social customs investigates (as in Sainte-Palaye's book on Ancienne chevalerie) even the minutest aspects of social and moral life. Had not Voltaire remarked about tournaments that il se fait des revolutions dans les plaisirs comme dans tout le reste? And to limit our- selves to Italy, which at that time was also acting on the initiative, though she soon afterward withdrew and received her impulse from the other countries of Europe, it is well to remember that in the eighteenth century Pietro Giannone, expressing the desires and the attempts at their realization of a multitude of Neapolitan com- patriots and contemporaries, traced the civil history of the Kingdom of Naples, giving much space to the relations between Church and State and to the incidents of legislation. Many followed this example in Italy and outside it (among the many were Montesquieu and Gibbon). In Italy, too, Ludovico Antonio Muratori illustrated medieval life in his Antiquitates Italia^ and Tiraboschi composed a great history of Italian literature (understood as that of the whole culture of Italy), notable not less for its erudition than for its clearness of design, while other lesser writers, like Napoli Signorelli, in his Vicende della cultura delle due SiciUe, particularized in certain regions, sprinkling their history with the philosophy current at the time. The Jesuit Bettinelli, too, imitated the historical books of Voltaire for the history of letters, arts, and customs in Italy, Bonafede the work of Brucker for the history of philosophy, and Lanzi, in a manner far superior to those just mentioned, continued the path followed by Winckelmann in his History of Painting, Not only did the historiography of the enlightenment render history more * interior ' and develop it in its interiority, but it also broadened it in space and time. Here too Voltaire represents in an eminent degree the THE ENLIGHTENMENT 255 needs of his age, with his continual accusations of narrow- ness and meanness levelled at the traditional image of universal history, as composed of Hebrew or sacred history and Graeco-Roman or profane history, or, as he says, histoires pretendues universelles> fabriquees dans notre Occident, A beginning was made with the use of the material discovered, transported, and accumulated by explorers and travellers from the Renaissance onward, of which a considerable part had been contributed by the Jesuits and by missionaries. India and China attracted attention, both on account of their antiquity and of the high grade of civilization to which they had attained. Translations of religious and literary Oriental texts were soon added to this, and it became possible to discuss that civilization, not merely at second-hand and according to the narratives of travellers. This increase of knowledge relating to the East is paralleled by increase of knowledge not only in relation to anti- quity (these studies were never dropped, but changed their centre, first from Italy to France and Holland, then to England, and then to Germany), but also in regard to the Middle Ages, in the works of the Benedictines, of Leibnitz, Muratori, and very many others, who here also specialized both as regards the objects of their researches and as to the regions or cities in which they conducted them, as for instance De Meo in his Annali critici del Regno di Napo/L With the increase of erudition, of the variety of documents and information available, went hand in hand a more refined criticism as to the authenticity of the one and of the value as evidence of the other. Fueter does well to note the progress in method accomplished by the Benedictines and by Leibnitz (who did not surpass those excellent and learned monks in this respect, 2$6 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY although he was a philosopher) up to Muratori, who did not restrict himself to testing the genuineness of tradition, but initiated criticism of the tendencies of individual witnesses, of the interests and passions which colour and give their shape to narratives. The en- lightened, with Voltaire at their head, initiated another kind of criticism of a more intrinsic sort, directed to things and to the knowledge of things (to literary, moral, political, and military experience), recognizing the impossibility that things should have happened in the way that they are said to have happened by super- ficial, credulous, or prejudiced historians, and attempting to reconstruct them in the only way that they could have happened. We shall admire in Voltaire (especially in the Steele) his lack of confidence in the reports of courtiers and servants, accustomed to forge calumnies and to interpret maliciously and anecdotically the external actions of sovereigns and statesmen.
This happened because the historiography of the enlightenment, while it preserved and even exaggerated pragmatism, yet on the other hand refined and spiritual- ized it, as will have been observed in the expressions preferred by Voltaire and even in the theologizing Bossuet: V esprit des nations^ V esprit du temps. What that esprit was naturally remained vague, because the support of philosophy, in which at that time those newly imported concepts introduced an unexpected element of conflict, was lacking to refer it to the ideal determinations of the spirit in its develop- ment and to conceive the various epochs and the various nations as each playing its own part in the spiritual drama. Thus it often happened that esprit was perverted into a fixed quality, such as race, if it were a question of nations, and into a current or mode, THE ENLIGHTENMENT 257 if periods were spoken of, and was thus naturalized and pragmatized. Trots choses, wrote Voltaire, influent sans cesse sur ly esprit des hommes^ le climat^ le gouvernement^ et la religion: c'est la seule manifre cTexpliquer Venigme du monde: where the ' spirit ' is lowered to the position of a product of natural and social circumstances. The suggestive word had, however, been pronounced, and a clear consciousness of the terms themselves of the social, political, and cultural struggle that was being carried on would have little by little emerged. For the time being, climate, government, religion, genius of the peoples, genius of the time, were all more or less happy attempts to go beyond pragmatism and to place causality in a universal order. This effort, and at the same time its limit — that is to say, the falling back into the abstract and pragmatic form of explanation — is also shown in the doctrine of the ' single event,' which was believed to determine at a stroke the new epoch of barbarism or of civilization. Thus at this time it was customary to assign enormous importance to the Crusades or to the Turkish occupation of Constantinople, as Fueter records, with special reference to Richardson's history. Another consequence of the same embarrassment was the slight degree of fusion attained in the various histories of culture, of customs, and of the arts that were composed at this time. The various manifestations of life were set down one after the other without any success, or even any attempt at developing them organically.
Doubtless the new and vigorous historiographical tendencies of the enlightenment were then attacking other barriers opposed to them by the already mentioned lay-theological dualism, in addition to those of prag- matism and of naturalism. This lay-theology ended by negating the principle of development itself, because 258 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY the judgment of the past as consisting of darkness and errors precluded any serious conception of religion, poetry, philosophy, or of primitive and bygone institu- tions. What did an institution of the great importance of ' divination ' in primitive civilizations amount to for Voltaire in the formative process of observation and scientific deduction? The invention du premier fripon qui rencontra un imbecile. Or oracles, also of such importance in the life of antiquity? Des fourberies. To what amounted the theological struggles between Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists in connexion with the Eucharist? To the ridiculous spectacle of the Papists who mangeaient Dieu pour pain, les lutheriens du pain et Dieu, les cahinistes mangerent le pain et ne man- ger ent point Dieu. What was the only end that could be attained by the Jansenists? Boredom: a sequence of tiresome querelles theologiques and of petty querelles de plume, so that nothing remains of the writers of that time who took part in them but geometry, reasoned grammar, logic — that is to say, only what appartient a la raison \ the querelles theologiques were une maladie de plus dans T esprit humain. Nor does the philosophy of earlier times receive better treatment. That of Plato was nothing but une mauvaise metaphysique, a tissue of arguments so bad that it seems impossible they could have been admired and added to by others yet more extravagant from century to century, until Locke was reached: Locke, qui seul a developpe V entendement humain dans un livre ou il nyy a que des verites, et, ce qui rend Vouvrage parfait, toutes les verites sont claires. In poetry, modern work was placed above ancient, the Gerusalemme above the Iliad, the Orlando above the Odyssey, Dante seems obscure and awkward, Shakespeare a barbarian not without talent. Medieval literature was beneath consideration: On a recueilli quelques mal- heureuses compositions de ce temps: c'est /aire un amas de cailloux tires d* antiques masures quand on est entoure de palais, Frederick of Prussia, who here showed himself a consistent Voltairean, did not receive the new edition of the Nib elungen lied and the other epic monu- ments of Germany graciously. In a word, the whole of the past lost its value, or preserved only the negative value of evil: Que les ci toy ens d'une ville immense, oil les arts, les plaisirs, et la paix regnent aujourd'hui, oil la raison meme commence a s'introduire, comparent les temps, et qu'ils se plaignent, s'ils osent. Cest une reflexion qu'il faut faire presque a chaque page de cette histoire.
The lack of the conception of development rendered sterile the very acquisition of knowledge of distant things and people; and although there was in certain respects merit in introducing India and China into universal history, and although the criticism and satire of the ' four monarchies ' and of * sacred ' history was to a certain extent justified, it is well to remember that in the notion mocked at was satisfied the legitimate need for understanding history in its relations with Christian and European civilized life; and that if it had not been found possible (and it never was at that time) to form a more complete chain, in which were Arabia, India and China, and the American civilizations, and all the other newly discovered things, these additional contributions to knowledge would have remained a mere object for curiosity or imagination. India, China, and the East in general were therefore of little more use in the eighteenth century than to manifest an affection for tolerance, indeed for religious indifferentism. Those distant countries, in which there was no proselytizing frenzy, and which did not send missionaries to weary 26o HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY Europe — though Europe did not spare them such visi- tations— were not treated as historical realities, nor did they obtain their place in the reality of spiritual develop- ment, but became longed-for ideals, countries of dream. Those who in our day renew praises of Asiatic tolera- tion, contrasting it with European intolerance, and wax tender over such wisdom and meekness, are not aware that in so doing they are repeating uselessly and in- opportunely what Voltaire has already done; and if in this matter he did not aid the better understanding of history, he at any rate fulfilled a practical and moral function which was necessary for the conditions of his own time. The defective conception of development, and not accidental circumstances, such as the publicistic, journalistic, and literary tendencies of the original among those historians, is also the profound reason for the failure of contact and of union between the immense mass of erudition accumulated by the sixteenth-century philologists, and the historiography of the enlightenment. How were those documents and collections to be em- ployed in the slow and laborious development of the spirit, if, according to the new conception, instead of developing, the spirit was to leap, and had indeed already made a great leap and left the past far behind? It was sufficient to rummage from time to time among them and extract some curious detail, which should fit in with the polemic of the moment. Cest un vaste magasin, ou vous prendrez ce qui est a votre usage, said Voltaire. Thus the learned and the enlightened, both of them children of their time, remained divided among themselves, the former incapable of rising to the level of history owing to their slight vivacity of spirit, the latter overrunning it owing to their too great vivacity, and reducing it to a form of journalism.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT 261 All these limits, just because they are limits, assign its proper sphere to the historiography of the enlighten- ment, but they must not be taken as meaning that it had not made any progress. That historiography, plunged in the work at the moment most urgent, sur- rounded with the splendour of the truths that it was in the act of revealing around it, failed to see those limits and its own deficiencies, or saw them rarely and with difficulty. It was aware only that it progressed and progressed rapidly, nor was it wrong in this belief. Nor are those critics (among whom is Fueter) wrong who now defend it from the bad reputation that has befallen it and celebrate its many virtues, which we also have set in a clear light and have added to, and whose connexion and unity we have proved. Yet we must not leave that bad reputation unexplained, for it sounds far more serious than the usual depreciation by every historical period of the one that has preceded it, with the view of showing its inferiority to the present. Here, on the contrary, we find a particular judgment of deprecia- tion, pronounced even by comparison with the periods that preceded the enlightenment, so that this period, and not, for example, the Renaissance, has especially received the epithet of ' anti-historical ' (" the anti- historical eighteenth century "). We find the explana- tion of this when we think of the dissipation then taking place of all symbolical veils, received from venerable antiquity^ and of the crude dualism and conflict which were being instigated at that time between history and re- ligion. The Renaissance was also itself an affirmation of human reason, but at the moment of its breaking with medieval tradition it was felt to be all the same tied to classical tradition, which gave it an appearance of historical consciousness (an appearance and not the 262 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY reality). The philosophers of the Renaissance often invoked and placed themselves under the protection of the ancient philosophers, Plato against Aristotle, or the Greek Aristotle against the Aristotle of the com- mentators. The lettered men of the period sought to justify the new works of art and the new judgments upon them by appealing to the precepts of antiquity, although they sophisticated and subtilized what they found there. Philosophers, artists, and critics turned their shoulders upon antiquity only when and where no sort of conciliation was possible, and it was only the boldest among them who ventured to do even this. The ancient republics were taken as an example by the politicians, with Livy as their text, as the Bible was by the Christians. Religion, which was exhausted or had been extinguished in the souls of the cultured, was of necessity preserved for the people as an instrument of government, a vulgar form of philosophy: almost all are agreed as to this, from Machiavelli to Bruno. The sage legislator or the * prince ' of Machiavelli and the enlightened despot of Voltaire, who were both of them idealizations of the absolute monarchies that had moulded Europe politically to their will, have sub- stantial affinities; but the sixteenth-century politician, expert in human weaknesses and charged with all the experience of the rich history of Greece and of Rome, studied finesse and transactions, where the enlightened man of the eighteenth century, encouraged by the ever renewed victories of the Reason^ raised Reason's banner, and for her took his sword from the scabbard, without feeling the smallest necessity for covering his face with a mask. King Numa created a religion in order to deceive the people, and was praised for it by Machia- velli; but Voltaire would have abused him for doing so, THE ENLIGHTENMENT 263 as he abused all inventors of dogmas and promoters of fanaticism. What more is to be said? The rationalism of the Renaissance was especially the work of the Italian genius, so well balanced, so careful to avoid excesses, so accommodating, so artistic; enlighten- ment, which was especially the work of the French genius, was radical, consequent, apt to run into extremes, logistical.
When the genius of the two countries and the two epochs is compared, the enlightenment is bound to appear anti-historical with respect to the Renaissance, which, owing to the comparison thus drawn and instituted with such an object, becomes endowed with a historical sense and with a sense of development which it did not possess, having also been essentially rationalistic and anti-historical, and, in a certain sense, more so than the enlightenment. I say more than the enlightenment, not only because the latter, as I have shown, greatly increased historical knowledge and ideas, but also precisely because it caused all the contradictions latent in the Renaissance to break out. This was an apparent regression in historical knowledge, but in reality it was an addition to life, and therefore to historical conscious- ness itself, as we clearly see immediately afterward. The triumph and the catastrophe of the enlighten- ment was the French Revolution; and this was at the same time the triumph and the catastrophe of its historiography.
VI THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ROMANTICISM THE reaction manifested itself with the senti- mental return to the past, and with the defence undertaken by the politicians of old institutions worthy of being preserved or accorded new life. Hence arose two forms of historical representation, which certainly belong in a measure to all periods, but which were very vigorous at the romantic period: nostalgic historiography and historiography which restored. And since the past of their desires, which supplied the material for practical recommendations, was just that which the enlightenment and the Revolution had combated and overthrown — the Middle Ages and everything that resembled or seemed to resemble the Middle Ages — both kinds of history were, so to say, medievalized. Just as a watercourse which has been forcibly diverted from its natural bed noisily returns to it as soon as obstructions are removed, so a great sigh of joy and satisfaction, a warm emotion of tenderness, welled up in and reanimated all breasts as, after so long a rationalistic ascesis, they again took to themselves the old religion, the old national customs, regional and local, again entered the old houses and castles and cathedrals, sang again the old songs, dreamed again the old legends. In this tumult of sentiment we do not at first observe the profound and irremediable change that has taken place in the souls of all, borne witness to by the anxiety, the emotion, the pathos of that apparent return.
It would be to belittle the nostalgic historiography HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ROMANTICISM 265 of the romantic movement to make it consist of certain special literary works, for in reality it penetrated all or almost all the writings of that time, like an irresistible current, to be found not only in lesser and poorer spirits, such as De Barante, nor only in the more poetically disposed, such as Chateaubriand, but in historians who present some of the most important or purely scientific thoughts, for example Niebuhr. The life of chivalry, the life of the cloister, the Crusades, the Hohenstaufen, the Lombard and Flemish communes, the Christian kings of Spain at strife with the Arabs, the Arabs them- selves, England divided between Saxons and Normans, the Switzerland of William Tell, the chansons de geste^ the songs of the troubadours, Gothic architecture (characteristic vicissitude of a name, applied in con- tempt and then turned into a symbol of affection), became at this time the object of universal and national sympathy, as did the rough, ingenuous popular litera- ture, poetry, and art: translations or abbreviations of the medieval chronicles were even reprinted for the enjoyment of a large and eager circle of readers; the first medieval museums were formed; an attempt was made to restore and complete ancient churches, castles, and city palaces. Historiography entered into close relations and exchange of ideas with the new literary form of historical romance, which expressed the same nostalgia, first with Walter Scott and then with his innumerable followers in all countries. (This literary form was therefore quite different from the historical fiction of Manzoni, which is free from such sentiment and whose historical element has a moral foundation.) I have already remarked that this nost- algia was far more modern of content than at first supposed; so much so that every one was attracted