Introduction to the Study of History Part 10

The critical a.n.a.lysis of the doc.u.ments has supplied the materials--historical facts still in a state of dispersion. We begin by _imagining_ these facts on the model of what we suppose to be the a.n.a.logous facts of the present; by combining elements taken from reality at different points, we endeavour to form a mental image which shall resemble as nearly as possible that which would have been produced by direct observation of the past event. This is the first operation, inseparable in practice from the reading of the doc.u.ments. Considering that it will be enough to have indicated its nature here,[184] we have refrained from devoting a special chapter to it.

The facts having been thus imagined, we _group_ them according to schemes of cla.s.sification devised on the model of a body of facts which we have observed directly, and which we suppose a.n.a.logous to the body of past facts under consideration. This is the second operation; it is performed by the aid of systematic questions, and its result is to divide the ma.s.s of historical facts into h.o.m.ogeneous portions which we afterwards form into groups until the entire history of the past has been systematically arranged according to a general scheme.

When we have arranged in this scheme the facts taken from the doc.u.ments, there remain gaps whose extent is always considerable, and is enormous for those parts of history in regard to which doc.u.ments are scanty. We endeavour to fill some of these gaps by _reasoning_ based on the facts which are known. This is (or should be) the third operation; it increases the sum of historical knowledge by an application of logic.

We still possess nothing but a ma.s.s of facts placed side by side in a scheme of cla.s.sification. We have to condense them into _formulae_, in order to deduce their general characteristics and their relation to each other. This is the fourth operation; it leads to the final conclusions of history, and crowns the work of historical construction from the scientific point of view.

But as historical knowledge, which is by nature complex and unwieldy, is exceptionally difficult to communicate, we still have to look for the methods of expounding historical results in appropriate form.

VII. This series of operations, easy to conceive in the mind, has never been more than imperfectly performed. It is beset by material difficulties which theories of methodology do not take into account, but which it would be better to face, with the purpose of discovering whether they are after all insurmountable.

The operations of history are so numerous, from the first discovery of the doc.u.ment to the final formula of the conclusion, they require such minute precautions, so great a variety of natural gifts and acquired habits, that there is no man who can perform _by himself_ all the work on any one point. History is less able than any other science to dispense with the division of labour; but there is no other science in which labour is so imperfectly divided. We find specialists in critical scholars.h.i.+p writing general histories in which they let their imagination guide them in the work of construction;[185] and, on the other hand, there are constructive historians who use for their work materials whose value they have not tested.[186] The reason is that the division of labour implies a common understanding among the workers, and in history no such understanding exists. Except in the preparatory operations of external criticism, each worker follows the guidance of his own private inspiration; he is at no pains to work on the same lines as the others, nor does he pay any regard to the whole of which his own work is to form a part. Thus no historian can feel perfectly safe in adopting the results of another's work, as may be done in the established sciences, for he does not know whether these results have been obtained by trustworthy methods. The most scrupulous go so far as to admit nothing until they have done the work on the doc.u.ments over again for themselves. This was the att.i.tude adopted by Fustel de Coulanges. It is barely possible to satisfy this exacting standard in the case of little-known periods, the doc.u.ments relating to which are confined to a few volumes; and yet some have gone so far as to maintain the dogma that no historian should ever work at second hand.[187] This, indeed, is what an historian is compelled to do when the doc.u.ments are too numerous for him to be able to read them all; but he does not say so, to avoid scandal.

It would be better to acknowledge the truth frankly. So complex a science as history, where facts must ordinarily be acc.u.mulated by the million before it is possible to formulate conclusions, cannot be built up on this principle of continually beginning afresh. Historical construction is not work that can be done with doc.u.ments, any more than history can be "written from ma.n.u.scripts," and for the same reason--the shortness of time. In order that science may advance it is necessary to combine the results of thousands of detail-researches.

But how are we to proceed in view of the fact that most researches have been conducted upon methods which, if not defective, are at least open to suspicion? Universal confidence would lead to error as surely as universal distrust would make progress impossible. One useful rule, at any rate, may be stated, as follows: The works of historians should be read with the same critical precautions which are observed in the reading of doc.u.ments. A natural instinct impels us to look princ.i.p.ally for the conclusions, and to accept them as so much established truth; we ought, on the contrary, to be continually applying a.n.a.lysis, we ought to look for the facts, the _proofs_, the fragments of doc.u.ments--in short, the materials. We shall be doing the author's work over again, but we shall do it very much faster than he did, for that which takes up time is the collection and combination of the materials; and we shall accept no conclusions but those we consider to have been proved.

CHAPTER II

THE GROUPING OF FACTS

I. The prime necessity for the historian, when confronted with the chaos of historical facts, is to limit the field of his researches. In the ocean of universal history what facts is he to choose for collection?

Secondly, in the ma.s.s of facts so chosen he will have to distinguish between different groups and make subdivisions. Lastly, within each of these subdivisions he will have to arrange the facts one by one. Thus all historical construction should begin with the search for a principle to guide in the selection, the grouping, and the arrangement of facts.

This principle may be sought either in the external conditions of the facts or in their intrinsic nature.

The simplest and easiest mode of cla.s.sification is that which is founded on external conditions. Every historical fact belongs to a definite time and a definite place, and relates to a definite man or group of men: a convenient basis is thus afforded for the division and arrangement of facts. We have the history of a period, of a country, of a nation, of a man (biography); the ancient historians and those of the Renaissance used no other type. Within this general scheme the subdivisions are formed on the same principle, and facts are arranged in chronological and geographical order, or according to the groups to which they relate. As to the selection of facts to be arranged in this scheme, for a long time it was made on no fixed principle; historians followed their individual fancy, and chose from among the facts relating to a given period, country, or nation all that they deemed interesting or curious.

Livy and Tacitus mingle accounts of floods, epidemics, and the birth of monsters with their narratives of wars and revolutions.

Cla.s.sification of facts by their intrinsic nature was introduced very late, and has made way but slowly and imperfectly. It took its rise outside the domain of history, in certain branches of study dealing with special human phenomena--language, literature, art, law, political economy, religion; studies which began by being dogmatic, but gradually a.s.sumed an historical character. The principle of this mode of cla.s.sification is to select and group together those facts which relate to the same species of actions; each of these groups becomes the subject-matter of a special branch of history. The totality of facts thus comes to be arranged in compartments which may be constructed _a priori_ by the study of the totality of human activities; these correspond to the set of general questions of which we have spoken in the preceding chapter.

In the following table we have attempted to provide a general scheme for the cla.s.sification[188] of historical facts, founded on the nature of the _conditions_ and of the _manifestations_ of activity.

I. MATERIAL CONDITIONS. (1) _Study of the body_: _A._ Anthropology (ethnology), anatomy, and physiology, anomalies and pathological peculiarities. _B._ Demography (number, s.e.x, age, births, deaths, diseases). (2) _Study of the environment_: _A._ Natural geographical environment (orographic configuration, climate, water, soil, flora, and fauna). _B._ Artificial environment, forestry (cultivation, buildings, roads, implements, &c.).

II. INTELLECTUAL HABITS (not obligatory). (1) _Language_ (vocabulary, syntax, phonetics, semasiology). Handwriting. (2) _Arts_: _A._ Plastic arts (conditions of production, conceptions, methods, works). _B._ Arts of expression, music, dance, literature. (3) _Sciences_ (conditions of production, methods, results). (4) _Philosophy and Morals_ (conceptions, precepts, actual practice). (5) _Religion_ (beliefs, practices).[189]

III. MATERIAL CUSTOMS (not obligatory). (1) _Material life_: _A._ Food (materials, modes of preparing, stimulants). _B._ Clothes and personal adornment. _C._ Dwellings and furniture. (2) _Private life_: _A._ Employment of time (toilette, care of the person, meals). _B._ Social ceremonies (funerals and marriages, festivals, etiquette). _C._ Amus.e.m.e.nts (modes of exercise and hunting, games and spectacles, social meetings, travelling).

IV. ECONOMIC CUSTOMS. (1) _Production_: _A._ Agriculture and stock-breeding. _B._ Exploitation of minerals. (2) _Transformation, Transport and industries_:[190] technical processes, division of labour, means of communication. (3) _Commerce_: exchange and sale, credit. (4) _Distribution_: system of property, transmission, contracts, profit-sharing.

V. SOCIAL INSt.i.tUTIONS. (1) _The family_: _A._ Const.i.tution, authority, condition of women and children. _B._ Economic organisation.[191] Family property, succession. (2) _Education and instruction_ (aim, methods, _personnel_). (3) _Social cla.s.ses_ (principle of division, rules regulating intercourse).

VI. PUBLIC INSt.i.tUTIONS (obligatory). (1) _Political inst.i.tutions_: _A._ Sovereign (_personnel_, procedure). _B._ Administration, services (war, justice, finance, &c.). _C._ Elected authorities, a.s.semblies, electoral bodies (powers, procedure). (2) _Ecclesiastical inst.i.tutions_ (the same divisions). (3) _International inst.i.tutions_: _A._ Diplomacy. _B._ War (usages of war and military arts). _C._ Private law and commerce.

This grouping of facts according to their nature is combined with the system of grouping by time and place; we thus obtain chronological, geographical, or, national sections in each branch. The history of a species of activity (language, painting, government) subdivides into the history of periods, countries, and nations (history of the ancient Greek language, history of the government of France in the nineteenth century).

The same principles aid in determining the order in which the facts are to be arranged. The necessity of presenting facts one after another obliges us to adopt some methodical rule of succession. We may describe successively either all the facts which relate to a given place, or those which relate to a given country, or all the facts of a given species. All historical matter can be distributed in three different kinds of order: _chronological_ order, _geographical_ order, that kind of order which is governed by the nature of actions and is generally called _logical_ order. It is impossible to use any of these orders exclusively: in every chronological exposition there necessarily occur geographical or logical cross-divisions, transitions from one country to another, or from one species of facts to a different species, and conversely. But it is always necessary to decide which shall be the main order into which the others enter as subdivisions.

It is a delicate matter to choose between these three orders; our choice will be decided by different reasons according to the subject, and according to the public for whom we are working. That is to say, it will depend on the method of exposition; it would take up too much s.p.a.ce to give the theory of it.

II. When we come to the selection of historical facts for cla.s.sification and arrangement, a question is raised which has been disputed with considerable warmth.

Every human action is by its nature an individual transient phenomenon which is confined to a definite time and a definite place. Strictly speaking, every fact is unique. But every action of a man resembles other actions of the same man, or of other members of the same group, and often to so great a degree that the whole group of actions receives a common name, in which their individuality is lost. These groups of similar actions, which the human mind is irresistibly impelled to form, are called habits, usages, inst.i.tutions. These are merely constructions of the mind, but they are imposed so forcibly on our intellect that many of them must be recognised and constantly employed; habits are collective facts, possessing extension in time and s.p.a.ce. Historical facts may therefore be considered under two different aspects: we may regard either the individual, particular, and transient elements in them, or we may look for what is collective, general, and durable.

According to the first conception, history is a continuous narrative of the incidents which have happened among men in the past; according to the second, it is the picture of the successive habits of humanity.

On this subject there has been a contest, especially in Germany, between the partisans of the history of civilisation (_Kulturgeschichte_)[192]

and the historians who remain faithful to ancient tradition; in France we have had the struggle between the history of inst.i.tutions, manners, and ideas, and political history, contemptuously nicknamed "battle-history" by its opponents.

This opposition is explained by the difference between the doc.u.ments which the workers on either side were accustomed to deal with. The historians, princ.i.p.ally occupied with political history, read of individual and transient acts of rulers in which it was difficult to detect any common feature. In the special histories, on the contrary (except that of literature), the doc.u.ments exhibit none but general facts, a linguistic form, a religious rite, a rule of law; an effort of imagination is required to picture the man who p.r.o.nounced the word, who performed the rite, or who applied the rule in practice.

There is no need to take sides in this controversy. Historical construction in its completeness implies the study of facts under both aspects. The representation of men's habits of thought, life, and action is obviously an important part of history. And yet, supposing we had brought together all the acts of all individuals for the purpose of extracting what is common to them, there would still remain a residue which we should have no right to reject, for it is the distinctively historical element--the circ.u.mstance that a particular action was the action of a given man, or group of men, at a given moment. In a scheme of cla.s.sification which should only recognise the general facts of political life there would be no place for the victory of Pharsalia or the taking of the Bastille--accidental and transient facts, but without which the history of Roman and French inst.i.tutions would be unintelligible.

History is thus obliged to combine with the study of general facts the study of certain particular facts. It has a mixed character, fluctuating between a science of generalities and a narrative of adventures. The difficulty of cla.s.sing this hybrid under one of the categories of human thought has often been expressed by the childish question: Is history a science or an art?

III. The general table given above may be used for the determination of all the species of habits (usages or inst.i.tutions) of which the history may be written. But before applying this general scheme to the study of any particular group of habits, language, religion, private usages, or political inst.i.tutions, there is always a preliminary question to be answered: Whose were the habits we are about to study? They were common to a great number of individuals; and a collection of individuals with the same habits is what we call a _group_. The first condition, then, for the study of a habit is the determination of the group which has practised it. At this point we must beware of the first impulse; it leads to a negligence which may ruin the whole of our historical construction.

The natural tendency is to conceive the human group on the model of the zoological species--as a body of men who all resemble each other. We take a group united by a very obvious common characteristic, a nation united by a common official government (Romans, English, French), a people speaking the same language (Greeks, ancient Germans), and we proceed as if all the members of this group resembled each other at every point and had the same usages.

As a matter of fact, no real group, not even a centralised society, is a h.o.m.ogeneous whole. For a great part of human activity--language, art, science, religion, economic interests--the group is constantly fluctuating. What are we to understand by the group of those who speak Greek, the Christian group, the group of modern science? And even those groups to which some precision is given by an official organisation, States and Churches, are but superficial unities composed of heterogeneous elements. The English nation comprises Welsh, Scotch, and Irish; the Catholic Church is composed of adherents scattered over the whole world, and differing in everything but religion. There is no group whose members have the same habits in every respect. The same man is at the same time a member of several groups, and in each group he has companions who differ from those he has in the others. A French Canadian belongs to the British Empire, the Catholic Church, the group of French-speaking people. Thus the different groups overlap each other in a way that makes it impossible to divide humanity into sharply distinct societies existing side by side.

In historical doc.u.ments we find the contemporary names of groups, many of them resting on mere superficial resemblances. It must be made a rule not to adopt popular notions of this kind without criticising them. We must accurately determine the nature and extent of the group, asking: Of what men was it composed? What bond united them? What habits had they in common? In what species of activity did they differ? Not till after such criticism shall we be able to tell what are the habits in respect of which the group in question may be used as a basis of study. In order to study intellectual habits (language, religion, art, science) we shall not take a political unit, the nation, but the group consisting of those who shared the habit in question. In order to study economic facts we shall choose a group united by a common economic interest; we shall reserve the political group for the study of social and political facts, and we shall discard _race_[193] altogether.

Even in those points in which a group is h.o.m.ogeneous it is not entirely so; it is divided into sub-groups, the members of which differ in secondary habits; a language is divided into dialects, a religion into sects, a nation into provinces. Conversely, one group resembles other groups in a way that justifies its being regarded as contiguous with them; in a general cla.s.sification we may recognise "families" of languages, arts, and peoples. We have, then, to ask: How was a given group sub-divided? Of what larger group did it form a part?

It then becomes possible to study methodically a given habit, or even the totality of the habits belonging to a given time and place, by following the table given above. The operation presents no difficulties of method in the case of those species of facts which appear as individual and voluntary habits--language, art, sciences, conceptions, private usages; here it is enough to ascertain in what each habit consisted. It is merely necessary to distinguish carefully between those who originated or maintained habits (artists, the learned, philosophers, introducers of fas.h.i.+ons) and the ma.s.s who accepted them.

But when we come to social or political habits (what we call inst.i.tutions), we meet with new conditions which produce an inevitable illusion. The members of the same social or political group do not merely habitually perform _similar_ actions; they influence each other by _reciprocal_ actions, they command, coerce, pay each other. Habits here take the form of _relations_ between the different members; when they are of old standing, formulated in official rules, imposed by a visible authority, maintained by a special set of persons, they occupy so important a place in life, that, to the persons under their influence, they appear as external realities. The men, too, who specialise in an occupation or a function which becomes the dominating habit of their lives, appear as grouped in distinct categories (cla.s.ses, corporations, churches, governments); and these categories are taken for real existences, or at least for organs of various functions in a real existence, namely, society. We follow the a.n.a.logy of an animal's body so far as to describe the "structure" and the "functions" of a society, even its "anatomy" and "physiology." These are pure metaphors. By the structure of a society we mean the rules and the customs by which occupations and enjoyments are distributed among its members; by its functions we mean the habitual actions by which each man enters into relations with the others. It may be convenient to use these terms, but it should be remembered that the underlying reality is composed entirely of habits and customs.

The study of inst.i.tutions, however, obliges us to ask special questions about persons and their functions. In respect of social and economic inst.i.tutions we have to ask what was the principle of the division of labour and of the division into cla.s.ses, what were the professions and cla.s.ses, how were they recruited, what were the relations between the members of the different professions and cla.s.ses. In respect of political inst.i.tutions, which are sanctioned by obligatory rules and a visible authority, two new series of questions arise. (1) Who were the persons invested with authority? When authority is divided we have to study the division of functions, to a.n.a.lyse the _personnel_ of government into its different groups (supreme and subordinate, central and local), and to distinguish each of the special bodies. In respect of each cla.s.s of men concerned in the government we shall ask: How were they recruited? What was their official authority? What were their real powers? (2) What were the official rules? What was their form (custom, orders, law, precedent)? What was their content (rules of law)? What was the mode of application (procedure)? And, above all, how did the rules differ from the practice (abuse of power, exploitation, conflicts between executive agents, non-observance of rules)?

After the determination of all the facts which const.i.tute a society, it remains to find the place which this society occupies among the total number of the societies contemporary with it. Here we enter upon the study of international inst.i.tutions, intellectual, economic, and political (diplomacy and the usages of war); the same questions apply as in the study of political inst.i.tutions. A study should also be made of the habits common to several societies, and of those relations which do not a.s.sume an official form. This is one of the least advanced parts of historical construction.

IV. The outcome of all this labour is a tabulated view of human life at a given moment; it gives us the knowledge of a _state_ of society (in German, _Zustand_). But history is not limited to the study of simultaneous facts, taken in a state of rest, to what we may call the _statics_ of society. It also studies the states of society at different moments, and discovers the differences between these states. The habits of men and the material conditions under which they live change from epoch to epoch; even when they appear to be constant they do not remain unaltered in every respect. There is therefore occasion to investigate these changes; thus arises the study of successive facts.

Of these changes the most interesting for the work of historical construction are those which tend in a common direction,[194] so that in virtue of a series of gradual differentiations a usage or a state of society is transformed into a different usage or state, or, to speak without metaphor, cases where the men of a given period practise a habit very different from that of their predecessors without any abrupt change having taken place. This is _evolution_.

Evolution occurs in all human habits. In order to investigate it, therefore, it is enough to turn once more to the series of questions which we used in constructing a tabulated view of society. In respect of each of the facts, conditions, usages, persons invested with authority, official rules, the question is to be asked: What was the evolution of this fact?

This study will involve several operations: (1) the determination of the fact whose evolution is to be studied; (2) the fixing of the duration of the time during which the evolution took place (the period should be so chosen that while the transformation is obvious, there yet remains a connecting link between the initial and the final condition); (3) the establis.h.i.+ng of the different stages of the evolution; (4) the investigation of the means by which it was brought about.