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Epilogue 2 Chapter 4

SINCE HISTORY has abandoned the views of the ancients as to the divine subjection of the will of a people to one chosen vessel, and the subjection of the will of that chosen vessel to the Deity, it cannot take a single step without encountering contradictions. It must choose one of two alternatives: either to return to its old faith in the direct intervention of the Deity in the affairs of humanity; or to find a definite explanation of that force producing historical events that is called power.

To return to the old way is out of the question: the old faith is shattered, and so an explanation must be found of the meaning of power.

Napoleon commanded an army to be raised, and to march out to war. This conception is so familiar to us, we are so accustomed to this idea that the question why six hundred thousand men go out to fight when Napoleon utters certain words seems meaningless to us. He had the power, and so the commands he gave were carried out.

This answer is completely satisfactory if we believe that power has been given him from God. But as soon as we do not accept that, it is essential to define what this power is of one man over others.

This power cannot be that direct power of the physical ascendency of a strong creature over a weak one, that ascendency based on the application or the threat of the application of physical force—like the power of Hercules. Nor can it be based on the ascendency of moral force, as in the simplicity of their hearts several historians suppose, maintaining that the leading historical figures are heroes—that is, men endowed with a special force of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on the ascendency of moral force; for, to say nothing of historical heroes, like Napoleon, concerning whose moral qualities opinions greatly differ, history proves to us that neither Louis XI. nor Metternich, who governed millions of men, had any marked characteristics of moral force, but that they were, on the contrary, in most respects morally weaker than any one of the millions of men they governed.

If the source of power lies not in the physical and not in the moral characteristics of the person possessing it, it is evident that the source of this power must be found outside the person—in those relations in which the person possessing the power stands to the masses.

That is precisely how power is interpreted by the science of law, that cash bank of history, that undertakes to change the historical token money of power for sterling gold.

Power is the combined wills of the masses, transferred by their expressed or tacit consent to the rulers chosen by the masses.

In the domain of the science of law, made up of arguments on how a state and power ought to be constructed, if it were possible to construct it, all this is very clear; but in its application to history this definition of power calls for elucidation.

The science of law regards the state and power, as the ancients regarded fire, as something positively existing. But for history the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for the physical science of today fire is not an element, but a phenomenon.

From this fundamental difference in the point of view of history and of the science of law, it comes to pass that the science of law can discuss in detail how in the scientific writer's opinion power should be organised, and what is power, existing immovable outside the conditions of time; but to historical questions as to the significance of power, undergoing visible transformation in time, it can give no answer.

If power is the combined will of the masses transferred to their rulers, is Pugatchov a representative of the will of the masses? If he is not, how then is Napoleon I. such a representative? Why is it that Napoleon III., when he was seized at Boulogne, was a criminal, and afterwards those who had been seized by him were criminals?

In palace revolutions—in which sometimes two or three persons only take part—is the will of the masses transferred to a new person? In international relations, is the will of the masses of the people transferred to their conqueror? In 1808 was the will of the Rhine Alliance league transferred to Napoleon? Was the will of the mass of the Russian people transferred to Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French made war upon Austria?

These questions may be answered in three ways: (1) By maintaining that the will of the masses is always unconditionally delegated over to that ruler or those rulers whom they have chosen, and that consequently every rising up of new power, every struggle against the power once delegated, must be regarded as a contravention of the real power.

Or (2) by maintaining that the will of the masses is delegated to the rulers, under certain definite conditions, and by showing that all restrictions on, conflicts with, and even abolition of power are due to non-observance of the rulers of those conditions upon which power was delegated to them.

Or (3) by maintaining that the will of the masses is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but that the conditions are uncertain and undefined, and that the rising up of several authorities, and their conflict and fall, are due only to the more or less complete fulfilment of the rulers of the uncertain conditions upon which the will of the masses is transferred from one set of persons to another.

In these three ways do historians explain the relation of the masses to their rulers.

Some historians—those most distinctively biographers and writers of memoirs, of whom we have spoken above—failing in the simplicity of their hearts to understand the question as to the meaning of power, seem to believe that the combined will of the masses is delegated to historical leaders unconditionally, and therefore, describing any such authority, these historians assume that that authority is the one absolute and real one, and that every other force, opposing that real authority, is not authority, but a violation of authority, and unlawful violence.

Their theory fits in well with primitive and peaceful periods of history; but in its application to complicated and stormy periods in the life of nations, when several different authorities rise up simultaneously and struggle together, the inconvenience arises that the legitimist historian will assert that the National Assembly, the Directorate, and Bonaparte were only violations of real authority; while the Republican and the Bonapartist will maintain, one that the Republic, and the other that the Empire were the real authority, and that all the rest was a violation of authority. It is evident that the explanations given by these historians being mutually contradictory, can satisfy none but children of the tenderest age.

Recognising the deceptiveness of this view of history, another class of historians assert that authority rests on the conditional delegation of the combined will of the masses to their rulers, and that historical leaders possess power only on condition of carrying out the programme which the will of the people has by tacit consent dictated to them. But what this programme consists of, those historians do not tell us, or if they do, they continually contradict one another.

In accordance with his view of what constitutes the goal of the movements of a people, each historian conceives of this programme, as, for instance, the greatness, the wealth, the freedom, or the enlightenment of the citizens of France or some other kingdom. But putting aside the contradictions between historians as to the nature of such a programme, and even supposing that one general programme to exist for all, the facts of history almost always contradict this theory.

If the conditions on which power is vested in rulers are to be found in the wealth, freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that kings like Louis XIV. and John IV. lived out their reigns in peace, while kings like Louis XVI. and Charles I. were put to death by their peoples? To this question these historians reply, that the effect of the actions of Louis XIV. contrary to the programme were reacted upon Louis XVI. But why not reflected on Louis XIV. and Louis XV.? Why precisely on Louis XVI.? And what limit is there to such reflection? To these questions there is and can be no reply. Nor does this view explain the reason that the combined will of a people remains for several centuries vested in its rulers and their heirs, and then all at once during a period of fifty years is transferred to a Convention, a Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII., again to Napoleon, to Charles X., to Louis Philippe, to a republican government, and to Napoleon III. To explain these rapid transferences of the people's will from one person to another, especially when complicated by international relations, wars, and alliances, these historians are unwillingly obliged to allow that a proportion of these phenomena are not normal transferences of the will of the people, but casual incidents, depending on the cunning, or the blundering, or the craft, or the weakness of a diplomatist or a monarch, or the leader of a party. So that the greater number of the phenomena of history—civil wars, revolutions, wars—are regarded by these historians as not being produced by the delegation of the free-will of the people, but as being produced by the wrongly directed will of one or several persons, that is, again by a violation of authority. And so by this class of historians, too, historical events are conceived of as exceptions to their theory.

These historians are like a botanist who, observing that several plants grow by their seed parting into two cotyledons, or seed-leaves, should insist that everything that grows only grows by parting into two leaves; and that the palm-tree and the mushroom, and even the oak, when it spreads its branches in all directions in its mature growth, and has lost all semblance to its two seed-leaves, are departures from their theory of the true law of growth. A third class of historians admit that the will of the masses is vested in historical leaders conditionally, but say that those conditions are not known to us. They maintain that historical leaders have power only because they are carrying out the will of the masses delegated to them.

But in that case, if the force moving the peoples lies not in their historical leaders, but in the peoples themselves, where is the significance of those historical leaders?

Historical leaders are, so those historians tell us, the self-expression of the will of the masses; the activity of the historical leaders serves as a type of the activity of the masses.

But in that case the question arises, Does all the activity of historical leaders serve as an expression of the will of the masses, or only a certain side of it? If all the life-activity of historical leaders serves as an expression of the will of the masses, as some indeed believe, then the biographies of Napoleons and Catherines, with all the details of court scandal, serve as the expression of the life of their peoples, which is an obvious absurdity. If only one side of the activity of an historical leader serves as the expression of the life of a people, as other supposed philosophical historians believe, then to define what side of the activity of an historical leader does express the life of a people, one must know first what the life of the people consists of.

Being confronted with this difficulty, historians of this class invent the most obscure, intangible, and general abstraction, under which to class the greatest possible number of events, and declare that in this abstraction is to be found the aim of the movements of humanity. The most usual abstractions accepted by almost all historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress, civilisation, culture. Postulating some such abstraction as the goal of the movements of humanity, the historians study those persons who have left the greatest number of memorials behind them—kings, ministers, generals, writers, reformers, popes, and journalists—from the point of view of the effect those persons in their opinion had in promoting or hindering that abstraction. But as it is nowhere proven that the goal of humanity really is freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilisation, and as the connection of the masses with their rulers and with the leaders of humanity only rests on the arbitrary assumption that the combined will of the masses is always vested in these figures which attract our attention—the fact remains that the activity of the millions of men who move from place to place, burn houses, abandon tilling the soil, and butcher one another, never does find expression in descriptions of the activity of some dozen persons, who do not burn houses, never have tilled the soil, and do not kill their fellow-creatures.

History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the west towards the end of last century, and their rush to the east, explained by the activity of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Louis XVI., or their mistresses and ministers, or by the life of Napoleon, of Rousseau, of Diderot, of Beaumarchais, and others?

The movement of the Russian people to the east, to Kazan and Siberia, is that expressed in the details of the morbid life of John IV. and his correspondence with Kurbsky?

Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by the life and activity of certain Godfreys and Louis' and their ladies?

It has remained beyond our comprehension, that movement of the peoples from west to east, without an object, without leadership, with a crowd of tramps following Peter the Hermit. And even more incomprehensible is the cessation of that movement, when a rational and holy object for the expeditions had been clearly set up by historical leaders—that is, the deliverance of Jerusalem.

Popes, kings, and knights urged the people to set free the Holy Land. But the people did not move, because that unknown cause, which had impelled them before to movement, existed no longer. The history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers evidently cannot be regarded as an epitome of the life of the peoples. And the history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of those knights and those Minnesingers, while the history of the life of the peoples and their impulses has remained unknown.

Even less explanatory of the life of the peoples is the history of the lives of writers and reformers.

The history of culture offers us as the impelling motives of the life of the people the circumstances of the lives or the ideas of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had a hasty temper and uttered certain speeches; we learn that Rousseau was distrustful and wrote certain books; but we do not learn what made the nations cut each other to pieces after the Reformation, or why men guillotined each other during the French Revolution.

If we unite both these kinds of history together, as do the most modern historians, then we shall get histories of monarchs and of writers, but not a history of the life of nations.


如果否定旧的观点,即否定一个民族的意志服从一个由神选出来的人,而那个人的意志又是服从神的,那么历史就得从下列两件事中选择其一:或者恢复神直接干预人类事务的旧信仰,或者明确地阐明产生历史事件的、所谓权力的力量的涵义,否则历史每走一步都要发生矛盾。

回到第一种说法是不可能的,因为旧信仰已经被破除了;

所以必须说明权力的涵义。

拿破仑下令召集军队去作战。我们对这种看法是这么习以为常,对这种看法是这么熟悉,以致于为什么拿破仑一发出命令六十万人就去作战,这样的问题就毫无意义了。他有权力,所以就照他的命令办。

假如我们相信权力是上帝赋予他的,这个答案就令人十分满意了。但是我们若是不承认这一点,那就得断定一个人统治别的人们的这种权力是什么。

这种权力不可能是一个强者对一个弱者在体力上占有优势的那种直接的权力——运用体力或以体力相威胁的那种优势,例如赫拉克勒斯①的权力;它也不可能建立在精神上的优势,犹如一些历史家的幼稚的想法,他们说,历史上的大人物都是英雄,即赋有特殊精神和智慧,以及赋有所谓天才的人们。这种权力不可能建立在精神的优势上,因为,暂且不提拿破仑之流的英雄人物,关于这类人物的道德品质的评价众说纷纭,历史向我们表明,统治千百万人的路易十一和梅特涅在精神上都没有任何特殊的优势,相反,他们多半在精神上比他们所统治的千百万人中的任何一人都差得多。

①赫拉克勒斯是希腊神话中的大力士。


假如权力的源泉既不在于拥有权力的人固有的体力,也不在于他的道德品质,那末很明显,这种权力的源泉一定在人的身外,在掌握权力的人同群众的关系中。

法学对权力的理解就是如此,法学这个历史的货币兑换处,允诺对权力的历史理解兑换成纯金。

权力是群众意志的总和,群众或以赞同的言语或以默许把意志交给他们所选出的统治者。

在法学领域里,在论述国家和政权应该妥善地建设(假如可以妥善地建设)时,这一切都是十分明白的;不过,在应用到历史上的时候,这个权力的定义就需要加以说明了。

法学对待国家和权力,好像古代人对火一样——看作一种绝对存在的东西。但是,就历史来看,国家和权力只是一种现象,正如就现代物理学来看,火不是一种化学元素,而是一种现象。

由于历史与法学在观点上有这种根本的差别,法学虽然可以按照自己的意见详细说明,权力应当怎样构成,以及不受时间限制的权力是什么,但是对于历史所提出的随着时间的推移而变化着的权力的意义问题,它根本解答不了。

假如权力是移交给统治者的群众意志的总和,那末,布加乔夫是不是群众意志的代表?假如不是,那么为什么拿破仑一世是代表呢?为什么拿破仑三世在布伦被俘的时候是一个罪犯,后来被他拘捕起来的那些人又成了罪犯呢?①

①拿破仑三世曾三次夺取帝位,前两次都失败了,第三次成功了。


有时只有两三个人参与的宫廷政变也是把群众意志移交给一个新的统治者吗?在国际关系中,也是把一个民族的群众意志移交给征服者吗?莱茵联邦的意志在一八○八年移交给拿破仑了吗?一八○九年,当我们的军队联合法国人去打奥国人的时候,俄国人民的意志移交给拿破仑了吗?

对这些问题可能有三种答案:

一、或者承认,群众的意志总是无条件地移交给他们选定的统治者或统治者们,因此,任何新权力的出现,任何反对既经移交的权力的斗争,都应视为对真正权力的破坏行径。

二、或者承认,群众的意志是在明确的众所周知的条件下移交给统治者们的,并且指出,对权力的种种限制、冲撞、以至摧毁,都是由统治者们不恪守移交权力的条件造成的。

三、或者承认,群众的意志是在不确定、不为人知的条件下移交给统治者的,承认许多政权的兴亡,它们之间的斗争,是因为统治者或多或少满足了群众意志,由一些人转给另一些人的不为人知的条件。

这就是史学家对群众与统治者的关系的三种解释。

一些史学家,就是上面提到的那些传记作者和专题史学家,不了解权力的意义这个问题,他们幼稚地认为,似乎群众意志的总和是无条件地移交给历史人物的,因此,在记述某一种权力的时候,这些史学家就把这种权力视为唯一的、绝对的、真正的权力,任何反对这种权力的势力都不是权力,而是对权力的一种侵犯、一种暴力。

他们的理论只适用于原始的、和平的历史时期,而当各民族处在复杂而动乱的时期,各种权力同时并起,互相斗争,他们的理论就不适用了,因为正统派的史学家将会证明,国民议会,执政内阁和波拿巴都不过是真正权力的侵犯者,而共和派将会证明,国民议会是真正的政权,波拿巴派将会证明帝国是真正的政权,其他一切都是权力的侵犯者。显然,这些史学家所提供的各执一词的解释,只能讲给小孩子听听罢了。

另一派史学家认识到这种历史观的错误,他们说权力的基础是有条件地移交给统治者的群众意志的总和,历史人物只有在执行人民意志向他们默许的政纲的条件下才有权力。但是这些条件是什么呢?这些史学家没有告诉我们,即或告诉了,他们说的话也总是互相矛盾的。

每一个史学家,根据他对民族运动目的的看法,认为法国或别国的公民的伟大、财富、自由,或教育就是这些条件。但是姑且不说史学家对这些条件的看法互相矛盾,就算有这样一个包括这些条件的共同纲领,历史事实也几乎总与那种理论相矛盾。如果移交权力的条件在于人民的财富、自由和教育,为什么路易十四和伊凡四世能在王位上太平无事,得到善终,而路易十六和查理一世却被人民送上断头台?史学家回答这个问题说,路易十四违反政纲的行动在路易十六身上得到了报应。但是为什么不在路易十四或路易十五身上得到报应呢?为什么刚好在路易十六身上得到报应呢?这种报应的期限有多长呢?这些问题得不到答案,也不能得到答案。持有这种见解的人不能解释,为什么那意志的总和一连几个世纪掌握在某些统治者及其继承人的手里,然后突然在五十年间就移交给国民议会,移交给执政内阁,移交给拿破仑,移交给亚历山大,移交给路易十八,再度移交给拿破仑,移交给查理十世,移交给路易·菲力普,移交给共和政府,移交给拿破仑三世。在说明民众的意志这样迅速由一个人转移给另一个人,尤其是涉及国际关系、征服和联盟的时候,这些史学家只得承认,这些转移中,有一部分不是人民意志的正常的转移,而是与狡诈、错误、阴谋,或者与外交家、帝王、政党领袖的软弱无能分不开的偶然事件。因此,在这些史学家看来,大部分历史现象——内战、革命、征服——并非自由意志转移的结果,而是一个或几个人的错误意志转移的结果,也就是说,这又是对权力的摧毁。因此,在一些史学家看来,这类历史事件偏离了历史理论。

这些史学家就像那样的植物学家,他看见一些植物都是从双子叶的种子里生长出来的,便坚持说,一切植物都要长成两片叶子;而那些已经长大的棕榈、蘑菇,甚至橡树与两片叶子毫无相似之处,他就认为这些植物偏离了理论。

第三类史学家说,群众的意志有条件地移交给历史人物,但是我们不知道那些条件。他们说历史人物具有权力,只不过是因为他们履行了移交给他们的群众意志。

但是,这么说来,假如推动各民族的力量不掌握在历史人物手中,而掌握在各民族自己手中,那末这些历史人物还有什么价值呢?

这些史学家说,历史人物表达了群众的意志;历史人物的活动代表群众的活动。

但是,这么说来,就产生了一个问题:历史人物的全部活动都是群众意志的表现呢,还是只有一部分是群众意志的表现呢?假如像某些史学家所想的那样,历史人物的全部活动都是群众意志的体现,那么,拿破仑们、叶卡捷琳娜们的传记中所有宫廷丑闻都成了民族生活的表现——这么说显然是十分荒谬的;但是,假如像另外一些假哲学家兼史学家所想的那样,只有历史人物的行动的某一方面是人民生活的表现,那么,为了断定历史人物的行动的哪一方面表现了人民的生活,我们首先必须知道民族生活的内容。

这类史学家在遇到这些困难的时候,便想提出一些可以适用于绝大多数事件的最模糊、最难捉摸、最笼统的抽象概念,然后说,这一抽象概念是人类活动的目标:几乎为所有史学家所采用的最普通的抽象概念是:自由、平等、教育、进步、文明、文化。史学家一面把某种抽象概念视为人类活动的目标,一面研究那些为自己留下为数最多纪念文物的人们——国王、大臣、将军、著作家、改革家、教皇、新闻记者的事迹,依照他们的意见,就是研究这些人物在多大程度上促进或阻碍某一抽象概念。但是,因为无法证明人类的目的是自由、平等、教育或文明,因为群众与统治者和人类启蒙者的关系完全建立在这种任意的假定上:群众意志的总和经常移交给我们认为出类拔萃的人物,所以在关于十个人不烧房子、不务农业、不杀害同类的人们的活动的记载中,永远见不到千百万人迁徙、烧房子、抛弃农业、互相残杀的活动。

历史一再证明这一点。十八世纪末西方各民族的骚动和他们的东进,能用路易十四、十五和十六、他们的情妇和大臣们的活动来说明吗?能用拿破仑、卢梭、狄德罗①、博马舍②和别的人们的生活来说明吗?

俄国人民东进到喀山和西伯利亚,在伊凡四世病态的性格的细节中和他同库尔布斯基③的通信中有所反映吗?

十字军东征时代各民族的移动,能用对哥弗雷④们、路易们和他们的情妇们的生活的研究来说明吗?那场没有任何目的、没有领袖、只是一群乌合之众和一个隐士彼得⑤的自西而东的民族运动,对我们来说,依旧是不可理解的。在历史人物们已经明确地给十字军定下一个合理的、神圣的目标——解放耶路撒冷的时候,而那次运动的中止尤其不可理解。教皇们、国王们和骑士们煽动人们去解放圣地;但是人们不去,因为先前推动他们前去的那个未知道的原因已经不复存在了。哥弗雷和抒情歌手们⑥的历史显然不能包涵各民族的生活。哥弗雷和抒情歌手们的历史依旧是哥弗雷和抒情歌手们的历史,而各民族的生活和他们的动机的历史依旧是未知的。

①狄德罗(1713~1784),法国启蒙思想家、唯心主义哲学家、文学家,《大百科全书》主编。

②博马舍(1712~1799),法国喜剧作家。

③安德烈·库尔布斯基公爵是伊凡四世手下的主要贵族之一。他逃亡立陶宛,从那里写信给伊凡,责备他的残酷、虚伪和专断。伊凡回信:“根据上帝的法则”为他自己辩护。

④哥弗雷是十七世纪末第一次十字军领袖。

⑤彼得是一名法国修道士,禁欲主义者,据传说,第一次十字军东征是由他鼓动起来的。

⑥抒情歌手出现于十二三世纪的德国,他们到处唱情歌,也唱十字军军歌。


著作家和改革家的历史更少向我们说明各民族的生活。

文化史向我们说明一个著作家或一个改革家的生活与思想动机和特点。我们知道,路德脾气急躁,说过如此这般的话;我们知道卢梭多疑,写过如此这般的书;但是我们不知道,宗教改革以后,各民族为何互相屠杀,也不知道,法国革命时期,人们为何彼此处以死刑。

假如把这两种历史结合起来,就像当代史学家们所做的那样,那么,我们所得到的将是帝王们和著作家们的历史,而不是各民族生活的历史。



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