History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe

by François Guizot

Aspects Of History.

According to their political state, and in the degree of their civilization, do the peoples consider history under various aspects, and look to it for various kinds of interest. In the early ages of society, whilst all is new and attractive to the youthful imagination of man, he demands poetical interest; the memories of the past form the groundwork of brilliant and simple narratives, fitted to charm an eager and easily satisfied curiosity. If, in such a community, where social existence is in full vigour, and the human mind is in a state of excitement, Herodotus reads to the Greeks assembled at Olympia his patriotic narratives, and the discoveries of his voyages, the Greeks delight in them as in songs of Homer. If civilization is but little advanced—if men live more isolated—if 'country,' in the concrete, at least, exists but slightly for them,—we find simple chronicles intermingled with fables and legends, but always marked with that naïf and poetical character which, in such a condition of existence, the human mind requires in all things. Such are the European chronicles from the tenth to the fifteenth century. If, at a later period, civilization becomes developed in a country without the coeval establishment of liberty, without an energetic and extensive political existence, when the period of enlightenment, of wealth, and of leisure, does arrive, men look for philosophical interest in history; it no longer belongs to the field of poetry; it loses its simplicity; it no longer wears its former real and living physiognomy; individual characters take up less space, and no longer appear under living forms; the mention of names becomes more rare; the narrative of events, and the description of men, are more its pretext than its subject; all becomes generalized; readers demand a summary of the development of civilization, a sort of theory of the peoples and of events; history becomes a series of dissertations on the progress of the human race, and the historian seems only to call up the skeleton of the past, in order to hang upon it general ideas and philosophic reflections. This occurred in the last century; the English historians of that period, Robertson, Gibbon, and Hume, have represented history under that aspect; and most of the German writers still follow the same system. The philosophy of history predominates; history, properly so called, is not to be found in them.

The History Of Free Nations.

But if advanced civilization and a great development of the human intellect coincide, in a nation, with an animated and keen political existence; if the struggle for liberty, by exciting the mind, provoke energy of character; if the activity of public life be added to the general claims of thought, history appears in another light; it becomes, so to speak, practical. No longer is it required to charm easily excited imaginations by its narratives, nor to satisfy by its meditations active intellects debarred from exercising themselves upon aught but generalities. But men expect from it experience analogous to the wants they feel, to the life they live; they desire to understand the real nature and hidden springs of institutions; to enter into the movements of parties, to follow them in their combinations, to study the secret of the influence of the masses, and of the action of individuals; men and things must resuscitate before them, no longer merely as an interest or diversion, but as a revelation of how rights, liberties, and power are to be acquired, exercised, and defended; how to combine opinions, interests, passions, the necessities of circumstances, all the elements of active political life. That is what history becomes for free nations; it is from that point of view that Thucydides wrote the history of the Peloponnesian war, Lord Clarendon and Bishop Burnet that of the English Revolution.

Generally, and by the very nature of things, it is in regular order, and at distant intervals, that history assumes one or other of these various kinds of interest in the eyes of the people. A taste for simple narratives, a liking for philosophic generalizations, and a craving for political instruction, almost always belong to very different times and degrees of civilization.

Historic Requirements Of The Present Age.

By a rare concurrence of circumstances, all these tastes and acquirements seem to unite at the present day; and history is now susceptible amongst us of all these kinds of interest. If it narrate to us with truth and simplicity the first attempts at social life, the manners of infant nations; that singular state of society in which ideas are few in number but keen, and wants are energetic although unvaried, in which all the pretensions of barbarian force struggle against all the habits of wild liberty, it will find us capable of understanding such a recital, and somewhat disposed to be charmed therewith. Fifty years ago, a faithful picture of this age in the life of peoples would have appeared only coarse and revolting; its interesting and poetical character would have been neither relished nor understood; conventionalisms were then turned into habits, and factitious manners held sway over the whole of society; Homer himself, in an age so destitute of simplicity and naturalness, was admired on hearsay only; and if no one dared to call in question his title to glory, he was pitied for having been obliged to shed the lustre of his genius upon an epoch of barbarism and ignorance. Prodigious events have since renewed the state of society, broken up old forms, conventional habits, and factitious manners; simple ideas and natural feelings have resumed their empire; a kind of rejuvenescence has taken place in the minds of men, and they have become capable of understanding man at every degree of civilization, and of taking pleasure in the simple and poetic narratives of infant society. In our days it has been felt that barbarian times also deserved, in some respects, to be called heroic times; in our days, mankind has discovered the faculty, as well as the necessity, of obtaining a true knowledge of the institutions, ideas, and manners of peoples, on their entrance into social life. Thus this section of history has regained an interest which it had ceased to possess; it is no longer regarded as the patrimony of the erudite; it has been seized upon by novelists themselves, and the public have taken delight in following their footsteps.

At the same time, the need of broad philosophical views of the course of human affairs and the progress of society, has gained strength instead of becoming extinguished; we have not ceased to look to facts for something more than mere narratives; we still expect them to be summed up in general ideas, and to furnish us with those great results which throw light on the sciences of legislation and political economy, and on the vast study of the destiny of the human race. Far, then, from being less inclined to consider history under a philosophic point of view, it seems to have acquired a wider interest in this respect. More than ever, we feel the necessity of tracing events back to their primitive causes, of reducing them to their simplest expression, of penetrating into their remotest effects; and if old chronicles have regained their charm in our eyes, the great combinations of historic philosophy still constitute a pressing necessity of our minds.