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NOTE 13. Meaning and Use of the Study of History

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CHAPTER XIII. MEANING AND USE OF THE STUDY OF HISTORY

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1. THE WHY OF HISTORY

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In the eyes of the positivist philosopher, the study of mathematics and of the natural sciences is a preparation for action.

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Technology vindicates the labors of the experimenter.

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No such justification could be advanced in favor of the traditional methods resorted to by the historians.

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They should abandon their unscientific antiquarianism, says the positivist,

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and turn to the study of social physics or sociology.

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This discipline will abstract from historical experience laws which could render to social engineering

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the same services the laws of physics render to technological engineering.

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In the opinion of the historicist philosopher,

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The study of history provides man with signposts, showing him the ways he has to walk along.

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Man can succeed only if his actions fit into the trend of evolution.

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To discover these trend lines is the main task of history.

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The bankruptcy of both positivism and historicism raises anew the question about the meaning,

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the value, and the use of historical studies.

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Some self-styled idealists think that reference to a thirst for knowledge, inborn in all men

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or at least in the higher types of men, answers these questions satisfactorily.

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Yet the problem is to draw a boundary line between the thirst for knowledge that impels

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the philologist to investigate the language of an African tribe and the curiosity that

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stimulates people to peer into the private lives of movie stars.

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Many historical events interest the average man because hearing or reading about them

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or seeing them enacted on the stage or screen gives him pleasant, if sometimes shuddering,

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sensations.

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The masses who greedily absorb newspaper reports about crimes and trials are not driven by

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Ronca's eagerness to know events as they really happened.

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The passions that agitate them are to be dealt with by psychoanalysis, not epistemology.

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The idealist philosopher's justification of history as knowledge for the mere sake of

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knowing, fails to take into account the fact that there are certainly things which are

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not worth knowing.

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History's task is not to record all past things and events, but only those that are

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historically meaningful.

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It is therefore necessary to find a criterion that makes it possible to sift what is historically

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meaningful from what is not.

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This cannot be done from the point of view of a doctrine which deems meritorious the

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mere fact of knowing something.

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2.

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The Historical Situation Acting man is faced with a definite situation.

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His action is a response to the challenge offered by this situation.

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It is his reaction.

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He appraises the effects the situation may have upon himself.

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That is, he tries to establish what it means to him.

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Then he chooses and acts in order to attain the end chosen.

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As far as the situation can be completely described by the methods of the natural sciences,

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as a rule the natural sciences also provide an interpretation that enables the individual

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to make his decision.

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If a leak in the pipeline is diagnosed, the course of action to be resorted to is in most

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People have often failed to realize this because they were deceived by the illusion that there

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is, between the past and the future, an extended space of time that can be called the present.

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As I have pointed out before, the concept of such a present is not an astronomical or

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or chronometrical notion, but a praxeological one.

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It refers to the continuation of the conditions making a definite kind of action possible.

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It is therefore different for various fields of action.

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It is, moreover, never possible to know in advance how much of the future of the time

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not yet past will have to be included in what we call today the present.

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This can only be decided in retrospect.

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If a man says, At present the relations between ruritania and lapitania are peaceful, it is

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uncertain whether a later retrospective recording will include what today is called tomorrow

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in this period of present time.

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This question can only be answered the day after tomorrow.

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There is no such thing as a non-historical analysis of the present state of affairs.

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The examination and description of the present are necessarily a historical account of the

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The Description of the Present State of Politics or of Business is inevitably the narration

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of the events that have brought about the present state.

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If, in business or in government, a new man takes the helm, his first task is to find

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out what has been done up to the last minute.

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The statesman, as well as the businessman, learns about the present situation from studying

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the records of the past.

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William was right in stressing the fact that in order to know something in the field of

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human affairs, one has to familiarize oneself with the way in which it developed.

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The historicist's fateful error consisted in the belief that this analysis of the past

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in itself conveys information about the course future action has to take.

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What the historical account provides is the description of the situation.

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The reaction depends on the meaning the actor gives it, on the ends he wants to attain.

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In 1860 there was slavery in many states of the Union.

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The most careful and faithful record of the history of this institution in general, and

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in the United States in particular, did not map out the future policies of the nation

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with regard to slavery.

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The situation in the manufacturing and marketing of motor cars that Ford found on the eve of

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of his embarking upon mass production did not indicate what had to be done in this field

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of business.

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The historical analysis gives a diagnosis.

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The reaction is determined, so far as the choice of ends is concerned, by judgments

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of value and, so far as the choice of means is concerned, by the whole body of teachings

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placed at man's disposal by praxeology and technology.

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Let those who want to reject the preceding statements undertake to describe any present

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situation in philosophy, in politics, on the battlefield, on the stock exchange, in an

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individual business enterprise, without reference to the past.

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3.

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History of the Remote Past A skeptic may object, granted that some historical

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Historical studies are descriptions of the present state of affairs, but this is not

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true of all historical investigations.

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One may concede that the history of Nazism contributes to a better understanding of various

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phenomena in the present political and ideological situation.

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But what reference to our present worries have books on the Mithras cult, on ancient

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Chaldea, or on the early dynasties of the kings of Egypt?

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Such studies are merely antiquarian, a display of curiosity.

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They are useless, a waste of time, money, and manpower.

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Criticisms such as these are self-contradictory.

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On the one hand, they admit that the present state can only be described by a full account

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of the events that have brought it about.

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On the other hand, they declare beforehand that certain events cannot possibly have influenced

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the course of affairs that has led to the present state, yet this negative statement

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can only be made after careful examination of all the material available, not in advance

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on the ground of some hasty conclusions. The mere fact that an event happened in a distant

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country and a remote age does not in itself prove that it has no bearing on the present.

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Jewish affairs of three thousand years ago influenced the lives of millions of present-day

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Christian Americans more than what happened to the American Indians as late as the second

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part of the nineteenth century.

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In the present-day conflict of the Roman Church and the Soviets, there are elements that trace

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back to the great schism of the eastern and western churches that originated more than

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a thousand years ago.

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This schism cannot be examined thoroughly without reference to the whole history of

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Christianity from its early beginnings.

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The study of Christianity presupposes analysis of Judaism and the various influences, Chaldean,

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Egyptian, and so on, that shaped it.

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There is no point in history at which we can stop our investigation fully satisfied that

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we have not overlooked any important factor.

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Whether civilization must be considered a coherent process, or we should rather distinguish

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a multitude of civilizations, does not affect our problem.

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For there were mutual exchanges of ideas between these autonomous civilizations, the extent

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and weight of which must be established by historical research.

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A superficial observer might think that the historians are merely repeating what their

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predecessors have already said, at best occasionally retouching minor details of the picture.

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Actually, the understanding of the past is in perpetual flux.

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A historian's achievement consists in presenting the past in a new perspective of understanding.

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The process of historical change is actuated by, or rather consists in, the ceaseless transformation

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of the ideas determining human action.

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Among these ideological changes, those concerning the specific historical understanding of the

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of the Past play a conspicuous role.

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What distinguishes a later from an earlier age is, among other ideological changes, also

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the change in the understanding of the preceding ages.

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Continuously examining and reshaping our historical understanding, the historians contribute their

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share to what is called the spirit of the age.

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Sometimes historical research succeeds in unmasking inveterate errors and substituting

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and a correct account of events for an inadequate record, even in fields that have up to then

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been considered fully and satisfactorily explored and described.

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An outstanding example is the startling discoveries concerning the history of the Roman emperors

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Maxentius, Licinius, and Constantinus and the events that ended the persecution of the

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Christians and paved the way for the victory of the Christian Church.

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Fundamental changes in the historical understanding of events are more often brought about without

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any or only slight revision of the description of external events.

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4.

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Falsifying History Because history is not a useless pastime

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but a study of the utmost practical importance, people have been eager to falsify historical

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evidence and to misrepresent the course of events.

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The endeavors to mislead posterity about what really happened and to substitute a fabrication

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for a faithful recording are often inaugurated by the men who themselves played an active

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role in the events and begin with the instant of their happening or sometimes even precede

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their occurrence.

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To lie about historical facts and to destroy evidence has been, in the opinion of hosts

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of statesmen, diplomats, politicians and writers, a legitimate part of the conduct of public

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and of Writing History.

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One of the main problems of historical research is to unmask such falsehoods.

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The falsifiers were often prompted by the desire to justify their own or their party's

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actions from the point of view of the moral code of those who support, or at least neutrality,

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they were eager to win.

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Such whitewashing is rather paradoxical if the actions concerned appeared unobjectionable

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from the point of view of the moral ideas of the time when they occurred

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and are condemned only by the moral standards of the fabricator's contemporaries.

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No serious obstacles to the efforts of the historians are created by the machinations of the forgers and falsifiers.

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What is much more difficult for the historian is to avoid being misled by spurious social and economic doctrines.

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The historian approaches the records equipped with the knowledge he has acquired in the

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fields of logic, praxeology, and the natural sciences.

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If this knowledge is defective, the result of his examination and analysis of the material

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will be vitiated.

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A good part of the last 80 years' contributions to economic and social history is almost useless

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on account of the writer's insufficient grasp of economics.

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The historicist thesis that the historian needs no acquaintance with economics and should even

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spurn it has vitiated the work of several generations of historians.

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Still more devastating was the effect of historicism upon those who called their publications describing

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various social and business conditions of the recent past economic research.

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5.

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History and Humanism

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Ludwig's philosophy appreciates knowledge because it gives power and makes people fit

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to accomplish things.

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From this point of view, the positivists reject history as useless.

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We have tried to demonstrate the service that history renders to acting man in making him

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understand the situation in which he has to act.

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We have tried to provide a practical justification of history.

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But there is more than this in the study of history.

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It not only provides knowledge indispensable to preparing political decisions, it opens

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the mind toward an understanding of human nature and destiny.

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It increases wisdom.

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It is the very essence of that much misinterpreted concept, a liberal education.

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It is the foremost approach to humanism, the lore of the specifically human concerns that

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distinguish man from other living beings.

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The newborn child has inherited from his ancestors the physiological features of the species.

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It does not inherit the ideological characteristics of human existence, the desire for learning

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and knowing.

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What distinguishes civilized man from a barbarian must be acquired by every individual anew.

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Protracted strenuous exertion is needed to take possession of man's spiritual legacy.

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Animal culture is more than mere familiarity with the present state of science, technology

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and civic affairs.

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It is more than acquaintance with books and paintings and the experience of travel and

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of visits to museums.

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It is the assimilation of the ideas that roused mankind from the inert routine of a merely

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animal existence to a life of reasoning and speculating.

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It is the individual's effort to humanize himself by partaking in the tradition of all

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The positivist detractors of history contend that preoccupation with things past diverts

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people's attention from the main task of mankind, the improvement of future conditions.

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No blame could be more undeserved.

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History looks backward into the past, but the lesson it teaches concerns things to come.

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It does not teach indolent quietism.

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Rouses Man to Emulate the Deeds of Earlier Generations.

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It Addresses Men as Dante's Ulysses Addressed His Companions.

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Considerate la vostra samenza.

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Fate non foste a viver come bruti, ma perseguir virtude e conoscenza.

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Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang.

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Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,

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but for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.

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The Dark Ages were not dark because people were committed to study of the intellectual

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treasures left by ancient Hellenic civilizations.

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They were dark so long as these treasures were hidden and dormant.

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Once they came to light again and began to stimulate the minds of the most advanced thinkers,

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They contributed substantially to the inauguration of what is called today, Western Civilization.

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The much criticized term, Renaissance, is pertinent in that it stresses the part the

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legacy of antiquity played in the evolution of all the spiritual features of the West.

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The question whether the beginning of the Renaissance should not be dated some centuries

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farther back than Burkhardt said it need not concern us here.

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The scions of the barbarian conquerors who first began to study the ancients seriously

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were struck with awe.

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They realized that they and their contemporaries were faced with ideas they themselves could

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not have developed.

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They could not help thinking of the philosophy, the literature, and the arts of the classical

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age of Greece and Rome as unsurpassable.

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They saw no road to knowledge and wisdom, but that paved by the ancients.

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To qualify a spiritual achievement as modern had for them a pejorative connotation.

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But slowly, from the seventeenth century on, people became aware that the West was coming

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of age and creating a culture of its own.

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They no longer bemoaned the disappearance of a golden age of the arts and of learning,

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irretrievably lost, and no longer thought of the ancient masterpieces as models to be

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imitated but never equaled, still less surpassed.

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They came to substitute the idea of progressive improvement for the previously held idea of

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progressive degeneration.

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In this intellectual development that taught modern Europe to know its own worth and produced

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the self-reliance of modern Western civilization, the study of history was paramount.

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The course of human affairs was no longer viewed as a mere struggle of ambitious princes and

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army leaders for power, wealth, and glory.

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The historians discovered in the flux of events the operation of other forces than those commonly

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styled political and military.

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They began to regard the historical process as actuated by man's urge toward betterment.

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They disagreed widely in their judgments of value and in their appraisal of the various

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Ends aimed at by governments and reformers, but they were nearly unanimous in holding

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that the main concern of every generation is to render conditions more satisfactory

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than their ancestors left them.

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They announced progress toward a better state of civic affairs as the main theme of human

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endeavor.

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Faithfulness to tradition means to the historian observance of the fundamental rule of human

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in Action, Namely, Ceaseless Striving to Improve Conditions.

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It does not mean preservation of unsuitable old institutions and clinging to doctrines

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long since discredited by more tenable theories.

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It does not imply any concession to the point of view of historicism.

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6.

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HISTORY AND THE RISE OF AGGRESSIVE NATIONALISM

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The historian should utilize in his studies all the knowledge that the other disciplines

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place at his disposal.

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Inadequacy in this knowledge affects the results of his work.

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If we were to consider the Homeric epics merely as historical narratives, we would have to

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judge them unsatisfactory on account of the theology or mythology used to interpret and

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explain facts.

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The struggle and political conflicts between princes and heroes, the spread of a plague,

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meteorological conditions, and other happenings were attributed to the interference of gods.

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Modern historians refrain from tracing back earthly events to supernatural causes.

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They avoid propositions that would manifestly contradict the teachings of the natural sciences.

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But they are often ignorant of economics and committed to untenable doctrines concerning

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Problems of Economic Policies

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Many cling to neomercantilism, the social philosophy adopted almost without exception

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by contemporary political parties and governments and taught at all universities.

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They approve the fundamental thesis of mercantilism that the gain of one nation is the damage

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of other nations, that no nation can win but by the loss of others.

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They think an irreconcilable conflict of interests prevails among nations.

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In this point of view, many or even most historians interpret all events.

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The violent clash of nations is in their eyes a necessary consequence of a nature-given

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and inevitable antagonism.

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This antagonism cannot be removed by any arrangement of international relations.

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The advocates of integral free trade, the Manchester or laissez-faire liberals, are,

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they think, unrealistic and do not see that free trade hurts the vital interests of any

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It is not surprising that the average historian shares the fallacies and misconceptions prevailing among his contemporaries.

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It was, however, not the historians but the anti-economists who developed the modern ideology of international conflict and aggressive nationalism.

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The historians merely adopted and applied it.

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It is not especially remarkable that in their writings they took the side of their own nation

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Books on History, especially those on the history of one's own country, appeal more to the general reader than do tracts on economic policy.

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The audience of the historians is broader than that of the authors of books on the balance of payments, foreign exchange control, and similar matters.

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This explains why historians are often considered the leading fomenters of the revival of the warlike spirit

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7.

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History and Judgments of Value

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The subject of history is action and the judgments of value directing action toward definite

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ends.

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History deals with values, but it itself does not value.

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looks upon events with the eyes of an unaffected observer.

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This is, of course, the characteristic mark of objective thought and of the scientific

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search for truth.

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Truth refers to what is or was, not to a state of affairs that is not or was not, but that

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would suit the wishes of the truth-seeker better.

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There is no need to add anything to what has been said in the first part of this essay

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History is no better able than any other science to provide standards of value that would be

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more than personal judgments pronounced then and there by mortal men and rejected then

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and there by other mortal men.

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There are authors who assert that it is logically impossible to deal with historical facts without

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expressing judgments of value.

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As they see it, one cannot say anything relevant about these things without making one value

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judgment after another.

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If for example one deals with such phenomena as pressure groups or prostitution, one has

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to realize that these phenomena themselves are, as it were, constituted by value judgments.

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Now, it is true that many people employ such terms as pressure group and almost everyone

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Prostitution is the practice of habitual or intermittent sexual union more or less promiscuous

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for mercenary inducement.

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A pressure group is a group aiming to attain legislation thought favorable to the interests

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of the group members.

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There is no valuation whatever implied in the mere use of such terms or in the reference

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to such phenomena.

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It is not true that history, if it has to avoid value judgments, would not be permitted

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to speak of cruelty.

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The first meaning of the word cruel in the Concise Oxford Dictionary is indifferent to

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delighting in another's pain.

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This definition is no less objective and free from any valuation than that given by the

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The same dictionary for sadism, sexual perversion marked by love of cruelty.

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As a psychiatrist employs the term sadism to describe the condition of a patient, a

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historian may refer to cruelty in describing certain actions.

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A dispute that may arise as to what causes pain and what not, or as to whether in a concrete

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case pain was inflicted because it gave pleasure to the actor or for other reasons, is concerned

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and with establishing facts, not making judgments of value.

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The problem of history's neutrality as to judgments of value must not be confused with

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that of the attempts to falsify the historical account.

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There have been historians who were eager to represent battles lost by their own nation's

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armed forces as victories and who claimed for their own people, race, party, or faith,

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Everything they regarded as meritorious and exculpated them from everything they regarded

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as objectionable.

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The textbooks of history prepared for the public schools are marked by a rather naive

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parochialism and chauvinism.

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There is no need to dwell on such futilities.

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But it must be admitted that even for the most conscientious historian, abstention from

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judgments of value may offer certain difficulties.

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As a man and as a citizen, the historian takes sides in many feuds and controversies of

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his age.

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It is not easy to combine scientific aloofness in historical studies with partisanship in

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mundane interests, but that can and has been achieved by outstanding historians.

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The historian's worldview may color his work.

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His representation of events may be interlarded with remarks that betray his feelings and

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and wishes and divulges party affiliation. However, the postulate of scientific history's

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abstention from value judgments is not infringed by occasional remarks expressing the preferences

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of the historian if the general purport of the study is not affected. If the writer,

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speaking of an inept commander of the forces of his own nation or party, says, unfortunately,

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the general was not equal to his task, he has not failed in his duty as a historian,

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The historian is free to lament the destruction of the masterpieces of Greek art, provided

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his regret does not influence his report of the events that brought about this destruction.

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The problem of Wertfreiheit must also be clearly distinguished from that of the choice of theories

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resorted to for the interpretation of facts.

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In dealing with the data available, the historian needs all the knowledge provided by the other

350
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Other Disciplines by Logic, Mathematics, Praxeology, and the Natural Sciences.

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If what these disciplines teach is insufficient, or if the historian chooses an erroneous theory

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out of several conflicting theories held by the specialists, his effort is misled and

353
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his performance is abortive.

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It may be that he chose an untenable theory because he was biased and this theory best

355
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suited his party spirit.

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And the acceptance of a faulty doctrine may often be merely the outcome of ignorance or

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of the fact that it enjoys greater popularity than more correct doctrines.

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The main source of dissent among historians is divergence in regard to the teachings of

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all the other branches of knowledge upon which they base their presentation.

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To a historian of earlier days who believed in witchcraft, magic, and the devil's interference

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with Human Affairs, things had a different aspect than they have for an agnostic historian.

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The neo-mercantilist doctrines of the balance of payments and of the dollar shortage give

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an image of present-day world conditions very different from that provided by an examination

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Learn of this situation from the point of view of modern subjectivist economics.