158 THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY reappeared in positivism as mythology of evolution, here too particular problems (which are indeed the only philosophical problems) received merely schematic and empty treatment and did not progress at all. Philo- sophy as history and methodology of history restores honour to the virtue of acuteness or discernment, which the theological unitarianism of metaphysic tended to depreciate: discernment, which is prosaic but severe, hard and laborious but prolific, which sometimes assumes the unsympathetic aspect of scholasticism and pedantry, but is also of use in this aspect, like every discipline, and holds that the neglect of distinction for unity is also intimately opposed to the conception of philosophy as history.
A third tendency (I beg to be allowed to proceed by enumeration of the various sides of the same mental attitude for reasons of convenience), a third tendency also seeks the definitive philosophy, untaught by the historical fact that no philosophy has ever been definitive or has set a limit to thought, or has ever been thoroughly convinced that the perpetual changing of philosophy with the world which perpetually changes is not by any means a defect, but is the nature itself of thought and reality. Or, rather, such teaching, and the proposition that follows it, do not fail altogether of acceptance, and they are led to believe that the spirit, ever growing upon itself, produces thoughts and systems that are ever new. But since they have retained the pre- supposition of a fundamental problem which (as we have said) substantially consists of the ancient problem of religion alone, and each problem well determined implies a single solution, the solution given of the * fundamental problem ' naturally claims to be the definitive solution of the problem of philosophy itself.
PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY 159 A new solution could not appear without a new problem (owing to the logical unity of problem and solution); but that problem, which is superior to all the others, is on the contrary the only one. Thus a definitive philosophy, assumed in the conception of the funda- mental problem, is at variance with historical experience, and more irreconcilably, because in a more evidently logical manner, with philosophy as history, which, admitting infinite problems, denies the claim for and the expectation of a definitive philosophy. Every philosophy is definitive for the problem which it solves, but not for the one that appears immediately afterward, at the foot of the first, nor for the other problems which will arise from the solution of this. To close the series would be to turn from philosophy to religion and to rest in God.
Indeed, the fourth preconception, which we now proceed to state, and which links itself with the pre- ceding, and, together with all the preceding, to the theological nature of the old metaphysic, concerns the figure of the philosopher, as Buddha or the Awakened One, who posits himself as superior to others (and to himself in the moments when he is not a philosopher), because he holds himself to be free from human passions, illusions, and agitations by means of philosophy. This is the case with the believer, who fixes his mind upon God and shakes off earthly cares, like the lover, who feels himself blessed in the possession of the beloved and defies the whole world. But the world soon takes its revenge both upon the believer and the lover, and does not fail to insist upon its rights. Such an illusion is impossible for the philosophical historian, who differs from the other in feeling himself irresistibly involved in the course of history, as at once both subject and object, and who is 160 THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY therefore led to negate felicity or beatitude, as he negates every other abstraction (because, as has been well said, le bonheur est le contraire de la sensation de vivre), and to accept life as it is, as joy that overcomes sorrow and perpetually produces new sorrows and new unstable joys. And history, which he thinks as the only truth, is the work of tireless thought, which conditions practical work, as practical work conditions the new work of thought. Thus the primacy formerly attributed to the contemplative life is now transferred not to active life, but to life in its integrity, which is at once thought and action. And every man is a philosopher (in his circle, however wide or narrow it may appear), and every philosopher is a man, indissolubly linked to the conditions of human life, which it is not given to anyone to tran- scend. The mystical or apocalyptic philosopher of the Graeco-Roman decadence was well able to separate himself from the world: the great thinkers, like Hegel, who inaugurated the epoch of modern philosophy, although they denied the primacy of the abstract contemplative life, were liable to fall back into the error of belief in this supremacy and to conceive a sphere of absolute spirit, a process of liberation through art, religion, and philosophy, as a means of reaching it; but the once sublime figure of the philosopher blessed in the absolute, when we try to revive it in this modern world of ours, becomes tinged with the comic. It is true that satire has now but little material upon which to exercise itself, and is reduced to aiming its shafts at the ' professors of philosophy ' (according to the type of philosopher that has been created by modern univer- sities, which is partly the heir of the ' master of theology \ of the Middle Ages: against the professors, that is to say, to the extent that they continue to repeat mechani- PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY 161 cally abstract general propositions, and seem to be unmoved by the passions and the problems that press upon them from all sides and vainly ask for more con- crete and actual treatment. But the function and the social figure of the philosopher have profoundly changed, and we have not said that the manner of being of the I professors of philosophy ' will not also change in its turn — that is to say, that the way of teaching philosophy in the universities and schools is not on the verge of experiencing a crisis, which will eliminate the last remains of the medieval fashion of formalistic philo- sophizing. A strong advance in philosophical culture should lead to this result: that all students of human affairs, jurists, economists, moralists, men of letters — in other words, all students of historical matters — should become conscious and disciplined philosophers, and that thus the philosopher in general, the purus philosophies, should find no place left for him among the professional specifications of knowledge. With the disappearance of the philosopher * in general ' would also disappear the last social vestige of the teleologist or metaphysician, and of the Buddha or Awakened One. There is also a prejudice which to some extent in- quinates the manner of culture of students of philosophy.
They are accustomed to have recourse almost exclusively to the books of philosophers, indeed of philosophers 1 in general,' of the metaphysical system-makers, in the same way as the student of theology formed himself upon the sacred texts. This method of culture, which is perfectly consequent when a start is made from the presupposition of a fundamental or single problem, of which it is necessary to know the different diverging and progressive solutions which have been attempted, is altogether inconsequent and inadequate in the case of 1 62 THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY a historical and immanent philosophy, which draws its material from all the most varied impressions of life and from all intuitions and reflections upon life. That form of culture is the reason for the aridity of the treat- ment of certain particular problems, for which is necessary a continued contact with daily experience (art and art criticism for aesthetic, politics, economy, judicial trials for the philosophy of rights, positive and mathematical sciences for the gnoseology of the sciences, and so on). To it is also due the aridity of treatment of those parts of philosophy themselves which are traditionally con- sidered to constitute ' general philosophy,' for they too had their origin in life, and we must refer them back to life if we are to give a satisfactory interpretation of their propositions; we must plunge them into life again to develop them and to find in them new aspects. The whole of history is the foundation of philosophy as history, and to limit its foundation to the history of philosophy alone, and of * general * or ' metaphysical ' philosophy, is impossible, save by unconsciously adhering to the old idea of philosophy, not as methodology but as metaphysic, which is the fifth of the prejudices that we are enumerating.
This enumeration can be both lengthened and ended with the mention of a sixth preconception, relating to philosophical exposition. Owing to this, philosophy is expected to have either an architectural form, as though it were a temple consecrated to the Eternal, or a warm poetical form, as though it were a hymn to the Eternal. But these forms were part of the old content, and that form is now changed. Philosophy shows itself to be a dilucidation of the categories of historical interpre- tation rather than the grandiose architecture of a temple or a sacred hymn running on conventional lines.
PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY 163 Philosophy is discussion, polemic, rigorous didactic exposition, which is certainly coloured with the senti- ments of the writer, like every other literary form, able also at times to raise its voice (or on the other hand to become slight and playful, according to circumstances), but not constrained to observe rules which appear to be proper to a theological or religious content. Philo- sophy treated as methodology has, so to speak, caused philosophical exposition to descend from poetry to prose.
All the preconceptions, habits, and tendencies which I have briefly described should in my opinion be care- fully sought out and eliminated, for it is they that impede philosophy from taking the form and proceeding in the mode suitable and adequate to the consciousness of the unity with history which it has reached. If we look merely at the enormous amount of psychological obser- vations and moral doubts accumulated in the course of the nineteenth century by poetry, fiction, and drama, those voices of our society, and consider that in great part it remains without critical treatment, some idea can be formed of the immense amount of work that falls to philosophy to accomplish. And if on the other hand we observe the multitude of anxious questions that the great European War has everywhere raised — as to the state, as to history, as to rights, as to the functions of the different peoples, as to civilization, culture, and : barbarism, as to science, art, religion, as to the end and ideal of life, and so on — we realize the duty of philosophers to issue forth from the theologicoii metaphysical circle in which they remain confined even when they refuse to hear of theology and metaphysic. For notwithstanding their protests, and notwithstanding the new conception accepted and professed by them, 1 64 THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY they really remain intellectually and spiritually attached to the old ideas.
Even the history itself of philosophy has hitherto been renewed only to a small extent, in conformity with the new conception of philosophy. This new conception in- vites us to direct our attention to thoughts and thinkers, long neglected or placed in the second rank and not considered to be truly philosophers because they did not treat directly the ' fundamental problem ' of philo- sophy or the great peut-etre, but were occupied with ' particular problems.' These particular problems, how- ever, were destined to produce eventually a change of view as regards the * general problem,' which emerged itself reduced to the rank of a ' particular ' problem. It is simply the result of prejudice to look upon a Machia- velli, who posited the conception of the modern state, a Baltasar Gracian, who examined the question of acuteness in practical matters, a Pascal, who criticized the spirit of Jesuitry, a Vico, who renewed all the sciences of the spirit, or a Hamann, with his keen sense of the value of tradition, as minor philosophers, I do not say in comparison with some metaphysician of little originality, but even when compared with a Descartes or a Spinoza, who dealt with other but not superior problems. A schematic and bloodless history of philosophy corresponded, in fact, with the philosophy of the * fundamental problem.' A far richer, more varied and pliant philo- sophy should correspond with philosophy as methodology, which holds to be philosophy not only what appertains to the problems of immanency, of transcendency, of this world and the next, but everything that has been of avail in increasing the patrimony of guiding con- ceptions, the understanding of actual history, and the formation of the reality of thought in which we live.
PART II CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS WE possess many works relating to the history of historiography, both special, dealing with indi- vidual authors, and more or less general, dealing with groups of authors (histories of historiography confined to one people and to a definite period, or alto- gether ' universal ' histories). Not only have we biblio- graphical works and works of erudition, but criticism, some of it excellent, especially in the case of German scientific literature, ever the most vigilant of all in not leaving unexplored any nook or cranny of the dominion of knowledge. It cannot, therefore, form part of my design to treat the theme from its foundations: but I propose to make a sort of appendix or critical annotation to the collection of books and essays that I have read upon the argument. I will not say that these are all, or even that they are all those of any importance, but they are certainly a considerable number. By means of this annotation I shall try to establish, on the one hand, in an exact manner and in conformity with the principles explained, the method of such a history, regarding which I observe that there still exist confusion and perplexity, even among the best, which lead to errors of judgment or at least of plan, and on the other hand I shall try to outline 1 66 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY the principal periods in a summary manner, both with the view of exemplifying the method established, and, as it were, of illustrating historically the concepts exposed in the preceding theoretical pages, which might otherwise retain here and there something of an abstract appearance.
Beginning with methodical delimitations, I shall note in the first place that in a history of historiography as such, historical writings cannot be looked upon from the point of view proper to a history of literature — that is to say, as expressions of individual sentiments, as forms of art. Doubtless they are this also, and have a perfect right to form part of histories of literature, as the treatises and systems of the philosophers, the writings of Plato and Aristotle, of Bruno, of Leibnitz, and of Hegel \ but in this case both are regarded not as works of history and of philosophy, but of literature and poetry; and the empirical scale of values which constitute the different modes of history in the cases of the same authors is different, because in a history of literature the place of a Plato will always be more considerable than that of an Aristotle, that of a Bruno than that of a Leibnitz, owing to the greater amount of passion and the greater richness of artistic problems contained in the former of each pair. The fact that in many volumes of literary history such diversity of treatment is not observed, and historians are talked of historically and not in a literary manner and philosophers philosophically rather than in a literary manner, is due to the substitution in such works of incoherent compilation for work that is properly critical and scientific. But the distinction between the two aspects is important for this reason also, that erroneous judgments, praise, and censure, alike unjustified, are apt to appear, owing to the careless trans- ference of the scale of values from one history to another.
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS 167 The slight esteem in which Polybius was held in antiquity and for some time after, because ' he did not write well ' in comparison with the splendour of Livy or with the emotional intensity of Tacitus, is an instance of this, as is likewise in Italy the excessive praise lavished upon certain historians who were little more than correct and elegant writers of prose in comparison with others who were negligent and crude in their form, but serious students. Ulrici,1 in his youthful book on ancient historiography, which despite its heaviness and verbosity of exposition has great merits, after having discussed the ' scientific value ' of that historiography, also speaks at great length of ' artistic value '; but setting aside what of arbitrary is to be found in some of the laws that he applies to historiography as art, in conformity with the aesthetic ideas of his time, it is evident that the second subject of which he treats does not coalesce with the first and is only placed side by side with it in the same way as those sections of works dealing with historical method are not connected but simply juxtaposed, and after having studied in their own way the formation of historical thought, the collection of materials or < heuristic,' up to final ' comprehension/ begin to discuss the form of the * exposition,' and in so doing continue without being aware of it the method of rhetorical treatises on the art of history composed during the Renaissance. These have their chief exponent in Vossius (1623). We cannot abstain from sometimes mentioning the literary form of the works of historians, nor from according their laurels to works of remarkable literary value, while noting their unsatisfactory historiographical methods; but to touch here and there upon, to discuss, to charac- terize, to eliminate, is of secondary importance and 1 Charakteristik der antiken Historiographie (Berlin, 1833).
1 68 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY does not form part of the proper function of historio- graphy, whose object is the development of historiographical thought.
The distinction between this history and that of philology or erudition is less apparent but not less in- dubitable, always, be it well understood, in the sense explained, of a distinction that is not a separation. This warning should be understood in respect of other ex- clusions that we are about to effect, without our being obliged to repeat it at every step; for the connexion between history and philology is undeniable, not less than that between history and art, or history and prac- tical life. But that does not prevent philology in itself being the collection, the rearrangement, the purification of material, and not history. Owing to this quality it forms a part rather of the history of culture than of that of thought. It would be impossible to disassociate it from the history of libraries, archives,* museums, universities, seminaries, ecoles des chartes, academical and editorial enterprises, and from other institutions and proceedings of an entirely practical nature. Fueter has therefore been right in excluding from his theme in his recent work on the history of modern historiography x " the history of merely philological research and criticism/ ' This has not prevented him from taking store where apposite of the school of Biondo or of that of Maurini, or of the perfecting of the method of seeking for the sources attained by the German school in the nineteenth century. The confusion and lack of development observable in the old and solid work of Wachler 2 is perhaps due to his having failed to make 1 Geschichte der neueren Historiographie (Miinchen u. Berlin, Olden- 2 Geschichte der historischen Forschung und Kunst sett der Wiederher- stellung der liter arischen Cultur in Europa (Gottingen, 1812-20).
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS 169 this distinction, to which recourse can also be had with advantage elsewhere. Wachler's work, entitled and conceived as " history of research and of the historical art from the Renaissance of letters in Europe onward," ended by assuming the appearance of a repertory or bibliographical catalogue.
The obstacles to be encountered by the distinction between the history of historiography and that of the practical tendencies, or tendencies of the social and political spirit, are more intricate. These indeed become in- corporated with or at least leave their mark upon the works of historians; but it is just because we can only with difficulty perceive the line of demarcation that it is indispensable to make it quite clear. Such tendencies, such social and political spirit, belong rather to the matter than to the theoretical form of history; they are not so much historiography as history in the act and in its fieri. Machiavelli is a historian in so far as he tries to understand the course of events; he is a politician, or at least a publicist, when he posits and desires a prince, founder of a strong national state, as his ideal, reflecting this in his history. This history, in so far as it portrays that ideal and the inspiration and teaching that accompany it, here and there becomes fable (fabula docet). Thus Machiavelli belongs partly to the history of thought in the Renaissance and partly to the history of the practice of the Renaissance. Nor does this happen solely in political and social historiography, but also in literary and artistic, because there is not perhaps a critic in the world, however unprejudiced and broad in his ideas, who does not manifest ten- dencies in the direction of a literary renovation of his epoch together with his actual judgments and reconstructions. Now to the extent that he does this, 170 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY