Twilight of History by Shlomo Sand

Author:Shlomo Sand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

According to Buckle, there exists despite certain differences a coherent continuity between nature and history; accordingly, with the effort of intelligence, the laws that are common to them can be brought to light. Initially it was the geographical and climatic environment that conditioned the first steps of human societies. The physical world shaped the beginnings of humanity and set the direction and ways of being of civilization. To make this comprehensible, social relations should be analysed starting from the following fundamental components: soil, climate, food, and the other accidents of nature. And whereas European civilization managed to overcome the constraints of its physical environment, other civilizations continued to be subject to these. As a result, and as distinct from the rest of the world, deciphering the history of advanced Europeans had to focus chiefly on the laws of the intellectual and mental domain, and less on the natural environment. Historical advances now depended on cultural developments, and these claimed priority for historians’ attention. Nonetheless, these must make sure to base their writing on the inductive principle, as was the rule in the exact sciences.

Hippolyte Taine was neither less popular nor less ‘scientific’ than Buckle; he also believed that identical laws governed both nature and history. Taine’s view was that with the help of the experimental method it was possible to characterize the determinant factors of human development, which were race, milieu and moment. However, given the impossibility of re-creating these data in a laboratory, it was important to promote the system of historical investigation, based on a precise analysis of the facts, their rigorous classification, and a proper formalization of the relations between them. Using such methodological tools, it would become possible to transcribe historical processes in the same way as biological life. Armed with these theoretical premises, Taine undertook between 1875 and 1885 the publication of his monumental work: Les origines de la France contemporaine.31

Taine’s work found great resonance within the community of French historians, and despite meeting certain criticisms, its reputation rose again after the death of its author. Gabriel Monod, for example, the founder and editor of the Revue historique in 1876, and a leading member of the new professional historiography of the late nineteenth century, published in his journal a glowing obituary in praise of the ‘scientific’ historian who so distinguished himself as against the mode of writing of his Romantic colleagues.32

Buckle, in contrast to Taine, encountered fierce criticism despite the great popularity of his books. Professional historians did not appreciate his self-assuredness and hasty generalizations; besides, his cutting anti-religious materialism was repugnant to those who refused to abandon God. Lord Acton, for example, who upheld free will in history, wrote about Buckle in 1858,

The whole system of positive philosophy is the work of under-educated men, adepts in physical science, but ignorant of the principles of any other, who insist that science must have the same method as theirs and that the metaphysical realities must be measured and explained by physical laws. We state this to show that Mr Buckle’s absurdities and dishonesties are not his own but those of his school.

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