In the passage of the first volume referred to below I have fully shown
that more is achieved for our knowledge of mankind by poetry than by
history, and why this is so; inasmuch as more real instruction was to be
expected from the former than from the latter. Aristotle has also
confessed this, for he says: “και φιλοσοφωτερον και σπουδαιοτερον ποιησις
ἱστοριας εστιν” (_et res magis philosophica, et melior poësis est quam
historia_(24)), _De poët._, c. 9. Yet, in order to cause no
misunderstanding as to the value of history, I wish here to express my
thoughts about it.
In every class and species of things the facts are innumerable, the
individuals infinite in number, the variety of their differences
unapproachable. At the first glance at them the curious mind becomes
giddy; however much it investigates, it sees itself condemned to
ignorance. But then comes science: it separates the innumerable multitude,
arranges it under generic conceptions, these again under conceptions of
species, whereby it opens the path to a knowledge of the general and the
particular, which also comprehends the innumerable individuals, for it
holds good of all without one being obliged to consider each particular
for itself. Thus it promises satisfaction to the investigating mind. Then
all sciences place themselves together, and above the real world of
individual things, as that which they have divided among them. Over them
all, however, moves philosophy, as the most general, and therefore
important, rational knowledge, which promises the conclusions for which
the others have only prepared the way. History alone cannot properly enter
into that series, since it cannot boast of the same advantage as the
others, for it lacks the fundamental characteristic of science, the
subordination of what is known, instead of which it can only present its
co‐ordination. Therefore there is no system of history, as there is of
every other science. It is therefore certainly rational knowledge, but it
is not a science. For it never knows the particular by means of the
general, but must comprehend the particular directly, and so, as it were,
creeps along the ground of experience; while the true sciences move above
it, because they have obtained comprehensive conceptions by means of which
they command the particular, and, at least within certain limits,
anticipate the possibility of things within their sphere, so that they can
be at ease even about what may yet have to come. The sciences, since they
are systems of conceptions, speak always of species; history speaks of
individuals. It would accordingly be a science of individuals, which is a
contradiction. It also follows that the sciences all speak of that which
always is as history, on the other hand, of that which is once, and then
no more. Since, further, history has to do with the absolutely particular
and individuals, which from its nature is inexhaustible, it knows
everything only imperfectly and half. Besides, it must also let itself be
taught by every new day in its trivial commonplaceness what as yet it did
not know at all. If it should be objected that in history also there is
subordination of the particular under the general, because the periods,
the governments, and other general changes, or political revolutions, in
short, all that is given in historical tables, is the general, to which
the special subordinates itself, this would rest upon a false
comprehension of the conception of the general. For the general in history
here referred to is merely _subjective_, _i.e._, its generality springs
merely from the inadequacy of the individual knowledge of the things, but
not _objective_, _i.e._, a conception in which the things would actually
already be thought together. Even the most general in history is in itself
only a particular and individual, a long period of time, or an important
event; therefore the special is related to this as the part to the whole,
but not as the case to the rule; which, on the contrary, takes place in
all the sciences proper because they afford conceptions and not mere
facts. On this account in these sciences by a correct knowledge of the
general we can determine with certainty the particular that arises. If,
for example, I know the laws of the triangle in general, I can then also
tell what must be the properties of the triangle laid before me; and what
holds good of all mammals, for example, that they have double ventricles
of the heart, exactly seven cervical vertebræ, lungs, diaphragm, bladder,
five senses, &c., I can also assert of the strange bat which has just been
caught, before dissecting it. But not so in history, where the general is
no objective general of the conception, but merely a subjective general of
my knowledge, which can only be called general inasmuch as it is
superficial. Therefore I may always know in general of the Thirty Years’
War that it was a religious war, waged in the seventeenth century; but
this general knowledge does not make me capable of telling anything more
definite about its course. The same opposition is also confirmed by the
fact that in the real sciences the special and individual is that which is
most certain, because it rests upon immediate apprehension; the general
truths, again, are only abstracted from it; therefore something false may
be more easily assumed in the latter. But in history, conversely, the most
general is the most certain; for example, the periods, the succession of
the kings, the revolutions, wars, and treaties of peace; the particulars,
again, of the events and their connection is uncertain, and becomes always
more so the further one goes into details. Therefore history is the more
interesting the more special it is, but the less to be trusted, and
approaches then in every respect to the romance. For the rest, what
importance is to be attached to the boasted pragmatic teaching of history
he will best be able to judge who remembers that sometimes it was only
after twenty years that he understood the events of his own life in their
true connection, although the data for this were fully before him, so
difficult is the combination of the action of the motives under the
constant interferences of chance and the concealment of the intentions.
Since now history really always has for its object only the particular,
the individual fact, and regards this as the exclusively real, it is the
direct opposite and counterpart of philosophy, which considers things from
the most general point of view, and has intentionally the general as its
object, which remains identical in every particular; therefore in the
particular philosophy sees only the general, and recognises the change in
its manifestation as unessential: φιλοκαθολου γαρ ὁ φιλοσοφος (_generalium
amator philosophus_). While history teaches us that at every time
something else has been, philosophy tries to assist us to the insight that
at all times exactly the same was, is, and shall be. In truth, the essence
of human life, as of nature in general, is given complete in every present
time, and therefore only requires depth of comprehension in order to be
exhaustively known. But history hopes to make up for depth by length and
breadth; for it every present time is only a fragment which must be
supplemented by the past, the length of which is, however, infinite, and
to which again an infinite future is joined. Upon this rests the
opposition between philosophical and historical minds; the former want to
go to the bottom, the latter want to go through the whole series. History
shows on every side only the same under different forms; but whoever does
not come to know this in one or a few will hardly attain to a knowledge of
it by going through all the forms. The chapters of the history of nations
are at bottom only distinguished by the names and dates; the really
essential content is everywhere the same.
Now since the material of art is the _Idea_, and the material of science
the _concept_, we see both occupied with that which always exists and
constantly in the same manner, not something which now is and now is not,
now is thus and now otherwise; therefore both have to do with that which
Plato set up as the exclusive object of real rational knowledge. The
material of history, on the other hand, is the particular in its
particularity and contingency, which at one time is, and then for ever is
no more, the transient complexities of a human world moved like clouds in
the wind, a world which is often entirely transformed by the most trifling
accident. From this point of view the material of history appears to us as
scarcely a worthy object of the serious and painful consideration of the
human mind, the human mind which, just because it is so transitory, ought
to choose for its consideration that which passes not away.
Finally, as regards the endeavour—specially introduced by the Hegelian
pseudo‐philosophy, everywhere so pernicious and stupefying to the mind—to
comprehend the history of the world as a planned whole, or, as they call
it, “to construe it organically,” a crude and positive realism lies at its
foundation, which takes the phenomenon for the inner being of the world,
and imagines that this phenomenon, its forms and events, are the chief
concern; in which it is secretly supported by certain mythological notions
which it tacitly assumes: otherwise one might ask for what spectators such
a comedy was really produced. For, since only the individual, and not the
human race, has actual, immediate unity of consciousness, the unity of the
course of life of the race is a mere fiction. Besides, as in nature only
the species are real, and the genera are mere abstractions, so in the
human race only the individuals and their course of life are real, the
peoples and their lives mere abstractions. Finally, constructive
histories, guided by a positive optimism, always ultimately end in a
comfortable, rich, fat State, with a well‐regulated constitution, good
justice and police, useful arts and industries, and, at the most, in
intellectual perfection; for this, in fact, is alone possible, since what
is moral remains essentially unaltered. But it is the moral element which,
according to the testimony of our inmost consciousness, is the whole
concern: and this lies only in the individual as the tendency of his will.
In truth, only the life of each individual has unity, connection, and true
significance: it is to be regarded as an instruction, and the meaning of
it is moral. Only the incidents of our _inner_ life, since they concern
the will, have true reality, and are actual events; because the will alone
is the thing in itself. In every microcosm lies the whole macrocosm, and
the latter contains nothing more than the former. Multiplicity is
phenomenal, and external events are mere configurations of the phenomenal
world, and have therefore directly neither reality nor significance, but
only indirectly through their relation to the wills of the individuals.
The endeavour to explain and interpret them directly is accordingly like
the endeavour to see in the forms of the clouds groups of men and animals.
What history narrates is in fact only the long, heavy, and confused dream
of humanity.
The Hegelians, who regard the philosophy of history as indeed the chief
end of all philosophy, are to be referred to Plato, who unweariedly
repeats that the object of philosophy is that which is unchangeable and
always remains, not that which now is thus and now otherwise. All those
who set up such constructions of the course of the world, or, as they call
it, of history, have failed to grasp the principal truth of all
philosophy, that what is is at all times the same, all becoming and
arising are only seeming; the Ideas alone are permanent; time ideal. This
is what Plato holds, this is what Kant holds. One ought therefore to seek
to understand what exists, what really is, to‐day and always, _i.e._, to
know the Ideas (in Plato’s sense). Fools, on the contrary, imagine that
something must first become and happen. Therefore they concede to history
the chief place in their philosophy, and construct it according to a
preconceived plan of the world, according to which everything is ordered
for the best, which is then supposed _finaliter_ to appear, and will be a
glorious thing. Accordingly they take the world as perfectly real, and
place the end of it in the poor earthly happiness, which, however much it
may be fostered by men and favoured by fate, is a hollow, deceptive,
decaying, and sad thing, out of which neither constitutions and legal
systems nor steam‐engines and telegraphs can ever make anything that is
essentially better. The said philosophers and glorifiers of history are
accordingly simple realists, and also optimists and eudæmonists,
consequently dull fellows and incarnate philistines; and besides are
really bad Christians, for the true spirit and kernel of Christianity, as
also of Brahmanism and Buddhism, is the knowledge of the vanity of earthly
happiness, the complete contempt for it, and the turning away from it to
an existence of another, nay, an opposite, kind. This, I say, is the
spirit and end of Christianity, the true “humour of the matter;” and not,
as they imagine, monotheism; therefore even atheistic Buddhism is far more
closely related to Christianity than optimistic Judaism or its variety
Islamism.
A true philosophy of history ought not therefore to consider, as all these
do, what (to use Plato’s language) always _becomes_ and never _is_, and
hold this to be the true nature of things; but it ought to fix its
attention upon that which always is and never becomes nor passes away.
Thus it does not consist in raising the temporal ends of men to eternal
and absolute ends, and then with art and imagination constructing their
progress through all complications; but in the insight that not only in
its development, but in its very nature, history is mendacious; for,
speaking of mere individuals and particular events, it pretends always to
relate something different, while from beginning to end it repeats always
the same thing under different names and in a different dress. The true
philosophy of history consists in the insight that in all these endless
changes and their confusion we have always before us only the same, even,
unchanging nature, which to‐day acts in the same way as yesterday and
always; thus it ought to recognise the identical in all events, of ancient
as of modern times, of the east as of the west; and, in spite of all
difference of the special circumstances, of the costume and the customs,
to see everywhere the same humanity. This identical element which is
permanent through all change consists in the fundamental qualities of the
human heart and head—many bad, few good. The motto of history in general
should run: _Eadem, sed aliter_. If one has read Herodotus, then in a
philosophical regard one has already studied history enough. For
everything is already there that makes up the subsequent history of the
world: the efforts, action, sufferings, and fate of the human race as it
proceeds from the qualities we have referred to, and the physical earthly
lot.
If in what has been said we have recognised that history, regarded as a
means for the knowledge of the nature of man, is inferior to poetry; then,
that it is not in the proper sense a science; finally, that the endeavour
to construct it as a whole with beginning, middle, and end, together with
a significant connection, is vain, and based upon misunderstanding: it
would look as if we wished to deny it all value if we did not show in what
its value consists. Really, however, there remains for it, after this
conquest by art and rejection by science, a quite special province,
different from both, in which it exists most honourably.
_What reason is to the individual that is history to the human race._ By
virtue of reason, man is not, like the brute, limited to the narrow,
perceptible present, but also knows the incomparably more extended past,
with which it is linked, and out of which it has proceeded; and only thus
has he a proper understanding of the present itself, and can even draw
inferences as to the future. The brute, on the other hand, whose
knowledge, devoid of reflection, is on this account limited to the
present, even when it is tamed, moves about among men ignorant, dull,
stupid, helpless, and dependent. Analogous to this is the nation that does
not know its own history, is limited to the present of the now living
generation, and therefore does not understand itself and its own present,
because it cannot connect it with a past, and explain it from this; still
less can it anticipate the future. Only through history does a nation
become completely conscious of itself. Accordingly history is to be
regarded as the rational consciousness of the human race, and is to the
race what the reflected and connected consciousness is to the individual
who is conditioned by reason, a consciousness through the want of which
the brute is confined to the narrow, perceptible present. Therefore every
gap in history is like a gap in the recollective self‐consciousness of a
man; and in the presence of a monument of ancient times which has outlived
the knowledge of itself, as, for example, the Pyramids, or temples and
palaces in Yucatan, we stand as senseless and stupid as the brute in the
presence of the action of man, in which it is implicated in his service;
or as a man before something written in an old cipher of his own, the key
to which he has forgotten; nay, like a somnambulist who finds before him
in the morning what he has done in his sleep. In this sense, then, history
is to be regarded as the reason, or the reflected consciousness, of the
human race, and takes the place of an immediate self‐consciousness common
to the whole race, so that only by virtue of it does the human race come
to be a whole, come to be a humanity. This is the true value of history,
and accordingly the universal and predominating interest in it depends
principally upon the fact that it is a personal concern of the human race.
Now, what language is for the reason of individuals, as an indispensable
condition of its use, writing is for the reason of the whole race here
pointed out; for only with this does its real existence begin, as that of
the individual reason begins first with language. Writing serves to
restore unity to the consciousness of the human race, which is constantly
interrupted by death, and therefore fragmentary; so that the thought which
has arisen in the ancestor is thought out by his remote descendant; it
finds a remedy for the breaking up of the human race and its consciousness
into an innumerable number of ephemeral individuals, and so bids defiance
to the ever hurrying time, in whose hand goes forgetfulness. As an attempt
to accomplish this we must regard not only written, but also _stone_
monuments, which in part are older than the former. For who will believe
that those who, at incalculable cost, set in action the human powers of
many thousands for many years in order to construct the pyramids,
monoliths, rock tombs, obelisks, temples, and palaces which have already
existed for thousands of years, could have had in view the short span of
their own life, too short to let them see the finishing of the
construction, or even the ostensible end which the ignorance of the many
required them to allege? Clearly their real end was to speak to their
latest descendants, to put themselves in connection with these, and so to
establish the unity of the consciousness of humanity. The buildings of the
Hindus, the Egyptians, even the Greeks and Romans, were calculated to last
several thousand years, because through higher culture their horizon was a
wider one; while the buildings of the Middle Ages and of modern times have
only been intended, at the most, to last a few centuries; which, however,
is also due to the fact that men trusted more to writing after its use had
become general, and still more since from its womb was born the art of
printing. Yet even in the buildings of more recent times we see the desire
to speak to posterity; and, therefore, it is shameful if they are
destroyed or disfigured in order to serve low utilitarian ends. Written
monuments have less to fear from the elements, but more to fear from
barbarians, than stone ones; they accomplish far more. The Egyptians
wished to combine the two, for they covered their stone monuments with
hieroglyphics, nay, they added paintings in case the hieroglyphics should
no longer be understood.