Theory & History of Historiography

another, must all of them be looked upon as physiological—that is to say, true and rational. But logical sequence now leads me fr

gs. Philological history consists of the pouring out of one or[Pg 28] more books into a new book. This operation bears an appropriate name in current language and is known as 'compilation.' These compilations are frequently convenient, because they save the trouble of having recourse to several books at the same time; but they do not contain any historical thought. Modern chronological philologists regard medieval chroniclers and the old Italian historians (from Machiavelli and Guicciardini down to Giannone) with a feeling of superiority. These writers 'transcribed,' as they called it, their 'sources' in the parts of their books that are devoted to narrative—that is to say, chronicle. Yet they themselves do not and cannot behave otherwise, because when history is being composed from 'sources' as external things there is never anything else to do but to transcribe the sources. Transcription is varied by sometimes summarizing an

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expended Upon them as most rational? But error never lies in the fact, but only in the 'claim' or 'idea' that accompanies the fact. And in this case the idea or claim is that which has been defined above as properly belonging to philological history—namely, that of composing histories with documents and narratives. This cla

be the most worthy of faith, it is always a question of faith (that is to say, of the thought of others and of thought belonging to the past) and not of criticism (that is to say, of our own thought in the act), of verisimilitude and not of that certainty which is truth. Hence philological history can certainly be correct, but not true (richtig and not wahr). And as it is without truth,[Pg 30] so is it without true historical interest—that is to say, it sheds no light upon an order of facts answering

ry, indicating the Storie fiorentine of Machiavelli and the Trattato dei benefici of Fra Paolo as writings that approach that ideal. Finally he maintains that for true and living history we should not go beyond the beginning of the sixteenth century, beyond Charles V and Henry VIII, when the political and social history of Europe first appeared—a system which still persisted at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He then proceeds to paint a picture of those two centuries of history, for the use, not of the curious and the erudite, but of politicians, too one, I think, would wish to deny the just sentiment for history which animates these demands, set forth in so vivacious a manner. Bolingbroke, however, did not rise, nor was it possible for him to rise, to the conception of the death and rebirth of every history (which is the rigorously speculative concept of 'actual' and 'contemporary' history), owing to the conditions of culture of his time, nor did he suspect that primitive barbaric history, which he threw into a corner as useless dead leaves, would reappear quite fresh half a century later, as the result of the reaction against intellectualism and Jacobinism, and that this reaction would have as one of its principal promoter

that even the most radical of those opponents (Fontenelle, Volney, Delfico, etc.) end by admitting or demanding some form of history as not useless or uncertain, or not altogether useless and uncertain, and from the fact that all their sha

tural sciences themselves, thus raised to the rank of model, are founded upon perceptions, observations, and experiments—that is to say, upon facts historically ascertained—and the[Pg 33] 'sensa

amed and forbidden. But the distinction is one of the customary sort, by means of which lack of intelligence disguised as love of moderation contrives to chip off the edges from the antitheses that it fails to solve. Hypercriticism is the prosecution of criticism; it is criticism itself, and to divide criticism into a more and a less, and to admit the less and deny the more, is extravagant, to say the least of it. No 'authorities' are certain while others are uncertain, but all are uncertain, varying in uncertainty in an extrinsic and conjectural manner. Who can guarantee himself against the false statement made by the usually diligent and trustworthy witness in a moment of distraction or of passion? A sixteenth-century inscription, still to[Pg 34] be read in one of the old byways of Naples, wisely prays God (and historical philologists should pray to Him fervently every

self in the development of the spirit. But if such consequences are distasteful and the project is persevered in of thus writing history in spite of repeated failures, the further problem then presents itself as to how the cold indifference of philological history and its[Pg 35] intrinsic uncertainty can be healed without changing thos

human splendour and happiness. Nor is poetical history exhausted with this fundamental and general description of love and hate (love that is hate and hate that is love), for it passes through all the most intricate forms, the fine gradations of sentiment. Thus we have poetical histories which are amorous, melancholy, nostalgic, pessimistic, resigned, confident, cheerful, and as many other sorts as one can imagine. Herodotus celebrates the romance of the jealousies of the gods, Livy the epos of Roman virtue, Tacitus composes horrible tragedies, Elizabethan dramas in sculptural Latin prose. If we turn to the most modern among the[Pg 36] moderns, we find Droysen giving expression to his lyrical aspiration toward the strong centralized state in his history of Macedonia, that Prus

consciousness of the historian, the value that rules the writing of history is the value of thought. But precisely for this reason its principle of determination cannot be the value known as the value of 'sentiment,' which is life and not thought, and when this life finds[Pg 37] expression and representation, before it has been dominated by thought, we have poetry, not history. In order to turn poetical biography into truly historical biography we must repress our loves, our tears, our scorn, and seek what function the individual has fulfilled in social activity or civilization; and we must do the same for

if I am not mistaken, Renan, one of the historian-poets, remarked) and to add imaginary particulars, though in a conjectural form, to the actual data. Vossius blamed those Grecian historians, and historians of other nations, who, when they invent fables, ad effugiendam vanitatis notam satis fore putant si addant solemne suum 'aiunt,' 'fertur,' vel aliquid quod tantundem valeat. But even in our own day it would be diverting and instructive to catalogue the forms of insinuation employed by historians who pass for being most weighty, with a view to introducing their own personal imaginings: 'perhaps,' 'it would seem,' 'one would say,' 'it is pleasant to think,' 'we may infer,' 'it is probable,' 'it is evident,' and the like; and to note how they sometimes come to omit these warnings and recount things that they have themselves imagined as though they had seen them, in order to complete their picture, regarding which they would be much embarrassed if some one, indiscreet as an enfant terrible, should chance to ask them: "How do you know it?" "Who told you this?" Recourse has been had to the methodological theory of "imagination necessary for the historian who does not wish to become a mere chronicler," to an imagination, that is to say, which shall be reconstructive and integrating; or, as is also said, to "the necessity of integrating the

e, idyll, elegy, and as many other 'kinds of poetry' as may be desired. The historiography of the Risorgimento is in great part a poetical historiography, rich in legends which still await the historian, or have met with him only occasionally and by chance, exactly like ancient or medieval epic, which, if it were really poetry, was yet believed by its hearers, and often perhaps by its composers themselves, to be history. And I claim for others and for myself the right to imagine history as dictated by my personal feeling; to imagine, for instance, an Italy as fair as a beloved woman, as dear as the tenderest of mothers, as austere as a venerated ancestress, to seek out her doings through the centuries and even to prophesy her future, and to create for myself in history idols of hatred and of love, to embellish yet more the charming, if I will, and to make the unpleasant yet more unpleasant. I claim to seek out every memory and every particular, the expressions of countenance, the gestures, the garments, the dwellings, every kind of insignific

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eous (theoretical) form of history? The structure of rhetorical history presupposes a history that already exists, or at least a poetical history, narrated with a practical end. The end would be to induce an emotion leading to virtue, to remorse, to shame, or to enthusiasm; or perhaps to provide repose for the soul, such as is supplied by games; or to introduce into the mind a historical, philosophical, or scientific truth (movere, delectare, docere, or in whatever way it may be decided to classify these ends); but it will always be an end—that is to say, a practical act, which avails itself of the telling of the history as a means or as one of its means. Hence rhetorical history (which would be more correctly termed practicistical history) is composed of two elements, history and the practical end, converging into one, which is the practical act. For this reason one cannot attack it, but only its theory, which is the already mentioned theory, so celebrated in antiquity, of history as opus oratorium, as φιλοσοφ?α ?κ παραδειγμ?των, as ?ποδεικτικ?, as ν?κη? γ?μνασμα (if warlike), or γνωμη? πα?δενμα (if political), or as evocative of ?δον?, and the like. This doctrine is altogether analogous to the hedonistic and pedagogic doctrine relating to poetry which at that time dominated. It was believed possible to assign an end to poetry, whereas an extrinsic end was assigned to it, and poetry w

er in the reality of the spirit, and biased history, when closely examined, is really either poetical history or practicistical history. An exception must always be made of the books in which the two moments are sometimes to be found side by side, as indeed one usually finds true history and chronicle and the document and philological and poetical history side by side. What gives the illusion of a mingling or of a special form of history is the fact that many take their point of departure from poetical inspiration (love of country, faith in their country, enthusiasm

. Nor has so-called practicistical history ever been dispensed with, either[Pg 45] according to the Gr?co-Roman practice, which was that of proposing portraits of statesmen, of captains, and of heroic women as models for the soul, or according to that of the Middle Ages, which was to repeat the lives of saints and hermits of the desert, or of knights strong of arm and of unshakable faith, or in our own modern world, which recommends as edifying and stimulating read

und inspiring even Labriola's pedagogic essay on The Teaching of History. But if we mean by the word 'history' both history that is thought as well as that which, on the contrary, is poetry, philology, or moral will, it is clear that 'history' will enter the

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l history, poetical history, and (let us call it history nevertheless) practicistical history are, have been, and always will be the same. Those who undertake the task of creating a new history always succeed in setting up philological history against poetical history, or poetical history against philological history, or contemporary history against both of them, and so on. Unless, indeed, as is the case with Buckle and the many tiresome sociolo

at completely satisfies us, because any construction of ours generates new facts and new problems and solicits new solutions. Thus the history of Rome, of Greece, and of Christianity, of the Reformation, of[Pg 47] the French Revoluti

rom the confessions that even the most confused of them involuntarily let fall. It is also to be inferred with certainty from the nature itself of the human spirit, although the words in which those distinctions are expressed have not been written or are not preserved. And such a concept and distinction are renewed at every moment by history itself, which becomes ever more copious, more profound. This is to be looked upon as certain, and is for that matter made evident by th

since we have shown that philological history or chronicle is not history, and that poetical history is poetry and not history, the 'facts' that correspond to those beliefs must disappear, or become

fdom and the method of simple barter and so many other things that were facts, that is to say, its own transitory forms. But error (and evil, which is one with it) is not a fact; it does not possess empirical existence; it is nothing but the negative or dialectical moment of the spirit, necessary f

y form, and this need was followed by the creation of a new historiography during the period of romanticism. The type of merely philological history, promulgated in Germany after 1820, and afterward disseminated throughout Europe, was also certainly error; but it was likewise an instrument of liberation from the more or less fantastic and arbitrary histories improvised by the philosophers. But who would wish to turn back from them to the 'philosophies of history'? The type of history, sometimes tendencious, but more often poetical, which followed in the wake of the national Italian movement, was also error—that is to say, it led to the loss of historical calm. But that poetical consciousness which surpassed itself when laying claim to historical truth was bound sooner or later to generate (as had been the case on a larger scale in the eighteenth century) a history linked with the interes

nce of Pure Concept.—