its cpigoni) to its adversaries and successors, in imitation of the tone of Bonaparte on the 18th of Brumaire: " What have you done with the history which I left to you so brilliant? Were these the new methods, by means of which you promised to solve the problems which I had not been able to solve? I see nothing in them but revers et miser e \ " But we who have never met with absolute regressions during the secular develop- ment of historiography shall not allow ourselves to be carried away upon the polemical waves now beating against the positivistic and naturalistic school which is our present or recent adversary, to the point of losing sight of what it possessed that was substantially its own, and owing to which it really did represent progress. We shall also refrain from drawing comparisons between romanticism and positivism, by measuring the merits of both, and concluding with the assertion of the superiority of the former; because it is well known that such examinations of degrees of merit, the field of pro- fessors, are not permissible in history, where what follows ideally after is virtually superior to that from which it is derived, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary. And in the first place, it would be erroneous, strictly speaking, to believe that what had been won by romanticism had been lost in positivism, because when the histories of this period are looked upon from other points of view and with greater attention, we see how they were all preserved. Romanticism had abolished historical dualism, for which there existed in reality positive and negative, elect and outcast, facts. Posi- tivism repeated that all facts are facts and all have an equal right to enter history. Romanticism had substi- tuted the conception of development for the abysses and the chasms that previous historiography had introduced 3o4 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY into the ocurse of events, and positivism repeated that conception, calling it evolution. Romanticism had established periods in development, either in the form of a cycle of phases, like Vico, or as phases without a circle and in linear order, like the German romantics, and had exemplified the various phases as a series of the forms of the spirit or of psychological forms, and positivism renewed these conceptions (although owing to the lack of culture usual with its adherents it often believed that it had made discoveries never made before), as can be proved by a long series of examples. These range from the three ages of mental development of Comte to the eight phases of social development ox four political periods which are respectively the * novelties ' of the contemporaries Lamprecht and Breysig. Roman- ticism, judging that the explanation of events by means of the caprices, the calculations, and the designs of individuals taken atomistically was frivolous, took as the subject of history the universals, the Idea, ideas, the spirit, nations and liberty, and positivism; it also rejected individualistic atomicism, talking of masses^ races^ societies^ technique^ economy^ science^ social tendencies; of everything, in fact, with the exception that the caprice of Tizius and Caius was now no longer admitted. Roman- ticism had now not only reinforced the histories of ideal values, but had conceived them as in organic connexion; positivism in its turn insisted upon the interdependence of social factors and upon the unity of the real, and attempted to fill up the interstices of the various special histories by means of the history of civilization and of culture^ and so-called social history, containing in itself politics, literature, philosophy, religion, and every other class of facts. Romanticism had overthrown heteronomous, in- structive, moralizing, serviceable history, and positivism HISTORIOGRAPHY OF POSITIVISM 305 in its turn boasted that its history was a science, an end in itself, like every other science, although like every science it afforded the basis for practice, and was there- fore capable of application. Romanticism had enhanced the esteem for erudition, and had given an impetus to intercourse between it and history. But whence did the erudition and philology of the positivistic period derive I that pride which made them believe that they were themselves history, save from the consciousness that they had inherited from romanticism, which they had preserved and exaggerated? Whence did they inherit the substance of their method save (as Fueter well notes) from the romantic search for the primitive, the genuine, the ingenuous, which manifested itself in Wolf, who inaugurated the method? It is well to remember that Wolf was a pre-romantic, an admirer of Ossian and of popular poetry. And, finally, what is the meaning of the efforts of positivism to seek out the causes of history, the series of historical facts, the unity of the factors and their dependence upon a supreme cause, save the specu- lations of the romantics themselves upon the manner, the end, and the value of development? Whoever pays attention to all these and other resemblances which we could enumerate must conclude that positivism is to romanticism as was the enlightenment to the Renais- sance— that is to say, it is not so much its antithesis as it is the logical prosecution and the exaggeration of its presuppositions. Even its final conversion into theology corresponds to that of romanticism. This is for the rest an obvious matter, for transcendency is always transcendency, whether it be thought of as that of a God [or of reason, of nature or of matter. But thinking of it as Matter or Nature, this natural- istic and materialistic travesty, which at first seems A 306 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY odious or ridiculous, of the problems and conceptions of romanticism, of the idea into cause, of development into evolution, of the spirit into mass and the like, to which one would at first be inclined to attribute the inferiority of positivistic historiography, is, on the con- trary, for the close observer the progress made by it upon romanticism. \That travesty contains the energetic negation of history as moved by extramundane forces, by external finalities, by transcendental laws, just both in its motive and in its general tendency, and the correlative affirmation that its law must be sought in reality, which is one and is called * nature.* The positivism, which on no account wished to hear anything of * metaphysic,' had in mind the dogmatic and trans- cendental metaphysic, which had filtered into the thought of Kant and of his successors; and the target of its contempt was a good one, although it ended by confusing metaphysic with philosophy in general, or dogmatic with critical metaphysic, the metaphysic of being with that of the mind, and was not itself altogether free from that which it undertook to combat. But this does not prevent its repugnance to ' metaphysic ' and, restricting ourselves to what is our more immediate interest, to the ' philosophy of history ' from having produced durable results. Thanks to positivism historical works became less naive and richer in facts, especially in that class of facts which romanticism had neglected, such as the dispositions that are called natural, the pro- cesses that are called degenerative or pathological, the spiritual complications that are called psychological illusions, the interests that are called material, the production and the distribution of wealth, or economic activity, the facts of force and violence, or of political and revolutionary power. Positivism, intent upon the HISTORIOGRAPHY OF POSITIVISM 307 negation of transcendency and upon the observation of what appertained to it, felt itself to be, and was in that respect, in the right. And each one of us who pays due attention to that order of things and renews that negation is gathering the fruit of positivism, and in that respect is a positivist. Its very contradictions had the merit of making more evident the contradictions latent in romantic historiography. This merit must be admitted to the most extravagant doctrines of the posi- tivists, such as that of Taine, that knowledge is a true hallucination and that human wisdom is an accident (une rencontre)^ which presumed irrationality to be the normal condition, much as Lombroso believed that genius is madness. <^ Another instance of this is the attempt to discover in what way heterogeneity and historical diversity come into existence, if homogeneity is posited; and again the methodical canon that the explanation of history is to be found in causality, but is to stop at genius and virtue, which are without it, because they refuse to accept of causal explanation, or the frightful Unknowable, which was placed at the head of histories of the real, after so great a fuss being made about that Titan science which was ready to scale the skies. JBut since romanticism had left spirit and nature without fusion, the one facing the other, it was just that if in the first place spirit swallowed up nature without being able to digest it (because, as had been laid down, it was indigestible), now nature was engaged in doing the same thing to spirit, and with the same result." So just and logical was this that not a few of the old idealists went over to the crassest materialism and positivism, and that con- fession of not being able to see their way in the confusion was at once instructive and suggestive, as was also the perplexity decorated with the name of * agnosticism.'
3o8 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY And as the precise affirmation of the positivity of history represented an advance in thought, so the antithesis of materialism, pushed to an extreme, was an advance in the preparation of the new problem and in the new way of solving the relation between spirit and nature. Oportet ut scandala eveniant, and this means that even scandal, the scandal of the absurd, and of offensive false criticisms of human conscience, is an advance.
VIII THE NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY CONCLUSION THE romantic current not only maintained itself in its excesses during the dominion of positivism, and, as we have shown, insinuated itself even into its naturalistic antithesis, but it also persisted in its genuine form. And although we have not spoken of pedantic imitators and conservatives — whose signifi- cance is slight in the history of thought, that is to say, confined to the narrow sphere in which they were compelled to think for themselves — we have neverthe- less recorded the preservation of romanticism in the eclecticism of Ranke, who adhered to the theories of Humboldt (another * diplomatist ').
Idealistic and romantic motives continued to illumi- nate the intellect and soul among the philosophers, from Humboldt to Lotze and from Hartmann to Wundt and those who corresponded to them in other countries. The like occurred in historiography properly so called, and could not but happen, because, if the formulas of agnosticism and of positivism had been followed to the letter, all light of thought would have been extinguished in blind mechanicism — that is to say, in nothing — and no historical representation would have been possible. Thus political, social, philosophical, literary, and artistic history continued to make acquisi- tions, if not equally important with those of the romantic period (the surroundings were far more favourable to 3io HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY the natural sciences and to mathematics than to his- tory), yet noteworthy. This is set forth in a copious volume upon historiography (I refer to the work of Fueter already several times mentioned in this connexion). There due honour will be found accorded to the great work accomplished by Ranke, which the rapidity of my course of exposition has induced me to illustrate rather in its negative aspects, causing me, for instance, to allude solely to the contradictions in the History of the Popes, which is notwithstanding a masterpiece. The cogent quality of the romantic spirit at its best is revealed in the typical instance of Taine, who is so ingenuously naturalistic in his propositions and in the directive principles of his work, yet so unrestrainedly romantic in particular instances, as, for example, in his characteriza- tion of the French poets or of the Dutch and Italian painters. All this led to his ending in the exaggerated anti- Jacobin romanticism of his Origines de la France contemporaine, in the same way that Zola and the other verists, those verbal enemies of romanticism, were lyrical in all their fiction, and the leader of the school was in- duced to conclude his works with the abstract lyricism of the Quatre evangiles. What has been observed of Taine is to be applied to Buckle and to the other natur- alists and positivists, obliged to be historical against their will, and to the positivists who became followers of historical materialism, and found the dialectic estab- lished in their house without being able to explain what it was or whence it came. Not all theorists of historiography showed themselves to be so resolutely and madly naturalistic as Bourdeau and one or two others; indeed these were few in number and of inferior reputa- tion. Eclecticism prevailed among the majority of them, a combination of necessity and of liberty, of masses THE NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY 311 and individuals, of cause and end, of nature and spirit: even the philosophy of history was admitted, if in no other form, then as a desideratum or a problem to be discussed at a convenient time (even though that were the Greek Kalends). Eclecticism, too, presented the greatest variety, from the low level of a trivial arranging of concepts in an artificial manner to the lofty heights of interior labour, from which it seemed at every moment that a new gospel, no longer eclectic, must issue.
This last form of eclecticism and the open attempts to renew romantic idealism more or less completely, as well as romantic methods of historiography, have become more frequent since modern consciousness has withdrawn itself from positivism and has declared its bankruptcy. But all this is of importance rather as a symptom of a real advance in thought. And the new modern philosophies of intuition and philosophy of values must be looked upon rather as symptoms than as representing progress in thought (I mean in general, and not in the particular thoughts and theories which often form a real contribution). The former of these, however, while it correctly criticizes science as an economic construction useless for true knowledge, then proceeds to shut itself up in immediate consciousness, a sort of mysticism, where historical dialectic finds itself submerged and suffocated; and the latter, placing the conception of value as guardian of the spirit in opposition to the conceptions of science like " a philo- sophical cave canem " (as our imaginative Tari would have said), leaves open a dualism, which stands in the way of the unity of history and of thought as history. When we look around us, therefore, we do not discover that new -philosophy which shall lay the foundations and at the same time afford justification for the new 3i2 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY historiography by solving the antithesis between imagi- native romanticism and materialistic positivism.
And it is clear that we are not even able to discuss such a philosophy as a demand, because the demand for a particular philosophy is itself the thinking of that particular philosophy, and therefore is not a demand but an actuality. Hence the dilemma either of saying nothing about it, and in this case of not speaking even of positivism as a period that has been closed and superseded, or of speaking of the new philosophy as of something that lives and exists, precisely because it does live and exist. And since to renounce talking of it has been rendered impossible by the very criticism that we have devoted to it, nothing remains save to recognize that philosophy as something that exists, not as something to be invoked. Only we must not look around us in order to see where it is, but return to ourselves and have recourse to the thought that has animated this historical sketch of historiography and to all the historical explanations that have preceded it. In the philosophy that we have delineated, reality is affirmed to be spirit, not such that it is above the world or wanders about the world, but such as coincides with the world; and nature has been shown as a moment and a product of this spirit itself, and therefore the dualism (at least that which has troubled thought from Thales to Spencer) is superseded, and transcendency of all sorts, whether materialistic or theological in its origin, has also been superseded with it. Spirit, which is the world, is the spirit which develops, and is therefore both one and diverse, an eternal solution and an eternal problem, and its self-consciousness is philosophy, which is its history, or history, which is its philosophy, each substantially identical with the other; and conscious- THE NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY 313 ness is identical with self-consciousness — that is to say? distinct and one with it at the same time, as life and thought. This philosophy, which is in us and is ours, enables us to recognize it — that is to say, to recognize ourselves outside of us — in the thought of other men which is also our thought, and to discover it more or less clearly and perfectly in the other forms of contem- porary philosophy, and more or less clearly in contem- porary historiography. We have frequent opportunities of effecting this recognition, which is productive of much spiritual comfort. Quite lately, for instance, while I was writing these pages, the historical work of a historian, a pure historian, came into my hands (I select this instance among many) where I read words at the very beginning which seemed to be my very own: " My book is based upon the conviction that German historical inquiry must elevate itself to freer movement and contact with the great forces of political life and culture, without renouncing the precious tradition of its method, and that it must plunge into philosophy and politics, without experiencing injury in its end or essence, for thus alone can it develop its intimate essence and be both universal and national." x This is the philosophy of our time, which is the initiator of a new philosophical and historiographical period.
But it is not possible to write the history of this philosophy and of this historiography, which is subject and not object, not for the reason generally adopted, which we have found to be false, since it separates the fact of consciousness from the fact, but for the other reason that the history which we are constructing is a history of * epochs ' or of * great periods/ and the new 1 Friedrich Meinecke, Weltburgerthum und N ationalstaat i Studien zur Genesis des deutschen N ationalstaates, second edition, preface, p. vii. (Miinchen u. Berlin, Oldenburg, 191 1.)
314 HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY period is new, just because it is not a period — that is to say, something closed. Not only are we not able to describe its chronological and geographical outline, because we are ignorant as to what measure of time it will fill (will it develop rapidly in thirty or forty years, or will it encounter obstacles, yet nevertheless continue its course for centuries?), what extent of countries it will include (will it remain for long Italian or German, confined to certain Italian or German circles, or will it diffuse itself rapidly in all countries, both in general culture and in public instruction?), but we are unable to limit logically what may be its value outside these considerations. The reason for this is that in order to be able to describe its limitations, it must necessarily have developed its antitheses — that is to say, the new problems that will infallibly arise from its solutions, and this has not happened: we are our- selves on the waves and we have not furled our sails in port preparatory to a new voyage. Bis hierher ist das Bewusstsein gekommen (Knowledge has reached this point in its development), said Hegel, at the end of his lectures upon the philosophy of history; and yet he had not the right to say so, because his development, which went from the unconsciousness of liberty to the full consciousness of it in the German world and in the system of absolute idealism, did not admit of prosecution. But we are well able to say so, for we have overcome the abstractness of Hegelianism.