PRESENT PROBLEMS 217 



as a result its interpreters fall into a needless conflict with those 

 historians who want the facts of the past rather than their present 

 significance. 



It would be clearer to speak of the social interpretation of current 

 events instead of the historical interpretation. Those who employ 

 this method are interested in social affairs and use social methods 

 of investigation and social principles oftener than historical methods 

 and principles. It is still more clear to speak of the traditional 

 interpretation of current events. The facts presented and the 

 ideals emphasized are those which, wrought over into popular tra- 

 dition, have become motives prompting intuitive response. The 

 popular historian seizes the telling events of the world's history 

 and by recounting them vividly tends to make people act to-day 

 as their forefathers acted in the epoch-making struggles through 

 which the race has gone. " Act to-day as your fathers acted in their 

 day." This advice may seem the hand of history, but it is the voice 

 of tradition. The economic interpretation of history starts with 

 an analysis of present conditions and opens the way to a theory 

 of social causation. In contrast with this method the historical 

 interpretation of present events accepts the traditional view of the 

 past and uses social prediction as a means of exerting social influence. 

 The prophet strives to be a social leader. Economic interpretation 

 as a method thus stands in contrast with social prediction. There 

 is no real opposition between economics and history or between eco- 

 nomics and sociology. It is only in the field of prediction that opposi- 

 tion appears. The scientific historian avoids the conflict by refusing 

 to predict, but as the historian becomes modest, the social enthusiast 

 becomes bolder, and, using the same methods as the predicting his- 

 torian, he falls into similar errors. 



Should social investigation begin with a study of the past and 

 predict events from it as a base, or should a study of the present be 

 first made and its results be used to interpret the past? Of the past 

 we have social tradition; of the present we have economic knowledge; 

 which is the more reliable as the basis of deduction? 



Were not the knowledge of the past defective, its study might 

 give a starting-point equally valuable with economic interpretation 

 that starts from the firm foundation of present fact. The first canon 

 of social prediction is, "History repeats itself." A series of repeated 

 effects occurring under similar social institutions gives ground for the 

 judgment that these institutions will always produce like effects. 



In contrast with this, economic interpretation starts with the 

 assumption that like economic causes produce like social results. 

 Prediction can be made from one race or civilization to others only 

 as the economic conditions back of them are the same. It is not like 

 race, like institutions, like tradition, or like consciousness of kind, 



