When history is confounded with erudition and the methods of the one are unduly32 transferred to the other, and when the metaphorical33 distinction that has just been noted34 is taken in a literal sense, we are asked how it is possible to avoid going astray in the infinity of facts, and with what criterion it is possible to effect the separation of 'historical' facts from 'those that are not worthy of history.' But there is no fear of going astray in history, because, as we have seen, the problem is in every case prepared by life, and in every case the problem is solved by thought, which passes from the confusion of life to the distinctness of consciousness; a given problem with a given solution: a problem that generates other problems, but is never[Pg 111] a problem of choice between two or more facts, but on each occasion a creation of the unique fact, the fact thought. Choice does not appear in it, any more than in art, which passes from the obscurity of sentiment to the clearness of the representation, and is never embarrassed between the images to be chosen, because itself creates the image, the unity35 of the image.
By thus confounding two things, not only is an insoluble problem created, but the very distinction between facts that can and facts that cannot be neglected is also denaturalized and rendered void. This distinction is quite valid36 as regards erudition, for facts that can be neglected are always facts—that is to say, they are traces of facts, in the form of news, documents, and monuments, and for this reason one can understand how they can be looked upon as a class to be placed side by side with the other class of facts that cannot be neglected. But non-historical facts—that is to say, facts that have not been thought—would be nothing, and when placed beside historical facts—that is to say, thought as a species of the same genus—they would communicate their nullity to those also, and would dissolve their own distinctness, together with the concept of history.
After this, it does not seem necessary to examine the characteristics that have been proposed as the basis for this division of facts into historical and non-historical. The assumption being false, the manner in which it is treated in its particulars remains indifferent and without importance in respect to the fundamental criticism of the division itself. It may happen (and this is usually the case) that the characteristics and the differences enunciated37 have some truth in themselves, or at least offer some problem for solution: for example, when by[Pg 112] historical facts are meant general facts and by non-historical facts those that are individual. Here we find the problem of the relation of the individual and the universal. Or, again, by historical facts are sometimes meant those that treat of history proper, and by non-historical the stray references of chronicles, and here we find the problem as to the relation between history and chronicle. But regarded as an attempt to decide logically of what facts history should treat and what neglect, and to assign to each its quality, such divisions are all equally erroneous.
The periodization of history is subject to the same criticism. To think history is certainly to divide it into periods, because thought is organism, dialectic, drama, and as such has its periods, its beginning, its middle, and its end, and all the other ideal pauses that a drama implies and demands. But those pauses are ideal and therefore inseparable from thought, with which they are one, as the shadow is one with the body, silence with sound: they are identical and changeable with it. Christian38 thinkers divided history into that which preceded and that which followed the redemption, and this periodization was not an addition to Christian thought, but Christian thought itself. We modern Europeans divide it into antiquity39, the Middle Ages, and modern times. This periodization has been subject to a great deal of refined criticism on the part of those who hold that it came to be introduced anyhow, almost dishonestly, without the authority of great names, and without the advice of the philosophers and the methodologists being asked on the matter. But it has maintained itself and will maintain itself so long as our consciousness shall persist in its present phase. The fact of its having been insensibly formed would appear[Pg 113] to be rather a merit than a demerit, because this means that it was not due to the caprice of an individual, but has followed the development of modern consciousness itself. When antiquity has nothing more to tell us who still feel the need of studying Greek and Latin, Greek philosophy and Roman law; when the Middle Ages have been superseded40 (and they have not been superseded yet); when a new social form, different from that which emerged from the ruins of the Middle Ages, has supplanted41 our own; then the problem itself and the historical outlook which derives42 from it will also be changed, and perhaps antiquity and the Middle Ages and modern times will all be contained within a single epoch, and the pauses be otherwise distributed. And what has been said of these great periods is to be understood of all the others, which vary according to the variety of historical material and the various modes of viewing it. It has sometimes been said that every periodization has a 'relative' value. But we must say 'both relative and absolute,' like all thought, it being understood that the periodization is intrinsic to thought and determined43 by the determination of thought.
However, the practical needs of chroniclism and of learning make themselves felt here also. Just as in metrical treatises44 the internal rhythm of a poem is resolved into external rhythm and divided into syllables45 and feet, into long and short vowels46, tonic47 and rhythmic48 accents, into strophes and series of strophes, and so on, so the internal time of historical thought (that time which is thought itself) is derived49 from chroniclism converted into external time, or temporal series, of which the elements are spatially50 separated from one another. Scheme and facts are no longer one, but two, and the facts are disposed according to the scheme,[Pg 114] and divided according to the scheme into major and minor51 cycles (for example, according to hours, days, months, years, centuries, and millenniums, where the calculation is based upon the rotations53 and revolutions of the earth upon itself and round the sun). Such is chronology, by means of which we know that the histories of Sparta, Athens, and Rome filled the thousand years preceding Christ, that of the Lombards, the Visigoths, and the Franks the first millennium52 after Christ, and that we are still in the second millennium. This mode of chronology can be pursued by means of particularizing incidents thus: that the Empire of the West ended in A.D. 476 (although it did not really end then or had already ended previously); that Charlemagne the Frank was crowned Emperor at Rome by Pope Leo III in the year 800; that America was discovered in 1492, and that the Thirty Years War ended in 1648. It is of the greatest use to us to know these things, or (since we really know nothing in this way) to acquire the capacity of so checking references to facts that we are able to find them easily and promptly54 when occasion arises. Certainly no one thinks of speaking ill of chronologies and chronographies and tables and synoptic views of history, although in using them we run the risk (and in what thing done by man does he not run a risk?) of seeing worthy folk impressed with the belief that the number produces the event, as the hand of the clock, when it touches the sign of the hour, makes the clock strike; or (as an old professor of mine used to say) that the curtain fell upon the acting55 of ancient history in 476, to rise again immediately afterward on the beginning of the Middle Ages.
But such fancies are not limited to the minds of the[Pg 115] ingenuous56 and inattentive; they constitute the base of that error owing to which a distinction of periods, which shall be what is called objective and natural, is desired and sought after. Christian chronographers had already introduced this ontological meaning into chronology, making the millenniums of the world's history correspond with the days of the creation or the ages of man's life. Finally, Ferrari in Italy and Lorenz in Germany (the latter ignorant of his Italian predecessor) conceived a theory of historical periods according to generations, calculated in periods of thirty-one years and a fraction, or of thirty-three years and a fraction, and grouped as tetrads or triads, in periods of a hundred and twenty-five years or a century. But, without dwelling57 upon numerical and chronographic schemes, all doctrines58 that represent the history of nations as proceeding59 according to the stages of development of the individual, of his psychological development, of the categories of the spirit, or of anything else, are due to the same error, which is that of rendering60 periodization external and natural. All are mythological61, if taken in the naturalistic sense, save when these designations are employed empirically—that is to say, when chronology is used in chroniclism and erudition in a legitimate62 manner. We must also repeat a warning as to the care to be employed in recognizing important problems, which sometimes have first appeared through the medium of those erroneous inquiries63, and as to the truths that have been seen or caught a glimpse of by these means. This exempts64 us (as we remarked above in relation to the criteria65 of choice) from examining those doctrines in the particularity of their various determinations, because in this respect, if their assumption be obviously fantastic, their value is consequently nil66.[Pg 116] Nil, as the value of all those ?sthetic constructions is nil which claim to pass from the abstractions, by means of which they reduce the organism of the work of art to fragments for practical ends, to the explanation of the nature of art and to the judgment67 and history of the creations of human imagination.
点击收听单词发音
1 navigate | |
v.航行,飞行;导航,领航 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 recollect | |
v.回忆,想起,记起,忆起,记得 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 philology | |
n.语言学;语文学 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 copious | |
adj.丰富的,大量的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 suffocated | |
(使某人)窒息而死( suffocate的过去式和过去分词 ); (将某人)闷死; 让人感觉闷热; 憋气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 exuberance | |
n.丰富;繁荣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 infinity | |
n.无限,无穷,大量 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 annotator | |
n.注释者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 transcribes | |
(用不同的录音手段)转录( transcribe的第三人称单数 ); 改编(乐曲)(以适应他种乐器或声部); 抄写; 用音标标出(声音) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 dealer | |
n.商人,贩子 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 custody | |
n.监护,照看,羁押,拘留 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 resolutely | |
adj.坚决地,果断地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 maniacal | |
adj.发疯的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 amasser | |
囤积 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 philologists | |
n.语文学( philology的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 superfluous | |
adj.过多的,过剩的,多余的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 sophism | |
n.诡辩 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 unreasonably | |
adv. 不合理地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 odds | |
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 epoch | |
n.(新)时代;历元 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 philosophic | |
adj.哲学的,贤明的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 tact | |
n.机敏,圆滑,得体 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 motives | |
n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 rhetoric | |
n.修辞学,浮夸之言语 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 unduly | |
adv.过度地,不适当地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 metaphorical | |
a.隐喻的,比喻的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 valid | |
adj.有确实根据的;有效的;正当的,合法的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 enunciated | |
v.(清晰地)发音( enunciate的过去式和过去分词 );确切地说明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 antiquity | |
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 superseded | |
[医]被代替的,废弃的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 supplanted | |
把…排挤掉,取代( supplant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 derives | |
v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 treatises | |
n.专题著作,专题论文,专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 syllables | |
n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 vowels | |
n.元音,元音字母( vowel的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 tonic | |
n./adj.滋补品,补药,强身的,健体的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 rhythmic | |
adj.有节奏的,有韵律的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 spatially | |
空间地,存在于空间地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 millennium | |
n.一千年,千禧年;太平盛世 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 rotations | |
旋转( rotation的名词复数 ); 转动; 轮流; 轮换 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 ingenuous | |
adj.纯朴的,单纯的;天真的;坦率的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 doctrines | |
n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 );教义;学说;(政府政策的)正式声明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 proceeding | |
n.行动,进行,(pl.)会议录,学报 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 rendering | |
n.表现,描写 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 mythological | |
adj.神话的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 legitimate | |
adj.合法的,合理的,合乎逻辑的;v.使合法 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 exempts | |
使免除[豁免]( exempt的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 criteria | |
n.标准 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 nil | |
n.无,全无,零 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |