nWe can say that here we have been going from Friday through Saturday to\nSunday. But it is quite clear that to-day is neither past nor future,\nthat it is neither yesterday nor to-morrow, and that if we go anywhere\nwe must start to-day. When Sunday comes, Saturday will be yesterday. But\nnote now the strange situation into which we have fallen--only in the\nfuture is this day ever in the past! And that is true of every day in\nthe world's history. It becomes a past day only in its own future.\n\nClearly then time is not like a line already drawn. It is more like a\nline in the drawing. You take the pencil and the line is left behind it\nas the pencil moves. New points are being constantly added to what has\ngone before. The line is being manufactured. Let us call so much of it\nas has now been drawn the past and that which has not yet been drawn the\nfuture. It is clear then that the present is not the middle point of the\nline nor any point whatever upon it, for all of the line that has been\ndrawn belongs to the past and all the rest of it to the future. Its past\nhas already been done; its future is not yet done, but only possible.\nFurthermore, it is clear that no point moves from the past into the\nfuture. Such a movement is unintelligible. If there is any movement of\npoints at all, it is a movement into the past. That is, the line,\ninstead of growing into the future, grows into the past--continually\nmore and more of it is drawn. For remember that the future of the line\nis not the place on the paper or in the air which by and by the line may\noccupy. Its future is a genuine future, a possibility as yet nowhere\nrealized. It is the part of the line which always will be, but never is;\nor, better, it is that part of the line which will have a place and a\ndate if the line continues to be drawn. The movement of time is thus not\na movement from the past to the future, but from the possible to the\nactual, from what may be to what has been. The present is not the\nvanishing point between past and future; it is not, so to speak, in the\nsame line or dimension with them. It is something quite different. It is\nall that we mean by activity or eventuality. It is the concrete,\ndefinite, and effective transforming of the possible into the actual. It\nis the _drawing_ of the line, but in no sense is it a part or point of\nthe line itself.\n\nThere are, doubtless, difficulties in thinking of time in this way, for\nit is not entirely free from spatial reminiscences. But it serves to\npoint out that past, present, and future are not like parts of a whole\ninto which an absolute or complete time is divided. They are more like\nderivatives of the time process itself in the concrete instances of its\nactivity. They are what every growing or changing thing involves,\nwhether it be the knowledge of man or the crust of the earth, for\neverything that grows or changes manufactures a past by realizing a\nfuture. It leaves behind it the record of what it has done conserved by\nmemory or by nature, and in leaving that record behind constantly\nenlarges or transforms it. The growth moves in a manner and an order\nwhich when once performed are unalterable, but there is growth none the\nless. Since time is like this, it seems evidently unintelligible to\nrestrict it and history to human experience and make the world in itself\nabsolute. It would be better to say that it is history in the large\nsense applicable to the world itself that makes human experience\npossible. Yet it would be more advisable not to make such a distinction\nat all, but to recognize that human experience is one kind of history,\nnamely, history conscious of itself, the time process deliberately at\nwork.\n\nNow it is evident that history in this latter sense is purposive and\nselective. That which has happened is not remembered as a whole or\nunderstood as a whole. Not only are details forgotten or neglected, but\nthings and events otherwise important are omitted for the sake of\nsecuring emphasis and distinction among the things remembered. Herodotus\nspoke of \"wonderful deeds\" and others following this example have\nregarded history as concerned only with great men and great events. It\nis true that the little men and the little events tend to disappear, but\nwe should remember that it is the selective character of history which\nmakes them little. Speaking absolutely, we may say that no item, however\napparently insignificant, is really insignificant in the historical\ndevelopment of any people or any institution, for in some measure every\nitem is material to that development. But all are not equally material.\nThe absence of any one of them might undoubtedly have changed the whole\nhistory, but given the presence of them all, some are of greater\nsignificance than others.\n\nThe history of the English people may be regarded as a development of\npersonal liberty. It is doubtless more than that, but it is that. As\nsuch a development, it is evident that there are many things which an\nhistorian of personal liberty will disregard in order that the\nparticular movement he is studying may be emphasized and distinguished.\nIt will be that particular movement which will determine for him what is\ngreat and what little. So it comes about that histories are diversified\neven when they are histories of the same thing. There are many histories\nof England which differ from one another not only in accuracy,\nphilosophical grasp, and brilliancy, but also in the purpose they\ndiscover England to be fulfilling. By purpose here is not meant a\npredestined end which England is bound to reach, but the fact that her\nhistory can be construed as a development of a specific kind. In other\nwords her past can be understood only when it is seen to be relevant to\nsome particular career which has its termination in her existing\ninstitutions. Her past has contributed through time to definite results\nwhich are now apparent. The things that have happened have not all\ncontributed to these results in the same measure. Some have contributed\nmore, some less. What is true in this illustration appears to be true\ngenerally. Every history is a particular career in the development of\nwhich some facts, persons, and events have been more significant than\nothers, so that the termination of the career at any time is like an end\nthat has been reached or a consequence to which its antecedents are\npeculiarly appropriate. That is the sense in which history is purposeful\nand selective.\n\nThe selection is twofold. First, there is selection of the type of\ncareer, and secondly, there is selection of the items especially\nrelevant to its progress. We may have the military, the political, the\nsocial, the industrial, the economic, or the religious history of\nEngland, for instance, and although these histories will overlap and\ninvolve one another, each of them will exhibit a career which is\npeculiar and distinct from its fellows. When reading the industrial\nhistory we shall not be reading the religious history. In the one we\nshall find circumstances and events recorded which we do not find in the\nother, because all circumstances and events do not have significance\nequally for the development of industry and religion. Historical\nselection is, therefore, twofold,--the selection of a career to be\ndepicted and of events and circumstances peculiarly relevant to that\ncareer.\n\nIs this selection, we may ask, only a device on the historian's part to\nfacilitate our comprehension, or is it a genuine characteristic of the\ntime process itself? Does the historian read purpose into history or\ndoes he find it there? It may assist in answering such questions to\nobserve that if selection is a device of the historian, it is one to\nwhich he is compelled. Without it history is unintelligible. Unless we\nunderstand events and circumstances as contributing to a definite result\nand contributing in different measures, we do not understand them at\nall. The Magna Charta, the British Constitution, the Tower of London,\nthe River Thames, the mines of Wales, the plays of Shakespeare--all\nthese things and things like them are for us quite unintelligible if\nthey illuminate no career or illustrate no specific movements to which\nthey have particularly contributed. Selection is, consequently, not a\ndevice which the historian has invented; it is imposed upon him by his\nown purpose to preserve the memory and promote the understanding of what\nhas happened. The procedure of the historian is not arbitrary, but\nnecessary. It is imposed upon him by the character of the facts with\nwhich he deals. These facts are movements from the possible to the\nactual and are helped and hindered by other such movements. An\nhistorical fact is not only spread out in space and exists equally with\nall its contemporaries at an assignable place in reference to them, it\nalso persists in time, comes before and after other persisting facts,\nand persists along with others in a continuance equal to, or more or\nless than, theirs. In a figure we may say, facts march on in time, but\nnot all at the same speed or with the same endurance; they help or\nimpede one another's movement; they do not all reach the goal; some of\nthem turn out to be leaders, others followers; their careers overlap and\ninterfere; so that the result is a failure for some and a success for\nothers. The march is their history.\n\nThis is figure, but it looks like the fact. Simple illustrations may\nenforce it. The seeds which we buy and sow in the spring are not simply\nso many ounces of chemical substances. They are also so many possible\nhistories or careers in time, so many days of growth, so much promise of\nfruit or flower. Each seed has its own peculiar history with its own\npeculiar career. The seeds are planted. Then in the course of time, soil\nand moisture and atmosphere and food operate in unequal ways in the\ndevelopment of each career. Each is furthered or hindered as events\nfall out. Some careers are cut short, others prosper. Everywhere there\nis selection. Everywhere there is adaptation of means to ends. The\nhistory of the garden can be written because there is a history there to\nwrite.\n\nSuch an illustration can be generalized. Our world is indubitably a\nworld in time. That means much more than the fact that its events can be\nplaced in accordance with a map or dated in accordance with a calendar.\nIt means that they are events in genuine careers, each with its own\nparticular character and its own possibility of a future, like the seeds\nin the garden. Things with histories have not only structures in space\nand are, accordingly, related geometrically to one another; they have\nnot only chemical structures and are thus analyzable into component\nparts; they have also structures in time. They are not now what they\nwill be, but what they will be is always continuous with what they are,\nso that we must think of them stretched out, so to speak, in time as\nwell as in space, or as being so many moments as well as so much volume.\nWhat they become, however, depends not only on their own time\nstructures, but also on their interplay with one another. They are\nhelped and hindered in their development. The results reached at any\ntime are such as complete those which have gone before, for each career\nis the producer, but not the product of its past.\n\nIt seems clear, therefore, that there is purpose in history. But\n\"purpose\" is a troublesome word. It connotes design, intention,\nforesight, as well as the converging of means upon a specific end. Only\nin the latter sense is it here used, but with this addition: the end is\nto be conceived not in terms of any goal ultimately reached, but in\nterms of the career of which it is the termination; and in this career,\nthe present is continually adding to and completing the past. The\ngrowing seeds end each in its own specific flower or fruit. They are\neach of its own kind and named accordingly. It is only because each of\nthem has its specific structure in time that their growth presents that\nconvergence of means toward an end by which we distinguish them and for\nwhich we value them. In purpose construed in this way there is evidently\nno need of design or intention or foresight. In making a garden there is\nsuch need. The purposes of nature may be deliberately employed to attain\nthe purposes of men. But apart from beings who foresee and plan there\nappears to be no evidence of intention in the world. When we speak of\nnature's designs, we speak figuratively, and impute to her rational and\ndeliberate powers. But we can not clearly affirm that the rain falls in\norder that the garden may be watered, or that the eye was framed in\norder that we might see. The evidence for design of that character has\nbeen proved inadequate again and again with every careful examination of\nit. To say, therefore, that nature is full of purpose does not mean that\nnature has been framed in accordance with some preconceived plan, but\nrather that nature is discovered to be an historical process, the\nconversion of the possible into the actual in such a way that there is\nconserved a progressive record of that conversion.\n\nFrom the selective character of history it follows that a single\ncomplete history of anything is impossible--certainly a single complete\nhistory of the world at large. History is pluralistic. This conclusion\nmight be reached as others have already been reached by pointing out how\nit follows from the purpose of writing history, and how this purpose\nindicates the character of movements in time. Indeed this has already\nbeen done in pointing out that the history of England is its many\nhistories and the history of a garden the history of its many seeds.\nAlways there is a particular career and particular incidents appropriate\nto it. Any career may be as comprehensive as desired, but the more\ninclusive it is the more restricted it becomes. The history of Milton\ncontains details which the history of English literature will omit; and\nthe history of the cosmos shrinks to nothing when we try to write it.\nThe only universal history is the exposition of what history itself is,\nthe time process stripped of all its variety and specific interests.\nConsequently, a single purpose is not discoverable; there are many\npurposes. When we try to reduce them all to some show of singleness we\nagain do no more than try to tell what a temporal order is like. It is\nmetaphysics and not history we are writing.\n\nTo affirm that history is pluralistic is, however, only to reaffirm the\nselective character of history generally. A history of the world in\norder to be single, definite, and coherent, must exhibit a single,\ndefinite, and coherent purpose or time process. That means, of course,\nthat it is distinguished from other purposes equally single, definite,\nand coherent. There are thus many histories of the world distinguished\nfrom one another by the incidence of choice or emphasis. The flower in\nthe crannied wall with its history fully recorded and understood would,\nconsequently, illustrate the universe. All that has ever happened might\nbe interpreted in illumination of its career. Yet it would be absurd to\nmaintain that either nature or Tennyson intended that the little flower\nshould be exclusively illustrative. The wall would do as well, or its\ncrannies, or the poet. Nature exhibits no preference either in the\nchoice of a history or in the extent of its comprehensiveness. Man may\nbe thought to be, and man is, an incident in the universe, and the\nuniverse may be thought to be, and the universe is, the theater of man's\ncareer.\n\nThe same principle may be illustrated from human history exclusively. We\nwho are of European ancestry and largely Anglo-Saxon by inheritance are\npleased to write history as the development of our own civilization with\nits institutions, customs, and laws; and we regard China and Japan, for\nexample, as incidental and contributory to our own continuation in time.\nBecause our heritage is Christian we date all events from the birth of\nChrist. Yet we gain some wisdom by pausing to reflect how our procedure\nmight impress an enlightened historian from China or Japan. Would he\nbegin with the cradle of European civilization, pass through Greece and\nRome, and then from Europe to America, remarking that in 1852 A.D.\nCommodore Perry opened Japan to the world? Surely he would begin\notherwise, and not unlike ourselves would construe the history of the\nworld in a manner relevant to the progress of his own civilization.\nEurope and America and Christianity would contribute to that\ndevelopment, but would not constitute its essential or distinctively\nsignificant factors. The historian is himself an historical fact\nindicating a selection, a distinction, and an emphasis in the course of\ntime. His history is naturally colored by that fact. Other histories he\ncan write only with an effort at detachment from his own career. He must\nforget himself if he would understand others; but he must understand\nhimself first, if he is successfully to forget what he is. He must know\nwhat history is, recognize its pluralistic character, and try to do it\njustice.\n\nTo do justice to the pluralistic character of history is not, however,\nsimply to write other histories than one's own with commendable\nimpartiality. It is also to be keenly alive to the philosophical\nimplications of this pluralism. The most significant of them is\ndoubtless this: since philosophically considered history is a thing not\nwritten, but evolved and acted, to no one history can absolute\nsuperiority or preference be assigned. Absolutely considered the history\nof man can not claim pre\u00ebminence over the history of the stars. He is no\nmore the darling of the universe than is the remotest nebula. It is just\nas intelligible and just as true to say that man exists as an\nillustration of stellar evolution as to say that the sun exists to\ndivide light from darkness for the good of man. Absolutely considered\nthe cosmos is impartial to its many histories. But even that is not well\nsaid, for it implies that the cosmos might be partial if it chose. We\nshould rather say that there is no considering of history absolutely at\nall. For history is just the denial of absolute considerations. It is\nthe affirmation of relative considerations, of considerations which are\nrelative to a selected career. There is no other kind of history\npossible.\n\nThe recognition of this fact does not, however, imply the futility of\nall history. It does not imply that any history is good enough for men\nsince all histories are good enough for the cosmos. So to conclude is to\ndisregard completely the implications of pluralism. If no history can\nclaim absolute distinction, all histories are distinguished,\nnevertheless, from one another. If no history can claim pre\u00ebminence over\nany other, it is true also that none can be robbed by any other of its\nown distinction and character. The fact that the morning stars do not\nsing together is not the universe's estimate of the value of poetry. The\nfact that the rain falls equally upon the just and the unjust is\nevidence neither of the impartial dispensations of deity nor of the\nequal issue of vice and virtue. Each event in its own history and\nillustrative of its own career is the law.\n\nYet men have been prone to write their own history as if it were\nsomething else than a human enterprise, as if it were something else\nthan the history of humanity. Those who seek to read their destiny from\nthe constellations ascendant at their birth are generally called\nsuperstitious; but those who seek to read it from the constitution of\nmatter, or from the mechanism of the physical world, or from the\ncomposition of chemical substances, although no less superstitious, are\ntoo frequently called scientists. But \"dust thou art and unto dust thou\nshalt return\" is an essential truth only about the history of dust; it\nis only an incidental truth about the history of man. One learns nothing\npeculiarly characteristic of humanity from it. It affords no measure of\nthe appreciation of poetry, of the constitution of a state, or of the\npassion for happiness. Human history is human history only. The hopes\nand fears, the aspirations, the wisdom and the folly of man are to be\nunderstood only in the light of his career. They are to be understood in\nterms of that into which they may and do eventuate for him, by the way\nin which they are incorporated into his past to make it more fully\nremembered and more adequately understood, and by the way they are used\nfor his future to make his past more satisfactory to remember and more\nsatisfying to understand.\n\nYet some there are who stop worshipping the stars when they discover\nthat the stars neither ask for worship nor respond to it, and who\ndismiss reverence and piety when they discover that a god did not create\nthe world. Perhaps they should not worship the stars nor believe in God,\nbut neither astronomy nor geology affords good reasons for putting an\nend to human reverence and faith. If the stars have not begged man to\nworship them, he has begged them to be an inspiration to a steadfast\npurpose. It is in his history, not in theirs, that they have been\ndivine. How stupid of him therefore, and how traitorous to his own\nhistory, if he shames his capacity for reverence, when once he has found\nthat the stars have a different history from his own.\n\nThe inevitable failure of astronomy and geology to afford man gods\nsuitable for his worship is not a recommendation that he should\nvigorously embrace the superstitions of his ancestors. To counsel that\nwould be an infamy equal to that which has just been condemned. The\ncounsel is rather that what is not human should not be taken as the\nstandard and measure of what is human. Human history can not be wholly\nresolved into physical processes nor the enterprises of men be construed\nsolely as the by-product of material forces. Such resolution of it\nappears to be unwarranted in view of the conclusions to which a\nconsideration of what history is, leads. The obverse error has long\nsince been sufficiently condemned. We have been warned often enough that\nwater does not _seek_ its own level or nature _abhor_ a vacuum. Even\nliterary criticism warns us against the pathetic fallacy. But in\nrefusing to anthropomorphize matter, we ought not to be led to\nmaterialize man. We should rather be led to recognize that the reasons\nwhich condemn anthropomorphic science are precisely the reasons which\ncommend humanistic philosophy. It is just because history is pluralistic\nthat it is unpardonable to confound different histories with one\nanother. So we may conclude that the pluralism of history which makes\nall histories, when absolutely considered, of equal rank and of\nindifferent importance, does not rob them, therefore, of their specific\ncharacters, nor make human history a presumptuous enterprise for them\nthat write it not in the language of nature, but in the language of man.\n\nThis conclusion needs greater refinement of statement if it is to be\nfreed from ambiguity. For the distinction between nature and man is an\nartifice. It is not a distinction which philosophy can ultimately\njustify. Undoubtedly man is a part or instance of nature, governed by\nnature's laws and intimately involved in her processes. But he is so\ngoverned and involved not as matter without imagination, but as a being\nwhose distinction is the historical exercise of his intelligence. Nature\nis not what she would be without him and that is why his history can\nnever be remembered or understood if he is forgotten. He can not be\ntaken out of nature and nature be then called upon to explain him. As a\npart or instance of nature man is to be remembered and understood, but\nas the part or instance which he himself is, and not another. His\nhistory, consequently, can never be adequately written solely in terms\nof physics or chemistry, or even of biology; it must be written also in\nterms of aspiration.\n\nAll time processes are histories, but man only is the writer of them, so\nthat historical comprehension becomes the significant trait of human\nhistory. To live in the light of a past remembered and understood is to\nlive, not the life of instinct and emotion, but the life of\nintelligence. It is to see how means converge upon ends, and so to\ndiscover means for the attainment of ends desired. Human history becomes\nthus the record of human progress. From it we may learn how that\nprogress is to be defined and so discover the purpose of man in history.\nFor him the study of his own history is his congenial task to which all\nhis knowledge of other histories is contributory; and for him the\nconscious, reflective, and intelligent living of his own history is his\ncongenial purpose.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[4] See especially his \"Donn\u00e9es imm\u00e9diates de la conscience,\" 1888.\n(Eng. tr. \"Time and Free Will,\" by F. L. Pogson. The Macmillan Company,\n1912.) \"L'\u00e9volution cr\u00e9atrice,\" 1908. (Eng. tr. \"Creative Evolution,\" by\nArthur Mitchell. Henry Holt and Company, 1913.)\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE CONTINUITY OF HISTORY\n\n\nAlthough history is pluralistic, it is not, therefore, discontinuous. We\ncan not divide it in two in such a manner that its parts will be wholly\nunconnected. Any division we may make, although we make it as plain as\nthe fence which divides a field, gives us a boundary which, like the\nfence, belongs equally to the parts on either side of it. Novelty and\ndistinction may abound in the world, but nothing is so novel or distinct\nthat it is wholly cut off from antecedents and consequences of some\nsort. It is this fact which we denote when we speak of the continuity of\nhistory. We indicate that every action of time, every conversion of the\npossible into the actual, is intimately woven into the order of events\nand finds there a definite place and definite connections. Consequently\nit becomes easy to represent the movement of history as a kind of\nprogress from earlier to later things, from ancestors to descendants, or\nfrom the original or primitive to the derived. If, however, progress is\nto mean anything more than just this representation of historical\ncontinuity, if, for example, it is to mean, besides a progression from\nthe earlier to the later, some improvement also, clearly a criterion is\nnecessary, by which progress may be judged and estimated. An inquiry is\nthus suggested into the continuity of history to see in what sense\nprogress may be affirmed of it and by what criteria that affirmation may\nbe warranted. As a preliminary to this inquiry it is advisable to\nenvisage the continuity itself and determine how far it assists in\nunderstanding what has happened.\n\nFrom among the many illustrations which might be cited to bring the fact\nof historical continuity visibly before us, these from Professor Tylor's\n\"Primitive Culture\" are particularly suggestive because they deal with\nfamiliar things: \"Progress, degradation, survival, modification, are all\nmodes of the connection that binds together the complex network of\ncivilization. It needs but a glance into the trivial details of our own\ndaily life to set us thinking how far we are really its originators, and\nhow far but the transmitters and modifiers of the results of long past\nages. Looking round the rooms we live in, we may try here how far he\nwho knows only his own time can be capable of rightly comprehending even\nthat. Here is the honeysuckle of Assyria, there the fleur-de-lis of\nAnjou, a cornice with a Greek border runs round the ceiling, the style\nof Louis XIV and its parent the Renaissance share the looking-glass\nbetween them. Transformed, shifted, or mutilated, such elements of art\nstill carry their history plainly stamped upon them; and if the history\nyet farther behind is less easy to read, we are not to say that because\nwe can not clearly discern it there is therefore no history there. It is\nthus even with the fashion of the clothes men wear. The ridiculous\nlittle tails of the German postilion's coat show of themselves how they\ncame to dwindle to such absurd rudiments; but the English clergyman's\nbands no longer so convey their history to the eye, and look\nunaccountable enough till one has seen the intermediate stages through\nwhich they came down from the more serviceable wide collars, such as\nMilton wears in his portrait, and which gave their name to the\n'band-box' they used to be kept in. In fact, the books of costume,\nshowing how one garment grew or shrank by gradual stages and passed into\nanother, illustrate with much force and clearness the nature of the\nchange and growth, revival and decay, which go on from year to year in\nmore important matters of life. In books, again, we see each writer not\nfor and by himself, but occupying his proper place in history; we look\nthrough each philosopher, mathematician, chemist, poet, into the\nbackground of his education,--through Leibnitz into Descartes, through\nDalton into Priestly, through Milton into Homer.\n\n\"'Man,' said Wilhelm von Humboldt, 'ever connects on from what lies at\nhand (der Mensch kn\u00fcpft immer an Vorhandenes an).' The notion of the\ncontinuity of civilization contained in this maxim is no barren\nphilosophic principle, but is at once made practical by the\nconsideration that they who wish to understand their own lives ought to\nknow the stages through which their opinions and habits have become what\nthey are. Auguste Comte scarcely overstated the necessity of this study\nof development, when he declared at the beginning of his 'Positive\nPhilosophy' that 'no conception can be understood except through its\nhistory,' and his phrase will bear extension to culture at large. To\nexpect to look modern life in the face and comprehend it by mere\ninspection, is a philosophy whose weakness can easily be tested.\nImagine any one explaining the trivial saying, 'a little bird told me,'\nwithout knowing of the old belief in the language of birds and beasts,\nto which Dr. Dasent in the introduction to the Norse Tales, so\nreasonably traces its origin. To ingenious attempts at explaining by the\nlight of reason things which want the light of history to show their\nmeaning, much of the learned nonsense of the world has indeed been\ndue.\"[5]\n\nThe illustrations are drawn from the domain of human interests. They\ncould be paralleled by others drawn from natural history. The\nhoneysuckle may carry us elsewhere than to Assyria, revealing\nunsuspected kinships in the world of plants. Biology has made the\nconception of the continuity of living forms a familiar commonplace, and\ngeology can find in the earth's crust the story of countless years. So\nfamiliar has the idea of continuity become that terms like \"evolution\"\nand \"development\" have ceased to be technical and have become terms of\ncommon speech. We speak readily of the evolution of man, of government,\nof the steam-engine, of the automobile, and of the atom. The idea has so\npossessed all departments of inquiry that a large part of the\nliterature of every subject is occupied with setting forth connections\nwhich have gone before. Not only do we go through Milton into Homer, but\nthrough yesterday into an ever receding past which grows more alluring\nthe more it recedes. The quest for origins has been of absorbing\ninterest. It would seem that we can never understand anything at all\nuntil we have discovered its origin in something which preceded it.\n\nIn the first lecture I pointed out how impossible it appears ever to end\nany history finally. We now seem to face a corresponding impossibility,\nnamely, the impossibility of ever really beginning it successfully. It\nwould appear that we stop only because we do not care to go farther, or\nlack the means to do so, and not because we can say that we have found a\nfirst beginning with no antecedents before it. We may begin the history\nof philosophy with the Greeks, with Thales of Miletus, but the question\nhas been repeatedly asked, Was not Thales a Semite? Did he not derive\nhis ideas from Egypt and Babylonia? And whence came philosophy itself?\nWas it not the offspring of religion which preceded it, so that, before\nwe begin its history, we must pass, as Professor Cornford suggests,[6]\nfrom religion to philosophy? Then what of religion itself? What were its\nantecedents and whence was its descent? So the questions multiply\ninterminably until we must admit that \"in the beginning\" is a time\narbitrarily fixed or only relatively determined. History, being\ncontinuous, has neither beginning nor end.\n\nThis fact, however, ought not to bewilder any one who contemplates it\nsteadily. It is an obvious consequence of the nature of time, for every\npresent has a past and a future, and a first or last present is,\nconsequently, quite unintelligible. The historian, least of all, should\nbe bewildered. If he has recognized that history is pluralistic, he will\nrecognize also that beginnings and ends are, in any intelligible sense,\nthe termini of distinctions. There is not an absolute first or last in\nhistory taken as a whole, for, as we have seen, the attempt to take\nhistory as a whole, if it has any meaning at all, means the attempt to\ndefine history. It gives us the metaphysics of time, but not an\nabsolute, complete, and finished whole, whose boundaries, although never\nempirically reached, are ideally conceivable. Our thinking moves in a\ndirection quite different. It leads us to observe that distinctions\nbegin and end, and begin and end as absolutely as one chooses, but do\nnot, thereby, cut themselves off from all connections. These lectures\nbegan to be delivered last Friday, but not the day before; the first\nword of them was written at a perfectly definite time and place which\ncan never be changed; they will end with a definiteness equally precise;\nbut these beginnings and endings destroy no continuity. Every history is\nequally continuous, undisturbed by its beginnings and endings. Each\naction of time is preceded and followed by everything which precedes and\nfollows it, and yet each action of time begins and ends with its own\npeculiar and individual precision. In affirming this we are affirming,\nby means of a particular instance, the metaphysical nature of continuity\nitself. For by continuity we mean the possibility of precise and\ndefinite distinctions. The continuity of a line may be divided at its\nmiddle point. It is then precisely divided, but is not, thereby, broken\ninto two separate lines.[7] After this manner the continuity of history\nis to be conceived. And in the light of this conception we should\nunderstand what the continuity of history can explain.\n\nIt is tempting to say that it can explain nothing at all, but it is\nevident that there is an uncertainty of meaning in such a claim. For\nthings may be explained or made clear in a variety of ways with little\nresemblance to one another. What we mean by a circle may be made clear\nby defining a circle, or by an algebraical formula, or by drawing a\ncircle. All these ways will be fruitful, but they will be fruitful\nrelatively to the problem which provokes them. To explain anything at\nall, it is necessary to keep in mind the questions to which the proposed\nexplanation is relevant. If I am asked to draw a circle it will not do\nsimply to define it; and if I am asked to tell what it is algebraically,\nit will not do simply to draw it. So it is apparent that, when we wish\nto know what the continuity of history can explain, or when we affirm\nthat it explains nothing, we should have in mind, first of all, the\nquestions to which the continuity of history would be an appropriate\nanswer. There appears to be only one such question, and that is, What\nhave been the antecedents of any given fact? These antecedents the\ncontinuity of history explains in that it makes them clear. It may also\nmake clear what the consequences of a given fact have been or may be.\nBut this explanatory value is a derivative of the preceding or an\nenlargement of it, through our habit of looking at consequences as\nderived from their antecedents, and of basing our expectations of what\nmay happen upon our observations of what has happened. Further\nexplanatory value in the continuity of history it seems difficult to\nfind, even if we make the statement of it less general and more precise.\n\nBut in saying this, it is not implied that this value is mean or\ninconsiderable. The continuity of history is both entertaining and\ninstructive. It is entertaining because it reveals unsuspected kinships\nand alluring connections. It is instructive because it furnishes a\nfoundation for inference and practice. To man it gives the long\nexperience of his race to enjoy and profit by. It guides his\nexpectations and enhances the control of his own affairs. It is the same\nwith the continuities of nature generally. They beget the vision of an\nordered world and help to frame rules which are applicable in the\ncontrol of nature. Accordingly it is not disparagement which is here\nintended, but a limitation which should be appreciated.\n\nWhen we say to our children, \"A little bird told me,\" both we and our\nchildren may be quite ignorant of Dr. Dasent's introduction to the Norse\nTales. We may be quite unconscious that we are using an expression\ntraceable to a time when people believed in such language of birds and\nbeasts as gifted persons could understand. It may be that we repeat the\nwords simply because we remember that our parents once successfully\ndeceived us in our childhood by using them, and that our parents did but\nfollow the example of theirs. But evidently we should not explain the\ntrivial saying simply by following it back endlessly into antiquity\nunless we concluded that it had always been characteristic of parents to\ndeceive children in this manner. In that case we should have discovered\na metaphysical truth about the nature of parents, and no further\nexplanation would be required.\n\nIf, however, we are not willing to admit that parents are such by nature\nthat they will cite birds as sources of information when it is expedient\nto keep the real source hidden, but insist that this habit be otherwise\nexplained, we ask for an explanation which the continuity of history\nalone can not afford. An explanation in contemporaneous terms is\nrequired. We do not use the phrase because our ancestors used it,\nalthough we may have derived it from them; we use it because of its\nknown efficacy. We may, however, discover that our ancestors--or Norse\nparents--used it for a different reason, namely, because they believed\nin a language of beasts and birds. But if we ask why they so believed,\nit will not profit us to pursue antiquity again, unless by so doing we\ncome upon the contemporaneous, experimental origin of that belief. For\nit is evident that if the belief had an origin, there was a time\nanterior when it did not exist, and its origin can not, therefore, be\nexplained solely in terms of that anterior time. Its origin points, not\nto continuity, but to action. It indicates not that the originators of\nthe belief had ancestors, but that, in view of their contemporaneous\ncircumstances, they acted in a certain way. To explain the origin of\nanything, therefore, we can not trust to the continuity of history\nalone. That continuity may carry us back to the beginnings of beliefs\nand institutions which have persisted and been transmitted from age to\nage; it may reveal to us experimental factors which have shaped beliefs\nand institutions, but which have long since been forgotten; but it can\nnever, of itself, reveal the experimental origin of any belief or\ninstitution whatever. That is, in principle, the limitation by which the\nexplanatory value of historical continuity is restricted. To understand\norigins we must appeal to the contemporaneous experience of their own\nage, or to experimental science.[8]\n\nSimple as this consideration is, it has been too much neglected by\nhistorians and philosophers in recent times on account of the profound\ninfluence of the doctrine of evolution. The great service, which that\ndoctrine has rendered, has been to fix our attention on the evident fact\nof continuity from which our minds had been distracted by a too\nexclusive preoccupation with theories of the atomic kind. Through\nseveral centuries, philosophy had acquired the habit of thinking\ngenerally in terms of elements and their compounds, whenever it\naddressed itself to a consideration of nature, or of the mind, or of the\nrelation between the two. Its principal problem was to discover means\nof connection and unification which might make clear how that which is\nessentially discrete and discontinuous might, none the less, be combined\ninto a unity of some sort. As it failed, it usually took refuge in the\nopposite idea, and attempted to conceive an original unity out of which\ndiversity was generated by some impulsion in this initial and primal\nbeing. Philosophy thus vibrated between the contrasted poles of the same\nfundamental endeavor, between the attempt to combine elements into a\nunity, and the attempt to resolve unity into elements. The latter\nattempt, especially in men like Hegel and Spencer, had the advantage of\ninvolving the idea of continuity, and became the controlling\nphilosophical enterprise of the latter part of the last century. But it\nwas principally the doctrine of evolution or development as set forth by\nbiologists, anthropologists, and historians that made the fact of\ncontinuity convincingly apparent and freed philosophy from the necessity\nof attempting to explain it. Continuity became a fact to be appreciated\nand understood, and ceased to be a riddle to be solved. The doctrine of\nevolution thus wrought a real emancipation of the mind.\n\nBut this freedom has been often abused. Relieved of the necessity of\nexplaining continuity, philosophers, biologists, historians, and even\nstudents of language, literature, and the arts, have been too frequently\ncontent to let the fact of continuity do all the explaining that needs\nto be done. To discover the historical origins and trace the descent of\nideas, institutions, customs, and forms of life, have been for many the\nexclusive and sufficient occupation, to the neglect of experimental\nscience and with the consequent failure to make us very much wiser in\nour attempts to control the intricate factors of human living. If we\nwould appreciate our own morals and religion we are often advised to\nconsider primitive man and his institutions. If we would evaluate\nmarriage or property, we are often directed to study our remote\nancestors. And this practical advice has sometimes taken the form of\nmetaphysics. If we wish to know the nature of things or to appraise\ntheir worth, we are told to contemplate some primitive cosmic stuff from\nwhich everything has been derived. Thus man and all the varied panorama\nof the world vanish backward into nebul\u00e6, and life disappears into the\nimpulse to live. Not trailing clouds of glory do we come, but trailing\nthe primitive and the obsolete.\n\nSuch considerations as these have diverse effects according to our\ntemperaments. They quite uniformly produce, however, disillusionment and\nsophistication. That is the usual result of inquisitions into one's\nancestry. But disillusionment and sophistication may produce either\nregret or rebellion. This exaltation of the past, as the ancestral home\nof all that we are, may make us regret our loss of illusions and our\ndisconcerting enlightenment. It had been better for us to have lived\nthen when illusions were cherished and vital, than to live now when they\nare exposed and artificial. The joy of living has been sapped, and we\nmay cry with Matthew Arnold's Obermann\n\n\n     \"Oh, had I lived in that great day!\"\n\n\nOr disillusionment and sophistication may beget rebellion. We may break\nwith the past, scorn an inheritance so redolent of blood and lust and\nsuperstition, revel in an emancipation unguided by the discipline of\ncenturies, strive to create a new world every day, and imagine that, at\nlast, we have begun to make progress.\n\nBut progress is not to be construed in terms of a conservatism which is\nartificial and reactionary, or of a radicalism which is undisciplined\nand irresponsible. Conservatism and radicalism are, as already\nindicated, temperamental affections which a too exclusive and irrational\ncontemplation of our ancestry may produce in us. They are born of fear\nor impatience, and are not the legitimate offspring of history. For\nhistorical continuity, just because it does not of itself reveal the\nexperimental origin of any belief or institution, does not of itself\ndisclose progress or any standard by which progress may be estimated. It\nteaches no lesson in morals and provides no guide to the perplexed. And\nthe reason for this is simple. History is continuous, and, therefore,\nthere is no point, no date, no occurrence, no incident, no origin, no\nbelief, and no institution, which can claim pre\u00ebminence simply on\naccount of its position. If men were once superstitious because of their\nplace in history and are now scientific for precisely the same reason,\nwe can not therefore conclude, with any intelligent or rational\ncertainty, that evolution has progressed from superstition to science,\nor that science is better than superstition. Values are otherwise\ndetermined. The continuity of history levels them all.\n\nYet there may be laws of history. The comparative study of history,\nwhether the history be of civilizations or of living forms or of\ngeological formations, reveals uniformities and sequences which promote\nour understanding and aid our practice. If we should find that wherever\nmen have lived, their institutions, laws, customs, religion, and\nphilosophy tend to show a uniformity of direction in their development,\nwe should feel justified in concluding that the tendency indicated a law\nof history. Yet such laws would not be indications of progress. They\nwould indicate rather the conditions under which progress is or can be\nmade. For laws are expressions of the limitations under which things may\nbe done. They show the forms and structures to which actions conform.\nBut whether these actions are good or bad, upward or downward,\nprogressive or retrogressive, they do not show. For decline no less than\nprogress is in conformity with law, and the continuity of history is\nindifferent to both. Were we, therefore, in possession of all the laws\nand uniformities of history, we should not have discovered thereby what\neither decline or progress is; but were we in possession of a knowledge\nof what decline and progress are, the laws and uniformities of history\nwould teach us better to avoid the one and attain the other.\n\nIt would seem to follow from these considerations that progress\ninvolves something more than the continuous accumulation of results in\nsome specified direction, the piling of them up on one another in such a\nway that the total heap is more impressive than any of the portions\nadded to it, and more illustrative, consequently, of a particular\ncareer. There might, indeed, be progress in this sense, if we divorced\nthe conception of it from any standard which might intelligently judge\nit and set a value upon it. For the passage from seed to fruit, or any\nmovement in time which attains an end illustrative of the steps by which\nit has been reached is in that sense progressive. But progress in this\nsense means no more than the fact of history. The career of things in\ntime is precisely that sort of movement, and indicates the sense in\nwhich history is naturally purposeful. To call it progress adds nothing\nto the meaning of it unless a standard is introduced by which it can be\nmeasured. If we will risk again the treacherous distinction between man\nas intelligent and nature as simply forceful, we may say that progress\nrightfully implies some improvement of nature. We should then see that\nto improve nature involves the doing of something which nature, left to\nherself, does not do, and, consequently, that nature herself affords no\nindication of progress and no measure or standard of it. Nor does\nhistory afford them, if we divorce history from every moral estimate of\nit. For again, we may say that progress implies some improvement of\nhistory, so that to judge that there has been progress is not to\ndiscover that history by evolving has put a value upon itself. It is\nrather to judge that history has measured up to a standard applied to\nit. It seems idle, therefore, to suppose that history apart from such a\nstandard can tell us what progress is or whether it has been made.\n\nYet history might do so if we are ready to admit man makes moral\njudgments as naturally as the sun shines. If his morality were some\nmiracle, supernaturally imposed upon his natural career, we should need\nsupernatural sanctions for it, for no natural achievement of his could\njustify it. These sanctions might justify him and what he does, if he\nconformed to them, but neither he nor his actions could give them\nnatural warrant. They would express nothing after which he naturally\naspires, and could, consequently, afford him no vision of a goal the\nattainment of which would crown his history with its own natural\nfruition. But if his morality is natural, his ideals and standards of\njudgment express what he has discovered he might be, and point out to\nhim what his history might attain, had he knowledge and power enough to\nturn it in the direction of his own conscious purposes. Accordingly his\nhistory then might reveal both progress and the criterion of it. But it\nwould do so not simply because it is a history, but because it is a\nhistory of a certain kind. Man makes progress because he can conceive\nwhat progress is, and use that conception as a standard of selection and\nas a goal to be reached. He participates in his own history consciously,\nand that means that he participates in it morally, with a sense of\nobligation to his career. For to be conscious implies the anticipation\nin imagination of results which are not yet attained, but which might be\nattained if appropriate means were found. Conceiving thus what he might\nbe, man always has some standard and measure of what he is. He sees\nahead of him, and moves, therefore, with care and discrimination. All\nthe forces and impulses of his nature do not simply impel him on from\nbehind; they also draw him on from before through his ability to\nconceive to what enlargement and fruition they might be carried. He\ncondemns his life as miserable, only because he conceives a happiness\nwhich condemns it; and he calls it good, only because joys, once\nanticipated but now attained, have blessed it. Progress is thus\ncharacteristic of human history, because it is characteristic of man\nthat progress should be conceived. His life is not only a life of\nnutrition and reproduction, or of pleasures and pains, but a life also\nof hopes and fears. And when hope and fear are not blind, but\nenlightened, his life is also a life of reason, for reason is the\nability to conceive the ends which clarify the movements toward them.\n\n\"Without reason, as without memory, there might still be pleasures and\npains in existence. To increase those pleasures and reduce those pains\nwould be to introduce an improvement into the sentient world, as if a\ndevil suddenly died in hell or in heaven a new angel were created. Since\nthe beings, however, in which these values would reside, would, by\nhypothesis, know nothing of one another, and since the betterment would\ntake place unprayed-for and unnoticed, it could hardly be called a\nprogress; and certainly not a progress in man, since man, without the\nideal continuity given by memory and reason, would have no moral being.\nIn human progress, therefore, reason is not a casual instrument, having\nits sole value in its service to sense; such a betterment in sentience\nwould not be progress unless it were a progress in reason, and the\nincreasing pleasure revealed some object that could please; for without\na picture of the situation from which a heightened vitality might flow,\nthe improvement could be neither remembered nor measured nor\ndesired.\"[9]\n\nCarrying thus the conception and measure of progress in his own career,\nman can judge his history morally, and decide what progress he has made.\nHe speaks aptly of \"making\" progress, recognizing in that expression\nthat he uses the materials at his command for the ends he desires. But\nthe materials at his command are not of his own making. He may, indeed,\nhave modified them by former use, but in each instance of his using them\nthey are always so much matter with a structure and character of their\nown. This fact puts the continuity of history in a new light. It forbids\nthe attempt to conceive it as a movement pushing forward, as it were,\ninto the future. We should conceive it rather from the point of view of\nthe time process as we have already analyzed it. Then we should see that\nthe continuity of history is the continuity of the results of the\nconversion of the possible into the actual--the part of the line which\nhas been drawn. It comprises all that has been accomplished, conserved\neither by man's memory or by nature at large, and existing for continued\nmodification or use. As such, it has its own structure, its own\nuniformities, and its own laws. To them every modification made is\nsubject. That is why everything \"connects on from what lies at hand,\"\nand why everything we do--even the expressions we use--points backward\nto what our ancestors have done. Since what they have done is only\nmaterial for what we may do, it can not of itself explain our use of it,\nor judge our own values. An understanding of it should, however, make us\nwiser in the use of it. That is why we need contemporaneous experience\nand empirical science. We need to discover, either by our own experience\nor by reconstituting the experience of others, what happens when given\nmaterial is used in a given way. Such discoveries are the only genuine\nexplanations. They reveal the conditions to which actions must conform\nif the ends we desire are to be attained.\n\nMore generally expressed the continuity of history is the continuity of\nmatter. It comprises in sum the structure to which every movement in\ntime is subject. It makes up what we call the laws of nature conformably\nto which whatever is done must be done. But in itself it is inert and\nimpotent. Activity of some sort must penetrate it, if there is to be\nanything effected. And what is effected reveals, when experimentally\nunderstood, the laws as limitations within which the control of any\nmovement is possible.\n\nA wall is built by laying stone on stone. It may be torn down and built\nagain, or left a ruin. The placing or overthrow of every stone occurs as\njust that event but once, never to return, but the stones, though\nchiseled or worn in the handling, remain constant material for constant\nuse. The result is a wall or a ruin, both of which illustrate the law of\ngravitation, but neither of which was produced by that law. That is what\nhistory is like. It is an activity which transforms the materials of the\nworld without destroying them, and transforms them subject to laws of\ntheir own. The world is thus ever new, but never lawless. It is always\nfresh and always old. The present is, as Francis Bacon said, its real\nantiquity. Time is thus the arch-conservative and the arch-radical.\nForever it revises its inheritance, but it is never quit of it.\n\nMan's inheritance comprises both what he has derived from his ancestors,\nand also the world bequeathed to him from day to day. This material he\nuses with some knowledge of its laws, and with the conscious desire to\nconvert it to his own ends. The kinds of progress he can make are thus\nrelevant to the purposes he sets before him. Since the satisfaction of\nhis physical needs and the desire of comfortable living require some\nmastery of physical resources, his progress can naturally be measured by\nthe degree of success he makes in providing for satisfactions of this\nkind. Such progress is material progress, and its standards are economy\nand efficiency, or the attainment of the maximum result with the minimum\nof effort. This kind of progress is very diversified, embracing all the\neconomic concerns of life, and much of society and the arts. But\nmaterial prosperity is provisional. To be well-housed, well-fed,\nwell-clothed, and even to have friends and the opportunity for unlimited\namusement, these things have never been permanently regarded as\ndefining human happiness to the full. Having these things man is still\ncurious to know what he will do. Material progress indicates mastery of\nthe necessities of his existence in order that he may then be free to\nact. If no free act follows upon such mastery, life loses its savor, and\npleasures grow stale. Material progress would thus seem to be a\npreliminary to living well, but would not be living well itself. For man\nwould be in a sorry plight if he succeeded in mastering the physical\nresources of his world, and then found nothing to do.\n\nThere seems to be nothing further for him to do than to reflect, or\nrather what he does further, flows from his reflections. Since he\nsatisfies his bodily wants, not blindly, but consciously and through\nexercise of his intelligence, looking before and after, and trying to\nsee his life from beginning to end, his reflections lead him to\nself-consciousness. He discovers his personality and makes the crucial\ndistinction between his body and his soul. He speaks of _his_ world, of\n_his_ friends, of _his_ life. He begins then to wonder for what purpose\nand by what right his possessive attitude is warranted; for unless he\nsuppresses his reflections or yields himself thoughtlessly to his\ninstincts and emotions, he can not fail to observe that things are no\nmore rightfully his than another's, and that to belong rightfully to any\none there must be some warrant drawn from a world with which his soul\ncould be congenial. Even his soul begins to appear as not rightfully\nhis, for why should he have now this haunting sense of belonging to\nanother world, and of being a visitor to this in need of introduction\nand credentials? Reflection thus gives birth to a new kind of life in\nwhich also progress may be made. We call it rational progress, for it\ninvolves the attempt to justify existence by discovering sanctions which\nreason can approve, and to which all should give assent, because each\nsoul must, on seeing them, recognize them as its own.\n\nReflection may lead man to do generous things. He may comfort the\ndistressed, help the poor, relieve pain, or reform society. The world\naffords him abundant opportunity for his benefactions. He may create\nbeautiful things which he and others can enjoy perfectly in the mere\nbeholding of them. He may worship the gods, dimly conscious that they at\nleast lead the perfect life, and that to dwell with them is immortality.\nSuch exercises of the spirit yield him a new kind of happiness. But his\ndanger lies in supposing that his existence can be thus externally\njustified: that others will bless him for his benefactions; that Beauty\nlurks hidden to be gloriously seen even at the risk of destruction; or\nthat God intended him to be happy. If, however, he is saved from thus\nsuperstitiously converting the ideal possibilities of his life into\njustifying reasons why he should exist at all, he may see in them the\nfruition of all his history. Even his material progress gives him a hint\nof this, for it is genuine progress and justifies itself naturally\nthrough the attainment of its ends. For he needs no sanction to warm his\nbody when cold, or to feed it when hungry. It is sufficient that he sees\nthe end to be reached and finds the means to reach it. The hunger of the\nsoul may be no less efficacious. Although these cravings tend to bring\nuneasiness and distaste into his animal enjoyments, they find some\nsatisfaction if these enjoyments are idealized and transformed into a\nvision of what they might be freed from the material grossness which\nclogs them. Man then begins to conceive ideal love and friendship, and\nan ideal society. If only he were the free partaker of such perfect\nthings, his existence would need no justification. In acknowledging\nthis, however, he may rediscover himself and learn more adequately what\nthe purpose of his history is. It is so to use the materials of the\nworld that they will be permanently used in the light of the ideal\nperfection they naturally suggest. Man can conceive no occupation more\nsatisfying and no happiness more complete. In entering upon it he makes\nrational progress. Its measure is the degree of success he attains in\nmaking his animal life minister to ideals he can own without reserve and\nlove without regret.\n\nHuman history is something more than the lives of great men, the rise\nand fall of states, the growth of institutions and customs, the vagaries\nof religion and philosophy, or the controlling influence of economic\nforces. It is also a rational enterprise. Expressed in naturalistic\nterms it is history conscious of what history is. To remember and to\nunderstand what has happened is not, therefore, simply an interesting\nand profitable study; it may be also an illustration of rational living.\nIt may be an indication that man, in finally discovering what his\nhistory genuinely is, is at the same time making it minister constantly\nand consciously to its own enlargement and perfection. That intelligent\nbeings should recover their history is no reason why they should\nrepudiate it, even if they find many things of which to be ashamed; for\nthey are examples of the recovery of the past with the prospect of a\nfuture. In reading their own history, they may smile at that which once\nthey reverenced, and laugh at that which once they feared. They may have\nto unlearn many established lessons and renounce many cherished hopes.\nThey may have to emancipate themselves continually from their past; but\nnote that it is from their past that they would be emancipated and that\nit is freedom that they seek. It is not a new form of slavery. Into what\ngreater slavery could they fall than into that implied by the\nsquandering of their inheritance or by blaming their ancestors for\npreceding them? They will be ancestors themselves one day and others\nwill ask what they have bequeathed. These others may not ask for Greece\nagain or for Rome or for Christianity, but they will ask for the like of\nthese, things which can live perennially in the imagination, even if as\ninstitutions they are past and dead. He is not freed from the past who\nhas lost it or who regards himself simply as its product. In the one\ncase he would have no experience to guide him and no memories to\ncherish. In the other he would have no enthusiasm. To be emancipated is\nto have recovered the past untrammeled in an enlightened pursuit of that\nenterprise of the mind which first begot it. It is not to renounce\nimagination, but to exercise it illumined and refreshed.\n\nHistory is, then, not only the conserving, the remembering, and the\nunderstanding of what has happened: it is also the completing of what\nhas happened. And since in man history is consciously lived, the\ncompleting of what has happened is also the attempt to carry it to what\nhe calls perfection. He looks at a wilderness, but, even as he looks,\nbeholds a garden. For him, consequently, the purpose of history is not a\nsecret he vainly tries to find, but a kind of life his reason enables\nhim to live. As he lives it well, the fragments of existence are\ncompleted and illumined in the visions they reveal.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] Tylor, Edward B. \"Primitive Culture.\" Henry Holt & Co., 1889. Vol.\nI, pages 17 ff.\n\n[6] Cornford, Francis M. \"From Religion to Philosophy.\" Longmans, Green\n& Co., 1912.\n\n[7] See Dedekind, Richard. \"Continuity and Irrational Numbers,\" in\n\"Essays on the Theory of numbers.\" Tr. by Wooster W. Beman. Open Court\nPublishing Co., 1901.\n\n[8] If space permitted, this same limitation could be abundantly\nillustrated from the sciences, especially the biological sciences. They\nhave made very clear what an essential difference there is between the\ncontinuity of living forms and the origin of new forms. This difference\ncan be readily appreciated by comparing a work on \"evolution\" or\n\"natural history\" with a work on \"experimental biology.\"\n\n[9] Santayana, George. \"The Life of Reason,\" 1905. Vol. I, pages 3-4.","title":"The Purpose of History","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":18979}