Part 14 (1/2)

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 compet.i.tion 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 doc.u.ments, 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng between the elements borrowed from the doc.u.ments and the imaginary elements, not to mention the fact that generally the doc.u.ments 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 doc.u.ments should only be presented accompanied by a reference to the doc.u.ments from which it is taken, and an estimate of the value of these doc.u.ments;[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 t.i.tle of the monograph must enable its subject to be known with exact.i.tude: we cannot protest too strongly against those incomplete or fancy t.i.tles 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 cla.s.s 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 _Jahrbucher 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 inst.i.tutions, biographical dictionaries, historical encyclopaedias, such as the _Realencyclopaedie_ of Pauly-Wissowa. These alphabetical repertories are, in theory, just as the _Jahrbucher_, 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 a.s.similate 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, _Alterthumer_, and so on), for the history of inst.i.tutions, 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 Moller. 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 doc.u.ments 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 a.s.sociation (who are sometimes of different nationalities and write in different languages).

The great manuals (of I. von Muller, of G. Grober, 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 ma.s.s 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 cla.s.s--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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sertions, 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 doc.u.ments. But it is a matter of chance whether doc.u.ments are preserved or lost. Hence the predominant part played by chance in the formation of history.

The quant.i.ty of doc.u.ments in existence, if not of known doc.u.ments, is given; time, in spite of all the precautions which are taken nowadays, is continually diminis.h.i.+ng it; it will never increase. History has at its disposal a limited stock of doc.u.ments; this very circ.u.mstance limits the possible progress of historical science. When all the doc.u.ments are known, and have gone through the operations which fit them for use, the work of critical scholars.h.i.+p will be finished. In the case of some ancient periods, for which doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments, 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.