The Presuppositions of Critical History

Preface

. That the fobowing pages should not go before the public without an apology I am very sensible. Their matter I fear is unsatisfactory, and their manner worse ; but no alteration that I could make would be bkely to. improye either. The reason why these reflections are printed at ab is my wish and hope that they may be instrumental in leading 6ome more capable person to clear up and dispose, once and for ab, of a subject which ought to be disposed of. The barbarous title of the fobowing pages anticipates their method, and to some extent their conclusion. Their method consists in taking the existence of certain facts for granted, and in endeav ouring to discover the conditions of that existence. These conditions by their absence annihilate the facts ; and hence the facts involve them, take them for granted, presuppose them.

And the conclusion is that, as the facts have presupposed the principle unconsciously, so now in judging we must proceed upon that principle consciously, and use it as a canon. The subject of critical history is not so narrow as at first sight it might appear. There is no history which in some respects is not more or less critical. No one in the world thinks or could think of inserting into a history of the world all the events which have ever been handed down, precisely as they have been handed down. But if this is not done, if we exclude or alter or rationabze to the very smabest extent, then we have criticism at once, and we ought to know what criticism means. That question being asked, it became obvious that critical history must have a criterion, and the next matter was to find that criterion.

It seemed equaby clear after a time that the canon of history was — the historian. This result comes naturaby from the consideration of particular historical practice (and in this respect as in others let me acknowledge how much I am indebted to Baur's 'Epochs of Church History-writing,')* as also from reflection on the psycholog ical aspect of the general question. The historian as he is is the real criterion ; the ideal criterion (if such an antithesis can be pardoned) is the historian as he ought to be. And the historian who is true to the present is the historian as he ought to be. This is the main thought in what fobows, and, in order to reach such a conclusion, it was necessary to meet antagonistic doctrines at every stage, as web as objections which sprang up in my own mind continuaby.

I have tried so far as possible to avoid wearisomeness, but have not succeeded ; and, what is worse, I fear that I may not have succeeded, even as the cost of weariness, either in removing the objections I myself have raised, or in anticipating those which may occur to the reader. I think that in order to have attained a satisfactory result, the whole subject of probabibty and certainty ought to have been investigated. To this task I felt myself unequal, and my conclusions are hence to some extent precarious. The preface is abeady out of proportion to the performance, but I am forced to say a word in conclusion on the appbeation of any- * I may mention here that Von Sybel Gesetzo der Historiecb.cn Wissens and Droysen's Grundriss der Historik arc very brief and well worth reading, th_u"_. they came to me too late to be of much use. thing set down here to rebgious questions.

For what I have said I am answerable, but for nothing that any other person chooses to con clude. The view I have put forward is this, that every man's present standpoint ought to determine his belief in respect to all past events ; but to no man do I dictate what his present standpoint ought to be. Consistency is the one word that I have emphasized'. I can not help it if any one thinks that the conclusions of this essay are reconcd able with only one bebef or disbebef. I can only say beforehand that such a man's opinion is not mine. These conclusions, I think, are negative only of a breach between the worlds of the present and the past ; and to point out where such a breach exists was not my business, stib less my business to express an opinion on the relative truth and falsehood of existing rebgious bebefs.

If we meddle in any way with the history of certain times, we must touch the element or a part of the element, in which hitherto the Christian principle has brought itself home to the religious consciousness. And to a person who identifies the element with that which exists in it, or who believes that the truth of a principle is to be found at the beginning of its temporal developement, such modification wib doubtless appear an matter. That it is important I do not question. I know that it is so. But I know this also, that the extent and generaby the nature of the influence, which a modification of history must exercise on religious bebef, is a subject on which it is remarkably easy to come to a conclusion, and extremely hard to come to a right one. Courage to express one's views has long ceased to be a virtue.

Except where persons are concerned, there is no merit in possessing it, and it is on the fair way to become a vice. And, especiaby where rebgion is involved, there is one courage it is web to be free from, the courage to utter one's (mere) opinions. All that I have left to say* is that whatever below may be of use to any one here does not belong to me, except in the sense in which a man's debts are his own. My debt is owing in Oxford, and my use of what I have borrowed is very far from the approach to a payment. * I ought to mention that in Note A. I have tried to bring the subject home to the general reader, while Note E. is not meant for the general reader at all. SUMMARY. Critical history involves two sides or elements, 'objective' and 'subjective' (3—4). False account of the relation of these two sides (4 — 5) ; refutes itself (6).

What is a fact for history ? Not a simple datum of the senses (7) ; but a com plex totality (8), a judgment (9), and more, a conclusion (10). This illustrated (10—12). Testimony, as experience of others, rests for us on inference from our own experience (12—13). Illustration of this (14). All history has a 'prejudication.' What is this ? (15) Omnipresence and uni formity of law. History must assume this and so must science (15 — 17). Freedom of will no objection to it (18). But what does uniformity in history mean f It means that all historical facts are subject to inference from the present world (18 — 19). Objection to this. 'The present world itself depends on testimony' (20). Yes ! but the critic's present world ought not so to depend (21). Further objection. 'Then no testimony which goes beyond the analogous can be received' (22).

Yes! it can; but only on certain conditions (22 — 23). Where testimony must fail to take us beyond analogy (25 — 26) . Is historical testimony of thiB latter sort P (26). What is historical testimony ? Hard to say (27 — 28). We must take it to have three characteristics (28 — 30) Once more, can historical testimony establish the non-analogous ? (31) If it does not go beyond probability, No ! (32— 33). Reasons why it can not go beyond. (33—35). [Objection. 'This only applies to existing historical testimony. But history, as a science, is to rest on scientific evidence.' (36.) Why this will never be. (37—38).] Result at present obtained (38). Application of this result to historic material. Criticism must be partly negative (39), and absolute (40). Criticism stands towards tradition in four attitudes (41 — 43).

Criticism not bound to explain everything on pain of retiring from the field (43—46). PRESUPPOSITIONS OF CRITICAL HISTORY. IN the world the mind makes for the manifestation of itself, and where its life is the process of its own self-realization, there the action and the knowledge of it are children, the hours of whose bringings-forth are never the same, and whose births are divided. Alike in the life of mankind, and in the developement of the individual, the deed comes first, and later the reflection ; and it is with the question, ' What have I done ?' that we awake to facts accomplished and never intended, and to existences we do not recognise, while we own them as the creation of ourselves. For a people only in the period of their stagnation, for a person only when the character and the station have become fixed for ever, and when the man is made, is it possible to foreknow the truth of the fresh achievement ; and where progress has its full meaning, and evolution is more than a phrase, there the present is hard, and the future impossible to discern.

Unborn in the substance of the pre sent there lies, it is true, and there bves that future: but the unborn is hidden as yet from the light, and the womb is secret, and the presage doubtful ; and the morning of the child's naming is divided by many days from the darkness of begetting and the night of travail. The sudden act of a moment is unveiled, it may be, to the gradual consciousness of advancing age ; and there are seasons again when the slow drift of years comes home with a flash of sweet or sombre revelation ; or it may be again that of these experiences neither is given for the time to humanity. Neither the projection nor the recognition of reality are always the work of an hour ; for there are periods when gathering tendencies and accumulation of changes copy their alterations in an altering reflection, when another day dawns through longer twibght, and another world more slowly steals on tho sense, with its images so strange yet so famibar, and another man wakens through un certain recollection to the same and yet to a new self-consciousness.

It has been thus with the growth of the critical mind. It fought in the name of another, and not in its own name ; it has conquered before it set itself to the battle ; and it was first in the making of its realm that it grasped the secret of its mission. The feebng of itself as power came before the knowledge of its purpose, and the passing of the power into act disclosed to it first its own nature. But the advance of its action was gradual, and the con sciousness of itself was of equal growth, and with a tardy revelation fobowed the steps of a slow developement. Within the memory of to-day it has been that historical criticism has asserted, and has made good an unabated claim ; and with a sudden tide of success has risen to the consciousness of its un abridged mission. With the knowledge of itself it now knows also the purpose of its existence, and the reabty which, in the field of its endeavour, belongs to itself and to itself alone.

Criticism has become self-conscious: but to be aware of its aims and the character of its work is one thing ; it is another thing to attempt to comprehend the conditions of its being, and the justification of its empire. Such justification it is which historical criticism now mostly needs ; for that criticism cannot, except by its actions, justify itself. Confined as it is to one bmited sphere, to reflect on the grounds of its existence is for it to pass beyond that sphere ; and the principles which regulate its practice are thus, because it cannot account for them, its presupposition. This is the subject of that which fobows in these pages, and these pages will, so far as possible, be bmited to this alone. Nor, however much at first sight it may appear so, wib it be found an easy task to investigate the principles of critical history.

It is a hard matter, because neither do we know at the outset what we mean by ' critical,' nor shall we learn even at the end what history in general is, nor even assure ourselves of the fact of its existence. We here have enough, and, it may be, more than enough of con siderations on history and on the 'science of history,' with its actual or possible or impossible reabty ; but the question, ' When we use the word history what do we mean by it ?' is, it would seom, too simple or too trifling a problem to stay the course of our ' advanced thinkers.' And yet the man who, feeling himself unequal abke to support that position or that title, is contented simply, so far as he can, to think, knows all too well that question, and knows it as involving the most difficult problems which philosophy can solve or discuss.

Such a man, whatever may be his school, or whatever his his principles, wib not I know take it amiss in me that I confess at this point my inability, and seek to impose neither on myself, nor on his understanding, nor on the ignorance of the public. And so to begin It has been often remarked that, by whichever of the terms now in use we express it, history has stbl a double meaning. 'Gre schichte' does not simply stand for 'Was geschieht,' and laiopia would not merit its name were it nothing beyond the inquiries of the historian. Starting from different sides these words are ex tended, each to the same totabty, by a broad, or if any one pleases, by a loose signification. It might I believe be maintained plausibly, and perhaps even with serious conviction, that these two elements, that of events in time on the one side, and, on the other side, that of recobection in the mind, were in history necessarily united ; in this sense that a bare series of momentary occurrences cannot contain that without which history has no right to be named as history.

But such a discussion bes beyond our subject, and we must be be content here both to assume an historical past of humanity, in the absence even of a recording subject, and to leave the assertion of a merely 'objective' history of Nature to stand or to fab un touched by us. We do not question that history apart from the historian does exist ; and contrariwise we must take it for granted that there is no such thing as history which is merely 'subjective,' or, in other words, that whatever is 'created' by the historian is not in a proper sense history at ab. For that history as a whole has been so ' mado,' that in it we have nothing but a series of projections of present consciousness in tho form of a story of past events, from time to time gathered up or abobshed in a larger and more inclusive projection — this has, so far as I know, been upheld by no sober-minded man, nor could be : it is only the exceptional writings of particular periods of which such an account can be given, and scarely even then without any modifi cation.

But, be this as it may be, we refuse the name of history to such a production, and we assume that though history (Geschichte) may exist, where the writing of history (iaropia) does not exist, yet, where there is no real past, there there is properly speaking no historian also, nor any writing of history. In what fobows we have nothing to do with history as it is not for the historian : history presupposes in its title of 'critical,' the presence alike of the so-cabed 'objective' and the so-cabed' 'sub jective' elements; and it is only as involving both that we intend in future to use or to discuss the word. In this sense (to touch at length on our proper enquiry) history stands not only for that which has been, but also for that which is ; not only for the past in fact, but also for the present in record ; and it impbes in itself the union of these two elements : it implies, on the one hand, that what once lived in its own right, bves now only as the object of knowledge, and on the other hand that the know ledge which now is possesses no title to existence save in right of that object, and, though itseb present, yet draws its entire reabty from the perished past.

Stated thus the facts would appear to force us to a grave con sideration ; but problems are hard to those alone who make them so, and to account for the conjunction of so diverse attributes has seemed (it is web known), and stib seems to the earbest reflection, no difficult task. The explanation is simple. Knowledge is the re ception of outward impressions, and it is but natural that the copy should resemble and reproduce the original. And if that, which, independent of any act of judgment was first learned, be in bke manner simply and honestly written down, surely this copy of a copy is stbl, undistorted by so transparent a medium, and true to the mould its original has shaped, the living imprint and the faithful though uncoloured likeness of the sub reality ? ■■) Such is the view natural to the uncritical mind, and according to this history has no presuppositions, and indeed can have none : her province is to recall, and not to construct ; she wishes to take the truth as it is, not to make it what it should be ; and she demands from the historian the surrender of his judgment to the decree of the ages, not the projection of his desires and fancies into a region for ever passed from the limit of creation, dead to the action and the storm of life, whose tranquil expanse no breath of thought can ruffle, and where the charm is broken when the mirror is moved.

The theory is simple, and it may be pleasing, but it is no more than a theory ; and could we, as we cannot, be bbnd to the difficulties which beset it from within, yet it is doomed to perish, for in its own practical application it exposes its own falsity and reveals its own illusion. We ask for history and that means that we ask for the simple record of unadulterated facts ; we look, and nowhere do we find the object of our search, but in its stead we see the divergent accounts of a host of jarring witnesses, a chaos of disjoined and discrepant narrations, and yet, while ab of these can by no possibibty be received as true, at the same time not one of them can be rejected as false. But the consciousness, for which testimony is the reproduction of a passive print, is at this point not resourceless. 'The pure rays of truth. ' we are told, ' are discoloured by the various media through which they pass, and it is the task of the historian to correct the retraction of one medium by that of another, and in this manner to arrive at the bare and uncoloured reabty.' But the historian, if such be his mission, is not and cannot bo merely receptive, or barely reproductive.

It is true that he may not actually add any new material of his own, and yet his action, in so far as he realises that which never as such has been given him, implies a preconception, and denotes in a sense a foregone conclusion. The straightening of the crooked rests on the knowledge of the straight, and the exercise of criticism requires a canon. This is not the only difficulty which historical writing in its practice brings to the theory of passivity. There remains on the contrary another of equal weight. When the records of a bygone age have been ab cobected, and, so far as possible, brought into harmony, yet at this point the task of history does not cease. Writer after writer in rapid succession takes up the neverexhausted theme, and, where no new fact is left to discover, there still remains the ceaseless endeavour more and more thoroughly to apprehend the old material, the passion of the mind to be at home in its object, the longing to think the thing as it is in itself, and as all men have failed to think it before.

With every fresh standingground gained by the growth of experience, with every rise of the spirit to a fuller bfe comes another view of the far-lying past from a higher and a new level, and a fresh and corresponding change in the features of the object recognised. Impotent to deny the existence of these facts, and powerless to explain them, the uncritical consciousness refuses to advance, or advancing loses all hold on reabty. It is forced to see in the place of its reproduction an origination, in the place of its witness a writer of fiction, in the place of its fact a theory ; and its consistent issue is the barren scepticism which sees in history but a weary labyrinth of truth and tangled falsehood, whose clue is buried and lost in the centuries that lie behind. An issue consistent, and indeed for a space necessary ; but in evitable to none except those alone who through helplessness and doubt have set their faces towards the truth.

To the double minded seeker, to the man who, though fain to win, has no heart to stake his possessions, in this sphere at least there is no inevitable conclusion. He justifies his belief in anything by his right to be convinced of nothing ; yet for a present pleasure he foregoes his inheritance, and buys his immunity at the cost of slavery. In view of the futility of such an outcome, nor finding a solution in the metaphor of a crude reflection, unable to remain in the doubt of scepticism, or to sink to the dogma of despair, it remains to us once again to take up the question abandoned thus by the un critical mind, and, with patience if not with hope, at least to attempt to exhibit it in a truer form. The heading, ' Presuppositions of Critical History,' expresses briefly the doctrine which is the opposite of the uncritical, and anticipates the result that a history without so-cabed prejudications is a mere delusion, that what does everywhere exist is history founded upon them, and what ought to exist is history with true preconceptions consistently developed throughout the entire field.

But, to take up the problem from the beginning, we must return once more to the uncritical mind, and to its doctrine or its metaphor concerning historical tradition. The ultimate element in the field of history is, as before remarked, presented and necessarily presented to itself by that stage of reflection as a so-cabed 'fact,' the imprint of which is on the part of the witness passively received and pre served : that which brought itself to the observation is subsequently repeated, or written down as so observed, and, in the absence of direct falsehood on the part of the narrator, remains as a simple and indecomposable material. This is the theory of simple repro duction, a view to be met with not solely in the world of common sense : the psychology of the people has made it its own, and con secrated it in the name and with the title of philosophy, and stib we are assured with the complacency of an absolute certitude that in perception the mind is passive, and that the final elements of know ledge are the facts conveyed through the senses.

Into the fulness of the problem raised by sensationabsm, into the truth which underlies this 'metaphor now hardened into a dogma' we are not prepared, nor indeed is it necessary to enter here. We wib content ourselves on the general question with the remark, that in the act of perception it is no doubt true that the mind is at the same time passive. But to say this is to say one thing, and it is quite and altogether another thing to talk of sensa tions (in the signification of bare feebngs) as though in themselves, and apart from the activity of the mind, they existed as objects of consciousness. That is to assert that a mere feebng is sufficient to constitute by itself the minimum required for knowledge and reality ; and the proof of this assertion has been, is, and ever wib be wanting. It cannot exist since the proof or even the assertion is a sheer self-contradiction ; aud it is a self-contradiction for the following reason.

An assertion, and much more so a proof, is in tellectual; it is a judgment which implies the exercise of the understanding ; and tho terms united by the judgment must there fore fall within the sphere of the understanding. They must be objects for the inlebect, and so, in a sense more or less entire, relative to the intebect ; in a word intelligible. But the essence of mere sensation was the entire absence of the intebectual, and hence to make one single affirmation with respect to sensation, as sensation, is to treat as relative to the understanding that which is supposed to exclude the understanding ; and this is a contradiction. To pursue with the reason an object which when found is to be irrational, to think the opposite of thought while fixed as opposite, to comprehend the incomprehensible yet without transforming it — such is the task of that which calls itself the 'philosophy of ex perience.' It is the pursuit of a phantom for ever doomed to fade in our embraces, a mocking shadow beyond tho horizon of our grasp, known to us as the unreality of ab that we can hold, and whose existence must perish at the threshold of human possession.

Yet let this be as it may. We are not concerned to ascertain the nature of that which may be regarded as the minimum of fact in general. The object of our enquiry is history, and specially here the ultimate material of the historical field ; and we wish to know not what makes any fact, but what makes an historical fact, and what it is without which nothing can rightly be called by that name. We have to enquire in short what it is that in histoiy and for history is required for the existence of its historical matter, and what it is that, be it what it ma}' be in itseb, yet can never enter as as a member into the narrative of the past. The facts which exist for critical history are events and recorded events. They are recorded, and that is to say that, although the work of the mind, they now at any rate are no mere feebno-s nor generaby the private contents of this or that man's consciousness, but are fixed and made outward, permanent, and accessible to the minds of all men.

Failing to be thus they have failed to be for history, and history can never bo for them. And they are events and that is to say that each is no simple and uncompoundod unit but contains within itself a motion and a passage, a transition and a connection between elements, relations, the members of which may be distinguished though they cannot be divided. They are re corded events, and that means that, though fleeting in themselves they are yot made stable ; though divisible in time, they are regarded as wholes ; and though the offspring of the mind, they are still independent and real. Such are the characteristics of historical facts considered in themselves. We must regard them now in their relation to the individual witness or recorder. Let us view them as the objects of his consciousness, and ask what are they ? and what function of the mind corresponds to them ?

To solve this problem in a short space is scarcely practicable, and to ensure brevity we must be willing here to seem, it may be, contented with assertion. They cannot be mere feelings. A chaos of sensations has no unity, and hence cannot properly be called a succession ; nor, even when re-collected as a sequence of feelings in me, can it yet express an outward change in things. In a word from feeling to the record of an occurrence there is, and there can be, no natural passage. If we recall the characteristics of the narrated event, in the first place it will be clear that, they presuppose in the mind both association and recognition of association : association as that which separates (distinguishes), and at the same time conjoins; and recognition as that which is aware of the divisible unity as a concrete whole.

They require the action of that faculty which separates the subject from the object, and one thing from another thing, while it yet remains the bond of their unity. In a word they testify to the presence of judgment. A feeling is at most; it is neither real nor un real, true nor false: but, every occurrence has or has not taken place, and every judgment professes, although it may fail, to ex press the actual. The historical event (in our limited sense of the word history) involves in the first place a judgment. It is 'objective,' it is dis tinguished in itself, and yet it is a whole. But in the second place it involves much more than what we call a simple judgment. If we take the simplest historical fact, and reflect on the complex nature of the transition it attempts to express, it is clear to us that we are concerned with a number of judgments, the multitude of which wearies our attempts at analysis.