The Past and Present Society

The Past and the Present. History and Sociology Author(s): H. R. Trevor-Roper Source: Past & Present, No. 42 (Feb., 1969), pp. 3-17 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650179 . Accessed: 25/06/2013 09:34
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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT * HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY

me to speakhere,he leftme freeto choosemysubject;but on such thata manshouldspeakofthe subjectwhichhe an occasionI think to have has studiedand on whichhe maybe presumed, sometimes, like othermen,lives in the present;but his thought. A historian, wheresome studyis of the past; and comingas I do fromOxford, to this institution, of past habitsstillremain, whichplaces vestiges I shallventure on theimmediate to consider rather present, emphasis if any,between thetwo. therelation, "If any.. ." Some indeed,I know,wouldsaythatthere is none. aboutthepast,they tellus,is thatit is past. Can we The great thing it and devoteourlimited notthenforget span oftimeto thestudyof in whichwe mustlive,or even of the future the present, which,by we determine?Historians, our actions, however unconsciously, ownprofession, their maytellus thatthehistorical defending process is thesamein all ages,andthattherefore is continuous: thathumanity thelessonsofthepastmayguideus evenin thepresent. But evenif is it necessarily truetoday? Is it notpossible thiswas trueyesterday, that,today,we live in a new age, a scientific, technological age, to - in whichtheymayeven be whichsuch lessonsmaybe irrelevant positivelymisleading? So we are told. Philosophershitherto, said Marx,have soughtto understand the world,but our taskis to Mr. Ford it. said History Henry (whodid change it) is bunk. change said our Ministerof Education, "It is surelyfarmoreimportant", of Education Committees last summer, the Association addressing thanit is to "foryoungpeople to knowall the factsabout Vietnam knowall the detailsofthe WarsoftheRoses".1 "All the factsabout Vietnam.. .". This is a tall order. From whom are we to accept all these facts,how test them? Even to acquire themis an arduoustask. Ought we not thento freeour to clearawaytheincubusof mindsforthe purpose, forward-looking a realnightmare, thatincubus, from thepast,or at leastto transform tale? It is easy to do this. All intothe innocent goblinof a fairy
* The annual Oration given at the London School of Economics on 5th December, 1968. It is published separatelyby the L.S.E. (1969). 1 For the text of Mr. Short's speech, which seems to me a fine example of see Education,5 July1968. educational philistinism, WHEN THE DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS INVITED

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PAST AND PRESENT

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we have to do is to removethe studyof history fromthe serious worldintothe Disneylandof fantasy, in whichtruth and falsehood I admit,is verystrong. Some do not matter. The temptation, in the weeklypress, assure us that it is historians, distinguished to do so: that has no function butto entertain. Skilful right history writers also areeagerto oblige, to dressup theMuse ofHistory ready in more fashionable, more highlycoloured clothes for this new occasion. Then, whenshe has gone,whenshe has been pushedoff into the Light Programme, othergraver personscome and bid us to thenew queen of sciences, turnour seriousattention sociology. I am afraid in thishomeofsociology, and here, thatI do notagree, I shall venture to suggest to defendmy disagreement.I venture it is entertaining or not,thestudyofthepastis, or can that,whether and maintainthat it is be, useful. Perhaps I would go further would with To those who Marx, that it is more necessary. say, to changethan to understand the world,I would reply important we cannotrationally that,even so, without understanding changeit. To thosewho see the past as an incubusfromwhichwe mustset are purged I wouldreply, withFreud,thatobsessions ourselves free, not by repudiation. We cannotprofitably only by understanding, also looking lookforward without back. Of coursewe mustnotbe too ambitious. We mustnotexpecttoo lensis notexact, and ofhistory. The historical muchfrom thestudy is quickly or backward we lookforward whether it,theimage through cannot detailis often missedand precise so thatfine blurred, parallels like be drawn. We cannotcompare withthe exactsciences, history or engineering.Marxistsindeed speak of "scientific mathematics details and theyhave sometimes adjustedthe recalcitrant history", science. But I do notagreewith themin this. to fit therulesoftheir to relax If thephenomena do notobeytherules,I believeit is better I believe, hasitsrules, ofthephenomena. History, therulesin favour like and conditional, but theyare not "scientific": theyare tentative historical the rulesoflife. There is an excellent entitled, periodical Past and Present. It beganunderMarxistcontrol. likethislecture, can be easilydetermined: it is thatcontrol The dateofitsescapefrom was changedfrom"a journalof the date (1959) whenthe sub-title studies". to "a journalofhistorical scientific history" elude easyformulation, But ifthelessonsof history theyare none itsserious thereasons for thelessreal,andthey study. What provide ? thenarethesereasons thereis a generalreason: to avoid Firstof all, I would suggest, is a fault. By thiswe We all that agree parochialism. parochialism

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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

in space. But there is also parochialism meanparochialism generally in time. To understand our own country, we need to see it in its widercontext of space, amongothercountries. Equally,to understandourownage,we needto see itin itswider context oftime, among otherages. To studyonlyour own timemay seem, at first sight, it is a signthatwe are concentrating on the proofof our modernity: real world. But in fact such concentration may easily be very superficial. It removes a whole dimensionof thought,and so deprivesus of the means of comparison. So much of our own historyis hidden from us that we cannot hope contemporary to see it in full. It is so close to us that we cannot see it in correct proportion. It is notyetover,so thatwe cannotjudgeit by the result. Familiarity with the past can supply some of those defects. It can providea standard of comparison. It can pointto a known issue. By so doing,it can chasten our parochial arrogance. Of course,to speakthusis to speakin generalities. To define is moredifficult.Perhapswe can bestdefine In order by opposition. the advantages to discover of studying we mayconsider the history, ofneglecting and individuals have dangers history. For bothnations made a virtue of neglecting sometimes and history has taken history; its revenge on them. One instance ofsuchhistorical is theriseofnationalism in revenge the nineteenth is the revoltof century. In manywaysnationalism minded peoples against rulers who have thoughtin historically terms. In eighteenth-century non-historical Europemost enlightened menwerecosmopolitan, international.They lookedback at history and saw a "gothic"past from whichtheyhad emerged intothe full of the present;and theyregarded"patriotism", lightand freedom national national loyalty, pride,as a vulgarrelicof tribalism. How the"enlightened" FrenchEncyclopaedists lookedat condescendingly the literature of the past,of whichone of them,D'Alembert, would have made a periodic bonfire! How contemptuously theydismissed the atavistic,irrational complaintsof the bigoted,unenlightened Poles whosquealedand squirmed in a mostundignified fashion when their countrywas carved up and absorbed by the Enlightened a generaDespotsofPrussia,Russia and Austria! How impatiently, tionlater, of Spain lookeddownon the the Bonapartist afrancesados obscurantist bigots who resistedtheirrationalreforms! But this of Reason did not last. In the next century the nations triumph revolt and their was nourished, revolted; everywhere, by history. It was the "historic thenations oftheir whichwereconscious nations", - the Poles, Italians,Germans - whichled the revolt;and history

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all the nationsin revoltbegan by discovering, or inventing, their No doubt the not which discovered was history. history they very of the eighteenth were historians good: the cosmopolitan century as historians; but therewas a largearea of history probablybetter had dangerously and whichnow took whichthosehistorians ignored itsrevenge. We see the same processtoday in historicAsia and unhistoric seemed"enlightened". Did they Africa.In 19oo thecolonial empires notbringmaterial The West was utility, modernity? improvement, the educatorof the world. In 1940-1, benevolent, cosmopolitan, Mr. Wendell Willkie,FranklinRoosevelt'sdefeatedrival for the of the United States, flew from countryto country presidency the glowing messageof "One World",and Vice-president preaching defined ideal as "the the new American Wallace afterwards further centuryof the common man". I confess,I detest both these men. I prefervarietyand conceptsof these two well-meaning from to suchuniform banality.Butquiteapart personal sophistication I believe, is necessary. The varietyof such variety, preference, of a customin the world is not merelythe superficial diversity uniform historic roots, humanity. It has independent fundamentally and thoserootswill continue to thrust theirkind: up shoots,after or cut, or fostered or distorted, but shootswhichmay be ignored, in shown been cannotbe arbitrarily This has clearly the changed. in today'sstruggle years. Perhapswe wouldunderstand pasttwenty ifwe knewless than"all thefacts aboutVietnam" theFar East better abouttheWarsoftheRoses. and at leastsomething this periodicrevengeof the past, of history, This recrudescence moreobvious is myfirst reasonfornotforgetting which it,is nowhere revoluthe Chinesecommunist thanin Chinatoday. Theoretically, Communist ofthemillennial of tionis a repudiation China. history China has brokendecisivelywith its past, loudly and explicitly disowned its long and splendid history. The recent "cultural that has emphasized andexaggerated breach. The deposit revolution" of fourthousandyears has now been repudiatedin its totality; we are told, thatis old has been discarded;and all things, everything have been made new. But in fact, what has happened? The of the Kuomintang, ofthe ChineseRepublic,has indeed inheritance of the Manchus, of the been rejected,but the older inheritance is once to fill thevoid. Today Peking has returned ChineseEmpire, like the Middle of Chairman the the Mao, Kingdom. again capital are Son ofHeaven,is to livefortenthousand years. The Europeans Celestial whomtheself-sufficient Empirehas againouterbarbarians,

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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

of the no need to know. The usages of international diplomacy, embassies ofnations, have been rejected;and foreign provide comity but oftribute: oftheenforced the meansnotof negotiation kowtow, of and ofperiodic humiliation ofthesackedLegation, by the officials conformist a vast,impervious, bureaucracy. on thosewho ignoreit. Expelled of history Such is the revenge it nevertheless returns. How historical with a pitchfork, patterns even identity, how historiccontinuity, thus reassertthemselves, is to me a mystery. levelofconsciousness, belowtheapparent persists of a of the Idealisthistorians people,whichtheysee no spirit speak terms. Perhapsthe sociologists have need to reduceinto concrete it some less airyformula. But in orderto test any such formula, of time,thatis historically. mustbe studiedagainstthe dimension No great politicalproblemcan be seen apart fromits historical context. I well remember the debatesthatraged,in the 1930s,about the to the owntimeonly, To thosewholivedin their Civil War. Spanish committed commentators of the age, the fashionable, ideologically international fascism and interSpanishCivilWarwas a warbetween whichwas beingfought national out,almostby chance, communism, of course, it was. But in the Iberian peninsula. Superficially, we all now realize,its causes lay deep in Spanish fundamentally, history. In that contextalone could it be understood. General as thecreature ofHitlerand Mussolini. Francowas seenbyforeigners wereseen, as a heroof 1809. His opponents He saw himself, rather, communists. They werenot. the Civil War,as international during They were Spaniards,who looked back to an ancientpeninsular traditionwith which Marx had nothingwhateverto do. The of thatcivilwar - I refer to mostperceptive historian profoundest, - oncetoldmethathe was provoked to write his Mr. GeraldBrenan and follyof those Marxist accountof it by the abysmalignorance in theterms couldinterpret, oftwentiethcrusaders whothought they couldonly a phenomenon which be international communism, century unstudiednineteenth and in the termsof hitherto understood - century Spain. pre-nineteenth oftheRussianrevolution, The same can be said Mutatismutandis, than in whichthe Tsars have perhapsmorelong-term importance Marx. The same can be said of modernGreece. And perhapsthe understood ifit wereinterpreted Warin theFar East wouldbe better modern doctrine and a littlemoreof witha littleless of fashionable local history. unconsidered - thus - by whatever If past history ductsand channels it flows

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it is obviousthat exercisesa continuing force in human affairs, errwho declineto consider its lessons. individuals also will greatly Once again I take an obvious instancefromthe 1930s, Neville and those who supportedhim, were men of the Chamberlain, twentieth thatHitler, whowastheir century. Theycouldnotbelieve in and who rose to a industrial modern, power highly contemporary, different from themselves. He society,could be fundamentally be a vulgar he might use extravagant and might demagogue; language violent at his limited but aims must be bottom methods; surely bythe shared rationality of the twentieth as theyknew it, and century, if onlyone could see past the violenceand the vulgarity, ultimately, it mustbe possibleto reachagreement. But Hitlerwas nota manof in himself the the twentieth century. No man who concentrates is a manofhis own century claimsofa wholenation only. Winston in thosevery a great out ofoffice, historical Churchill, writing, years, in to seventeenth was a better of the century, study position understandthe truecharacter of Nazism thanthosewho,fromwhatever oftheir however side,understood, well,onlytheimmediate problems owntime. I suspect, The same error, was made by Franklin Roosevelt in his withStalin. He believed, and at one timefrankly relations stated,2 could handle Stalinbetter thathe personally thananyoneelse. At one time he would have constituted Stalin as an arbiterbetween boss from and America. He saw him,I suspect, as a political Britain Texas anothersegmentof Wendell Willkie's "one world": from of the colonels: perhaps,or Huey Long's Louisiana,or Kentucky no doubt,but fundamentally "one of us". But roughand ruthless, Stalinwas not one of us. Roosevelt and he might share,fora brief and of a common war,just as Chamberlain time,theresponsibilities of for a brief held balance and war between the Hitler, time, peace them. But theydid not,forthatreason,live in the same context. and revolutionary, both conservative Long yearsof Russianhistory, formedthe presuppositions and secretaims of Stalin, and those and aims werenot suspendedby the war,or to be presuppositions by changedby personaldiplomacy. Rather,the war was fought, in temporarily consisted him,to securethose aims, and diplomacy them. concealing are thus continuous, so thatthe present But if past and present be fully in isolation from thepast,can we be more cannot understood to providea general particular? Can we use the past not merely
177. p. 2-See Winston Churchill, The Second World War (London, 1949-54), iv,

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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

ofthe present context within whichthe particular maybe problems solutionsto but also to provideparticular the betterunderstood, - forthisis particular problems? Can we even,at least in theory in that- use thepastto predict entailed thefuture? logically "scientific Those who speak of "the scienceof history", history", would presumably answeryes. I would not go so far. Even if werea science, I wouldremain for are there history basically sceptical: sciencesand sciences,and even in science we must never be too too quick to systematize: that is how sciencesare not schematic, forwarded but arrested, I believe,is frozen. And besides,history, not a science: it is an art in whose methodseveralsciences are it thereby subsumedwithout itself scientific. making At certain itself has been declaredscientific. times, indeed,history It was scientific in theMiddle Ages,and thatscientific interpretation of the Middle infrastructure lasted,withthe restof the intellectual until themid-seventeenth byheresy, Ages,however damaged century. In thosecenturies, was understood to havebotha beginning History and an end. It beganwiththe Creation and would end at the preordained end oftheworld;and bothdatescould,theoretically at least, be scientifically determined withtheperfection ofastronomical tables and the clarification of sacredtexts. Moreover, between thosetwo terminal wereconstantly moreprecise, dates,whichscientists making the eventsof history could - again in theory at least - be exactly forGod had already, determined them predicted; by His Providence, all and by His prophets and His occasionaldirectrevelations had butnotinsolubly indeed, indeed, exposed- cryptically fragmentarily - boththegeneral to theingenious believer and a basic quota outline of particular from rest which the be deduced. At one details, might when the period - in the firsthalf of the seventeenth century, astronomers and mathematicians had established themeasurement of time and the theologians were refining the exact meaningof the - it seemedas ifthelastremaining weresolved Apocalypse problems and the few still unfulfilled events of historycould be exactly all cameto an end in 1666 .... just ahead oftime,before predicted, How remote it all seemsnow! Whyshouldwe trouble ourselves now with these explodedfantasies? Why indeed except to show a lessonof history, and learnhumility thereby. The past is littered withthe ddbris of ambitious historical in whichsomeofthe systems, mindsofthetime- a Scaliger, a Napier,a Newton-have greatest been invested. And whyshouldlatersystems be anymoredurable ? Arethedoctrines oflinearprogress, or thecontinuing ofthe dialectic class struggle, or thewithering or theYin and Yang awayofthestate, in their ? foundations anyless metaphysical

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I believe,is dependent on severalsciencesin its detail. History, Since the Renaissance,one new science afteranotherhas been to it, and refined subordinated it. Textual scholarship within has its sources,cryptography corrected has increased them,Quellenkritik has interpreted them. Chronology hasprovided a newspinalcordon whichwe can re-connect vertebrae thedisjointed oftheremoter past. have given new depth and breadth. But Sociology,anthropology on an evermorescientific itself, base,remains history though resting itself too humana subject, too dependent on accident, in too variable evenof its recurrent to be safely theproportion features, predictable. in detail, and conditionally, We maypredict we havethemeans where be of comparison, and such limited or may scientifically, predictions at least empirically, testedand so justified and useful;but generally and absolutely there can be no prediction, onlya guess;anda guessis, in the strict sense,worthless. we maysaythat, to theevidence For instance, ofhistory, according ifthere is a severeeconomic in a multi-racial recession there society, will be acute inter-racial and we maysay,according to the tension, and ideologicaltendency social pattern of thetime,whatform that tensionwill take. We can use for this purpose the evidence of sixteenthand seventeenth-century be of Spain,whichwill,I believe, more valuethananypurely modern Butwe cannot sociological theory. the nextgeneration that,by the law of history, say unconditionally shallsee the end of the world,or a "timeoftroubles", or theriseof a new worldempire, or universal peace, or indeed,in thoseabsolute else. terms, anything shouldnotbe able,ideally, Whenpeopleask me whether historians to prophesy I ask thema simple question. Let them the future, at anydatein pasthistory and sayhonestly whether place themselves haveprophesied thecourseofthenextfifty anymancouldrationally have forecast the convulyears. In 19oo? Who could conceivably oftherecently sionsofEuropeor foreseen thetotaldissolution united German that Reich? In I950? Whowouldhavesupposed America, cult of isolationand its the liberator of Europe, withits inherited would become the very type of public hatred of imperialism, a longand bitter warin theFar East, and imperialist power,fighting would be denouncedin Asia, however thata Democratic President as "the new Hitler"? I do not believe that any such unjustly, wouldhave been possible. If it had been made,it would prophecy butan inspired havebeennotscientific guess. is alwayspossible,if the On the otherhand conditional prophecy we study and and the more conditions areclearly understood, history,

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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

II

its content its the morescientific becomes,and the morewe respect wecanprophesy. Jacob inthe Burckhardt's thebetter limits, prophecy, wouldbe pushedasideand a 1870sand i88os,thattheold monarchies wouldruleas terrible newraceofGewaltmenschen dictators, beginning was a rational,limitedprophecybased on perhapsin Germany,3 historical he saw thatthe new industrial understanding: power,if it wouldbe quitedifferent from theold,andthat itwas becamepolitical, mostlikely to takerootwhere was heaviest old and "liberal" industry Sir Halford forms Mackinder's weakest. Similarly before prophecy, WorldWar,thatthestruggle formastery in theworld thefirst would centre on EasternEuropeand thatTsaristRussiawouldbe thegreat was notinvalidated powerofthefuture,4 by thetotalruinof Tsarist in war, then in revolution. Nor would it have been Russia, first invalidated if Hitlerhad won his war. The essential condition was of the "Heartland". In fact,it was forthatHeartland the control thatHitlerand Stalinfought, and it was an ideological to war,fought thedeath,becausebothbelligerents knowthatthewinner, whichever he was,wouldbe thearbiter ofEurope. There are numerous such conditional laws of history: empirical ruleswhichcan be takenfrom a wide rangeof historical experience. to thepresent, noneofthemprovides Anyofthemmaybe applicable a certain formula forthepresent. For one saferuleofhistory is that situations neverexactlyrepeatthemselves: historical thereare too in each situation foridentical recurrence. manyvariableingredients Evenifthey fact ofrepetition is a newingredient shoulddo so,themere whichmayalterthemixture. I have often been asked,in the last twenty I could whether years, forecast an effective revivalof nazismin Germany. I have always answered, no; because I have neverbelievedthatthe old doctrines in theold form. They might couldrevive as a kindofdead survive, of themwould recur, hereand deposit,in ageingminds. Elements for some of the elementsare permanent there,in new situations: features of Germanhistory, and some are predictable responsesto recurrent social pressures. But the fusionof all theseelements in a particular was caused,in thepast,bytheparticular dynamic pattern of one generation, and even if all the same unrepeatable experience circumstances in thesameorder shouldrecur, is inconceivable) (which
3 Burckhardt's prophecies are in his letters to Friedrich von Preen. See Jacob Burckhardt,Briefe,ed. Felix Kaphahn (Leipzig, 1935), esp. pp. 348-9, 355-6, 484-7. presented in DemocraticIdeas and 4 Halford Mackinder's views were finally Reality (London, 1919); but theyhad been formulatedand expressed by him earlier.

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content would not be communicable, to the emotional unchanged, another for theidentical ofpressures andthesame generation: pattern intellectual climate would not recur. For this reason, the new whenit occurs, willoccurwithradicaldifferences. Indeed, fascism, cultof withsuch differences, it has already occurred. The arrogant the of the the intolerance nihilism, dissent, rejectionof youth, rational invocation offorce to justify counterthedeliberate argument, force- all thesehaverecently been resumed.5 But theyhave been resumed in classesand circumstances different from thoseofthe very the preciseform the new phenomenon, mayhelp us to understand in which they have been resumedcould not, I think, have been predicted. ofcircumstance, and of"intellectual This constant climate", change is what ofthepresent from thepast,in ourstudies, makes theseverance ofthepast,which seemso dangerous. History is theempirical study to it. Sociology thatarerelevant uses,or shoulduse,all thesciences is the study- its advocatescall it the scientific study:it is "social science" - of the present. Sociologyenteredhistorical studyin theeighteenth It has remained with within century, Montesquieu. its positionin it, ever since. Today, I cannot it, strengthening a sociological dimension. But if conceiveof good history without I believe, to to history, is no lessessential is essential history, sociology Unless are to be static. models tend they sociology. Sociological tested, dogmatic. But thetestofa modelis the theyare necessarily of as thetestofa caris thewayitruns;and therunning wayit works, the sociological modelis history. who is sometimes This, I suspect, by "social scientists" forgotten construct and admiretheirmodelsin the workshop onlyand do not of time. For test them by running themthrough the dimension models we see thattheyare not mechanical once theyare running, of theirown. a metabolism witha biology, only:theyare organisms, which to circumstances, evento thecircumstances they Theyrespond with it in other create. as "models", were, dialogue may Theyengage, and thoseothermodelschangetoo. The whichare also organisms, change,and it is the sum of thesechanges verydialoguegenerates whichis history.
5 Since deliveringthis lecture, I have seen an issue of The Beaver (5 Dec. 1968), described as "The newspaper of the London School of Economics Union"; and I can add that the obscene and vindictivejournalistic style of has also been Julius Streicher's notorious anti-semiticperiodical der Stiirmer resumed - though against other scapegoats.

I920s and 1930s; and although a knowledge of the original fascism

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Once,in 1950,I had a provocative experience. I was at a Congress in Berlin. It was the timeof the outbreak of the Korean War,and in isolated that were vulnerable, feelings city, running high. The Congresswas run by the AmericanC.I.A. As I sat there,one after roseto speak. All ofthemwere another distinguished speaker Marxist socialscientists in their intellectual formation, original though into reverse. They now by now they had put their convictions declared thatcommunist and western wereimmutable society society witheach other, and thatone must models,absolutely incompatible the other:therewas no alternative. Therefore, he who was destroy not forus was necessarily againstus in the holywar. As I listened to those remorseless speeches,historical analogiescoursedthrough a verydifferent lesson. I saw myhead, and I saw, in past history, a succession of supposedly forms of society, sometimes incompatible indeedengaged in mutually destructive but sometimes crusades, also, behindtheirheavily fortified witheach other in frontiers, competing less violentmanner:out-manoeuvring each other,borrowing from from each other, each other, witheach learning changing by contact witha changeofgenerations, thecrusading other, until, (which spirit was theproduct ofa particular had evaporated, and the conjuncture) crusade beenhappily nowseemedunnecessary. itself, avoided, having In orderto expoundmytheme, I madeseveralattempts to catchthe chairman's were nevernoticed; so eye, but somehowmy attempts I camehomeand wrote a short historical article I hope, whichtoday, reads slightlybetterthan those crusadingspeeches. It was an article on theco-existence of Christendom and theTurkish Empire ; but it could equallyhave been on othersuch ideologicalconfrontations. For instance, there is theideological confrontation of Reformation and Counter-Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe. It is easy to construct abstract modelsof Protestant and Catholic and societies, them,to use themas permanent havingconstructed concepts. But such modelshavetheir value,and at one particular although time,or in one particular be true,we mustalwaysremember even place,may that they are abstractions, not realities: the historicalrealityis misledby theseabstractions, constantly changing. Some historians, overlook thecontinual whichcausedthebalancebetween the change, two societies to oscillate. Protestant or Marxisthistorians overlook the inhibitingideological reaction in "reformed"societies and ofone periodwas necessarily, supposethattheintellectual supremacy as part of the system,continuedto another. Catholic historians
6 Reprinted in

my HistoricalEssays (London, 1957), PP. 173-8.

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fromthe temporary of the Countersimilarly generalize triumphs Reformation.But in fact intellectualor spiritualor economic did notspring from the"model",as applied. superiority automatically was in constant The reality processof adaptation. The veryfactof - just as capitalist theprocessof adaptation quickened competition and communist havetransformed themselves outofrecognition society in the last a their by competition forty years. Only bigotofdoctrine can fail,or refuse, to recognize thatreason this;and it is no doubtfor incommunist countries hasbeenmadeto standstill that, today, history of Englandis permanently and the social condition illustrated from "model" suppliedbythenovelsofCharlesDickens. thefossilized This debatebetween and "social between pastand present, history is notnew. It has an old ancestry.It is thedebatebetween science", between Machiavelliand the Churchesin the sixteenth century, and Hobbesin theseventeenth, Clarendon between Macaulayand the utilitarians in thenineteenth. Clarendon accusedHobbes of seeking oftaking to imposeabstract, modelson society instead "geometrical" lessons oftheempirical ofhistory; andheurged him, advantage though and sitin now at theadvancedage ofeighty-eight, to go intopolitics and thereby correct the illusionsbred by "his solitary parliament, and to how his too peremptory cogitations, deep soever, adhering somephilosophical and evenrulesofgeometry".' Macaulay notions, even morerudelyexcoriated the mean and abject "sophisms",the thescholastic deductions ofJames that Mill,theillusion "syllogisms", "the scienceof government" could be derived"by shortsynthetical drawnfromself-evident axioms about human nature. arguments" He extolled instead the empiricalstudy of historywhose best exponents,he too, like Clarendon,insisted,had been practical of course,Whig politicians.8Much the politicians- especially, same point was put, in terserform,by Mr. QuintinHogg to an who had the misfortune to meet him, a few academic sociologist on television. Both Clarendon and months Macaulay,it must ago, be admitted,in their more extended arguments,made some - which,since I am on theirside, I shall leave decently mistakes unexposed; for they were not fundamental: they do not affect the generalargument. Instead, I shall conclude by askinghow in such a way that, we can followtheiradvice and studyhistory extreme of we can the course into without Parliament, adopting going
and 7 Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, A Brief View of the Dangerous Pernicious Errors... in Mr. Hobbes' bookentitled Leviathan (Oxford, 1676). Mill's Essay 8 Macaulay's views on Mill are expressedin his essays reviewing in on Government (1829) and Sir James Mackintosh's Historyof the Revolution England (1835).

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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

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of Mr. fromit in the presentand so avoid the reproaches profit Short. I believe that there are at least two golden rules which wouldsometimes havebeen welladvisedto follow. Macaulayhimself or seekto extract from thepace of history First,we mustnotforce it morepreciselessonsthanit will yield. The veryvalue of history itssuggestions and analogies, liesin itsgeneral itscomplexity, lessons, natureof its parallels,not in concrete and the highlyconditional lessons or dogmaticconclusions. I know that people want such and whenhistorians willnotgivethem such conclusions, conclusions, turn aside to the more in their disappointment, they sometimes, morehelpful)assurancesof the social positive(but not necessarily scientists. But I insist that such precise conclusionsare not or valuable. All thegreatest to historians haverefused warrantable, and thosewho havecomplied withthepublicdemand producethem, are quickly out ofdate. The great historians them, by producing an not The Ranke do Gibbon, Thucydides, press interpretation. in concessions thattheymaketo thepublicarein form only:in style, in readability. They do not spell out crudelessonswhich lucidity, can be neatlytabulatedfor busy readersby obligingepitomists. students who Therefore theyare notalways popularwiththosehasty wish to have theirhistorical served up to them in a philosophy nutshell. The philosophyof the greatesthistorianscannot be quicklysummarized. It is not crude. It is subtle; and in a long workit mustbe allowedgradually to emerge. I believe, ofthepast. we must, theindependence Secondly, respect All ofus,living in ourowntime, tendto seethepaston ourownterms. in past centuries, familiar familiar We like to recognize, problems, faces: to see men looking towardsus, not away fromus. But this tendency, though natural,containsgreat dangers. It is right,I to ourown to lookforlessonsin thepast,to see itsrelevance believe, to observe thesignsofcontinuity, connection andprocess. The time, past is not to be studied for its own sake. That is mere antito judge the past as distorting, quarianism. But it is anachronistic, as ifthemenoftheeighteenth or the ifit weresubjectto thepresent, of the to be independent or the tenthcentury had no right sixteenth twentieth. We existin and forour owntime: whyshouldwe judge our predecessors as iftheywereless self-sufficient: as iftheyexisted for us and should be judged by us? Everyage has its own social its own intellectual as we and takesit forgranted, context, climate, take ours. Because it was taken for granted, it is not explicitly of the time: it has to be deduced and expressedin the documents reconstructed.It also deserves of respect. This is whatthegreatest

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PAST AND PRESENT

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historians, nineteenth-century Leopold von Ranke,meantwhen he to God", and implicitly blamed wrotethatevery age was "immediate ofthepresent thetribunal Macaulayforarraigning pastagesbefore of mid-nineteenth now the which has thebrief century, present passed a verypartialtribunal.9 To and may seem to us, in retrospect, climate ofthepast is one ofthemostdifficult discern theintellectual but it is also one of the mostnecessary. To tasksof the historian, it - to use terms like "rational","superstitious", "progresneglect as ifonly wasrational ourrules which that sive","reactionary", obeyed to us - is worsethan whichpointed ofreason,onlythatprogressive wrong:it is vulgar. I believethatwhilewe mustalways history, Finally,in studying and variety, we mustalwaysstudyone partofit its extent appreciate in detail. To study a front us ofthechanceof on toonarrow deprives is not studyat all. We cannot analogy;but to studytoo generally all the time,or we shall nevercome up below the surface penetrate and compare. But if forair,neverrise above the subjectto survey below the surface, we shall fall we do not,at some point,penetrate error. We shallbe obligedto takeall ourevidence intotheopposite the at second-handand shall end by believing,withouttesting, of our time or place. Every age has its fashionable orthodoxy is ever right. It is changed,in due and no orthodoxy orthodoxy it is, witha course,by those who approachthe subject,whatever of mind. But those above certain all, and, humility independence needmaterial on which to work, and thatmaterial, in intellectual gifts is must be raw material. In other words,the historian history, in he mustlive somepartof his timebelowthesurface amphibious: it from above. The on emerging, orderthat, he can usefully survey historian who has specializedall his lifemayend as an antiquarian. who has neverspecializedat all will end as a mere The historian at leastis usefulto others. blowerof froth. The antiquarian forhowever a space,on short I wouldhaveall historians specialize, - forthere can areat home:they ownhistory somepartoftheir they read the sourcesin theirown language. This will preventthem and fromtoo easy generalization by showingupon whatuncertain receivedopinionsare oftenbased. But foundations controversial of other having done this, I would have them read the history willthendo so witha doubleadvantage. thatthey countries, knowing willknowhowto ownhistory oftheir Fromtheir they study specialist notpenetrated where on have reserve they history judgment general
1 Ranke's implied criticismof Macaulay is in his Historyof England (Engl. transl.,Oxford,1875), iv, P. 364.

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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

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thus so deeply; and fromtheirgeneralstudy of foreign history, method whichwillprevent theywilllearnthatcomparative qualified, causation: too readily of historical one formula themfrom accepting ortrades from thatparliamentary (forinstance) democracy, assuming or anycatchwords, are theonlywayof or liberalcatchwords, unions, ofthepast salvation. Bythisdoubleprocess they maymakethestudy not onlyinteresting but useful. It will not proveto be a science. It will produceno ready-made answers. It willnot enablethemto prophesy. But it will enlargetheirviews. It maybringindepento understand, andby denceofjudgment. Andso itmayenablethem to improve, thepresent. understanding H. R. Trevor-Roper OrielCollege, Oxford

ANNUAL CONFERENCE of thePast and PresentSocietywill The AnnualConference be held in London on 9-Io July1969. The subjectwill be see the For further The SenseofthePast and History. details, particulars given under "Notes and Comments"or on the Form enclosed in this issue of the journal Registration (Furthercopies are obtainableon requestfromthe Editor, Past and Present, College,Oxford.) CorpusChristi

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