You may call my view pessimistic, and indeed you may be right so far as the sum total of human beings as such is in question. But, be it pessimistic or not, we are here moving on scientific ground only, and have merely to study the probability or improbability of problematic facts, and with such a view in our mind, we are bound to say that a true logical and moral evolution of mankind is not at all supported by known facts. There is a process of logical and moral perfection, but this process is not one, is not “single” in its actuality; it is not connected with the one and single line of history, but only with a few generations each time it occurs, or even with one individual, at least ideally. And this process is not less a process of cumulation than any other sort of development or so-called “progress” in history is. Philosophers of the Middle Ages, in fact, sometimes regarded human history as one evolutionary unity, beginning with the Creation and ending with the Day of Judgment; but every one must agree, I think, that even under the dogmatic assumptions of orthodoxy history would by no means necessarily be an “evolution.” Even then the paths taken by different individuals or different branches of the human race on their way to redemption can be regarded as independent lines.
Thus Hegel’s conception of an evolution of mankind, it seems to me, fails to stand criticism. By emphasising that there are certain lines of development in history which bring with them a stimulus to perfection, and that these lines relate to all that is highest in culture, Hegel certainly rendered the most important service to the theory of history; but in spite of that he has revealed to us only a special and typical kind of cumulation process, and nothing like an evolution. We may say that the very essence of history lies in this sort of cumulation, in this “pseudo-evolution” as we might say; and if we like to become moral metaphysicians we might add, that it is for the sake of the possibility of this sort of cumulation that man lives his earthly life; the Hindoos say so, indeed, and so do many Christians. But even if we were to depart from our scientific basis in this way we should not get beyond the realm of cumulations.
All this, of course, is not to be understood to affirm that there never will be discovered any real evolutionary element in human history—in the so-called “subconscious” sphere perhaps—but at present we certainly are ignorant of such an element.
THE PROBLEM OF THE “SINGLE” AS SUCH
If history has failed to appear as a true evolution, and if, on the other hand, it reveals to us a great sum of different cumulations, some of very great importance, others of minor importance, what then remains of the importance of the single historical event in its very singleness? What importance can the description of this event have with regard to our scientific aims? We could hardly say at present that it appears to be of very much importance at all. The historical process as a whole has proved to be not a real elemental unit, as far as we know, and such elemental units as there are in it have proved to be of importance only for individual psychology but not as history. History has offered us only instances of what every psychologist knew already from his own experience, or at least might have known if he had conceived his task in the widest possible spirit.
But is no other way left by which true history might show its real importance in spite of all our former analysis? Can history be saved perhaps to philosophical science by any new sort of reasoning which we have not yet applied to it here.
As a matter of fact, such new reasoning has been tried, and Rickert,[166] in particular, has laid much stress upon the point that natural sciences have to do with generalities, while historical sciences have to do with the single in its singleness only, and, in spite of that, are of the highest philosophical importance. He does not think very highly of so-called “historical laws,” which must be mere borrowings from psychology or biology, applied to history proper, and not touching its character as “history.” We agree with these statements to a considerable extent. But what then about “history proper,” what about “the single in its very singleness”?
Let us say at first a few words about this term “single” so very often applied by us. In the ultimate meaning of the word, of course, the series of actual sensations or “presentations” is the “single” which is given “historically” to each individual, and therefore to the writer of history also, and in fact, history as understood by Rickert is based to a great extent upon this primordial meaning of single “givenness.” The word “single,” in his opinion, relates to the actual and true specification of any event, or group of events, at a given time and at a given locality in space, these events possessing an identity of their own and never being repeated without change of identity. If the subject-matter of history is defined like this, then there are, indeed, “Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung” with regard to history, for natural sciences have nothing to do with the single in such an understanding of the word.
Rickert says somewhere that history as a real evolution, as one totality of a higher order, would cease to be proper history: and he is right. History, in fact, would soon lose the character of specific attachment to a given space and to a given time, and would lose its “non-repeatability,” in the logical sense at least, if it were one unit in reality: as soon as it was that, it would have become a logical generality, an element in nature, so to say, in spite of its factual singularity. But history is not obliged to become that, Rickert states; and we may add that history in fact cannot become that, because it simply proves not to be an evolution as far as we know at present.
But what importance does Rickert attach to his history specified and non-repeatably single?