Introduction to the study of history

by Charles Victor Langlois; Charles Seignobos

IV. In the case of unique facts we cannot expect to bring several together under a common formula, for the nature of these facts is to occur but once. However, it is imperatively necessary to abridge, we cannot preserve all the acts of all the members of an assembly or of all the officers of a state. Many individuals and many facts must be sacrificed.

How are we to choose? Personal tastes and patriotism give rise to preferences for congenial characters and for local events; but the only principle of selection which can be employed by all historians in common is that which is based on the part played in the evolution of human affairs. We ought to retain those persons and those events which have visibly influenced the course of an evolution. We may recognise them by our inability to describe the evolution without mentioning them. The men are those who have modified the state of a society either by the creation or the introduction of a habit (artists, men of science, inventors, founders, apostles), or as directors of a movement, heads of states, of parties, of armies. The events are those which have brought about changes in the habits or the state of societies.

In order to construct a formula descriptive of an historical person, we must take particulars from his biography and his habits. From his biography we shall take those facts which determined his career, formed his habits, and occasioned the actions by which he influenced society. These comprise physiological conditions (physique, temperament, state of health),[203] the educational influences, the social conditions to which he was subject. The history of literature has accustomed us to researches of this kind.

Among the habits of a man it is necessary to determine his fundamental conceptions relating to the class of facts in which his influence was felt, his conception of life, his knowledge, his predominating tastes, his habitual occupations, his principles of conduct. From these details, in which there is infinite variety, an impression is formed of the man's "character," and the collection of these characteristic features constitutes his "portrait," or, to use a favourite phrase of the day, his "psychology." This exercise, which is still held in great esteem, dates from the time when history was still a branch of literature; it is doubtful whether it can ever become a scientific process. There is perhaps no sure method of summing up the character of a man, even in his lifetime, still less when we can only know him indirectly through the medium of documents. The controversies relative to the interpretation of the conduct of Alexander are a good example of this uncertainty.

If, however, we take the risk of seeking a formula to describe a character, there are two natural temptations against which we must guard: (I) We must not construct the formula out of the person's assertions in regard to himself. (2) The study of imaginary personages (dramas and novels) has accustomed us to seek a logical connection between the various sentiments and the various acts of a man; a character, in literature, is constructed logically. This search for coherency must not be transferred to the study of real men. We are less likely to do so in the case of those whom we observe in their lifetime, because we see too many characteristics in them which could not enter into a coherent formula. But the absence of documents, by suppressing those characteristics which would have checked us, encourages us to arrange the very small number of those which remain in the form of a stage-character. This is why the great men of antiquity seem to us to have been much more logical than our contemporaries are.

How are we to construct a formula for an event? The imperative need of simplification causes us to combine under a single name an enormous mass of minute facts which are perceived in the lump, and between which we vaguely feel that there is a connection (a battle, a war, a reform). The facts which are thus combined are such facts as have conduced to a common result. That is how the common notion of an event arises, and there is no more scientific conception to put in its place. Facts, then, are to be grouped according to their consequences; those which have had no visible consequences disappear, the others are fused into a certain number of aggregates which we call events.

In order to describe an event, it is necessary to give precise indications (I) of its character, (2) of its extent.

(I) By the character of an event we mean the features which distinguish it from every other event, not merely the external conditions of date and place, but the manner in which it occurred, and its immediate causes. The following are the items of information which the formula should contain. One or more men, in such and such mental states (conceptions, motives of the action), working under such and such material conditions (locality, instrument), performed such and such actions, which had for their result such and such a modification. For the determination of the motives of the actions, the only method is to compare the actions, firstly, with the declarations of those who performed them; secondly, with the interpretation of those who witnessed their performance. There is often a doubt remaining: this is the field of party polemics; every one attributes noble motives to the actions of his own party and discreditable motives to those of the opposite party. But actions described without any indication of motive would be unintelligible.

(2) The extension of the event will be indicated both in space (the place where it happened, and the region in which its immediate effects were felt) and in time, the moment when its realisation began, and the moment when the result was brought about.

V. Descriptive formulæ relating to characters, being merely qualitative, only give an abstract idea of the facts; in order to realise the place they occupied in reality, quantity is necessary. It is not a matter of indifference whether a given usage was practised by a hundred men or by millions.