Studies, historical and critical

Front matter

Cornell Aniversito Library

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

THE GIFT OF

Foreword

—— ed

Tus volume requires no regular preface, for it only contains seven essays selected from the great number I have written on various topics and at different times. But I have tried to choose subjects of general rather than of solely Italian interest, and venture to hope that even the papers on entirely Italian themes may awake some echo of England’s steadfast sympathy with us during our prolonged struggle for freedom.

At the head of the list is the paper recounting the numerous theories and disputes on the question whether history is to be regarded as literature or science—a sorely vexed question that has been everywhere continually and hotly discussed.

Next in order of interest I should place the essays on De Sanctis and Morelli. The former, because Francesco De Sanctis was undoubtedly the most original critic that Italy has ever produced. But although he was appreciated at his true value by two such eminent foreign authorities as Schopenhauer and Gaspary, and although the latter did his utmost to make him known to the German public, so far his works have scarcely passed the boundaries of his native land.

In Domenico Morelli we have a man of rare genius and the creator of a new school of painting in Naples.

vili FOREWORD

But he, too, despite the enthusiastic praise of all Italian and foreign artists who have studied his works, is less widely famed than he deserves to be in other countries.

My reason for including a discourse on Savonarola —which, to some readers, may appear too well-worn a theme—was the fact of its having been delivered at a time when the old veneration for the martyred friar had been suddenly revived in Florence, and writers of various nations were again discussing the vicissitudes of his career, and trying to determine the precise nature of his beliefs.

While the public life of our greatest statesman, Count Camillo Cavour, has been the theme of many masterly works in England, Italy, and throughout Europe, even his own countrymen knew comparatively little of his early years before the publication of the splendidly edited collection of his ‘ Letters,” from which I have derived my sketch of “ The Youth of Count Cavour,” and of the influences that served to mould his character and equip him for the wonderful part he had to play.

Changes have taken place both in literature and science since some of these essays were written. Yet it seemed best to leave them in their original form, since any attempt to alter them would only have destroyed the characteristic note of the hour that gave them birth, without adequately bringing them into touch with the most recent points of view.

The reader will decide if they merited the honour of appearing in English dress.

PASQUALE VILLARI.

FLORENCE, 1907.

IS HISTORY A SCIENCE?

THE YOUTH OF CAVOUR

DONATELLO .

CONT

AND THE

ENTS

PRESENT DAY

. 283

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR

COUNT CAVOUR

PORTRAIT OF DONATELLO

Taken from a painting at the Louvre, comprising also the portraits of Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Antonio Manetti and Filippo Brunelleschi. This work was known to Vasari, who, in the edition of 1550 of his ‘‘ Lives of the Painters,” attributes it to Masaccio’s brush (I. pp. 290, 291), but in the edition of 1568 assigns it to Paolo Uccello. In Vasari’s time this panel-painting belonged to the descendants of Giuliano da San Gallo. Vasari himself had this portrait of Donatello engraved for his ‘‘ Lives,” and also introduced it in his Palazzo Vecchio frescoes. In fact, it is the earliest authentic portrait of Donatello known to exist, and the panel in the Louvre, although disfigured by numerous restorations, is generally accepted as the work of Paolo Uccello.

x1 frontispiece

. Facing p. 119 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VIEW OF THE PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA, FLORENCE, SHOWING THE EXECUTION OF SAVONAROLA AND

HIS DISCIPLES o . »

There are several duplicates of this composition in Florence at the Museum of St. Mark’s and in the Corsini gallery ; others in the gallery at Perugia and in the possession of Dr. Am. Ricordi, of Milan. It has been recently reproduced by J. del Badia, in Za Nuova Sede det Palazzi della Condotta e della VMercansia, at p. 21, from the frontispiece of a volume containing the documents of Savonarola’s trial in the Royal Archives (State Papers). All these are duplicates of a lost original work, produced in memory of the Friar’s martyrdom by some contemporary artist. It will be observed that Donatello’s Judith is to be seen on the platform flanking the main entrance of the Signoria, whence it was removed in 1504 to make room for Michelangelo’s David.

. Facing p. 285

IS HISTORY A SCIENCE?

IS HISTORY A SCIENCE?

I

Or late years a question has sprung to life again that seemed to have been buried for ever in the pit of academic disputes. Once more there is a brisk war of words in books, pamphlets, and papers as to whether history be an art or a science, and so far the disputants have arrived at no agreement. Of course, the point at issue is not highly important in itself, and possibly it were better to jump to the conclusion that history is neither poetry nor philosophy, neither an art nor a science, but simply history. Nevertheless, the fact of the question having been revived and given birth to an almost new form of literature undoubtedly endues it with importance, if only as a sign of the times. Therefore it seems necessary to study some of the works which have been written on the question. Then we shall see what general results, and of what nature, it may be possible to derive from them.

It was about the middle of the last century, as all the world knows, that Mr. Buckle believed he had finally discovered the way to convert history into an exact science by basing it upon statistics, and produced his “History of Civilisation in England.” This work not only received great praise, but also roused general enthusiasm as the apparent revelation of a new philosophy of mankind and of the human mind. But Mr. Buckle died in 1862, and soon afterwards the general enthusiasm for him faded away; his discovery was judged to be little more than a dream of his heated imagination, and the subject was dropped.

At a later date Professor Seeley re-opened the discussion, but in a far less pretentious manner. In his famous book, “ The Expansion of England,” he explicitly says that every historical work should give the solution of some political problem.2 Also, in two addresses delivered by him at the Manchester Historical Institute, the professor declared that the scanty progress in England of historical research was caused by the prevalence there of literary rather than scientific methods. Thus history, he continued, is reduced to a narrative only fit to amuse the curiosity of children. The true historian is no teller of tales: he is a discoverer of the laws ruling that great social fact called the State. History is a vast Blue-book for the politician, and his course of action must be wholly guided by its rules. Therefore, as Taine justly said in the preface to his work, ‘‘ Les Origines de la France Contemporaine,” he had found it impossible to form any definite political opinion until he had thoroughly mastered the history of his own times. One often speaks of amusing history, of delightful history, without reflecting that this is only another name for untrue history. In reality, the scientific t Vide a detailed account of Buckle and his work in my “ Arte, Storia e Filosofia” (Florence: Sansoni, 1864).

2 “The Expansion of England” : London, 1883. A paper on this work is included in another volume of my essays : “ Saggi Storici e Critici” (Bologna : Zanichelli, 1890).

method is the only true method, the literary method a false one. The former—unknown before the present day—seeks the principles of politics, the /2ws of events, and these can be learnt from history alone.

The latter, on the contrary, studies individuals, in order to ascertain if they acted well or ill, and gives us a non-political, unscientific history of individual characters, without taking into account the marvellous organism that joins men together in a social body, and therefore fails to notice the main problem with which politics and history have to deal. As a champion of the scientific method, I do not rob history of its zzéerest, but enrich it instead with an interest of a nobler and truer sort.

Certainly, one might ask at this point: Then what will be the fate not only of the chronicles of ancient days, but also of the works of modern historians such as Thierry, Prescott, Macaulay, Colletta, and many others, in whose writings graphic and eloquent narrative is undeniably a predominant merit? Professor Seeley, however, says nothing about this. He winds up instead with a quotation from Thackeray’s “ Humorists of the Eighteenth Century,” where the great novelist remarks that the knowledge of special events as afforded by history is always extremely uncertain. But by studying the works of imagination of this or that century one may gain from them a far more accurate knowledge of the modes of thought and feeling of that age. In fact, it was from the pages of the Spectator and Smollett’s works that Thackeray derived his most vivid and speaking pictures of the men of that time—of their ideas, their feelings, their way of life. Yet Professor Seeley quotes this passage to exemplify the absurdities we may be led to commit by preferring to study history on the literary method.! Other writers have expounded the same theory, but neither so confidently nor so crudely. But even Professor Freeman declared, in “The Methods of Historical Studies,”2 “that history is but past politics, and politics are but present history.” This is the identical theory that was first started in Germany by Dahlmann when he openly said that politics were the object of his literary labours. Likewise Lorenz, while commenting in his “Science of History” on certain defects in the writings of Dahlmann, who unduly neglected the life and movement of facts, and often treated men as pure abstractions, comes nevertheless to the same conclusion, namely, that modern history being a result of the scientific eighteenth-century spirit reduces all things to problems which have to be solved, and that the true field of historical research is the field of politics.3

This theory is vigorously combated by other writers, as, for instance, by Bruno Gebhardt, who, in his work on History and Art, maintains that4: “What constitutes art is the intimate union of idea and form, of the contained with the containing. Even history comprises two elements, has two constituent parts. One of these discovers facts while the other expounds them; the first factor preparing the material for the second, which is art.

t Professor Seeley’s two addresses appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine for 1881 and 1882.

2 Vide Freeman, in “The Methods of Historical Studies,” p. 8 (London : Macmillan, 1886). +

4 Vide Gebhardt: ‘“Geschichtswerk und Kunstwerk” (Breslau, 1885).

Naturally, art represents the beautiful, while history, on the contrary, recounts real events which are not always beautiful. But events are only partially perceptible to the senses. Their inter-connection, the spiritual significance within them that endows them with life and truth, has to be sought for and revealed. To discover the animating spirit of events and explain them by the light it affords, requires little less than the creative power of a poet. For the spirit of events is only to be discovered by an effort of the imagination, whereas the historian’s imagination must be guided, curbed, and corrected by reality and experience.

“The poet may create his personages, but the historian is bound to take his personages just as he finds them. He must investigate their true spirit, discover their motives, and thus find the explanation of their acts. Fancy cannot supply the historian with facts, but gives him instead the help he needs for the due comprehension and reproduction of historic realities. But he must beware of any tendency to colour facts with any notions or fancies of his own, in order to achieve some forced and untrue effect. If he be capable of piercing to the kernel of events, then he will discover their hidden treasures, their animating spirit. Thus he will discern the harmony of facts in spite of their apparent incoherence, being able to reconstruct their organic unity from the ruins of the past—will show his artistic power by making that harmony clearly visible to our eyes.” So we see that while, according to Professor Seeley, the historian who is content to narrate events /a//s from science into literature, according to Gebhardt he soars, on the contrary, to the sphere of art.

As a general rule, the only result derived from all these opposed theories is that those who seek to prove that history is an art are necessarily led to show to what extent it differs from art, while, on the other hand, those who would prove it to be a veritable science are forced, nevertheless, to acknowledge that the help of imagination is continually required for the correct interpretation of history, inasmuch as the true spirit of events is seldom discovered save by a gift of divination that is rather a gift of historical creation than a strictly scientific proof.

The same view, in substance, was clearly and repeatedly upheld by Professor von Ranke. For this celebrated writer maintains that history is at once an art and a science. Like any other branch of study, he says, history has to perform every office of criticism and research, while at the same time it is bound to afford as much pleasure to the reader's intelligence as any other kind of literary work. Nevertheless, since the main duty of history is ¢vathfulness, and it must narrate every event exactly as it occurred, its predominating character is scientific.!

The verdict of so great an authority ought to have settled the dispute, in Germany, at least; but this was by no means the case. During the same year in which Gebhardt’s short essay appeared, Herr Almann produced one on the same theme in Sybel’s zstorvische Zettschrift.: This author maintains that, undoubtedly, history is a science, in that it claims the right of judging the value of individuals and of events, and of defining their position in the sphere of facts and ideas, all which has nought to do with art. If history should have a literary, and perhaps an

t Von Ranke, “ Samtliche Werke,” vol. xii., p. 5.

2 “Ueber die Wissenschaftliche Geschichtsdarstellung” ; vide No. iv., 1885, of Sybel’s Review.

artistic shape, the same rule may be applied to philosophy, without its being changed into an art. History must investigate, compare, and criticise events; how then could it be regulated by the principles of beauty? So we should reject the false idea that by an exercise of fancy the historian could master the connection of events and the spirit that binds them together. Only by research can such results be obtained. Even in the statement of facts it is not always possible to follow the rules of art. Are we to leave corroborative proofs unmentioned to preserve the homogeneousness required in a work of art? Hence the idea of artistically written history is no longer compatible with the advance of modern science.!

In the same Review another writer, Herr Moritz Ritter, flies to arms against those who wish to extend the field of history so as to make it comprise the study of society ex masse and of culture as a whole, thus obliging historians to be versed in all the sciences. The State, he maintains, is the central point of historical research, which only treats of the individual as regards his relation with the State. A similar and more fully explained theory is to be found in an Introductory Address by Dr. D. Schifers, Professor of History at the University of Tubingen. The State, says the author, has been, is still, and will ever remain the central point of the innumerable questions of which history must furnish the solution. Only from the State can history learn how to arrive at an accurate appreciation of particular events.?

1 Sybel’s Historische Zeitschrift (1885), vide ‘Studien ueber die Entwickelung der Geschichtswissenschaft.”

To gain some idea of the number of different sciences men have attempted to intermix and unite with history, one should refer to the previously quoted work of Professor Lorenz, or, better still, to that of Professor Bernheim, which forms a complete and most learned Manual of the Historical Method. In combating his numerous opponents, the author deals the hardest blows at those who attempt to confuse history with political science, with sociology, and even with natural science, and to this end would force it to give exclusive attention to the mass of the people and culture in general, while neglecting individual components of the mass and consequently neglecting those psychological currents, movements, or crises which are essential parts of history, nevertheless.

History, Bernheim tells us, should give the same attention to the mass of the people as to the individuals composing it, or serving as its guides, seeing that the subject of history is man in so far as he is a self-conscious being, acting in and upon the social body. History is, accordingly, a social science, but is neither sociology nor political science. At first it was solely concerned with material facts ; later on, solely with psychological facts, through which it sought to explain everything; finally, it embraced both orders of facts, and this was the birth of real modern history, which is mainly directed to the spiritual connection and explanation of facts. For this purpose its chief study is given to the successive developments and conditions of the State. But whereas the acquirement of this knowledge is the final object of history, for political science it merely serves as a means of ascertaining the genesis of certain general types, and consequently discovering what modifica-

IS HISTORY A SCIENCE? it tions it might be advisable to make in existing States.

One may treat the science of politics either from the historical or the juridical point of view, but must never confuse it with the other sciences to which it is related. Thus, too, in precisely the same manner, sociology treats of the development of society, not as its end, but merely as a means of ascertaining its constituent elements, of studying its different organs and their respective functions, together with all the typical varieties of social forms. For sociology has nothing to do with individuals, nor with psychological movements ; while these, on the contrary, form an integral part of history which makes no search for general types. Both politics and sociology must be based upon history, but should not be confused with it.!

The constant need of arriving at truly scientific accuracy with regard to matters of history has not only led to an attempt to study it on the same method that is used for the natural sciences, but also to the endeavour to transform it outright into a natural science, even as Max Miiller had tried to transform philology.

It was through his attachment to this theory that Buckle was finally led to deduce the character of the civilisation of ancient India from the rice that formed the staple food of its inhabitants; that of the Egyptians from the dates they devoured; that of Brazil, previous to the discovery of America, from its use of Indian corn; while, in the same way, the illustrious Du Bois Reymond, who was the chief supporter of this theory, was led to carry on a discussion with

: Bernheim, of. cit., chaps. i. and iv., pp. 59-97. Here the author likewise attacks the writers who attempt to confuse history with philosophy, anthropology, and ethnology.

Liebig in order to ascertain whether the fall of the Roman Empire was to be attributed to the Romans’ ignorance of phosphoric acid, which would have served to restore the fertility of their exhausted soil, or rather to their ignorance of gunpowder, since the use of it would have enabled them to repulse with ease every barbarian attack. But, in spite of much valiant support, the theory has been persistently and effectively combated both by Lorenz and by Bernheim.

In almost the same words as Lorenz, Professor Bernheim states that, undoubtedly, history is a science, but that the laws of history cannot be confused with the immutable and impersonal laws of nature. Time, place, the diversities of human character, human intelligence and will-power, serve to alter social facts, which are more complicated than natural facts and essentially different from them. Whoever should fail to take this into account would sink into ridicule in the same way as Buckle. But all this does not serve to prove that history is an art instead of a science, if the real characteristic of science be the strict investigation of knowledge and truth, of substance instead of form. Indeed, form is of quite secondary importance in history, which must frequently dispense with the artistic setting that can only be employed when treating some period that is thoroughly well known in every detail. But there are certain entire periods which are still so obscure as to preclude all possibility of artistic treatment. These are precisely the periods which now demand the most careful research.

: Professor Du Bois Reymond’s essay is entitled ‘‘ Kulturgeschichte und Naturwissenschaft.” It was first published in the Deutsche Rundschau, vol. iv., No. 2. Vide the long account of it by Lorenz in Part III. of his work, “ Die Naturwissenschaftliche

Geschichte” (Du Bois Reymond), pp. 133-170. Vide also Bernheim’s work, chap. i., pp. 70-83.

Hence, recent improvements in the method employed have only widened the gap between history and art by giving the first an increasingly scientific character. The modern historian is not satisfied with knowing what facts occurred and in what manner, but would also ascertain in what way this or that fact is connected with the general development of the history of the world and the human spirit. Yet there is no hope of learning from history such laws as may be deduced from ideas and from general principles. Personal qualities and the exercise of free will play too large a part in it, prove too many exceptions to the rule. History is not, nor will ever be, an exact or a natural science. Its laws can only be partially ascertained, inasmuch as we only have a partial knowledge of the groundwork of historical facts. In many cases we possess mere shreds of facts, and always of such a kind as to preclude the employment of either the simply inductive or simply deductive method.!

Here the question might be asked, If this sczentzfic method be neither inductive nor deductive, but an illdefined mixture of both, are we not indirectly and unconsciously driven to again acknowledge our need of the very kind of artistic divination and invention that was to be entirely relinquished? Nevertheless, leaving aside for the moment a question that will be frequently urged anew, might we not rather inquire if it is really any use to be always raising fresh difficulties which simple common sense would help us to avoid? Could any one be made to believe that Aristotle’s ‘ Politics” or Spencer's “ Sociology ” was an historical work, that the ‘‘ Annals” of Tacitus was a treatise on philosophy or natural science? Yet the dispute is still going on, and the combatants are highly-gifted men,

t Vide the previously quoted passage from Bernheim’s work.

and some of them have produced historical works of great value. What does it all mean?

Possibly some illuminating hint regarding this extraordinary fact may be gleaned from an essay by Erhardt, which, in point of fact, is merely an account of William Humboldt's famous pamphlet on the duties of the historian.!

According to Humboldt, the historian is bound to give a clear and exact narrative of all that has taken place, and at the same time must explain the significance and inner spirit of the events he describes. Of the facts in themselves one sees but a part—the outer part; but the spirit uniting the facts in question, determining their value and constituting their historic truth, at first sight escapes our observation, for it cannot be discovered without research; so, to achieve its discovery and make it visible to the reader's eye, the historian must exercise his imagination as though he were a poet. Nevertheless, he must exercise it in a different way, inasmuch as he is tied to reality, subject to the tyranny of the fact, which is insufficient, however, in itself. Hence, the historian requires a special aptitude of his own. The poet can embody his ideas in a semblance of reality ; the historian must employ his ideas as a means of dzscovering the truth of facts; he has to see& the reality of his theme, whereas the poet may create it. Starting from particular facts, the historian discovers in them the ideas which alone make them comprehensible to him. The real and ideal are confused together in history, since every fact has its inherent idea. The laws of history consist of these inherent ideas, yet cannot t Erhardt, “ Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Abhandlung ‘Ueber die

Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers,’” in Sybel’s Hist. Zeitschrift, No. 111, 1886.

be wholly reduced to causes and effects, as are the laws of nature. Inorganic nature is ruled by mathematical laws, animate nature by physiological laws, and history by psychological laws. But history cannot be duly interpreted by psychology alone. This would accord too much importance to the individual, who, if isolated and considered apart from society, would remain incomprehensible. Therefore one must study facts in the mass in order to find the fundamental ideas leading to the conception of a design for the world’s government. These ideas, as manifested in individuals and in nations, constitute their special character. Language, art, science, and religious beliefs are all different manifestations of the ideal, although in them it assumes no personal shape ; for all such ideas, while acting on, are superior to, the individual. We do not possess ideas, but are possessed by them and are truly subordinate to them. Even as mathematical laws, as, for instance, the law of gravitation, would necessarily exercise the same rule over any material world, however different from our own, so, too, ideas would be the ruling principle of every spiritual and moral world, and would always constitute its history. This is all brought about in three ways: Firstly, through individuals; secondly, through ideal formule; thirdly, through primary ideas (Urzdeen), which act spontaneously by their own innate strength, and belong to a higher sphere than that of things earthly, individual, or finite.

This essay, while revealing the lofty mental qualities of its author, clearly shows the influence of the German philosophy of the period. After reading it attentively, one conclusion is forced upon us. If, as Humboldt says, ideas lie in facts and constitute their life—if it is the office of the historian to seek for and discover them in facts—then to learn whether history be an art ora science becomes a question of signal importance. Were it proved to be an exact and precise science, it should end by revealing the world of ideas to us in the surest way. But if, on the contrary, history be an art, all hope of such revelation will be lost. This serves to explain, at least in some degree, the obstinate attempts that are continually made to give greater emphasis to the scientific value of history by enormously exaggerating that merit, in order to establish its closer relation with this or that science of an exact and definite nature; or indeed, to confuse it, if possible, with such science.

I would not go so far as to say that writers holding these views completely realise the effect of their words, nor that their efforts tend to this preconceived end. But I think it is not altogether impossible that, even without expressing or being aware of the feeling, they may be unconsciously urged onwards by the hope of discovering the secret that has hitherto eluded our search. Nevertheless, in order to escape the risk of making useless new attempts and being led astray ourselves, the moment has come to try an entirely fresh road. Instead of continuing a theoretical discussion which even the best-skilled combatants have, as yet, failed to bring to an end, let us try to dissect some of the chief transformations through which history has successively passed. For those transformations may perhaps enable us to discern the elements of which history is composed, and thus attain to a fuller and juster appreciation of its true nature and purpose. ‘This may seem to be a digression, but I hope that, in the end, it will help us to arrive at a more trustworthy solution of the problem with which we are concerned.

II

As Professor Lorenz rightly asserts, the eighteenth century was the age of a vast change in history. For, in fact, it imported into history a far greater share of the philosophic and critical spirit and of methodic doubt, together with a large freedom of judgment. Far more attention was given than at any previous time to the history of all nations and all periods, thus opening out an immensely wider field of observation, and always and everywhere endeavouring to throw aside fables in favour of truth. No preceding age had formed so clear an idea as this of the moral unity of mankind, and also it was the first to acknowledge the law of progress. But, in many respects, its attitude and its intellectual tendency were decidedly anti-historic. First of all, as the fundamental idea of the eighteenth century, French philosophy consisted in believing the human mind to be a tabula rasa that received every impression from outside by means of the sensations—the very idea illustrated by Condillac in his description of a statue that by its possession of the five senses is changed into a living man: how could such a theory point out the way for discovering from facts the ideas and guiding spirit of mankind? Besides, the writers of that period tried to study history on the method that was applied to the natural sciences in which all had been trained, and consequently the vast difference between the laws of psychology and the laws of nature entirely escaped the notice of those learned men.