144 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE 



of expedience, is it yet true that the ultimate and only value of 

 the study lies in its potential services to another discipline, such 

 as sociology? 



Tt seems to me that our decision of this question must fall out 

 according to the view we take of the relation of man's historical 

 development to the whole of reality. We are brought face to face 

 with a philosophical problem. Our apprehension of history and our 

 reason for studying it must be ultimately determined by the view we 

 entertain of the moles et machina mundi as a whole. Naturalism will 

 imply a wholly different view from idealism. In considering the 

 place of history in the kingdom of knowledge, it is thus impossible 

 to avoid referring to the questions with which the so-called philo- 

 sophy of history is concerned. 



If human development can be entirely explained on the general 

 lines of a system such as Saint-Simon's or Comte's or Spencer's, then 

 I think we must conclude that the place of history, within the frame 

 of such a system, is subordinate to sociology and anthropology. 

 There is no separate or independent precinct in which she can pre- 

 side supreme. But on an idealistic interpretation of knowledge, it is 

 otherwise. History then assumes a different meaning from that of 

 a higher zoology, and is not merely a continuation of the process of 

 evolution in nature. If thought is not the result, but the presup- 

 position, of the process of nature, it follows that history, in which 

 thought is the characteristic and guiding force, belongs to a different 

 order of ideas from the kingdom of nature and demands a different 

 interpretation. Here the philosophy of history comes in. The very 

 phrase is a flag over debated ground. It means the investigation 

 of the rational principles which, it is assumed, are disclosed in the 

 historical process due to the cooperation and interaction of human 

 minds under terrestrial conditions. If the philosophy of history is not 

 illusory, history means a disclosure of spiritual reality in the fullest 

 way in which it is cognizable to us in these particular conditions. 

 And, on the other hand, the possibility of an interpretation of history 

 as a movement of reason, disclosing its nature in terrestrial circum- 

 stances, seems the only hypothesis on which the postulate of "history 

 for its own sake" can be justified as valid. 



This fundamental problem belongs to philosophy and lies outside 

 the scope of discussion. All that can be done for the present occasion 

 is to assume the validity of that kind of interpretation which is 

 generally called the philosophy of history, and, starting with this 

 postulate, to show the particular significance of modern history. 

 Perhaps it may be said that such interpretation is quite a separate 

 branch of speculation, distinct from history itself, and not necessarily 

 the concern of an historical student. That is a view which should 

 be dismissed, for it reduces history to a collection of annals. Facts 



