Bab Bab 354 · 第354章

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.