The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

by Hans Driesch

History has a logic of its own, he says; the scheme of its logic is not the syllogism, but the relation to “values.” So far as the single historical facts can be related to values, they are of historical importance, and in such a way only does history in its proper sense become important in itself and through itself at the same time. Must history always lose its historical aspect to become of importance to human knowledge? That is the question we asked whilst considering the general logical types of the “evolution” and “cumulation” that arose out of the analysis of the historical facts of problematic phylogeny. It now might seem that this question may be answered, and that it may be answered by a clear and simple “No.” The history of mankind, according to Rickert, seems to be important in itself, and without borrowing from any other branch of study. But is his reasoning altogether cogent and convincing?

Has it really been able to attribute to history in the strictest sense such an importance for philosophy, for the theory of the universe, “für die Weltanschauung,” that history proper may in fact be allowed to take its place beside science proper?

The relation to values is not to include any kind of “Bewertung” of judgment, Rickert allows. In fact, history of any kind would hardly satisfy the reader, if moral judgment were its basis. Every reader, of course, has a moral judgment of his own, but, unfortunately, almost every reader’s judgment is different from his neighbour’s, and there is no uniformity of moral principles as there is of geometrical ones. We shall come back to this point. At present we only state the fact that indeed moral judgment can never be the foundation of history, and that Rickert was very right to say so: it is enough to put the names of Tolstoy and Nietzsche together to understand how devoid of even the smallest general validity would be a history resting upon moral principles.

But what then are the “values” of Rickert to which history has to relate, if moral values in their proper sense have to be excluded? It is here that his discussions begin to become obscure and unsatisfactory, and the reason is fairly intelligible. He is trying to prove the impossible; he wants to put history beside science in its real philosophical importance, in spite of the fact that all evidence to establish this is wanting.

These “values,” to which every historical act in its singularity has to be related in order to become an element of real history, are they after all nothing but those groups of the products of civilisation which in fact absorb the interest of men? Is it to groups of cultural phenomena, such as arts, science, the State, religion, war, economics, and so on, that “historical” facts have to be related? Yes, as far as I understand our author, it is simply to these or other even less important groups of cultural effects—cultural “cumulations,” to apply our term—that a single action of a man or a group of men must bear some relation in order to become important historically.

But what does that mean? Is the relation to such “values” to be regarded as really rendering history equal to the sciences of nature in philosophical importance?

In the first place, there is no more agreement about such “values” than there is in the field of morals. Imagine, for instance, a religious enthusiast or recluse writing history! I fancy there would be very little mention of warriors and politicians: war and politics would not be “values” in any sense to such a man. And we know that there are others to whom those products of civilised life rank amongst the first. Rickert well notes that there is one great objection to his doctrine—the character of universality[167] is wanting to his history, or rather to the values forming its basis; for there cannot be, or at least there actually is not at present, a consensus omnium with regard to these “values.”

I am convinced that Rickert is right in his conception of real “history” as the knowledge of the single acts of mankind. But this conception proves just the contrary of what Rickert hoped to prove; for history in this sense is moulded by the actual products of culture, that is, by the effects which actually exist as groups of cultural processes, and it cannot be moulded by anything else; the historian correlates history with what interests him personally.

Here now we have met definitively the ambiguous word: history indeed is to end in “interest” and in being “interesting.” There is nothing like a real “value” in any sense underlying history; the word value therefore would better give place to the term “centre of interest”—a collection of stamps may be such a “centre.” History, then, as the knowledge of cultural singularities, is “interesting,” and its aspects change with the interests of the person who writes history: there is no commonly accepted foundation of history.[168]

And it follows that history as regarded by Rickert cannot serve as the preliminary to philosophy. It may be[169] of use for personal edification or for practical life: granting that the “centres of interest” as referred to are of any real ethical or at least factual importance. But you may take away from history even the greatest personalities, and your view of the universe, your philosophy, would remain the same, except of course so far as these personalities themselves have contributed to philosophy in any way.