must take particulars from his biography and his habits. From his
biography we shall take those facts which determined his career, formed
his habits, and occasioned the actions by which he influenced society.
These comprise physiological conditions (physique, temperament, state of
health),[203] the educational influences, the social conditions to which
he was subject. The history of literature has accustomed us to
researches of this kind.
Among the habits of a man it is necessary to determine his fundamental
conceptions relating to the class of facts in which his influence was
felt, his conception of life, his knowledge, his predominating tastes,
his habitual occupations, his principles of conduct. From these details,
in which there is infinite variety, an impression is formed of the man's
"character," and the collection of these characteristic features
constitutes his "portrait," or, to use a favourite phrase of the day,
his "psychology." This exercise, which is still held in great esteem,
dates from the time when history was still a branch of literature; it is
doubtful whether it can ever become a scientific process. There is
perhaps no sure method of summing up the character of a man, even in his
lifetime, still less when we can only know him indirectly through the
medium of documents. The controversies relative to the interpretation of
the conduct of Alexander are a good example of this uncertainty.
If, however, we take the risk of seeking a formula to describe a
character, there are two natural temptations against which we must
guard: (I) We must not construct the formula out of the person's
assertions in regard to himself. (2) The study of imaginary personages
(dramas and novels) has accustomed us to seek a logical connection
between the various sentiments and the various acts of a man; a
character, in literature, is constructed logically. This search for
coherency must not be transferred to the study of real men. We are less
likely to do so in the case of those whom we observe in their lifetime,
because we see too many characteristics in them which could not enter
into a coherent formula. But the absence of documents, by suppressing
those characteristics which would have checked us, encourages us to
arrange the very small number of those which remain in the form of a
stage-character. This is why the great men of antiquity seem to us to
have been much more logical than our contemporaries are.
How are we to construct a formula for an event? The imperative need of
simplification causes us to combine under a single name an enormous mass
of minute facts which are perceived in the lump, and between which we
vaguely feel that there is a connection (a battle, a war, a reform).
The facts which are thus combined are such facts as have conduced to a
common result. That is how the common notion of an event arises, and
there is no more scientific conception to put in its place. Facts, then,
are to be grouped according to their consequences; those which have had
no visible consequences disappear, the others are fused into a certain
number of aggregates which we call events.
In order to describe an event, it is necessary to give precise
indications (I) of its character, (2) of its extent.
(I) By the character of an event we mean the features which distinguish
it from every other event, not merely the external conditions of date
and place, but the manner in which it occurred, and its immediate
causes. The following are the items of information which the formula
should contain. One or more men, in such and such mental states
(conceptions, motives of the action), working under such and such
material conditions (locality, instrument), performed such and such
actions, which had for their result such and such a modification. For
the determination of the motives of the actions, the only method is to
compare the actions, firstly, with the declarations of those who
performed them; secondly, with the interpretation of those who witnessed
their performance. There is often a doubt remaining: this is the field
of party polemics; every one attributes noble motives to the actions of
his own party and discreditable motives to those of the opposite party.
But actions described without any indication of motive would be
unintelligible.
(2) The extension of the event will be indicated both in space (the
place where it happened, and the region in which its immediate effects
were felt) and in time, the moment when its realisation began, and the
moment when the result was brought about.
V. Descriptive formulae relating to characters, being merely qualitative,
only give an abstract idea of the facts; in order to realise the place
they occupied in reality, quantity is necessary. It is not a matter of
indifference whether a given usage was practised by a hundred men or by
millions.
For the purpose of introducing quantity into formulae we have at our
disposal several methods, of various degrees of imperfection, which help
us to attain the end in view with various degrees of precision. Arranged
in descending order of precision they are as follows:--
(1) _Measurement_ is a perfectly scientific procedure, for equal numbers
represent absolutely identical values. But a common unit is necessary,
and that can only be had for time and for physical phenomena (lengths,
surfaces, weights). Figures relating to production and sums of money are
the essential elements in the statement of economic and financial facts.
But facts of the psychological order remain inaccessible to measurement.
(2) _Enumeration_, which is the process employed in statistics,[204] is
applicable to all the facts which have in common a definite
characteristic which can be made use of for counting them. The facts
which are thus comprehended under a single number do not all belong to
the same species, they may have in common but a single characteristic,
abstract (crime, lawsuit) or conventional (workman, lodging); the
figures merely indicate the number of cases in which a given
characteristic is met with; they do not represent a homogeneous whole. A
natural tendency is to confuse number with measurement, and to suppose
that facts are known with scientific precision because it has been
possible to apply number to them; this is an illusion to be guarded
against, we must not take the figures which give the number of a
population or an army for the measure of its importance.[205] Still,
enumeration yields results which are necessary for the construction of
formulae relating to groups. But the operation is restricted to those
cases in which it is possible to know all the units of a given species
lying within given limits, for it is performed by first ticking off,
then adding. Before undertaking a retrospective enumeration, therefore,
it will be well to make sure that the documents are complete enough to
exhibit all the units which are to be enumerated. As to figures given in
documents, they are to be distrusted.
(3) _Valuation_ is a kind of incomplete enumeration applying to a
portion of the field, and made on the supposition that the same
proportions hold good through the whole of the field. It is an expedient
to which, in history, it is often necessary to have recourse when
documents are unequally abundant for the different divisions of the
subject. The result is open to doubt, unless we are sure that the
portion to which enumeration was applied was exactly similar to the
remainder.
(4) _Sampling_ is a process of enumeration restricted to a few units
taken at different points in the field of investigation; we calculate
the proportion of cases (say 90 per cent.) where a given characteristic
occurs, we assume that the same proportion holds throughout, and if
there are several categories we obtain the proportion between them. In
history this procedure is applicable to facts of every kind, for the
purpose of determining either the proportion between the different forms
or usages which occur within a given region or period, or the proportion
which obtains, within a heterogeneous group, between members belonging
to different classes. This procedure gives us an approximate idea of the
frequency of facts and the proportion between the different elements of
a society; it can even show what species of facts are most commonly
found together, and are therefore probably connected. But in order that
the method may be employed correctly it is necessary that the samples
should be representative of the whole, and not of a part which might
possibly be exceptional in character. They should therefore be chosen at
very different points, and under very different conditions, in order
that the exceptions may compensate each other. It is not enough to take
them at points which are _distant_ from each other; for example, on the
different frontiers of a country, for the very circumstance of
situation on a frontier is an exceptional condition. Verification may be
had by following the methods by which anthropologists obtain averages.
(5) _Generalisation_ is only an instinctive process of simplification.
As soon as we perceive a certain characteristic in an object, we extend
this characteristic to all other objects which at all resemble it. In
all human concerns, where the facts are always complex, we make
generalisations unconsciously; we attribute to a whole people the habits
of a few individuals, or those of the first group forming part of the
people which comes within our knowledge; we extend to a whole period
habits which are ascertained to have existed at a given moment. This is
the most active of all the causes of historical error, and one whose
influence is felt in every department, in the study of usages and of
institutions, even in the appreciation of the morality of a people.[206]
Generalisation rests on a vague idea that all facts which are contiguous
to each other, or which resemble each other in some point, are similar
at all points. It is an unconscious and ill-performed process of
sampling. It may therefore be made correct by being subjected to the
conditions of a well-performed process of sampling. We must examine the
cases on which we propose to found a generalisation and ask ourselves.
What right have we to generalise? That is, what reason have we for
assuming that the characteristic discovered in these cases will occur in
the remaining thousands of cases? that the cases chosen resemble the
average? The only valid reason would be that these cases are
representative of the whole. We are thus brought back to the process of
methodical sampling.
The right method of conducting the operation is as follows: (1) We must
fix the precise limits of the field within which we intend to generalise
(that is, to assume the similarity of all the cases), we must determine
the country, the group, the class, the period as to which we are to
generalise. Care must be taken not to make the field too large by
confusing a part with the whole (a Greek or Germanic people with the
whole Greek or Germanic race). (2) We must make sure that the facts
lying within the field resemble each other in the points on which we
wish to generalise, and therefore we have to distrust those vague names
under which are comprehended groups of very different character
(Christians, French, Aryans, Romans). (3) We must make sure that the
facts from which we propose to generalise are representative samples,
that they really belong to the field of investigation, for it does
happen sometimes that men or facts are taken as specimens of one group
when they really belong to another. Nor must they be exceptional, as is
to be presumed in all cases when the conditions are exceptional; authors
of documents tend to record by preference those facts which surprise
them, hence exceptional cases occupy in documents a space which is out
of proportion to their real number; this is one of the chief sources of
error. (4) The number of samples necessary to support a generalisation
is the greater the less ground there is for supposing a resemblance
between all the cases occurring within the field of investigation. A
small number may suffice in treating of points in which men tend to bear
a strong resemblance to each other, either by imitation and convention
(language, rites, ceremonies), or from the influence of custom and
obligatory regulations (social institutions, political institutions in
countries where the authorities are obeyed). A large number is requisite
for facts where individual initiative plays a more important part (art,
science, morality), and sometimes, as in respect of private conduct, all
generalisation is as a rule impossible.
VI. Descriptive formulae are in no science the final result of the work.
It still remains to group the facts in such a way as to bring out their
collective import, it still remains to search for their mutual
relations; these are the general conclusions. History, by reason of the
imperfection of its mode of acquiring knowledge, needs, in addition, a
preliminary operation for determining the bearing of the knowledge
acquired.[207]
The work of criticism has supplied us with nothing but a number of
isolated remarks on the value of the knowledge which the documents have
permitted us to acquire. These must be combined. We shall therefore take
a whole group of facts entered under a common heading--a particular
class of facts, a country, a period, an event--and we shall summarise
the results yielded by the criticism of particular facts so as to obtain
a general formula. We shall have to take into consideration: (1) the
extent, (2) the value of our knowledge.
(1) We shall ask ourselves what are the blanks left by the documents. By
working through the scheme used for the grouping of facts it is easy to
discover what are the classes of facts on which we lack information. In
the case of evolution, we notice which links are missing in the chain of
successive modifications; in the case of events, what episodes, what
groups of actors are still unknown to us; what facts enter or disappear
from the field of our knowledge without our being able to trace their
beginning or end. We ought to construct, mentally at any rate, a
tabulated scheme of the points on which we are ignorant, in order to
keep before our minds the distance separating the knowledge we have from
a perfect knowledge.
(2) The value of our knowledge depends on the value of our documents.
Criticism has given us indications on this point in each separate case,
these indications, so far as relating to a given body of facts, must be
summarised under a few heads. Does our knowledge come originally from
direct observation, from written tradition, or from oral tradition? Do
we possess several traditions of different bias, or a single tradition?
Do we possess documents of different classes or of one single class? Is
our information vague or precise, detailed or summary, literary or
positive, official or confidential?
The natural tendency is to forget, in construction, the results yielded
by criticism, to forget the incompleteness of our knowledge and the
elements of doubt in it. An eager desire to increase to the greatest
possible extent the amount of our information and the number of our
conclusions impels us to seek emancipation from all negative
restrictions. We thus run a great risk of using fragmentary and
suspicious sources of information for the purpose of forming general
impressions, just as if we were in possession of a complete record. It
is easy to forget the existence of those facts which the documents do
not describe (economic facts, slaves in antiquity), it is easy to
exaggerate the space occupied by facts which are known to us (Greek art,
Roman inscriptions, mediaeval monasteries). We instinctively estimate the
importance of facts by the number of the documents which mention them.
We forget the peculiar character of the documents, and, when they all
have a common origin, we forget that they have all subjected the facts
to the same distortions, and that their community of origin renders
verification impossible; we submissively reproduce the bias of the
tradition (Roman, orthodox, aristocratic).
In order to resist these natural tendencies, it is enough to pass in
review the whole body of facts and the whole body of tradition, before
attempting to draw any general conclusion.
VII. Descriptive formulae give the particular character of each small
group of facts. In order to obtain a general conclusion, we must combine
these detailed results into a general formula. We must not compare
together isolated details or secondary characteristics,[208] but groups
of facts which resemble each other in a whole set of characteristics.
We thus form an aggregate (of institutions, of groups of men, of
events). Following the method indicated above, we determine its
distinguishing characteristics, its extent, its duration, its quantity
or importance.
As we form groups of greater and greater generality we drop, with each
new degree of generality, those characteristics which vary, and retain
those which are common to all the members of the new group. We must stop
at the point where nothing is left except the characteristics common to
the whole of humanity. The result is the condensation into a single
formula of the general character of an order of facts, of a language, a
religion, an art, an economic organisation, a society, a government, a
complex event (such as the Invasion or the Reformation).
As long as these comprehensive formulae remain isolated the conclusion is
incomplete. And as it is no longer possible to fuse them into higher
generalisations, we feel the need of comparing them for the purpose of
classification. This classification may be attempted by two methods.
(1) We may compare together similar categories of special facts,
language, religions, arts, governments, taking them from the whole of
humanity, and classifying together those which most resemble each other.
We obtain families of languages, religions, and governments, which we
may again classify and arrange among themselves. This is an abstract
kind of classification; it isolates one species of facts from all the
others, and thus renounces all claim to exhibit causes. It has the
advantage of being rapidly performed and of yielding a technical
vocabulary which is useful for designating facts.
(2) We may compare real groups of real individuals, we may take
societies which figure in history and classify them according to their
similarities. This is a concrete classification analogous to that of
zoology, in which, not functions, but whole animals are classified. It
is true that the groups are less clearly marked than in zoology; nor is
there a general agreement as to the characteristics in respect of which
we are to look for resemblances. Are we to choose the economic or the
political organisation of the groups, or their intellectual condition?
No principle of choice has as yet become obligatory.
History has not yet succeeded in establishing a scientific system of
comprehensive classification. Possibly human groups are not sufficiently
homogeneous to furnish a solid basis of comparison, and not sharply
enough divided to be treated as comparable units.
VIII. The study of the relations between simultaneous facts consists in
a search for the connections between all the facts of different species
which occur in a given society. We have a vague consciousness that the
different habits which are separated by abstraction and ranged under
different categories (art, religion, political institutions), are not
isolated in reality, that they have common characteristics, and that
they are closely enough connected for a change in one of them to bring
about a change in another. This is a fundamental idea of the _Esprit des
Lois_ of Montesquieu. This bond of connection, sometimes called
_consensus_, has received the name of _Zusammenhang_ from the German
school. From this conception has arisen the theory of the _Volksgeist_
(the mind of a people), a counterfeit of which has within the last few
years been introduced into France under the name of "ame nationale."
This conception is also at the bottom of the theory regarding the soul
of society which Lamprecht has expounded.
After the rejection of these mystical conceptions there remains a vague
but incontrovertible fact, the "solidarity" which exists between the
different habits of one and the same people. In order to study it with
precision it would be necessary to analyse it, and a connecting bond
cannot be analysed. It is thus quite natural that this part of social
science should have remained a refuge for mystery and obscurity.
By the comparison of different societies which resemble or differ from
each other in a given department (religion or government), with the
object of discovering in what other departments they resemble or differ
from each other, it is possible that interesting empirical results might
be obtained. But, in order to _explain_ the _consensus_, it is necessary
to work back to the facts which have produced it, the common causes of
the various habits. We are thus obliged to undertake the investigation
of causes, and we enter the province of what is called _philosophical_
history, because it investigates what was formerly called the
_philosophy_ of facts--that is to say, their permanent relations.
IX. The necessity of rising above the simple determination of facts in
order to _explain_ them by their _causes_, a necessity which has
governed the development of all the sciences, has at length been felt
even in the study of history. Hence have arisen systematic philosophies
of history, and attempts to discover historical laws and causes. We
cannot here enter into a critical examination of these attempts, which
the nineteenth century has produced in so great number; we shall merely
indicate what are the ways in which the problem has been attacked, and
what obstacles have prevented a scientific solution from being reached.
The most natural method of explanation consists in the assumption that a
transcendental cause, Providence, guides the whole course of events
towards an end which is known to God.[209] This explanation can be but a
metaphysical doctrine, crowning the work of science; for the
distinguishing feature of science is that it only studies efficient
causes. The historian is not called upon to investigate the first cause
or final causes any more than the chemist or the naturalist. And, in
fact, few writers on history nowadays stop to discuss the theory of
Providence in its theological form.
But the tendency to explain historical facts by transcendental causes
survives in more modern theories in which metaphysic is disguised under
scientific forms. The historians of the nineteenth century have been so
strongly influenced by their philosophical education that most of them,
sometimes unconsciously, introduce metaphysical formulae into the
construction of history. It will be enough to enumerate these systems,
and point out their metaphysical character, so that reflecting
historians may be warned to distrust them.
The theory of the rational character of history rests on the notion that
every real historical fact is at the same time "rational"--that is, in
conformity with an intelligible comprehensive plan; ordinarily it is
tacitly assumed that every social fact has its _raison d'etre_ in the
development of society--that is, that it ends by turning to the
advantage of society; hence the cause of every institution is sought for
in the social need it was originally meant to supply.[210] This is the
fundamental idea of Hegelianism, if not with Hegel, at least with the
historians who have been his disciples (Ranke, Mommsen, Droysen, in
France Cousin, Taine, and Michelet). This is a lay disguise of the old
theological theory of final causes which assumes the existence of a
Providence occupied in guiding humanity in the direction of its
interests. This is a consoling, but not a scientific _a priori_
hypothesis; for the observation of historical facts does not indicate
that things have always happened in the most rational way, or in the way
most advantageous to men, nor that institutions have had any other cause
than the interest of those who established them; the facts, indeed,
point rather to the opposite conclusion.
From the same metaphysical source has also sprung the Hegelian theory of
the _ideas_ which are successively realised in history through the
medium of successive peoples. This theory, which has been popularised in
France by Cousin and Michelet, has had its day, even in Germany, but it
has been revived, especially in Germany, in the form of the historical
mission (_Beruf_) which is attributed to peoples and persons. It will
here be enough to observe that the very metaphors of "idea" and
"mission" imply a transcendental anthropomorphic cause.
From the same optimistic conception of a rational guidance of the world
is derived the theory of the continuous and necessary _progress_ of
humanity. Although it has been adopted by the positivists, this is
merely a metaphysical hypothesis. In the ordinary sense of the word,
"progress" is merely a subjective expression denoting those changes
which follow the direction of our preferences. But, even taking the word
in the objective sense given to it by Spencer (an increase in the
variety and coordination of social phenomena), the study of historical
facts does not point to a _single_ universal and continuous progress of
humanity, it brings before us a _number_ of partial and intermittent
progressive movements, and it gives us no reason to attribute them to a
permanent cause inherent in humanity as a whole rather than to a series
of local accidents.[211]
Attempts at a more scientific form of explanation have had their origin
in the special branches of history (of languages, religion, law). By the
separate study of the succession of facts of a single species,
specialists have been enabled to ascertain the regular recurrence of the
same successions of facts, and these results have been expressed in
formulae which are sometimes called laws (for example, the law of the
tonic accent); these are never more than empirical laws which merely
indicate successions of facts without explaining them, for they do not
reveal the efficient cause. But specialists, influenced by a natural
metaphor, and struck by the regularity of these successions, have
regarded the evolution of usages (of a word, a rite, a dogma, a rule of
law), as if it were an organic development analogous to the growth of a
plant; we hear of the "life of words," of the "death of dogmas," of the
"growth of myths." Then, in forgetfulness of the fact that all these
things are pure abstractions, it has been tacitly assumed that there is
a force inhering in the word, the rite, the rule, which produces its
evolution. This is the theory of the development (_Entwickelung_) of
usages and institutions; it was started in Germany by the "historical"
school, and has dominated all the special branches of history. The
history of languages alone has succeeded in shaking off its
influence.[212] Just as usages have been treated as if they were
existences possessing a separate life of their own, so the succession of
individuals composing the various bodies within a society (royalty,
church, senate, parliament) has been personified by the attribution to
it of a will, which is treated as an active cause. A world of imaginary
beings has thus been created behind the historical facts, and has
replaced Providence in the explanation of them. For our defence against
this deceptive mythology a single rule will suffice: Never seek the
causes of an historical fact without having first expressed it
concretely in terms of acting and thinking individuals. If abstractions
are used, every metaphor must be avoided which would make them play the
part of living beings.
By a comparison of the evolutions of the different species of facts
which coexist in one and the same society, the "historical" school was
led to the discovery of solidarity (_Zusammenhang_).[213] But, before
attempting to discover its causes by analysis, the adherents of this
school assumed the existence of a permanent general cause residing in
the society itself. And, as it was customary to personify society, a
special temperament was attributed to it, the peculiar genius of the
nation or the race, manifesting itself in the different social
activities and explaining their solidarity.[214] This was simply an
hypothesis suggested by the animal world, in which each species has
permanent characteristics. It would have been inadequate, for in order
to explain how a given society comes to change its character from one
epoch to another (the Greeks between the seventh and the fourth
centuries, the English between the fifteenth and the nineteenth), it
would have been necessary to invoke the aid of external causes. And the
theory is untenable, for all the societies known to history are groups
of men without anthropological unity and without common hereditary
characteristics.
In addition to these metaphysical or metaphorical explanations, attempts
have been made to apply to the investigation of causes in history the
classical procedure of the natural sciences: the comparison of parallel
series of successive phenomena in order to discover those which always
appear together. The "comparative method" has assumed several different
forms. Sometimes the subject of study has been a detail of social life
(a usage, an institution, a belief, a rule), defined in abstract terms;
its evolutions in different societies have been compared with a view to
determine the common evolution which is to be attributed to one and the
same general cause. Thus have arisen comparative philology, mythology,
and law. It has been proposed (in England) to give precision to the
comparative method by applying "statistics"; this would mean the
systematic comparison of all known societies and the enumeration of all
the cases where two usages are found together. This is the principle of
Bacon's tables of agreement; it is to be feared that it will be no more
fertile in results. The defect of all such methods is that they apply to
abstract and partly arbitrary notions, sometimes merely to verbal
resemblances, and do not rest on a knowledge of the whole of the
conditions under which the facts occur.
We can conceive a more concrete method which, instead of comparing
fragments, should compare wholes, that is entire societies, either the
same society at different stages of its evolution (England in the
sixteenth, and again in the nineteenth century), or else the general
evolution of several societies, contemporary with each other (England
and France), or existing at different epochs (Rome and England). Such a
method might be useful negatively, for the purpose of ascertaining that
a given fact is not the necessary effect of another, since they are not
always found together (for example, the emancipation of women and
Christianity). But positive results are hardly to be expected of it, for
the concomitance of two facts in several series does not show whether
one is the cause of the other, or whether both are joint effects of a
single cause.
The methodical investigation of the causes of a fact requires an
analysis of the conditions under which the fact occurs, performed so as
to isolate the necessary condition which is its cause; it presupposes,
therefore, the complete knowledge of these conditions. But this is
precisely what we never have in history. We must therefore renounce the
idea of arriving at causes by direct methods such as are used in the
other sciences.
As a matter of fact, however, historians often do employ the notion of
cause, which, as we have shown above, is indispensable for the purpose
of formulating events and constructing periods. They know causes partly
from the authors of documents who observed the facts, partly from the
analogy of the causes which we all observe at the present day. The whole
history of events is a chain of obviously and incontrovertibly connected
incidents, each one of which is the determining cause of another. The
lance-thrust of Montgomery is the cause of the death of Henry II.; this
death is the cause of the accession to power of the Guises, which again
is the cause of the rising of the Protestants.
The observation of causes by the authors of documents is limited to the
interconnection of the accidental facts observed by them; these are, in
truth, the causes which are known with the greatest certainty. Thus
history, unlike the other sciences, is better able to ascertain the
causes of particular incidents than those of general transformations,
for the work is found already done in the documents.
In the investigation of the causes of general facts, historical
construction is reduced to the analogy between the past and the present.
Whatever chance there is of finding the causes which explain the
evolution of past societies must lie in the direct observation of the
transformations of present societies.
This is a branch of study which is not yet firmly established; here we
can only state the principles of it.
(1) In order to ascertain the causes of the solidarity between the
different habits of one and the same society, it is necessary to look
beyond the abstract and conventional form which the facts assume in
language (dogma, rule, rite, institution), and attend to the real
concrete centres, which are always thinking and acting men. Here only
are found together the different species of activity which language
separates by abstraction. Their solidarity is to be sought for in some
dominating feature in the character or the environment of the men which
influences all the different manifestations of their activity. We must
not expect the same degrees of solidarity in all the species of
activity; there will be most of it in those species where each
individual is in close dependence on the actions of the mass (economic,
social, political life); there will be less of it in the intellectual
activities (arts, sciences), where individual initiative has freer
play.[215] Documents mention most habits (beliefs, customs,
institutions) in the lump, without distinguishing individuals; and yet,
in one and the same society, habits vary considerably from one man to
another. It is necessary to take account of these differences, otherwise
there is a danger of explaining the actions of artists and men of
science by the beliefs and the habits of their prince or their
tradesmen.
(2) In order to ascertain the causes of an evolution, it is necessary to
study the only beings which can evolve--men. Every evolution has for its
cause a change in the material conditions or in the habits of certain
men. Observation shows us two kinds of change. In the one case, the men
remain the same, but change their manner of acting or thinking, either
voluntarily through imitation, or by compulsion. In the other, the men
who practised the old usage disappear and are replaced by others who do
not practise it; these may be strangers, or they may be the descendants
of the first set of men, but educated in a different manner. This
renewing of the generations seems, in our day, to be the most active
cause of evolution. It is natural to suppose that the same holds good of
the past; evolution has been slower, the more exclusively each
generation has been formed by the imitation of its forerunners.
There is still one more question to ask. Are men all alike, differing
merely in the _conditions_ under which they live (education, resources,
government), and is evolution produced solely by changes in these
_conditions_? Or are there groups of men with _hereditary differences_,
born with tendencies to different activities and with aptitudes leading
to different evolutions, so that evolution may be the product, in part
at least, of the increase, the diminution, and the displacement of these
groups? Taking the extreme cases, the white, black, and yellow races of
mankind, the differences in aptitude are obvious; no black people has
ever developed a civilisation. It is thus probable that smaller
hereditary differences may have had their share in the determination of
events. If so, historical evolution would be partly produced by
physiological and anthropological causes. But history provides us with
no sure means of determining the action of these hereditary differences
between men; it goes no further than the conditions of their existence.
The last question of history remains insoluble by historical methods.
CHAPTER V
EXPOSITION
We have still to study a question whose practical interest is obvious:
What are the forms in which historical works present themselves? These
forms are, in fact, very numerous. Some of them are antiquated; not all
are legitimate; the best have their drawbacks. We should ask, therefore,
not only what are the forms in which historical works appear, but also
which of these represent truly rational types of exposition.
By "historical works" we mean here all those which are intended to
communicate results obtained by the labour of historical construction,
whatever may be the nature, the extent, and the bearing of these
results. The critical elaboration of documents, which is treated of in
Book II., and which is preparatory to historical construction, is
naturally excluded.
Historians may differ, and up to the present have differed, on several
essential points. They have not always had, nor have they all now, the
same conception of the end aimed at by historical work; hence arise
differences in the nature of the facts chosen, the manner of dividing
the subject, that is, of co-ordinating the facts, the manner of
presenting them, the manner of proving them. This would be the place to
indicate how "the mode of writing history" has evolved from the
beginning. But as the history of the modes of writing history has not
yet been written well,[216] we shall here content ourselves with some
very general remarks on the period prior to the second half of the
nineteenth century, confining ourselves to what is strictly necessary
for the understanding of the present situation.
I. History was first conceived as the narration of memorable events. To
preserve the memory and propagate the knowledge of glorious deeds, or of
events which were of importance to a man, a family, or a people; such
was the aim of history in the tune of Thucydides and Livy. In addition,
history was early considered as a collection of precedents, and the
knowledge of history as a practical preparation for life, especially
political life (military and civil). Polybius and Plutarch wrote to
instruct, they claimed to give recipes for action. Hence in classical
antiquity the subject-matter of history consisted chiefly of political
incidents, wars, and revolutions. The ordinary framework of historical
exposition (within which the facts were usually arranged in
chronological order) was the life of a person, the whole life of a
people, or a particular period in it; there were in antiquity but few
essays in general history. As the aim of the historian was to please or
to instruct, or to please and instruct at the same time, history was a
branch of literature: there were not too many scruples on the score of
proofs; those who worked from written documents took no care to
distinguish the text of such documents from their own text; in
reproducing the narratives of their predecessors they adorned them with
details, and sometimes (under pretext of being precise) with numbers,
with speeches, with reflections, and elegances. We can in a manner see
them at work in every instance where it is possible to compare Greek and
Roman historians, Ephorus and Livy, for example, with their sources.
The writers of the Renaissance directly imitated the ancients. For them,
too, history was a literary art with apologetic aims or didactic
pretensions. In Italy it was too often a means of gaining the favour of
princes, or a theme for declamations. This state of affairs lasted a
long time. Even in the seventeenth century we find, in Mezeray, an
historian of the ancient classical pattern.
However, in the historical literature of the Renaissance, two novelties
claim our attention, in which the mediaeval influence is incontrovertibly
manifest. On the one hand we see the retention of a form of exposition
which was unusual in antiquity, which was created by the Catholic
historians of the later ages (Eusebius, Orosius), and which enjoyed
great favour in the Middle Ages,--that which, instead of embracing only
the history of a single man, family, or people, embraces universal
history. On the other hand there was introduced a mechanical artifice of
exposition, having its origin in a practice common in the mediaeval
schools (the gloss), which had far-reaching consequences. The custom
arose of adding notes to printed books of history.[217] Notes have made
it possible to distinguish between the historical narrative and the
documents which support it, to give references to sources, to
disencumber and illustrate the text. It was in collections of documents,
and in critical dissertations, that the artifice of annotation was first
employed; thence it penetrated, slowly, into historical works of other
classes.
A second period begins in the eighteenth century. The "philosophers"
then began to conceive history as the study, not of events for their own
sakes, but of the habits of men. They were thus led to take an interest,
not only in facts of a political order, but in the evolution of the
arts, the sciences, of industry, and in manners. Montesquieu and
Voltaire personified these tendencies. The _Essai sur les moeurs_ is
the first sketch, and, in some respects, the masterpiece of history thus
conceived. The detailed narration of political and military events was
still regarded as the main work of history, but to this it now became
customary to add, generally by way of supplement or appendix, a sketch
of the "progress of the human mind." The expression "history of
civilisation" appears before the end of the eighteenth century. At the
same time German university professors, especially at Goettingen, were
creating, in order to supply educational needs, the new form of the
historical "manual," a methodical collection of carefully justified
facts, with no literary or other pretensions. Collections of historical
facts, made with a view to aid in the interpretation of literary texts,
or out of mere curiosity in regard to the things of the past, had
existed from ancient times; but the medleys of Athenaeus and Aulus
Gellius, or the vaster and better arranged compilations of the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance, are by no means to be compared with the
"scientific manuals" of which the German professors then gave the
models. These professors, moreover, contributed towards the clearing up
of the vague, general notion which the philosophers had of
"civilisation," for they applied themselves to the organisation of the
history of languages, of literatures, of the arts, of religions, of law,
of economic phenomena, and so on, as so many separate branches of study.
Thus the domain of history was greatly enlarged, and scientific, that
is, simple and objective, exposition began to compete with the
rhetorical or sententious, patriotic or philosophical ideals of
antiquity.
This competition was at first timid and obscure, for the beginning of
the nineteenth century was marked by a literary renaissance which
renovated historical literature. Under the influence of the romantic
movement historians sought for more vivid methods of exposition than
those employed by their predecessors, methods better adapted to strike
the imagination and rouse the emotions of the public, by filling the
mind with poetical images of vanished realities. Some endeavoured to
preserve the peculiar colouring of the original documents, which they
adapted: "Charmed with the contemporary narratives," says Barante, "I
have endeavoured to write a consecutive account which should borrow from
them their animation and interest." This leads directly to the neglect
of criticism, and to the reproduction of whatever is effective from the
literary point of view. Others declared that the facts of the past ought
to be recounted with all the emotions of a spectator. "Thierry," says
Michelet, praising him, "in telling us the story of Klodowig, breathes
the spirit and shows the emotion of recently invaded France...."
Michelet "stated the problem of history as the resuscitation of integral
life in the inmost parts of the organism." With the romantic historians
the choice of subject, of plan, of the proofs, of the style, is
dominated by an engrossing desire to produce an effect--a literary, not
a scientific ambition. Some romantic historians have slid down this
inclined plane to the level of the "historical novel." We know the
nature of this species of literature, which flourished so vigorously
from the Abbe Barthelemy and Chateaubriand down to Merimee and Ebers,
and which some are now vainly attempting to rejuvenate. The object is to
"make the scenes of the past live again" in dramatic pictures
artistically constructed with "true" colours and details. The obvious
object of the method is that it does not provide the reader with any
means of distinguishing between the elements borrowed from the
documents and the imaginary elements, not to mention the fact that
generally the documents used are not all of the same origin, so that
while the colour of each stone may be "true" that of the mosaic is
false. Dezobry's _Rome au siecle d'Auguste_, Augustin Thierry's _Recits
merovingiens_, and other "pictures" produced at the same epoch were
constructed on the same principle, and are subject to the same drawbacks
as the historical novels properly so-called.[218]
We may summarise what precedes by saying that, up to about 1850, history
continued to be, both for historians and the public, a branch of
literature. An excellent proof of this lies in the fact that up till
then historians were accustomed to publish new editions of their works,
at intervals of several years, without making any change in them, and
that the public tolerated the practice. Now every scientific work needs
to be continually recast, revised, brought up to date. Scientific
workers do not claim to give their works an immutable form, they do not
expect to be read by posterity or to achieve personal immortality; it is
enough for them if the results of their researches, corrected, it may
be, and possibly transformed by subsequent researches, should be
incorporated in the fund of knowledge which forms the scientific
heritage of mankind. No one reads Newton or Lavoisier; it is enough for
their glory that their labours should have contributed to the
production of works by which their own have been superseded, and which
will be, sooner or later, superseded in their turn. It is only works of
art that enjoy perpetual youth. And the public is well aware of the
fact; no one would ever think of studying natural history in Buffon,
whatever his opinion might be of the merits of this stylist. But the
same public is quite ready to study history in Augustin Thierry, in
Macaulay, in Carlyle, in Michelet, and the books of the great writers
who have treated historical subjects are reprinted, fifty years after
the author's death, in their original form, though they are manifestly
no longer on a level with current knowledge. It is clear that, for many,
form counts before matter in history, and that an historical work is
primarily, if not exclusively, a work of art.[219]
II. It is within the last fifty years that the scientific forms of
historical exposition have been evolved and settled, in accordance with
the general principle that the aim of history is not to please, nor to
give practical maxims of conduct, nor to arouse the emotions, but
knowledge pure and simple.
We begin by distinguishing between (1) monographs and (2) works of a
general character.
(1) A man writes a monograph when he proposes to elucidate a special
point, a single fact, or a limited body of facts, for example the whole
or a portion of the life of an individual, a single event or a series of
events between two dates lying near together. The types of possible
subjects of a monograph cannot be enumerated, for the subject-matter of
history can be divided indefinitely, and in an infinite number of ways.
But all modes of division are not equally judicious, and, though the
reverse has been maintained, there are, in history as in all the
sciences, subjects which it would be stupid to treat in monographs, and
monographs which, though well executed, represent so much useless
labour.[220] Persons of moderate ability and no great mental range,
devoted to what is called "curious" learning, are very ready to occupy
themselves with insignificant questions;[221] indeed, for the purpose of
making a first estimate of an historian's intellectual power, a fairly
good criterion may be had in the list of the monographs he has
written.[222] It is the gift of seeing the important problems, and the
taste for their treatment, as well as the power of solving them, which,
in all the sciences, raise men to the first rank. But let us suppose the
subject has been rationally chosen. Every monograph, in order to be
useful--that is, capable of being fully turned to account--should
conform to three rules: (1) in a monograph every historical fact derived
from documents should only be presented accompanied by a reference to
the documents from which it is taken, and an estimate of the value of
these documents;[223] (2) chronological order should be followed as far
as possible, because this is the order in which we know that the facts
occurred, and by which we are guided in searching for causes and
effects; (3) the title of the monograph must enable its subject to be
known with exactitude: we cannot protest too strongly against those
incomplete or fancy titles which so unnecessarily complicate
bibliographical searches. A fourth rule has been laid down; it has been
said "a monograph is useful only when it exhausts the subject"; but it
is quite legitimate to do temporary work with documents which one has at
one's disposal, even when there is reason to believe that others exist,
provided always that precise notice is given as to what documents have
been employed.
Any one who has tact will see that, in a monograph, the apparatus of
demonstration, while needing to be complete, ought to be reduced to what
is strictly necessary. Sobriety is imperative; all parading of erudition
which might have been spared without inconvenience is odious.[224] In
history it often happens that the best executed monographs furnish no
other result than the proof that knowledge is impossible. It is
necessary to resist the desire which leads some to round off with
subjective, ambitious, and vague conclusions monographs which will not
bear them.[225] The proper conclusion of a good monograph is the
balance-sheet of the results obtained by it and the points left
doubtful. A monograph made on these principles may grow antiquated, but
it will not fall to pieces, and its author will never need to blush for
it.
(2) Works of a general character are addressed either to students or to
the general public.
_A._ General works intended principally for students and specialists now
appear in the form of "repertories," "manuals," and "scientific
histories." In a repertory a number of verified facts belonging to a
given class are collected and arranged in an order which makes it easy
to refer to them. If the facts thus collected have precise dates,
chronological order is adopted: thus the task has been undertaken of
compiling "Annals" of German history, in which the summary entry of the
events, arranged by dates, is accompanied by the texts from which the
events are known, with accurate references to the sources and the works
of critics; the collection of the _Jahrbuecher der deutschen Geschichte_
has for its object the elucidation, as far as is possible, of the facts
of German history, including all that is susceptible of scientific
discussion and proof, but omitting all that belongs to the domain of
appreciation and general views. When the facts are badly dated, or are
simultaneous, alphabetical arrangement must be employed; thus we have
Dictionaries: dictionaries of institutions, biographical dictionaries,
historical encyclopaedias, such as the _Realencyclopaedie_ of
Pauly-Wissowa. These alphabetical repertories are, in theory, just as
the _Jahrbuecher_, collections of proved facts; if, in practice, the
references in them are less rigorous, if the apparatus of texts
supporting the statements is less complete, the difference is without
justification.[226] _Scientific manuals_ are also, properly speaking,
repertories, since they are collections in which established facts are
arranged in systematic order, and are exhibited objectively, with their
proofs, and without any literary adornment. The authors of these
"manuals," of which the most numerous and the most perfect specimens
have been composed in our days in the German universities, have no
object in view except to draw up minute inventories of the acquisitions
made by knowledge, in order that workers may be enabled to assimilate
the results of criticism with greater ease and rapidity, and may be
furnished with starting-points for new researches. Manuals of this kind
now exist for most of the special branches of the history of
civilisation (languages, literature, religion, law, _Alterthuemer_, and
so on), for the history of institutions, for the different parts of
ecclesiastical history. It will suffice to mention the names of
Schoemann, of Marquardt and Mommsen, of Gilbert, of Krumbacher, of
Harnack, of Moeller. These works are not marked by the dryness of the
majority of the primitive "manuals," which were published in Germany a
hundred years ago, and which were little more than tables of subjects,
with references to the books and documents to be consulted; in the
modern type the exposition and discussion are no doubt terse and
compact, but yet not abbreviated beyond a point at which they may be
tolerated, even preferred by cultivated readers. They take away the
taste for other books, as G. Paris very well says:[227] "When one has
feasted on these substantial pages, so full of facts, which, with all
their appearance of impersonality, yet contain, and above all suggest,
so many thoughts, it is difficult to read books, even books of
distinction, in which the subject is cut up symmetrically to fit in with
a preconceived system, is coloured by fancy, and is, so to speak,
presented to us in disguise, books in which the author continually comes
between us and the spectacle which he claims to make intelligible to us,
but which he never allows us to see." The great historical "manuals,"
uniform with the treatises and manuals of the other sciences (with the
added complication of authorities and proofs), ought to be, and are,
continually improved, emended, corrected, brought up to date: they are,
by definition, works of science and not of art.
The earliest repertories and the earliest scientific "manuals" were
composed by isolated individuals. But it was soon recognised that a
single man cannot correctly arrange, or have the proper mastery over a
vast collection of facts. The task has been divided. Repertories are
executed, in our days, by collaborators in association (who are
sometimes of different nationalities and write in different languages).
The great manuals (of I. von Mueller, of G. Groeber, of H. Paul, and
others) are collections of special treatises each written by a
specialist. The principle of collaboration is excellent, but on
condition (1) that the collective work is of a nature to be resolved
into great independent, though co-ordinated, monographs; (2) that the
section entrusted to each collaborator has a certain extent; if the
number of collaborators is too great and the part of each too limited,
the liberty and the responsibility of each are diminished or disappear.
_Histories_, intended to give a narrative of events which happened but
once, and to state the general facts which dominate the whole course of
special evolutions, still have a reason for existence, even after the
multiplication of methodical manuals. But scientific methods of
exposition have been introduced into them, as into monographs and
manuals, and that by imitation. The reform has consisted, in every case,
in the renunciation of literary ornaments and of statements without
proof. Grote produced the first model of a "history" thus defined. At
the same time certain forms which once had a vogue have now fallen into
disuse: this is the case with the "Universal Histories" with continuous
narrative, which were so much liked, for different reasons, in the
Middle Ages and in the eighteenth century; in the present century
Schlosser and Weber in Germany, Cantu in Italy, have produced the last
specimens of them. This type has been abandoned for historical reasons,
because we have ceased to regard humanity as a whole, bound together by
a single evolution; and for practical reasons, because we have
recognised the impossibility of collecting so overwhelming a mass of
facts in a single work. The Universal Histories which are still
published in collaboration (the Oncken collection is the best type of
them), are, like the great manuals, composed of independent sections,
each treated by a different author; they are publishers' combinations.
Historians have in our days been led to adopt the division by states
(national histories) and by epochs.[228]
_B._ There is in theory no reason why historical works intended
principally for the public should not be conceived in the same spirit as
works designed for students and specialists, nor why they should not be
composed in the same manner, apart from simplifications and omissions
which readily suggest themselves. And, in fact, there are in existence
succinct, substantial, and readable summaries, in which no statement is
advanced which is not tacitly supported by solid references, in which
the acquisitions of science are precisely stated, judiciously
explained, their significance and value clearly brought out. The French,
thanks to their natural gifts of tact, dexterity, and accuracy of mind,
excel, as a rule, in this department. There have been published in our
country review-articles and works of higher popularisation in which the
results of a number of original works have been cleverly condensed, in a
way that has won the admiration of the very specialists who, by their
heavy monographs, have rendered these works possible. Nothing, however,
is more dangerous than popularisation. As a matter of fact, most works
of popularisation do not conform to the modern ideal of historical
exposition; we frequently find in them survivals of the ancient ideal,
that of antiquity, the Renaissance, and the romantic school.
The explanation is easy. The defects of the historical works designed
for the general public--defects which are sometimes enormous, and have,
with many able minds, discredited popular works as a class--are the
consequences of the insufficient preparation or of the inferior literary
education of the "popularisers."
A populariser is excused from original research; but he ought to know
everything of importance that has been published on his subject, he
ought to be up to date, and to have thought out for himself the
conclusions reached by the specialists. If he has not personally made a
special study of the subject he proposes to treat, he must obviously
read it up, and the task is long. For the professional populariser there
is a strong temptation to study superficially a few recent monographs,
to hastily string together or combine extracts from them, and, in order
to render this medley more attractive, to deck it out, as far as is
possible, with "general ideas" and external graces. The temptation is
all the stronger from the circumstance that most specialists take no
interest in works of popularisation, that these works are, in general,
lucrative, and that the public at large is not in a position to
distinguish clearly between honest and sham popularisation. In short,
there are some, absurd as it may seem, who do not hesitate to summarise
for others what they have not taken the trouble to learn for themselves,
and to teach that of which they are ignorant. Hence, in most works of
historical popularisation, there inevitably appear blemishes of every
kind, which the well-informed always note with pleasure, but with a
pleasure in which there is some touch of bitterness, because they alone
can see these faults: unacknowledged borrowings, inexact references,
mutilated names and texts, second-hand quotations, worthless hypotheses,
imprudent assertions, puerile generalisations, and, in the enunciation
of the most false or the most debatable opinions, an air of tranquil
authority.[229]
On the other hand, men whose information is all that could be desired,
whose monographs intended for specialists are full of merit, sometimes
show themselves capable, when they write for the public, of grave
offences against scientific method. The Germans are habitual offenders:
consider Mommsen, Droysen, Curtius, and Lamprecht. The reason is that
these authors, when they address the public, wish to produce an effect
upon it. Their desire to make a strong impression leads them to a
certain relaxation of scientific rigour, and to the old rejected habits
of ancient historiography. These men, scrupulous and minute as they are
when they are engaged in establishing details, abandon themselves, in
their exposition of general questions, to their natural impulses, like
the common run of men. They take sides, they censure, they extol; they
colour, they embellish; they allow themselves to be influenced by
personal, patriotic, moral, or metaphysical considerations. And, over
and above all this, they apply themselves, with their several degrees of
talent, to the task of producing works of art; in this endeavour those
who have no talent make themselves ridiculous, and the talent of those
who have any is spoilt by their preoccupation with the effect they wish
to produce.
Not, let it be well understood, that "form" is of no importance, or
that, provided he makes himself intelligible, the historian has a right
to employ incorrect, vulgar, slovenly, or clumsy language. A contempt
for rhetoric, for paste diamonds and paper flowers, does not exclude a
taste for a pure and strong, a terse and pregnant style. Fustel de
Coulanges was a good writer, although throughout his life he recommended
and practised the avoidance of metaphor. On the contrary we see no harm
in repeating[230] that the historian, considering the extreme complexity
of the phenomena he undertakes to describe, is under an obligation not
to write badly. But he should write _consistently_ well, and never
bedeck himself with finery.
CONCLUSION
I. History is only the utilisation of documents. But it is a matter of
chance whether documents are preserved or lost. Hence the predominant
part played by chance in the formation of history.
The quantity of documents in existence, if not of known documents, is
given; time, in spite of all the precautions which are taken nowadays,
is continually diminishing it; it will never increase. History has at
its disposal a limited stock of documents; this very circumstance limits
the possible progress of historical science. When all the documents are
known, and have gone through the operations which fit them for use, the
work of critical scholarship will be finished. In the case of some
ancient periods, for which documents are rare, we can now see that in a
generation or two it will be time to stop. Historians will then be
obliged to take refuge more and more in modern periods. Thus history
will not fulfil the dream which, in the nineteenth century, inspired the
romantic school with so much enthusiasm for the study of history: it
will not penetrate the mystery of the origin of societies; and, for want
of documents, the beginnings of the evolution of humanity will always
remain obscure.
The historian does not collect by his own observation the materials
necessary for history as is done in the other sciences: he works on
facts the knowledge of which has been transmitted by former observers.
In history knowledge is not obtained, as in the other sciences, by
direct methods, it is indirect. History is not, as has been said, a
science of observation, but a science of reasoning.
In order to use facts which have been observed under unknown conditions,
it is necessary to apply criticism to them, and criticism consists in a
series of reasonings by analogy. The facts as furnished by criticism are
isolated and scattered; in order to organise them into a structure it is
necessary to imagine and group them in accordance with their
resemblances to facts of the present day, an operation which also
depends on the use of analogies. This necessity compels history to use
an exceptional method. In order to frame its arguments from analogy, it
must always combine the knowledge of the particular conditions under
which the facts of the past occurred with an understanding of the
general conditions under which the facts of humanity occur. Its method
is to draw up special _tables_ of the facts of an epoch in the past, and
to apply to them sets of _questions_ founded on the study of the
present.
The operations which must necessarily be performed in order to pass from
the inspection of documents to the knowledge of the facts and evolutions
of the past are very numerous. Hence the necessity of the division and
organisation of labour in history. It is requisite, on the one hand,
that those specialists who occupy themselves with the search for
documents, their restoration and preliminary classification, should
co-ordinate their efforts, in order that the preparatory work of
critical scholarship may be finished as soon as possible, under the best
conditions as to accuracy and economy of labour. On the other hand,
authors of partial syntheses (monographs) designed to serve as materials
for more comprehensive syntheses ought to agree among themselves to work
on a common method, in order that the results of each may be used by the
others without preliminary investigations. Lastly, workers of experience
should be found to renounce personal research and devote their whole
time to the study of these partial syntheses, in order to combine them
scientifically in comprehensive works of historical construction. And if
the result of these labours were to bring out clear and certain
conclusions as to the nature and the causes of social evolution, a truly
scientific "philosophy of history" would have been created, which
historians might acknowledge as legitimately crowning historical
science.
Conceivably a day may come when, thanks to the organisation of labour,
all existing documents will have been discovered, emended, arranged, and
all the facts established of which the traces have not been destroyed.
When that day comes, history will be established, but it will not be
fixed: it will continue to be gradually modified in proportion as the
direct study of existing societies becomes more scientific and permits a
better understanding of social phenomena and their evolution; for the
new ideas which will doubtless be acquired on the nature, the causes,
and the relative importance of social facts will continue to transform
the ideas which will be formed of the societies and events of the
past.[231]
II. It is an obsolete illusion to suppose that history supplies
information of practical utility in the conduct of life (_Historia
magistra vitae_), lessons directly profitable to individuals and peoples;
the conditions under which human actions are performed are rarely
sufficiently similar at two different moments for the "lessons of
history" to be directly applicable. But it is an error to say, by way of
reaction, that "the distinguishing feature of history is to be good for
nothing."[232] It has an indirect utility.
History enables us to understand the present in so far as it explains
the origin of the existing state of things. Here we must admit that
history does not offer an equal interest through the whole extent of
time which it covers; there are remote generations whose traces are no
longer visible in the world as it now is; for the purpose of explaining
the political constitution of contemporary England, for example, the
study of the Anglo-Saxon witangemot is without value, that of the events
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is all-important. The
evolution of the civilised societies has within the last hundred years
been accelerated to such a degree that, for the understanding of their
present form, the history of these hundred years is more important than
that of the ten preceding centuries. As an explanation of the present,
history would almost reduce to the study of the contemporary period.
History is also indispensable for the completion of the political and
social sciences, which are still in process of formation; for the direct
observation of social phenomena (in a state of rest) is not a sufficient
foundation for these sciences--there must be added a study of the
development of these phenomena in time, that is, their history.[233]
This is why all the sciences which deal with man (linguistic, law,
science of religions, political economy, and so on) have in this century
assumed the form of historical sciences.
But the chief merit of history is that of being an instrument of
intellectual culture; it is so in several ways. Firstly, the practice
of the historical method of investigation, of which the principles have
been sketched in the present volume, is very hygienic for the mind,
which it cures of credulity. Secondly, history, by exhibiting to us a
great number of differing societies, prepares us to understand and
tolerate a variety of usages; by showing us that societies have often
been transformed, it familiarises us with variation in social forms, and
cures us of a morbid dread of change. Lastly, the contemplation of past
evolutions, which enables us to understand how the transformations of
humanity are brought about by changes of habits and the renewal of
generations, saves us from the temptation of applying biological
analogies (selection, struggle for existence, inherited habits, and so
on) to the explanation of social evolution, which is not produced by the
operation of the same causes as animal evolution.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
THE SECONDARY TEACHING OF HISTORY IN FRANCE
I. The teaching of history is a recent addition to secondary education.
Formerly history was taught to the sons of kings and great persons, in
order to give them a preparation in the art of governing, according to
the ancient tradition, but it was a sacred science reserved for the
future rulers of states, a science for princes, not for subjects. The
secondary schools which have been organised since the sixteenth century,
ecclesiastical or secular, Catholic or Protestant, did not admit history
into their plan of study, or only admitted it as an appendage to the
study of the ancient languages. This was the tradition of the Jesuits in
France; it was adopted by the University of Napoleon.
History was only introduced into secondary education in the nineteenth
century, under the pressure of public opinion; and although it has been
allotted more space in France than in England, or even in Germany, it
has continued to be a subsidiary subject, not taught in a special class
(as philosophy is), nor always by a special professor, and counting for
very little in examinations.
Historical instruction has for a long time felt the effects of the
manner in which it was introduced. The subject was imposed by the
authorities on teachers trained exclusively in the study of literature,
and could find no suitable place in a system of classical education
based on the study of forms, and indifferent to the knowledge of social
phenomena. History was taught because it was prescribed by the
programme; but this programme, the sole motive and guide of the
instruction, was always an accident, and varied with the preferences, or
even the personal studies of those who framed it. History formed part of
the social conventions; there are, it was said, names and facts "of
which it is not permissible to be ignorant"; but the things of which
ignorance was not permitted varied greatly, from the names of the
Merovingian kings and the battles of the Seven Years' War to the Salic
Law and the work of Saint Vincent de Paul.
The improvised staffs which, in order to carry out the programme, had to
furnish impromptu instruction in history, had no clear idea either of
the reasons for such instruction, or of its place in general education,
or of the technical methods necessary for giving it. With this lack of
tradition, of pedagogic preparation, and even of mechanical aids, the
professor of history found himself carried back to the ages before
printing, when the teacher had to supply the pupil with all the facts
which formed the subject-matter of instruction, and he adopted the
mediaeval procedure. Armed with a note-book in which he had written down
the list of facts to be taught, he read it out to the pupils, sometimes
making a pretence of extemporising; this was the "lesson," the
corner-stone of historical instruction. The whole series of lessons,
determined by the programme, formed the "course." The pupil was expected
to write as he listened (this was called "taking notes") and to compose
a written account of what he had heard (this was the _redaction_). But
as the pupils were not taught how to take notes, nearly all of them were
content to write very rapidly, from the professor's dictation, a rough
draft, which they copied out at home in the form of a _redaction_,
without any endeavour to grasp the meaning either of what they heard or
what they transcribed. To this mechanical labour the most zealous added
extracts copied from books, generally with just as little reflection.
In order to get the facts judged essential into the pupils' heads, the
professor used to make a very short version of the lesson, the "summary"
or "abstract," which he dictated openly, and caused to be learnt by
heart. Thus of the two written exercises which occupied nearly the whole
time of the class, one (the summary) was an overt dictation, the other
(the _redaction_) an unavowed dictation.
The only means adopted to check the pupils' work was to make them repeat
the summary word for word, and to question them on the _redaction_, that
is to make them repeat approximately the words of the professor. Of the
two oral exercises one was an overt, the other an unavowed repetition.
It is true the pupil was given a book, the _Precis d'histoire_,[234] but
this book had the same form as the professor's course, and instead of
serving as a basis for the oral instruction, merely duplicated it, and,
as a rule, duplicated it badly, for it was not intelligible to the
pupil. The authors of these text-books,[235] adopting the traditional
methods of "abridgments," endeavoured to accumulate the greatest
possible number of facts by omitting all their characteristic details
and summarising them in the most general, and therefore vague,
expressions. In the elementary books nothing was left but a residue of
proper names and dates connected by formulae of a uniform type; history
appeared as a series of wars, treaties, reforms, revolutions, which only
differed in the names of peoples, sovereigns, fields of battle, and in
the figures giving the years.[236]
Such, down to the end of the Second Empire, was historical instruction
in all French institutions, both secular and ecclesiastical--with a few
exceptions, whose merit is measured by their rarity, for in those days a
professor of history needed a more than common share of energy and
initiative to rise above the routine of _redaction_ and summary.
II. In recent times the general movement of educational reform, which
began in the Department and the Faculties, has at last extended to
secondary instruction. The professors of history have been emancipated
from the jealous supervision which weighed on their teaching under the
government of the Empire, and have taken the opportunity to make trial
of new methods. A system of historical pedagogy has been devised. It has
been revealed with the approbation of the Department in the discussions
of the society for the study of questions of secondary education, in the
_Revue de l'enseignement secondaire_, and in the _Revue universitaire_.
It has received official sanction in the _Instructions_ appended to the
programme of 1890; the report on history, the work of M. Lavisse, has
become the charter which protects the professors who favour reform in
their struggle against tradition.[237]
Historical instruction will no doubt issue from this crisis of
renovation organised and provided with a rational pedagogic and
technical system, such as is possessed by the older branches of
instruction in languages, literature, and philosophy. But it is only to
be expected that the reform should be much slower than in the case of
the higher instruction. The _personnel_ is much more numerous, and takes
longer to train or to renew; the pupils are less zealous and less
intelligent; the routine of the parents opposes to the new methods a
force of inertia which is unknown to the Faculties; and the
Baccalaureate, that general obstacle to all reform, is particularly
mischievous in its effect on historical instruction, which it reduces to
a set of questions and answers.
III. It is now possible, however, to indicate what is the direction in
which historical instruction is likely to develop in France[238] and the
questions which will need to be solved for the purpose of introducing a
rational technical system. Here we shall endeavour to formulate these
questions in a methodical table.
(1) _General Organisation._--What object should historical instruction
aim at? What services can it render to the culture of the pupil? What
influence can it have upon his conduct? What facts ought it to enable
him to understand? And, consequently, what principles ought to guide the
choice of subjects and methods? Ought the instruction to be spread over
the whole duration of the classes, or should it be concentrated in a
special class? Should it be given in one-hour or two-hour classes?
Should history be distributed into several cycles, as in Germany, so as
to cause the pupil to return several times to the same subject at
different periods of his studies? Or should it be expounded in a single
continuous course, beginning with the commencement of study, as in
France? Should the professor give a complete course, or should he select
a few questions and leave the pupil to study the others by himself?
Should he expound the facts orally, or should he require the pupils to
learn them in the first instance from a book, so as to make the course a
series of explanations?
(2) _Choice of Subjects._--What proportion should be observed between
home and foreign history? between ancient and contemporary history?
between the special branches of history (art, religion, customs,
economics) and general history? between institutions or usages, and
events? between the evolution of material usages, intellectual history,
social life, political life? between the study of particular incidents,
of biography, of dramatic episodes, and the study of the interconnection
of events and general evolutions? What place should be assigned to
proper names and dates? Should we profit by the opportunities afforded
by legends to arouse the critical spirit? or should we avoid legends?
(3) _Order._--In what order should the subjects be attacked? Should
instruction begin with the most ancient periods and the countries with
the most ancient civilisations in order to follow chronological order
and the order of evolution? or should it begin with the periods and the
countries which are nearest to us so as to proceed from the better known
to the less known? In the exposition of each period, should the
chronological, geographical, or logical order be followed? Should the
teacher begin by describing conditions or by narrating events?
(4) _Methods of Instruction._--Should the pupil be given general formulae
first or particular images? Should the professor state the formulae
himself or require the pupil to search for them? Should formulae be
learnt by heart? In what cases? How are images of historical facts to be
produced in the pupils' minds? What use is to be made of engravings? of
reproductions and restorations? of imaginary scenes? What use is to be
made of narratives and descriptions? of authors' texts? of historical
novels? To what extent ought words and formulae to be quoted? How are
facts to be localised? What use is to be made of chronological tables?
of synchronical tables? of geographical sketches? of statistical and
graphic tables? What is the way to make comprehensible the character of
events and customs? the motives of actions? the conditions of customs?
How are the episodes of an event to be chosen? and the examples of a
custom? How is the interconnection of facts and the process of evolution
to be made intelligible? What use is to be made of comparison? What
style of language is to be employed? To what extent should concrete,
abstract, and technical terms be used? How is it to be verified that the
pupil has understood the terms and assimilated the facts? Can exercises
be organised in which the pupil may do original work on the facts? What
instruments of study should the pupil have? How should school-books be
compiled, with a view to giving the pupil practice in original work?
For the purpose of stating and justifying the solutions of all these
problems, a special treatise would not be too much.[239] Here we shall
merely indicate the general principles on which a tolerable agreement
seems to have been now reached in France.
We no longer go to history for lessons in morals, nor for good examples
of conduct, nor yet for dramatic or picturesque scenes. We understand
that for all these purposes legend would be preferable to history, for
it presents a chain of causes and effects more in accordance with our
ideas of justice, more perfect and heroic characters, finer and more
affecting scenes. Nor do we seek to use history, as is done in Germany,
for the purpose of promoting patriotism and loyalty; we feel that it
would be illogical for different persons to draw opposite conclusions
from the same science according to their country or party; it would be
an invitation to every people to mutilate, if not to alter, history in
the direction of its preferences. We understand that the value of every
science consists in its being true, and we ask from history truth and
nothing more.[240]
The function of history in education is perhaps not yet clearly apparent
to all those who teach it. But all those who reflect are agreed to
regard it as being principally an instrument of social culture. The
study of the societies of the past causes the pupil to understand, by
the help of actual instances, what a society is; it familiarises him
with the principal social phenomena and the different species of usages,
their variety and their resemblances. The study of events and evolutions
familiarises him with the idea of the continual transformation which
human affairs undergo, it secures him against an unreasoning dread of
social changes; it rectifies his notion of progress. All these
acquisitions render the pupil fitter for public life; history thus
appears as an indispensable branch of instruction in a democratic
society.
The guiding principle of historical pedagogy will therefore be to seek
for those subjects and those methods which are best calculated to
exhibit social phenomena and give an understanding of their evolution.
Before admitting a fact into the plan of instruction, it should be asked
first of all what educational influence it can exercise; secondly,
whether there are adequate means of bringing the pupil to see and
understand it. Every fact should be discarded which is instructive only
in a low degree, or which is too complicated to be understood, or in
regard to which we do not possess details enough to make it
intelligible.
IV. To make rational instruction a reality it is not enough to develop a
theory of historical pedagogy. It is necessary to renew the material
aids and the methods.
History necessarily involves the knowledge of a great number of facts.
The professor of history, with no resources but his voice, a blackboard,
and abridgments which are little better than chronological tables, is in
much the same situation as a professor of Latin without texts or
dictionary. The pupil in history needs a repertory of historical facts
as the Latin pupil needs a repertory of Latin words; he needs
collections of _facts_, and the school text-books are mostly collections
of _words_.
There are two vehicles of facts, engravings and books. Engravings
exhibit material objects and external aspects, they are useful
principally for the study of material civilisation. It is some time
since the attempt was first made in Germany to put in the hands of the
pupil a collection of engravings arranged for the purposes of historical
instruction. The same need has, in France, produced the _Album
historique_, which is published under the direction of M. Lavisse.
The book is the chief instrument. It ought to contain all the
characteristic features necessary for forming mental representations of
the events, the motives, the habits, the institutions studied; it will
consist principally in narratives and descriptions, to which
characteristic sayings and formulae may be appended. For a long time it
was endeavoured to construct those books out of extracts selected from
ancient authors; they were compiled in the form of collections of
texts.[241] Experience seems to indicate that this method must be
abandoned; it has a scientific appearance, it is true, but is not
intelligible to children. It is better to address pupils in contemporary
language. It is in this spirit that, pursuant to the _Instructions_ of
1890,[242] collections of _Historical Readings_ have been compiled, of
which the most important has been published by the firm of Hachette.
The pupils' methods of work still bear witness to the late introduction
of historical teaching. In most historical classes methods still prevail
which only exercise the pupils' receptivity: the course of lectures, the
summary, reading, questioning, the _redaction_, the reproduction of
maps. It is as if a Latin pupil were to confine himself to repeating
grammar-lessons and extracts from authors, without ever doing
translation or composition.
In order that the teaching may make an adequate impression, it is
necessary, if not to discard all these passive methods, at least to
supplement them by exercises which call out the activity of the pupil.
Some such exercises have already been experimented with, and others
might be devised.[243] The pupil may be set to analyse engravings,
narratives, and descriptions in such a way as to bring out the character
of the facts: the short written or oral analysis will guarantee that he
has seen and understood, it will be an opportunity to inculcate the
habit of using only precise terms. Or the pupil may be asked to furnish
a drawing, a geographical sketch, a synchronical table. He may be
required to draw up tables of comparison between different societies,
and tables showing the interconnection of facts.
A book is needed to supply the pupil with the materials for these
exercises. Thus the reform of methods is connected with the reform of
the instruments of work. Both reforms will progress according as the
professors and the public perceive more clearly the part played by
historical instruction in social education.
APPENDIX II
THE HIGHER TEACHING OF HISTORY IN FRANCE
The higher teaching of history has been in a great measure transformed,
in our country, within the last thirty years. The process has been
gradual, as it ought to have been, and has consisted in a succession of
slight modifications. But although a rational continuity has been
observed in the steps taken, the great number of these steps has not
failed, in these last days, to astonish, and even to offend, the public.
Public opinion, to which appeal has been made in favour of reforms, has
been somewhat surprised by being appealed to so often, and perhaps it is
not superfluous to indicate here, once more, the general significance
and the inner logic of the movement which we are witnessing.
I. Before the last years of the Second Empire, the higher teaching of
the historical sciences was organised in France on no coherent
system.[244]
There were chairs of history in different institutions, of different
types: at the College de France, in the Faculties of Letters, and in the
"special schools," such as the Ecole normale superieure and the Ecole
des chartes.
The College de France was a relic of the institutions of the _ancien
regime_. It was founded in the sixteenth century in opposition to the
scholastic Sorbonne, to be a refuge for the new sciences, and had the
glorious privilege of representing historically the higher speculative
studies, the spirit of free inquiry, and the interests of pure science.
Unfortunately, in the domain of the historical sciences, the College de
France had allowed its traditions to be obliterated up to a certain
point. The great men who taught history in this illustrious institution
(J. Michelet, for example), were not technical experts, nor even men of
learning, in the proper sense of the word. The audiences which they
swayed by their eloquence were not composed of students of history.
The Faculties of Letters formed part of a system established by the
Napoleonic legislator. This legislator, in creating the Faculties, by no
means entertained the design of encouraging scientific research. He had
no great love for science. The Faculties of Law, of Medicine, and so on,
were intended by him to be professional schools supplying society with
the lawyers, physicians, and so on, which it needs. But three of the
five Faculties were unable, from the beginning, to perform the part
allotted them, while the other two, Law and Medicine, successfully
performed theirs. The Faculties of Catholic Theology did not train the
priests needed by society, because the State consented to the education
of the priests being conducted in the diocesan seminaries. The Faculties
of Sciences and of Letters did not train the professors for secondary
education, the engineers, and so on, needed by society, because they
were here met by the triumphant competition of "special schools"
previously instituted: the Ecole normale, the Ecole polytechnique. The
Faculties of Catholic Theology, of Sciences, and of Letters were
therefore obliged to justify their existence by other modes of activity.
In particular, the professors of history in the Faculties of Letters
could not undertake the instruction of the young men who were destined
to teach history in the _lycees_. Deprived of these special pupils, they
found themselves in a situation analogous to that of those charged with
historical instruction at the College de France. They too were not, as a
rule, technical experts. For half a century they carried on the work of
higher popularisation in lectures delivered to large audiences of
leisured persons (since much abused), who were attracted by the force,
the elegance, and the pleasing style of their diction.
The function of training the future teachers for secondary education was
reserved for the Ecole normale superieure. Now at this epoch it was an
admitted principle that to be a good secondary teacher it is necessary
for a man to know, and sufficient to know perfectly, the subject he is
charged to teach. The one is certainly necessary, but the other is not
sufficient: knowledge of a different, of a higher, order is no less
indispensable than the regular "scholastic" equipment. At the Ecole
there was never any question of such higher knowledge, but, in
accordance with the prevailing theory, preparation was made for
secondary teaching simply by imparting it. However, as the Ecole normale
has always been excellently recruited, the system in vogue has not
prevented it from numbering among its former pupils men of the first
order, not only as professors, thinkers, or writers, but even as
critical scholars. But it must be recognised that they made their way
for themselves, in spite of the system, not thanks to it, after, not
during, their pupilage, and principally when they had the advantage,
during a stay at the French School at Athens, of the wholesome contact
with documents which they had not enjoyed at the Rue d'Ulm. "Does it not
seem strange," it has been said, "that so many generations of professors
should have been turned out by the Ecole normale incapable of utilising
documents?... Formerly, in short, students of history, on leaving the
Ecole, were not prepared either to teach history, which they had learned
in a great hurry, or to investigate difficult questions."[245]
As for the Ecole des chartes, which was founded under the Restoration,
it was, from a certain point of view, a special school like the others,
designed in theory to train those useful functionaries, archivists and
librarians. But professional instruction was early reduced to a strict
minimum, and the Ecole des chartes was organised on a very original
plan, with a view to provide a rational and complete apprenticeship for
the young men who proposed to study mediaeval French history. The pupils
of the Ecole des chartes did not follow any course of "mediaeval
history," but they learnt all that is necessary for doing work on the
solution of the still open questions of mediaeval history. Here alone, in
virtue of an accidental anomaly, the subjects which are preliminary and
auxiliary to historical research were systematically taught. We have
already had occasion to note the effects of this circumstance.[246]
This was the state of affairs when, towards the end of the Second
Empire, a vigorous reform movement set in. Some young Frenchmen had
visited Germany; they had been struck by the superiority of the German
university system over the Napoleonic system of Faculties and special
schools. Certainly France, with its defective organisation, had produced
many men and many works, but it now began to be held that "in all kinds
of enterprises the least possible part should be left to chance," and
that "when an institution proposes to train professors of history and
historians, it ought to supply them with the means of becoming what it
intends them to be."
M. V. Duruy, minister of Public Education, supported the partisans of a
renaissance of the higher studies. But he did not think it practicable
to interfere, for the purpose either of remodelling, of fusing, or of
suppressing them, with the existing institutions,--the College de
France, the Faculties of Letters, the Ecole normale superieure, the
Ecole des chartes, all of which were consecrated by the services they
had rendered, and by the lustre they received from the eminent men who
had been, or were, connected with them. He changed nothing, he added. He
crowned the somewhat heterogeneous edifice of existing institutions by
the creation of an "Ecole pratique des hautes etudes," which was
established at the Sorbonne in 1868.
The Ecole pratique des hautes etudes (historical and philological
section) was intended by those who founded it to prepare young men for
research of a scientific character. It was not meant to be subservient
to the interests of the professions, and there was to be no
popularisation. Students were not to go there to learn the results
obtained by science, but, for the same purpose which takes the chemical
student to the laboratory, to be initiated into the technical methods by
which new results can be obtained. Thus the spirit of the new
institution was not without some analogy to that of the primitive
tradition of the College de France. It was endeavoured to do there, for
all the branches of universal history and philology, what had long been
done at the Ecole des chartes for the limited domain of French mediaeval
history.
II. As long as the Faculties of Letters were satisfied to be as they
were (that is, without students), and as long as their ambition did not
go beyond their traditional functions (the holding of public lectures,
the conferring of degrees), the organisation of the higher teaching of
the historical sciences in France remained in the condition which we
have described. When the Faculties of Letters began to seek a new
justification for their existence and new functions, changes became
inevitable.
This is not the place to explain why and how the Faculties of Letters
were led to desire to work more actively, or rather in other ways than
in the past, for the promotion of the historical sciences. M. V. Duruy,
in inaugurating the Ecole des hautes etudes at the Sorbonne, had
declared that this young and vigorous plant would thrust asunder the old
stones; and, without a doubt, the spectacle of the fruitful activity of
the Ecole des hautes etudes has contributed not a little to awaken the
conscience of the Faculties. On the other hand the liberality of the
public authorities, which have increased the _personnel_ of the
Faculties, which have built palaces for them, and liberally endowed them
with the materials required by their work, has imposed new duties on
these privileged institutions.
It is about twenty-five years since the Faculties of Letters began to
transform themselves, and during this period their progressive
transformation has occasioned changes in the whole fabric of the higher
teaching of historical science in France, which up to that time had
remained unshaken, even by the ingenious addition of 1868.
III. The first care of the Faculties was to provide themselves with
students. This was not, to be sure, the main difficulty, for the Ecole
normale superieurs (in which twenty pupils are admitted every year,
chosen from among hundreds of candidates) was no longer sufficient for
the recruiting of the now numerous body of professors engaged in
secondary education. Many young men who had been candidates (along with
the pupils of the Ecole normale superieure) for the degrees which give
access to the scholastic profession, were thrown on their own resources.
Here was an assured supply of students. At the same time the military
laws, by attaching much-prized immunities to the title of _licencie es
lettres_, were calculated to attract to the Faculties, if they prepared
students for the licentiate, a large and very interesting class of young
men. Lastly, the foreigners (so numerous at the Ecole des hautes
etudes), who come to France to complete their scientific education, and
who up to that time were surprised to have no opportunity of profiting
by the Faculties, were sure to go to them as soon as they found there
something analogous to what they had been accustomed to find in the
German universities, and the kind of instruction they wanted.
Before students in any great number could be taught the way to the
Faculties, great efforts were necessary and several years passed; but it
was after the Faculties obtained the students they desired that the real
problems presented themselves for solution.
The great majority of the students in the Faculties of Letters have been
originally candidates for degrees, for the licentiate, and for
_agregation_, who entered with the avowed intention of "preparing" for
the licentiate and for _agregation_. The Faculties have not been able to
escape the obligation of helping them in this "preparation." But, twenty
years ago, examinations were still conceived in accordance with ancient
formulae. The licentiate was an attestation of advanced secondary study,
a kind of "higher baccalaureate"; for the _agregation_ in the classes of
history and geography (which became the real _licentia docendi_), the
candidates were required to show that they "had a very good knowledge of
the subjects they would be charged to teach." Henceforth there was a
danger lest the teaching of the Faculties, which must, like that of the
Ecole normale superieure, be preparatory for the examinations for the
licentiate and for _agregation_, should be compelled by the force of
circumstances to assume the same character. Note that a certain
emulation could not fail to arise between the pupils of the Ecole
normale and those of the Faculties in the competitions for _agregation_.
The _agregation_ programmes being what they were, this emulation seemed
likely to have the result of engaging the rival teachers and students
more and more in school work, not of a scientific kind, equally devoid
of dignity and real utility.
The danger was very serious. It was perceived from the first by those
clear-sighted promoters of the reform of the Faculties, MM. A. Dumont,
L. Liard, E. Lavisse. M. Lavisse wrote in 1884: "To maintain that the
Faculties have for their chief object the preparation for examinations
is to substitute drill for scientific culture: this is the serious
grievance which able men have against the partisans of innovation....
The partisans of innovation reply that they have seen the drawbacks of
the new departure from the beginning, but that they are convinced that a
modification of the examination-system will follow the reform of higher
education; that a reconciliation will be found between scientific work
and the preparation for examinations; and that thus the only grievance
their opponents have against them will fall to the ground." It is only
doing justice to the foremost champion of reform to acknowledge that he
was never tired of insisting on the weak point; and in order to convince
oneself that the _examination question_ has always been considered the
key-stone of the problem of the organisation of higher education in
France, it is only necessary to look through the speeches and the
articles entitled "Education and Examinations," "Examinations and
Study," "Study and Examinations," &c., which M. Lavisse has collected in
his three volumes published at intervals of five years from 1885
onwards: _Questions d'enseignement national, Etudes et etudiants, A
propos de nos ecoles._
Thus the question of the reform of the examinations connected with
higher education (licentiate, _agregation_, doctorate) has been placed
on the order of the day. It was then in 1884; it is still there in 1897.
But, during the interval, visible progress has been made in the
direction which we consider the right one, and now a solution seems
near.
IV. The old examination-system required candidates for degrees to show
that they had received an excellent secondary education. As it condemned
those candidates, students receiving higher instruction, to exercises of
the same kind as those of which they had already had their fill in the
_lycees_, it was a simple matter to attack it. It was defended feebly,
and has been demolished.
But how was it to be replaced? The problem was very complex. Is it any
wonder that it was not solved at a stroke?
First of all, it was important to come to an agreement on this
preliminary question: What are the capacities and what is the knowledge
students should be required to give proof of possessing? General
knowledge? Technical knowledge and the capacity of doing original
research (as at the Ecole des chartes and the Ecole des hautes etudes)?
Pedagogic capacity? It came gradually to be recognised that, considering
the great extent and variety of the class from which the students are
drawn, it is necessary to draw distinctions.
From candidates for the licentiate it is enough to require that they
should give proof of good general culture, permitting them at the same
time, if they wish, to show that they have a taste for, and some
experience in, original research.
From the candidates for _agregation_ (_licentia docendi_) who have
already obtained the licentiate, there will be required (1) formal proof
that they know, by experience, what it is to study an historical
problem, and that they have the technical knowledge necessary for such
studies; (2) proof of pedagogic capacity, which is a professional
necessity for this class.
The students who are not candidates for anything, neither for the
licentiate nor for _agregation_, and who are simply seeking to obtain
scientific initiation--the old programmes did not contemplate the
existence of such a class of students--will merely be required to prove
that they have profited by the tuition and the advice they have
received.
This settled, a great stride has been made. For programmes, as we know,
regulate study. By virtue of the authority of the programmes historical
studies in the Faculties will now have the threefold character which it
is desirable that they should have. General culture will not cease to be
held in honour. Technical exercises in criticism and research will have
their legitimate place. Lastly, pedagogy (theoretical and practical)
will not be neglected.
The difficulties begin when it is attempted to determine the tests
which, in each department, are the best, that is, the most conclusive.
On this subject opinions differ. Though no one now contests the
principles, the modes of application which have hitherto been tried or
suggested do not meet with unanimous approval. The organisation of the
licentiate has been revised three times; the statute relating to the
_agregation_ in history has been reformed or amended five times. And
this is not the end. New simplifications are imperative. But what is the
importance of this instability--of which, however, complaints begin to
be heard[247]--if it is established, as we believe it is, that progress
towards a better state of things has been continuous through all these
changes, without any notable retrogression?
There is no need to explain here in detail the different transitory
systems which have been put into practice. We have had occasion to
criticise them elsewhere.[248] Now that most of what we objected to has
been abolished, what is the use of reviving old controversies? We shall
not even mention the points in which the present system seems to us to
be still capable of improvement, for there is reason to hope that it
will soon be modified, and in a very satisfactory manner. Let it suffice
to say that the Faculties now confer a new diploma, the _Diplome
d'etudes superieures_, which all the students have a right to seek, but
which the candidates for _agregation_ are obliged to obtain. This
diploma of higher studies, analogous to that of the Ecole des hautes
etudes, the _brevet_ of the Ecole des chartes, and the doctorate in
philosophy at the German universities, is given to those students of
history who, qualified by a certain academical standing, have passed an
examination in which the principal tests are, besides questions on the
"sciences" auxiliary to historical research, the composition and the
defence of an original monograph. Every one now recognises that "the
examination for the diploma of studies will yield excellent fruit, if
the vigilance and conscientiousness of examiners maintain it at its
proper value."[249]
V. To sum up, the attractions of preparation for degrees have brought
the Faculties a host of students. But, under the old system of
examinations for the licentiate and for _agregation_, preparation for
degrees was a task which did not harmonise very well with the work which
the Faculties deemed suitable for themselves, useful to their pupils,
and advantageous to science. The examination-system has therefore been
perseveringly reformed, not without difficulty, into conformity with a
certain ideal of what the higher teaching of history ought to be. The
result is that the Faculties have taken rank among the institutions
which contribute to the positive progress of the historical sciences. An
enumeration of the works which have appeared under their auspices during
the last few years would, if necessary, bear witness to the fact.
This evolution has already produced satisfactory results, and will
produce more if it goes on as well as it has begun. To begin with, the
transformation of historical instruction in the Faculties has brought
about a corresponding transformation at the Ecole normale superieure.
The Ecole normale has also, for two years, been awarding a "_Diplome
d'etudes_"; original researches, pedagogic exercises, and general
culture are encouraged there in the same degree as by the new Faculties.
It now differs from the Faculties only in being a close institution,
recruited under certain precautions; practically it is a Faculty like
the others, but with a small number of select students. Secondly, the
Ecole des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes, both of which will be
installed at the end of 1897, in the renovated Sorbonne, have still
their justification for existence; for many specialists are represented
at the Ecole des hautes etudes which are not, and doubtless never will
be, represented in the Faculties; and, in the case of the studies
bearing on mediaeval history, the body of converging instruction given at
the Ecole des chartes will always be incomparable. But the old
antagonism between the Ecole des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes
on the one hand, and the Faculties on the other, has disappeared. All
these institutions, lately so dissimilar, will henceforth co-operate for
the purpose of carrying on a common work in a common spirit. Each of
these retains its name, its autonomy, and its traditions; but together
they form a whole: the historical section of an ideal University of
Paris, much vaster than the one which was sanctioned by the law in 1896.
Of this "greater" University, the Ecole des chartes, the Ecole des
hautes etudes, the Ecole normale superieure, and the whole body of
historical instruction given by the Faculty of Letters, are now
practically so many independent "_instituts_."
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES
Abd-el-Kader, 282
Aimo, 158
Alexander the Great, 272
Alphonse of Poitiers, 227
Altamira, R., 328
Anselme, Pere, 303
Ariovistus, 222
Aristophanes, 171
Aristotle, 44
Athenaeus, 300
Bacon, Francis, 291
Bancroft, H. H., 19, 20, 22, 31
Barthelemy, Abbe, 301
Bast, F. J., 78
Bedier, J., 85, 112
Bernheim, E., 6, 7, 10, 13, 38, 56, 74, 91, 99, 100, 156, 182, 198,
237, 297
Blanchere, R., de la, 319
Blass, F., 74, 78, 79, 89, 92
Bodin, Jean, 44
Boeckh, A., 107, 152
Boehmer, J. F., 106
Bollandists, Society of, 35
Bonaventura, St., 88, 90
Bouche-Leclercq, A., 158
Boucherie, A., 113
Bourdeau, L., 275
Boutaric, E., 227
Boyce, W. B., 1
Brequigny, L. G. O. F. de, 106
Broglie, E. de, 29
Brugiere de Barante, A. G. P., 301
Brunetiere, F., 113
Buchez, P. J. B., 1
Buehler, G., 56
Caesar, Julius, 44, 194, 197, 218, 220, 222, 245
Cagnat, R., 57
Cantu, C., 311
Carlyle, Thomas, 132, 230, 303
Champollion, F., 48
Charles IX. of France, 168, 186
Chasles, M., 88
Chateaubriand, F. A. de, 72, 301
Chemosh, the god, 212
Cherot, H., 7
Chevalier, U., 5, 7
Chladenius, J. M., 6
Cicero, 44, 108
Cleopatra, 88, 248
Clovis, 158, 220, 223, 301
Cobet, C. C., 78
Coulanges, Fustel de, 1, 9, 10, 64, 140, 144,
148, 149, 150, 158, 170, 215, 216, 230
Cournot, A. A., 246, 249
Cousin, V., 286, 287
Curtius, G., 230, 314
Daniel, Pere, 303
Daremberg, C. V., 308
Darius Hystaspes, 151
Daunou, P. C. F., 5, 6, 43, 47, 54, 55
Delisle, L., 23, 97
Deloche, J. E. M., 148
Demosthenes, 171
Dezobry, C. L., 302
Droysen, J. G., 3, 5, 7, 10, 106, 156, 158, 286, 314
Du Cange, C. du F., 105, 136, 148
Dumont, A., 341
Duruy, V., 327, 338, 339
Ebers, G., 301
Edward VI. of England, 249
Egger, E., 108
Eginhard, 94
Ephorus, 298
Eusebius, 298
Feillet, A., 162
Feugere, L., 105, 136
Fisher, H. A. L., 125
Flaubert, G., 5, 32, 304, 319
Flint, R., 2, 6, 8, 285
France, A., 319
Fredegonda, 197
Freeman, E. A., 5, 7, 10, 46