hexter - the historian and his day.pdf

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The Historian and His DayAuthor(s): J. H. HexterReviewed work(s):Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Jun., 1954), pp. 219-233Published by: The Academy of Political ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2145084 .

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THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY

F OR a goodwhile ow fairlytrenuousontest asbeen nprogress between two opposed schools of historicalthought. Accepting a classification roposed by one ofthe keenestthough most courteousoftheriders n the lists,thedivision lies roughlybetween the "present-minded"and the"history-minded" istorians. In the course of timemany his-torianshave joined one side or the other n thecontroversywiththe natural consequence that there has been some sense and agooddeal ofnonsense alkedon both sides. In general, or omesubtle psychological eason that I am unable tofathom, hekindof scholar who, distrustful f "ideas" and "theories",believesthat history s all "facts" has tended to take the side of the"history-minded"historians. For more obvious reasons thechronic"do-gooder",whobelieves thatknowledge ustifies tselfonly by a capacity to solve currentproblems, inesup with the"present-minded" osition.

This peculiar aligmenthas frequently bscured the issues atstake. It is easy to exposethe feebleness nd absurdity fthosewho want only "facts" and of those who want only currentproblem-solving;nd it is fun,too. Consequentlythe attackson both sides have often been directedmainly against thesevulnerablepositions, nd it has sometimes eemed as ifthemainbodies were too busy assaultingtheiropponents'camp followersto come to grips with one another. For, of course, there isnothing ntrinsic o the history-mindedositionthat precludes"ideas" or "theories"or, if you prefer, eneralization. Nor isthere nythingnpresent-mindednesshatdemands an optimismas to theefficacyfhistory s a panacea forcurrent ocial ills.Obviously t is not fair to judge eitherthe history-mindedrthepresent-minded istorians y thevagariesof theirrespectivelunatic fringes. Casting offthe eccentricon both sides, thereremains realand seriousdivergence fopinion, s yetapparentlyirreconcilable,maintained on both sides by scholars whoseachievements entitle their views to respectfulconsideration.The divergence s connected at least ostensiblywith a funda-

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220 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXIXmental differencen generaloutlook betweenthe two parties tothe argument. In a sense thepresent-mindedre realists n thefieldof history, he history-mindedre idealists.The approach of the latterto the problem s essentially po-dictic. They say we oughtnot to intrudeour contemporaryvalue systemsand preconceptions nd notions into our recon-struction f thepast. They insist hat t is ourduty s historiansto understandthe past in its terms,not in our own; and theydocumenttheir thesis with some undeniably horrible xamplesofwhathas happened nthe ast century o historianswho ookedat the past withthe dubious prepossessions,urrent n theirownday, but since invalidated or replaced by otherprepossessionsequally dubious. Truly there s nothingquite so passe as theintellectualfashionsofyesteryear. We find hem at once espe-cially ludicrous and especiallydisturbingwhenthey rewornbymen of high talents. We do not like to see the nineteenth-century present-mindednessf so perceptivea man as J. R.Green transforminghe roughneckbarons of Runnymedeintoharbingersof nineteenth-century emocracy and nationalism.Our embarrassment s even more acute when the victim ofpresent-mindednesss a great historian. We are unhappywhen we watch Bishop Stubbs adding Victorian liberalismtothe cargothat theAnglo-Saxonsbroughtwiththemto Englandfromtheir North German forests. And as the convictionofsin is broughthome to us we are warned,"There but forthegraceofhistory-mindednesso you."Convinced by the dreadful examples arrayed beforeus weresolve to eschew the wickedness f modernism nd thenceforthhew to our obligationto be history-minded.And then a clearand chillyvoicesays: "But mydearfellows, oucan't be history-minded. It mightbe nice if you could, or it mightnot, butin any case it is impossible. So all thispother bout theobliga-tion to be history-mindeds rather silly. Only a particularlyrepulsivesort of Deity would bind men to do what in the verynature ofthings hey are unable to do." So an almostmedievalemphasis on the dutyto be history-mindeds deflectedby aratherMachiavellianobservation s tothe acts f ife. Medievalassertionsabout what statesmenoughtto do Machiavelli metwith assertions bout whatstatesmen-the human animal being


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 221what it is-are sure to do. History-minded ssertionsaboutwhat historiansought to do are met with present-mindeds-sertions f what-the history-writingnimal beingwhathe is-the historian s certain to do. The harsh fact of life is that,willy-nilly,he present-dayhistorian ives not in the past butin the present,and this harsh fact cannot be altered by anypious resolve to be history-minded.What we say about any historical poch in some way reflectsour experience nd that experiencewas accumulatednot in thefifteenth,n the sixteenth,or in any other century than thetwentieth. When we look back on the past, we do so fromthe present. We are present-minded ust as all earlier his-torians were present-mindedn theirday because for betterorworse we happen to live in our own day. Indeed the veryhorridexamples cited by the proponents f history-mindednessafford rrefutable vidence that the best of formerhistorianswere n theirday present-minded,nd we can hardlyhope to bedifferent.So the best thing for us to do is to recognize thatevery generation einterpretshepast in termsofthe exigenciesof ts own day. We can thencast aside our futilehistory-mindedyearnings nd qualms and deal with the past in termsof ourday, only mildlyregretting,hat, like all the wordsofman,ourownwords willbe writon water. By this ntellectual tratagemthe present-minded urn-or seek to turn-the flank of thehistory-minded.We must admit, I believe,that some pointsin the argumentof the present-minded re truebeyond dispute. It is certainlytrue,forexample, that all that we think s related to our ex-perience omehow, nd that all ourexperiences of our ownday.But though hisbe true, t s also trivial. It is a plea inavoidancedressed up as an argument. Grantingthat we can have noexperiencebeyondwhat we have acquired in the courseof ourown lives, the question is, does anything n that experienceenable us to understandthe past in its own terms ratherthaninterms f the prepossessions four own day? Banal statementsabout the originof our ideas in our own experiencedo notanswerthisquestion; they merelybeg it.In the second place, I think we must admit that in somerespects all historians are present-minded,ven the most de-


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222 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (Vo4. LXIXterminedproponents f history-mindedness.All historians reindeed engagedin rewriting ast history n the light of at leastone aspect of present experience, hat aspect whichhas to dowith the increments o our positive knowledge that are thefruit of scientific nvestigation. Consider a single example.Up to a few decades ago the Dark Ages before the twelfthcenturywere considered n era oftotal regression, echnologicalas well as political, social and cultural. Then Lefebvre deNoettes describedresultsof certain experimentshe had madewith animal power. He had reproduced antique harnessesfordraft horses. In such harness the pulling power of the horseproved to be less than a quarter of what it is in modernharness.But "modern"harness, nvolving he use of a rigidhorsecollar,makes its appearancein Europe in thetenthcentury. So in theDark Ages a horse could deliver about fourtimesthe tractiveforce hat t could in antiquity. Now I am sure that no historianwould suggest that we disregard Lefebvrede Noettes' experi-ments in our considerationof medieval agrarian history; afourfold ncrease in the efficiencyf a very important sourceof power is somethingthat no economic historian can affordto overlook. Yet when we do apply the results of Lefebvre'sexperiments o medieval agriculturewe arebeing present-mindedin at least two ways. In the first nd moresimple way we arerewritinghe history fthe Middle Ages n the ightof the presentbecause until the presentthe particularbit of light that wasthe work of Lefebvredid not exist. But we must go further.It was not pure accident that such work had not been donein earlier ages. Historians in earlier ages would not havethought fgoing about the investigation f medieval agricultureas Lefebvredid. In makinghis historical nvestigations y thescientific, ositivistmethod of experiment nd measurement,Lefebvre was distinctly reflecting he preoccupationsof hisown age and of no earlier one. Scientific-mindednessn thisparticular rea ofstudyat any rate is present-mindedness.It seems to me that the proponentsof history-mindednessmust, and in most cases probably do, concede the validityofthis kind of present-mindednessn the writing f history;andif this s all thatpresent-mindedness eans,theneveryhistorian


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 223worth his salt is present-minded. No sane contemporaryscientist n his investigations f the physicalworld would dis-regard nineteenth-centurydvances in field heory, nd no sanehistorian n his work would rule out of consideration nsightsachieved in the past century concerningthe connection ofclass conflictwith historicaloccurrences. But this is only tosay that all men who are professionallyommitted o the questof that elusive entity-the Truth-use all the trackingdevicesavailable to them at thetime, nd in the nature ofthings annotuse any device beforeit exists. And of course the adequacyof the historicalsearch at any time is in some degree limitedby the adequacy of the trackingdevices. In this, too, thehistorian's situation is no differentromthat of the scientist.Adequate investigation f optical isomers n organic chemistry,forexample,had to wait on the developmentof the techniquesof spectroscopy. If this is what present-mindednessmeans,then present-mindednesss not just the condition of historicalknowledge. For all knowledge t any time s obviously imitedby the limitsof the means of gaining knowledgeat that time;and historians re simply n the same boat as all otherswhosebusiness t is to know.

Now I do not believe that the proponents fpresent-minded-ness mean anything as bland and innocuous as this. On thecontrary am fairly ure they mean that the historian'sboatis differentrom, nd a greatdeal more eaky than, let us say,the physicist'sor the geologist'sboat. What then is supposedto be thespecificroublewiththehistorian's oat? The trouble,as the present-mindedee it, can be describedfairly simply.The present-mindedontendthat in writing istoryno historiancan freehimself fhis total experience nd that that experienceis inextricably nvolved not only in the limits of knowledgebut also in the passions, prejudices, assumptionsand prepos-sessions, ntheevents, rises nd tensions fhisownday. There-fore those passions, prejudices, assumptions, prepossessions,events,crisesand tensionsof the historian'sown day inevitablypermeate what he writes about the past. This is the crucialallegation of the present-minded,nd if it is wholly correct,the issue must be settled n theirfavor and the history-minded


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224 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXIXpack up theirapodicticand categorical-imperativeaggage anddepart in silence. Frequentlydiscussionsof this crucial issuehave got bogged down because the history-minded eep tryingto prove that the historian an counteract the influence f hisown day, while the present-minded eep saying that this isutterly mpossible. And of course on this question the latterare quite right. A historianhas no day but his own, so whatis he going to counteract t with? He is in the situation ofArchimedeswho could findno fulerum or the lever with whichto move the Earth. Clearly if the historian s to be history-mindedrather than present-minded e must findthe means ofbeing so in his own day,notoutside t. And thus at last we comeup against the crucial question-what is the historian'sownday?As soon as we put the questionthis way we realize that thereis no ideal Historian's Day; thereare many days, all different,and each with a particularhistorian ttached to it. Now sincein actuality there s no such thingas The Historian's Day, noone can be qualified o say whatit actually consistsof. Indeed,although I know a good number of individual historiansontermsof greateror less intimacy, would feel ill-qualified odescribe with certaintywhat any of their days are. Thereis, however,one historian about whose day I can speak withassurance. For I myselfm a historian t least in thetechnicalsense of the word; I have possessedfor a considerabletimetheparchment nscribedwith the appropriate phrases to indicatethat I have served my apprenticeship nd am out of my in-dentures. So I will describe as briefly s I can my own day.I do so out of no appetiteforself-revelationr self-expression,but simply because the subject is germaneto our inquiryandbecause it is the one matteron which happento be theworld'sleading authority. Let us then hurry through this drearyjournal.

I rise early and have breakfast. While eating, I glancethrough hemorning aper and read the editorial page. I thengo to the college that employsme and teach for two to fourhours fivedays a week. Most of the time the subject matterI deal with in class is cobwebbed with age. Three fourths f


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 225it dates back from century nd a quarter to three millennia;all of it happened at least thirtyyears ago. Then comes lunchwith a few of my colleagues. Conversation at lunch rangeswidely throughprofessionalhoptalk, politics,high and ghostlymatters ike religion, he nature of art or the universe, nd theproblemsof child rearing, and finally academic scuttle butt.At presentthere is considerable discussion of the peculiar in-congruence between the social importance of the academicand his economicreward. This topichas the meritofrevealingthe profound ike-mindedness,ranscending ll occasional con-flicts, f our little community. From noon to bedtime my dayis grimlyuniform. There are of course occasional and casualvariations-preparationofthe ancientmaterial bove mentionedforthe nextday's classes, a ridein the countrywiththefamily,a committeemeeting t college,a movie, a play, a novel, or abook by some self-anointed eep Thinker. Still by and largefromone in the afternoon o midnightwith time out fordinnerand domesticmatters, read thingswrittenbetween 1450 and1650orbooks written yhistorians n the basis ofthingswrittenbetween 1450 and 1650. I vary the routine on certain daysby writingabout what I have read on the other days. OnSaturdays and in the summer startmy readingor writing tnine insteadof at noon. It is onlyfair to add that most daysI turn on a news broadcast or two at dinnertime, nd thatI spend an houror two withthe Sunday paper.

Now I am sure thatmanypeople will consider o many daysso spent to be a frightful aste of precious time; and indeed,as mostofthe days of mostmen, t does seema bit trivial. Bethat as it may, it remainsone historian'sown day. It is hisown day in the only sense that phrase can be used without tsbeing pretentious, pompous and meaningless. For a man'sown days are not everything hat happens in the worldwhilehe lives and breathes. As I write,portentous nd momentousthingsare no doubt being done in Peiping, Teheran, Bonn, andLost Nation, Iowa. But these thingsare no part of my day;they are outside of my experience, nd though one or two ofthem may faintly mpingeon my consciousnesstomorrowviathe headlinesin the morningpaper, that is probably as far as


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226 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. LXIXthey will get. At best they are likely to remain flutteringfragmentson the fringeof my experience,not well-orderedpartsof it. I must insistemphatically hat the history writeis, as the present-mindeday, intimatelyconnectedwith myown day and inextricablyinked withmy own experience;butI must insistwith even stronger mphasis that my day is notsomeone else's day, or the ideal Day of ContemporaryMan;it is just the way I happen to dispose of twenty-four ours.By the same token the experience hat is inextricablyinkedtoany history may happen to write s not the ideal ExperienceofTwentieth-CenturyMan in World Chaos, but just the way Ihappen to put in mytime over the seriesofmydays.Now it may seem immodestor perhaps simplyfantastic totake days spent as are mine-days so little attuned to thegreat harmonies,discordsand issues of the present-and holdthem up forcontemplation. Yet I will dare to suggestthat inthis historian's own humdrumdays there is one peculiaritythat merits hought. The peculiarityies in thecuriousrelationthat days so squanderedseem to establishbetween the presentand a ratherremote sectorof the past. I do not pretendthatI am whollyunconcerned y the larger public issues and catas-trophesofthe present. After ll I will never be called upon totestify o the purity f my doctrinebefore he Papal Inquisitionof the sixteenth entury;but I mightbe requiredto do so byless powerfully rmed inquests of 1954. Nor am I withoutopinionson a large numberof contemporaryssues. On someof them I am vigorouslydogmaticas, indeed, are most of thehistorians know. Yet my knowledgeabout such issues, al-though occasionally fairlyextensive,tends to be haphazard,vague, unsystematicand disorderly. And the brute fact ofthematter s thateven if had theinclination, do nothave thetime to straighten hat knowledgeout, at least except at thecost of alterations n the ordering fmy days that I am not inthe least inclined o undertake.So fora small part ofmyday I live undera comfortable uleofbland intellectual rresponsibilityis-A-visheGreatIssues ofthe ContemporaryWorld, a rulethat permitsme to go offhalf-cocked with only slight and occasional compunction. Butduringmostofmy day-that portion f t that I spend ndealing


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 227withthe Great and Not-So-Great ssues of the Worldbetween1450 and 1650-I live underan altogetherdifferentule. Thecommandments fthatrule are:1. Do not go offhalf cocked.2. Get the story traight.3. Keep prejudices about present-dayssues out of this area.The commandments re counselsof perfection, ut they arenot merelythat; theyare enforcedby sanctions,both externaland internal. The serried array of historical trade journalsequipped with extensive book review columns provides themost powerfulexternal sanction. The columns are oftenatthe disposal of cantankerouscranks ever ready to expose toobloquy "pamphleteers"who think hat Clio is an "easy boughtmistress ound tosuitherwaysto the ntellectual ppetitesofthecurrent ustomer."' On morethan one occasion I have been acantankerous crank. When I writeabout the periodbetween1450 and 1650 I am wellaware of a desireto give unto othersno occasion to do unto me as I have done unto some of them.The reviewinghost seems largely to have lined up withthehistory-minded. This seems to be a consequence of theirtraining. Whatever the theoreticalbiases of their individualmembers, he betterdepartments f graduate study in historydo not encourage those undergoing heir novitiate to resolveresearchproblemsby reference o current deological conflicts.Consequentlymostofus have been conditioned o feel that it isnot quiteproper o characterizeJohnPym as a liberal, r ThomasMore as a socialist,or Niccol6 Macchiavelli as a proto-Fascist,and we tend to regard this sortof characterization s at best ariskypedagogicdevice. Not only the characterization ut thethoughtprocess that leads to it lie under a psychologicalban;and thusto theexternal anction ofthereviewcolumns s addedthe internal anctionof the still small voice that keeps saying,"We reallyshouldn't do it thatway."2

1American Historical Review, LI (1946), 487.2 I do not for a moment intend to suggest that current dilemmas have notsuggested problems for historical investigation. It is obvious that such dilemmasare among the numerous and entirely legitimate points of origin of historicalstudy. The actual issue, however, has nothing to do with the point of originof historical studies, but with the mode of treatment of historical problems.


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228 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXIXThe austererule we live underas historianshas some curious

consequences. In my case one of the consequences is thatmy knowledgeof the period around the sixteenth century nEurope is of a ratherdifferentrder than myknowledge boutcurrenthappenings. Those preponderant egmentsofmy ownday spent in the discussion, nvestigationand contemplationof that remote era may not be profitably pent but at leastthey are spentin an orderly, ystematic, urposefulway. Thecontrast an be pointedup by a few details. I have never readthe Social SecurityAct, but I have read the Elizabethan PoorLaw inall itssuccessiveversions nd moreover have made somestudyof ts application. I have never read the workof a singleexistentialist ut I have read Calvin's Institutes fthe ChristianReligionfromcover to cover. I know practicallynothingforsureabout the relationof the institutions fhigher ducation nAmerica to the social structure, ut I know a fairbit about therelationbetween the two in France, England and the Nether-lands in the fifteenth nd sixteenthcenturies. I have neverstudied the Economic Reports to the President that wouldenable me to appraise thestate of the Americannation n 1950,but I have studiedclosely Hales's DiscourseoftheCommonwealthofEnglandand derivedfromt some reasonablecoherentnotionsabout the conditionof England around 1550. Now the con-sequence of all this is inevitable. Instead of the passions,prejudices,assumptionsand prepossessions, he events, crisesand tensionsof the presentdominatingmy view of the past,it is theotherwayabout. The passions,prejudices, ssumptionsand prepossessions,the events, crises and tensions of earlymodernEurope to a veryconsiderableextent end precisiontomyratherhaphazard notions about the present. I make senseofpresent-daywelfare-state olicyby thinkingf t n connectionwith the "commonwealth"policiesof Elizabeth. I do the likewithrespect o the contemporary truggle orpowerand conflictof ideologiesby throwing n them such light as I find n theCatholic-Calvinist truggle fthe sixteenth entury.I am frequentlymade aware of the peculiaritiesof my per-spective when I teach. The days of my students are verydifferent rommine. They have spent little time indeed in


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 229contemplating he events of the sixteenth entury. So when Itell them that the Christian Humanists, in their optimisticaspiration to reform he world by means of education, wererather ike our own progressive ducators,I help them under-stand the Christian Humanists. But my teaching strategymoves in the opposite directionfrom my own intellectualex-perience. The comparison firstsuggested itself to me as ameans forunderstanding ot ChristianHumanismbut progres-sive education. There is no need to labor this point. Afterall, ordinarily he processof thought s fromthe better knownto the worseknown, nd in some respects know a goodbitmoreabout the sixteenthcenturythan I do about the twentieth.Perhapsthere s nothing obe said for his peculiarwayof think-ing; it may be altogether illy; but in the immediatecontextI am not obliged to defend t. I present t simplyas one ofthosebrute factsof ife dear to the heartofthepresent-minded.It is in factone waythat one historian's ay affects is udgment.

In -the controversy hat providedthe starting point of thisrambling ssay, the essentialquestion is sometimesposed withrespectto therelationof thehistorian o his ownday. In otherinstances it is posed with respect to his relation to his owntime. Having discovered how idiosyncraticwas the day ofone historianwe may inquire whetherhis timeis also peculiar.The answer is, "Yes, his time is a bit odd." And here it ispossible to take a welcome leave of the firstperson singular.For, althoughmy day is peculiarto me, my time, as a historian,is like the timeof otherhistorians.For our purposes the crucial fact about the ordinarytimeof all men,even of historians n theirpersonalas against theirprofessional apacity, is that in no man's time is he really urewhat is going to happen next. This is true, obviously, notonlyof men of the presenttime but also of all menof all pasttimes. Of course there are large routine areas of existencein which we can make pretty good guesses; and if this werenot so, life would be unbearable. Thus, my guess,five veningsa week in termtime, that I will be getting up the followingmorning o teach classes at my place of employmentprovidesme with usefuloperatingrule; yet it has been wrongoccasion-


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230 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vol. LXIXally, and will be wrong again. With respect to many mattersmore important, ll is uncertain. Will there be war or peacenext year? Will my childrenturn out well or ill? Will I bealive or dead thirtyyearshence?threeyearshence?tomorrow?The saddest wordsof tongueor pen may be, "It mighthavebeen." The most human are, "If I had only known." But it isprecisely haracteristicf the historian hat he does know. He isreally sure what is goingto happen next,not in his time as apilgrimhere below, but in his own time as a historian. Thepublic servant Conyers Read, for example, when he workedhigh in the councilsof the Office f StrategicServices did notknow what the outcome of the maneuvers he helped planwould be. But for all the years from 1568 duringwhich hepainstakingly nvestigatedthe career of Francis Walsingham,the eminent Tudor historian Conyers Read knew that theSpanish Armada would come against England and that thediplomatic maneuvers of Mr. Secretary Walsingham wouldassist in its defeat. Somewhatinaccuratelywe might ay thatwhile man's time ordinarily s orientedto the future, he his-torian's timeis oriented o the past. It mightbe betterto saythat while men are ordinarilytryingto connect the presentwith a futurethat is to be, the historian connectshis presentwitha future hat has alreadybeen.The professionalhistorian does not have a monopolyof hispeculiar time,or rather, s Carl Beckeronce put it, everymanis on occasion his own historian. But the historian lone livessystematically n the historian's own time. And from whatwehave beensaying t is clearthatthistimehas a uniquedimen-sion. Each man in his own time triesto discover the motivesand the causes ofthe actionsofthosepeoplehe has to deal with;and the historiandoes the like withvaryingdegreesof success.But, as other men do not and cannot, the historian knowssomethingof the results of the acts of those he deals with:this is the unique dimensionof the historian's time. If, insayingthatthehistorian annotescapehisowntime, hepresent-minded meant this peculiarlyhistoricaltime-which they donot-they would be on solid ground. For the circumstancesare rare indeed in whichthe historianhas no notion whatever


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 231of the outcome of the events with whichhe is dealing. Theveryfactthat he is a historian nd that he has interestedhim-self n a particular et ofeventsfairly ssures that at theoutsethe will have someknowledge fwhathappened afterward.This knowledgemakes it impossibleforthe historianto domerely what the history-mindeday he should do-considerthe past in its own terms, nd envisageevents as the menwholived through hemdid. Surely he should tryto do that; justas certainlyhe must do morethanthatsimplybecause he knowsabout those events what none of the men contemporarywiththem knew; he knows what theirconsequenceswere. To seethe events surrounding he obscure monkLuther as Leo X sawthem-as another "monks' quarrel" and a possible danger tothe perquisites of the Curia-may help us understand thepeculiar inefficacyf Papal policy at the time; but that doesnot precludethe historianfrom eeing the same events as thedecisive step toward the finalbreach of the religiousunityofWestern Civilization. We may be quite sure however thatnobody at the time,not even Lutherhimself, aw those eventsthat way. The historianwho resolutelyrefused to use theinsight hathisownpeculiartimegave himwould not be superiorto his fellows;he would be merelyfoolish,betraying singularfailure to grasp what history s. For history s a becoming,an ongoing, nd it is to be understoodnotonly n termsofwhatcomesbeforebut also ofwhat comes after.

What conclusionscan we draw fromour cursory xaminationof the historian'sown time and his own day? What of thenecessity,alleged by the present-minded, f rewritinghistoryanew each generation? In some respectsthe estimate is over-generous, n one respect too niggardly. The necessitywill inpartbe a function fthelapsed timebetweenthe eventswrittenabout and the present. The history fthe TreatyofVersaillesof 1919 may indeed need to be written ver a numberof timesin thenextfewgenerations s its consequences morecompletelyunfold. But this is not true of the Treaty of Madrid of 1527.Its consequences for betteror worseprettywell finished heirunfolding good whileback. The need forrewriting istory salso a function fthe increase n actual data on the thingto be


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232 POLI TICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL.LXIXwrittenabout. Obviously any general estimate of the rateof increase of such data would be meaningless. History alsomust be rewrittens the relevant and usable knowledge aboutman, about his ways and his waywardness, ncreases. Hereagain there has been a tendencyto exaggeratethe speed withwhichthat knowledge s increasing. The hosannahs that havegreetedmany "master ideas" about man duringthe past fiftyyears seem more oftenthan not to be a reflection f an urgetowardsecular salvation in a shakyworldratherthan a preciseestimateof the cognitivevalue of the ideas in question. Fre-quently such "master ideas" have turned out to be plain oldnotions n newfancy dress, or simply wrong. Perhaps the im-perative, feltby the present-minded,o rewritehistoryeverygeneration s less the fruit f a real necessity han of theirownattemptsto write t always in conformity ith the latest intel-lectual mode. A little ess hastemightmean a littlemore peed.For thepersonengaged n theoperation t is all too easy to mis-take for progress a process that only involves skipping fromrecent o current rrors.

If, instead of askinghow oftenhistorymustor ought to berewritten,we ask how often it will be rewritten, he answeris that it will be rewritten,s it always has been, fromday today. This is so because the rewritingfhistory s inescapablywhateach workinghistorian n factdoes in his own day. Thatis preciselyhow he puts in his time. We seek new data. Wereexamine ld data to discover n themrelations nd connectionsthat our honoredpredecessorsmay have missed. Onto thesedata we seek to bringto bear whatevermay seem enlighteningand relevant utofour ownday. Andwhatmaybe relevant s aswide as the fullrangeof our own daily experience,ntellectual,aesthetic,political,social, personal. Some current vent may,ofcourse, fford historian n understandingfwhat menmeantfivehundredyears ago whenthey said that a prince mustrulethrough mour et cremeur,ove and fear. But then so mighthis perusal of a socio-psychologicalnvestigation nto the am-bivalence of authority in Papua. So might his reading ofShakespeare's Richard II. And so might his relations withhis ownchildren.


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No. 2] THE HISTORIAN AND HIS DAY 233For each historianbrings to the rewriting f history he fullrange of the rememberedexperienceof his own days, thatuniquearraythat he alone possessesand is. For somehistoriansthat sector of their experience which impingeson the GreatCrises of the ContemporaryWorld sets up the vibrationsthatattune them to the part of the past that is the object of theirprofessionalttention. Some ofus,however, ibrate ess readilyto thosecrises. We feelour waytowardthegoals ofourhistoricquest by lines ofexperiencehavingprecious ittle to do withthe

Great Crises of the ContemporaryWorld. He would be boldindeed whowould insistthat all historians hould follow ne andthe same line ofexperience n theirquest, or whowouldventureto say what this single ine is that all shouldfollow. He wouldnot onlybe bold; he wouldalmostcertainly e wrong. Historydoes not thrive n measureas the experienceof each historiandiffers rom hat ofhisfellows. It is indeedthewideand variedrangeofexperience overedby all thedays of all historians hatmakes the rewriting f history-not in each generationbut foreach historian-at once necessary nd inevitable.

J. H. HExTERQUEENS COLLEGE

hexter - the historian and his day.pdf

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