Bab Bab 230 · 第230章

Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind.

Laws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only when he

examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the

same time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary

division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a

well-known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that

Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite

of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By

the time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the

tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead

of him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered

another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to

the ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never

overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily

divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles

and of the tortoise was continuous.

By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a

solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted

the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical

progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of

this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.

A modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with

the infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex

problems of motion which used to appear insoluble.

This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when dealing

with problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely small,

and so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute continuity)

and thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human mind cannot

avoid when it deals with separate elements of motion instead of

examining continuous motion.

In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens.

The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary

human wills, is continuous.

To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of

history. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all

those human wills, man’s mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected

units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected

series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though

there is and can be no beginning to any event, for one event always

flows uninterruptedly from another.

The second method is to consider the actions of some one man—a king or a

commander—as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas the

sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a single

historic personage.

Historical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually

takes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the

units it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others,

or to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of

many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is

in itself false.

It needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions

drawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or

smaller unit as the subject of observation—as criticism has every

right to do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be

arbitrarily selected.

Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the

differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and

attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of

these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.

The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an

extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary

pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and

slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some

years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive

movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of

this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.

The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and

doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling

these sayings and doings “the Revolution”; then they give a detailed

biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him;

tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that

is why this movement took place and those are its laws.

But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but

plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in

it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of

human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of

those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them.

“But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors;

every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been

great men,” says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time

conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the

conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of

a war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my

watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring

church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock

reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is

caused by the position of the hands of the watch.

Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see

the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude

that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the

movement of the engine.

The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks

are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak

is budding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds to blow

when the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the

unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the

force of the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a

coincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of

life, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the

hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the

oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine

moving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my

point of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the

bells, and of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this

direction have already been made.

To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of

our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and

study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are

moved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance

in this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is

evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering

the laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much

mental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has

been devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders,

and ministers and propounding the historians’ own reflections concerning

these actions.