historians did, it is true, find statements and narratives of other men ready to hand. One person
cannot be an eye and ear witness of everything. But they make use of such aids only as the poet
does of that heritage of an already-formed language, to which he owes so much; merely as an
ingredient. Historiographers bind together the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up for
immortality in the Temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, Ballad-stories, Traditions must be excluded
from such original history. These are but dim and hazy forms of historical apprehension, and
therefore belong to nations whose intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary, we
have to do with people fully conscious of what they were and what they were about. The domain
of reality — actually seen, or capable of being so — affords a very different basis in point of
firmness from that fugitive and shadowy element, in which were engendered those legends and
poetic dreams whose historical prestige vanishes, as soon as nations have attained a mature
individuality.
§ 2
Such original historians, then, change the events, the deeds and the states of society with which
they are conversant, into an object for the conceptive faculty. The narratives they leave us cannot,
therefore, be very comprehensive in their range. Herodotus, Thucydides, Guieciardini, may be
taken as fair samples of the class in this respect. What is present and living in their environment, is
their proper material. The influences that have formed the writer are identical with those which
have moulded the events that constitute the matter of his story. The author's spirit, and that of the
actions he narrates, is one and the same. He describes scenes in which he himself has been an
actor, or at any rate an interested spectator. It is short periods of time, individual shapes of
persons and occurrences, single unreflected traits, of which be makes his picture. And his aim is
nothing more than the presentation to posterity of an image of events as clear as that which be
himself possessed in virtue of personal observation, or life-like descriptions. Reflections are none
of his business, for he lives in the spirit of his subject; he has not attained an elevation above it. If,
as in Caesar's case, he belongs to the exalted rank of generals or statesmen, it is the prosecution
of his own aims that constitutes the history.
§ 3
Such speeches as we find in Thucydides (for example) of which we can positively assert that they
are not bona fide reports, would seem to make against our statement that a historian of his class
presents us no reflected picture; that persons and people appear in his works in propria persona.
Speeches, it must be allowed, are veritable transactions in the human commonwealth; in fact, very
gravely influential transactions. It is, indeed, often said, "Such and such things are only talk"; by
way of demonstrating their harmlessness. That for which this excuse is brought, may be mere
"talk"; and talk enjoys the important privilege of being harmless. But addresses of peoples to
peoples, or orations directed to nations and to princes, are integrant constituents of history.
Granted such orations as those of Pericles — the most profoundly accomplished, genuine, noble
statesman — were elaborated by Thucydides; it must yet be maintained that they were not foreign
to the character of the speaker. In the oration in question, these men proclaim the maxims adopted
by their countrymen, and which formed their own character; they record their views of their
political relations, and of their moral and spiritual nature; and the principle of their designs and
conduct. What the historian puts into their mouths is no supposititious system of ideas, but an
uncorrupted transcript of their intellectual and moral habitudes.
§ 4
Of these historians, whom we must make thoroughly our own, with whom we must linger long, if
we would live with their respective nations, and enter deeply into their spirit: of these historians, to
whose pages we may turn not for the purpose of erudition merely, but with a view to deep and
genuine enjoyment, there are fewer than might be imagined. Herodotus the Father, i.e. the
Founder of History and Thucydides have been already mentioned. Xenophon's Retreat of the
Ten Thousand is a work equally original. Caesar's Commentaries are the simple masterpiece of
a mighty spirit. Among the ancients, these annalists were necessarily great captains and statesmen.
In the Middle Ages, if we except the Bishops, who were placed in the very centre of the political
world, the Monks monopolise this category as naive chroniclers who were as decidedly isolated
from active life as those elder annalists had been connected with it. In modern times the relations
are entirely altered. Our culture is essentially comprehensive and immediately changes all events
into historical representations. Belonging to the class in question, we have vivid, simple, clear
narrations — especially of military transactions — which might fairly take their place with those of
Caesar. In richness of matter and fullness of detail as regards strategic appliances, and attendant
circumstances, they are even more instructive. The French "Memoires" also fall under this
category. In many cases these are written by men of mark, though relating to affairs of little note.
They not unfrequently contain a large proportion of anecdotal matter, so that the ground they
occupy is narrow and trivial. Yet they are often veritable masterpieces in history; as those of
Cardinal Retz, which in fact trench on a larger historical field. In Germany such masters are rare.
Frederick the Great (Histoire de mon temps) is an illustrious exception. Writers of this order
must occupy an elevated position. Only from such a position is it possible to take an extensive
view of affairs — to see everything. This is out of the question for him, who from below merely
gets a glimpse of the great world through a miserable cranny.
II. Reflective History
1. Universal History - 2. Pragmatical History - 3. Critical History
§ 5
The second kind of history we may call the reflective. It is history whose mode of representation
is not really confined by the limits of the time to which it relates, but whose spirit transcends the
present. In this second order strongly marked variety of species may be distinguished.
1. Universal History
§ 6
It is the aim of the investigator to gain a view of the entire history of a people or a country, or of
the world, in short, what we call Universal History. In this case the working up of the historical
material is the main point. The workman approaches his task with his own spirit; a spirit distinct
from that of the element he is to manipulate. Here a very important consideration will be the
principles to which the author refers, the bearing and motives of the actions and events which he
describes, and those which determine the form of his narrative. Among us Germans this reflective
treatment and the display of ingenuity which it occasions, assume a manifold variety of phases.
Every writer of history proposes to himself an original method. The English and French confess to
general principles of historical composition. Their standpoint is more that of cosmopolitan or of
national culture. Among us each labours to invent a purely individual point of view. Instead of
writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to be written. This
first kind of Reflective History is most nearly akin to the preceding, when it has no farther aim than
to present the annals of a country complete. Such compilations (among which may be reckoned
the works of Livy, Diodorus Siculus, Johannes von Müller's History of Switzerland) are, if well
performed, highly meritorious. Among the best of the kind may be reckoned such annalist as
approach those of the first class; who give so vivid a transcript of events that the reader may well
fancy himself listening to contemporaries and eye-witnesses. But it often happens that the
individuality of tone which must characterise a writer belonging to a different culture, is not
modified in accordance with the periods such a record must traverse. The spirit of the writer is
quite other than that of the times of which he treats. Thus Livy puts into the mouths of the old
Roman kings, consuls, and generals, such orations as would be delivered by an accomplished
advocate of the Livian era, and which strikingly contrast with the genuine traditions of Roman
antiquity (e.g. the fable of Menenius Agrippa). In the same way he gives us descriptions of battles,
as if he bad been an actual spectator; but whose features would serve well enough for battles in
any period, and whose distinctness contrasts on the other hand with the want of connection and
the inconsistency that prevail elsewhere, even in his treatment of chief points of interest. The
difference between such a compiler and an original historian may be best seen by comparing
Polybius himself with the style in which Livy uses, expands, and abridges his annals in those
period; of which Polybius's account has been preserved. Johann von Müller has given a stiff,
formal, pedantic aspect of history, in the endeavour to remain faithful in his portraiture to the times
he describes. We much prefer the narratives we find in old Tschudy. All is more naive and natural
than it appears in the garb of a fictitious and affected archaism.
§ 7
A history which aspires to traverse long periods of time, or to be universal, must indeed forego the
attempt to give individual representations of the past as it actually existed. It must foreshorten its
pictures by abstractions; and this includes not merely the omission of events and deeds, but
whatever is involved in the fact that Thought is, after all, the most trenchant epitomist. A battle, a
great victory, a siege, no longer maintains its original proportions, but is put off with a bare
mention. When Livy e.g. tells us of the wars with the Volsci, we sometimes have the brief
announcement: “This year war was carried on with the Volsci.”
2. Pragmatical History
§ 8
A second species of Reflective History is what we may call the Pragmatical. When we have to
deal with the Past, and occupy ourselves with a remote world a Present rises into being for the
mind - produced by its own activity, as the reward of its labour. The occurrences are, indeed,
various; but the idea which pervades them - their deeper import and connection - is one. This
takes the occurrence out of the category of the Past and makes it virtually Present. Pragmatical
(didactic) reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the
Present, and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the life of today. Whether, indeed such
reflections are truly interesting and enlivening, depends on the writer's own spirit. Moral reflections
must here be specially noticed, - the moral teaching expected from history; which latter has not
unfrequently been treated with a direct view to the former. It may be allowed that examples of
virtue elevate the soul, and are applicable in the moral instructions of children for impressing
excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples and states, their interests, relations, and
the complicated issue of their affairs, present quite another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are
wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what
experience and history teach is this, - that peoples and governments never have learned anything
from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar
circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be
regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great
events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past.
The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom of the Present. Looked at in
this light, nothing can be shallower than the oft-repeated appeal to Greek and Roman examples
during the French Revolution. Nothing is more diverse than the genius of those nations and that of
our times. Johannes v. Müller, in his Universal History as also in his History of Switzerland, had
such moral aims in view. He designed to prepare a body of political doctrines for the instruction of
princes, governments and peoples (he formed a special collection of doctrines and reflections, -
frequently giving us in his correspondence the exact number of apophthegms which he had
compiled in a week); but he cannot reckon this part of his labour as among the best that he
accomplished. It is only a thorough, liberal, comprehensive view of historical relations (such e.g. as
we find in Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix), that can give truth and interest to reflections of this
order. One Reflective History therefore supersedes another. The materials are patent to every
writer: each is likely enough to believe himself capable of arranging and manipulating them; and we
may expect that each will insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question. Disgusted by
such reflective histories readers have often returned to a with pleasure to a narrative adopting no
particular point of view. These certainly have their value; but for the most part they offer only
material for history. We Germans are not content with such. The French, on the other hand,
display great genius in reanimating bygone times, and in bringing the past to bear upon the present
conditions of things.
3. Critical History
§ 9
The third form of Reflective History is the Critical. This deserves mention as pre-eminently the
mode of treating history, now current in Germany. It is not history itself that is here presented. We
might more properly designate it as a History of History; a criticism of historical narratives and an
