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History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize
and put into words, to describe directly the life of humanity
or even of a single nation, appears impossible.
The ancient historians all employed one and the same method
to describe and seize the apparently elusive- the life of a people.
They described the activity of individuals who ruled the people,
and regarded the activity of those men as representing the activity
of the whole nation.
The question: how did individuals make nations act as they
wished and by what was the will of these individuals themselves
guided? the ancients met by recognizing a divinity which subjected
the nations to the will of a chosen man, and guided the will of
that chosen man so as to accomplish ends that were predestined.
For the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in
the direct participation of the Deity in human affairs.
Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles.
It would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients
in man's subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward
which nations are led, modern history should study not the manifestations
of power but the causes that produce it. But modern history has
not done this. Having in theory rejected the view held by the
ancients, it still follows them in practice.
Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly
guided by the will of God, modern history has given us either
heroes endowed with extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply
men of very various kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead
the masses. Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the
Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded
as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated
its own aims- the welfare of the French, German, or English people,
or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of
humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the peoples
occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent.
Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without
replacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation
has obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected
the divine authority of the kings and the "fate" of
the ancients, to reach the same conclusion by another road, that
is, to recognize (1) nations guided by individual men, and (2)
the existence of a known aim to which these nations and humanity
at large are tending.
At the basis of the works of all the modern historians from
Gibbon to Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the
apparent novelty of their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable
assumptions.
In the first place the historian describes the activity of
individuals who in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian
considers only monarchs, generals, and ministers as being such
men, while another includes also orators, learned men, reformers,
philosophers, and poets). Secondly, it is assumed that the goal
toward which humanity is being led is known to the historians:
to one of them this goal is the greatness of the Roman, Spanish,
or French realm; to another it is liberty, equality, and a certain
kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called Europe.
In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and
is expressed by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several
times it moves eastward and collides with a countermovement from
the east westward. In 1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow,
and then, with remarkable symmetry, a countermovement occurs from
east to west, attracting to it, as the first movement had done,
the nations of middle Europe. The counter movement reaches the
starting point of the first movement in the west- Paris- and subsides.
During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields
were left untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction,
millions of men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched,
and millions of Christian men professing the law of love of their
fellows slew one another.
What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those
people burn houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes
of these events? What force made men act so? These are the instinctive,
plain, and most legitimate questions humanity asks itself when
it encounters the monuments and tradition of that period.
For a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind
turns to the science of history, whose aim is to enable nations
and humanity to know themselves.
If history had retained the conception of the ancients it
would have said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave
Napoleon power and directed his will to the fulfillment of the
divine ends, and that reply, would have been clear and complete.
One might believe or disbelieve in the divine significance of
Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it there would have been
nothing unintelligible in the history of that period, nor would
there have been any contradictions.
But modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not
admit the conception of the ancients as to the direct participation
of the Deity in human affairs, and therefore history ought to
give other answers.
Modern history replying to these questions says: you want
to know what this movement means, what caused it, and what force
produced these events? Then listen:
"Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he
had such and such mistresses and such and such ministers and he
ruled France badly. His descendants were weak men and they too
ruled France badly. And they had such and such favorites and such
and such mistresses. Moreover, certain men wrote some books at
that time. At the end of the eighteenth century there were a couple
of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all men being free
and equal. This caused people all over France to begin to slash
at and drown one another. They killed the king and many other
people. At that time there was in France a man of genius- Napoleon.
He conquered everybody everywhere- that is, he killed many people
because he was a great genius. And for some reason he went to
kill Africans, and killed them so well and was so cunning and
wise that when he returned to France he ordered everybody to obey
him, and they all obeyed him. Having become an Emperor he again
went out to kill people in Italy, Austria, and Prussia. And there
too he killed a great many. In Russia there was an Emperor, Alexander,
who decided to restore order in Europe and therefore fought against
Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends with him, but in 1811
they again quarreled and again began killing many people. Napoleon
led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured Moscow;
then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor Alexander,
helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to arm
against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly
became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh
forces he raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris,
forced Napoleon to abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba,
not depriving him of the title of Emperor and showing him every
respect, though five years before and one year later they all
regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand. Then Louis XVIII, who
till then had been the laughingstock both of the French and the
Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon, shedding tears before his
Old Guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. Then the
skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially Talleyrand, who
managed to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and
thereby extended the frontiers of France) talked in Vienna and
by these conversations made the nations happy or unhappy. Suddenly
the diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on the
point of again ordering their armies to kill one another, but
just then Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the
French, who had been hating him, immediately all submitted to
him. But the Allied monarchs were angry at this and went to fight
the French once more. And they defeated the genius Napoleon and,
suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him to the island
of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved France
so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and
bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction
occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their
subjects."
It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic- a caricature
of the historical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild
expression of the contradictory replies, not meeting the questions,
which all the historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and
the histories of separate states to the writers of general histories
and the new histories of the culture of that period.
The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from
the fact that modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions
no one has asked.
If the purpose of history be to give a description of the
movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question- in
the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible-
is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history
laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or
that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain
books.
All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it,
but it is not what was asked. All that would be interesting if
we recognized a divine power based on itself and always consistently
directing its nations through Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers;
but we do not acknowledge such a power, and therefore before speaking
about Napoleons, Louis-es, and authors, we ought to be shown the
connection existing between these men and the movement of the
nations.
If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared,
it should be explained in what this new force consists, for the
whole interest of history lies precisely in that force.
History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and
known to everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as
known, anyone reading many historical works cannot help doubting
whether this new force, so variously understood by the historians
themselves, is really quite well known to everybody.
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