An Ethnologist's View of History

An Ethnologist's View of History
Daniel Brinton

An Ethnologist's View of History An Address Before the Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Historical Society, at Trenton, New Jersey, January 28, 1896

Mr. President:

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The intelligent thought of the world is ever advancing to a fuller appreciation of the worth of the past to the present and the future. Never before have associations, societies and journals devoted to historical studies been so numerous. All times and tribes are searched for memorials; the remote corners of modern, medieval and ancient periods are brought under scrutiny; and going beyond these again, the semi-historic eras of tradition and the nebulous gleams from pre-historic milleniums are diligently scanned, that their uncertain story may be prefaced to that registered in “the syllables of recorded time.”

In this manner a vast mass of material is accumulating with which the historian has to deal. What now is the real nature of the task he sets before himself? What is the mission with which he is entrusted?

To understand this task, to appreciate that mission, he must ask himself the broad questions: What is the aim of history? What are the purposes for which it should be studied and written?

He will find no lack of answers to these inquiries, all offered with equal confidence, but singularly discrepant among themselves. His embarrassment will be that of selection between widely divergent views, each ably supported by distinguished advocates.

As I am going to add still another, not exactly like any already on the list, it may well be asked of me to show why one or other of those already current is not as good or better than my own. This requires me to pass in brief review the theories of historic methods, or, as it is properly termed, of the Philosophy of History, which are most popular to-day.

They may be classified under three leading opinions, as follows:

1. History should be an accurate record of events, and nothing more; an exact and disinterested statement of what has taken place, concealing nothing and coloring nothing, reciting incidents in their natural connections, without bias, prejudice, or didactic application of any kind.

This is certainly a high ideal and an excellent model. For many, yes, for the majority of historical works, none better can be suggested. I place it first and name it as worthiest of all current theories of historical composition. But, I would submit to you, is a literary production answering to this precept, really History? Is it anything more than a well-prepared annal or chronicle? Is it, in fact anything else than a compilation containing the materials of which real history should be composed?

I consider that the mission of the historian, taken in its completest sense, is something much more, much higher, than the collection and narration of events, no matter how well this is done. The historian should be like the man of science, and group his facts under inductive systems so as to reach the general laws which connect and explain them. He should, still further, be like the artist, and endeavor so to exhibit these connections under literary forms that they present to the reader the impression of a symmetrical and organic unity, in which each part or event bears definite relations to all others. Collection and collation are not enough. The historian must “work up his field notes,” as the geologists say, so as to extract from his data all the useful results which they are capable of yielding.

I am quite certain that in these objections I can count on the suffrages of most. For the majority of authors write history in a style widely different from that which I have been describing. They are distinctly teachers, though not at all in accord as to what they teach. They are generally advocates, and with more or less openness maintain what I call the second theory of the aim of history, to wit:

2. History should be a collection of evidence in favor of certain opinions.

In this category are to be included all religious and political histories. Their pages are intended to show the dealings of God with man; or the evidences of Christianity, or of one of its sects, Catholicism or Protestantism; or the sure growth of republican or of monarchial institutions; or the proof of a divine government of the world; or the counter-proof that there is no such government; and the like.

You will find that most general histories may be placed in this class. Probably a man cannot himself have very strong convictions about politics or religion, and not let them be seen in his narrative of events where such questions are prominently present. A few familiar instances will illustrate this. No one can take either Lingard’s or Macauley’s History of England as anything more than a plea for either writer’s personal views. Gibbon’s anti-Christian feeling is as perceptibly disabling to him in many passages as in the church historians is their search for “acts of Providence,” and the hand of God in human affairs.

All such histories suffer from fatal flaws. They are deductive instead of inductive; they are a defensio sententiarum instead of an investigatio veri; they assume the final truth as known, and go not forth to seek it. They are therefore “teleologic,” that is, they study the record of man as the demonstration of a problem the solution of which is already known. In this they are essentially “divinatory,” claiming foreknowledge of the future; and, as every ethnologist knows, divination belongs to a stadium of incomplete intellectual culture, one considerably short of the highest. As has been well said by Wilhelm von Humboldt, any teleologic theory “disturbs and falsifies the facts of history;”[1 - In his epochal essay “Die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers.” Gesammelte Werke, Bd. I., s. 13. It was republished with a discriminating introduction by Professor Steinthal in Die Sprachphilosophischen Werke Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (Berlin, 1883).] and it has been acutely pointed out by the philosopher Hegel, that it contradicts the notion of progress and is no advance over the ancient tenet of a recurrent cycle.[2 - “Der Zweck-Begriff bewirkt nur sich selbst, und ist am Ende was er im Anfange, in der Unsprünglichkeit, war.” Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften. Theil, I., § 204.]

I need not dilate upon these errors. They must be patent to you. No matter how noble the conviction, how pure the purpose, there is something nobler and purer than it, and that is, unswerving devotion to rendering in history the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I now turn to another opinion, that which teaches that —

3. History should be a portraiture, more or less extended, of the evolution of the human species.

This is claimed to be the “scientific” view of history. It was tersely expressed by Alexander von Humboldt in the phrase: “The history of the world is the mere expression of a predetermined, that is, fixed, evolution.”[3 - “Die Weltgeschichte ist der blosse Ausdruck einer vorbestimmten Entwicklung.” (Quoted by Lord Acton.)]

It is that advocated by Auguste Comte, Draper and Spencer, and a few years ago Prof. Gerland, of Strasburg, formulated its basic maxim in these words: “Man has developed from the brute through the action of purely mechanical, therefore fixed, laws.”[4 - “Die Menschheit hat sich aus natürlicher, tierischer Grundlage auf rein natürliche mechanische Weise entwickelt.” Anthropolgische Beiträge, s. 21.]

The scientist of to-day who hesitates to subscribe to these maxims is liable to be regarded as of doubtful learning or of debilitated intellect. I acknowledge that I am one such, and believe that I can show sound reasons for denying the assumption on which this view is based.

It appears to me just as teleologic and divinatory as those I have previously named. It assumes Evolution as a law of the universe, whereas in natural science it is only a limited generalization, inapplicable to most series of natural events, and therefore of uncertain continuance in any series. The optimism which it inculcates is insecure and belongs to deductive, not inductive, reasoning. The mechanical theory on which it is based lacks proof, and is, I maintain, insufficient to explain motive, and, therefore, historic occurrences. The assumption that history is the record of a necessary and uninterrupted evolution, progressing under ironclad mechanical laws, is a preconceived theory as detrimental to clear vision as are the preoccupations of the theologian or the political partisan.

Any definition of evolution which carries with it the justification of optimism is as erroneous in history, as it would be in biology to assert that all variations are beneficial. There is no more certainty that the human species will improve under the operation of physical laws than that any individual will; there is far more evidence that it will not, as every species of the older geologic ages has succumbed to those laws, usually without leaving a representative.

I am aware that I am here in opposition to the popular as well as the scientific view. No commonplace is better received than that, “Eternal progress is the law of nature;” though by what process eternal laws are discovered is imperfectly explained.

Applied to history, a favorite dream of some of the most recent teachers is that the life of the species runs the same course as that of one of its members. Lord Acton, of Oxford, in a late lecture states that: “The development of society is like that of individual;”[5 - A Lecture on the Study of History, p. 1 (London, 1895).] and Prof. Fellows, of the University of Chicago, advances the same opinion in the words, “Humanity as a whole developes like a child.”[6 - See his article “The Relation of Anthropology to the Study of History,” in The American Journal of Sociology, July, 1895.]

The error of this view was clearly pointed out some years ago by Dr. Tobler.[7 - Ludwig Tobler, in his article “Zur Philosophie der Geschichte,” in the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Bd. XII., s. 195.] There has been no growth of humanity at large at all comparable to that of the individual. There are tribes to-day in the full stone age, and others in all stages of culture above it. The horizons of progress have been as local as those of geography. No solidarity of advancement exists in the species as a whole. Epochs and stadia of culture vary with race and climate. The much talked of “law of continuity” does not hold good either in national or intellectual growth.

Such are the criticisms which may be urged against the historical methods now in vogue. What, you will ask, is offered in their stead? That which I offer is the view of the ethnologist. It is not so ambitious as some I have named. It does not deal in eternal laws, nor divine the distant future. The ethnologist does not profess to have been admitted into the counsels of the Almighty, nor to have caught in his grasp the secret purposes of the Universe. He seeks the sufficient reason for known facts, and is content with applying the knowledge he gains to present action.

Before stating the view of the ethnologist, I must briefly describe what the science of Ethnology is. You will see at once how closely it is allied to history, and that the explanation of the one almost carries with it the prescription for the other.

It begins with the acknowledged maxim that man is by nature a gregarious animal, a zoon politikon, as Aristotle called him, living in society, and owing to society all those traits which it is the business of history, as distinguished from biology, to study.

From this standpoint, all that the man is he owes to others; and what the others are, they owe, in part, to him. Together, they make up the social unit, at first the family or clan, itself becoming part of a larger unit, a tribe, nation or people. The typical folk, or ethnos, is a social unit, the members of which are bound together by certain traits common to all or most, which impart to them a prevailing character, an organic unity, specific peculiarities and general tendencies.

You may inquire what these traits are to which I refer as making up ethnic character. The answer cannot be so precise as you would like. We are dealing with a natural phenomenon, and Nature, as Goethe once remarked, never makes groups, but only individuals. The group is a subjective category of our own minds. It is, nevertheless, psychologically real, and capable of definition.

The Ethnos must be defined, like a species of natural history, by a rehearsal of a series of its characteristics, not by one alone. The members of this series are numerous, and by no means of equal importance; I shall mention the most prominent of them, and in the order in which I believe they should be ranked for influence on national character.

First, I should rank Language. Not only is it the medium of intelligible intercourse, of thought-tranference, but thought itself is powerfully aided or impeded by the modes of its expression in sound. As “spoken language,” in poetry and oratory, its might is recognized on all hands; while in “written language,” as literature, it works silently but with incalculable effect on the character of a people.[8 - One of the most lucid of modern German philosophical writers says, “Without language, there could be no unity of mental life, no national life at all.” Friedrich Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 193. (English translation, New York, 1895.) I need scarcely recall to the student that this was the cardinal principle of the ethnological writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and that his most celebrated essay is entitled “Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts.” The thought is well and tersely put by Prof. Frank Granger – “Language is the instinctive expression of national spirit.” (The Worship of the Romans, p. 19, London, 1896.)]

Next to this I should place Government, understanding this word in its widest sense, as embracing the terms on which man agrees to live with his fellow man and with woman, family, therefore, as well as society ties. This includes the legal standards of duty, the rules of relationship and descent, the rights of property and the customs of commerce, the institutions of castes, classes and rulers, and those international relations on which depend war and peace. I need not enlarge on the profound impress which these exert on the traits of the people.[9 - “Law, in its positive forms, may be viewed as an instrument used to produce a certain kind of character.” Frank Granger, ubi supra, p. 19.]

After these I should name Religion, though some brilliant scholars, such as Schelling and Max Müller,[10 - Lectures on the Science of Religion, p. 55.] have claimed for it the first place as a formative influence on ethnic character. No one will deny the prominent rank it holds in the earlier stages of human culture. It is scarcely too much to say that most of the waking hours of the males of some tribes are taken up with religious ceremonies. Religion is, however, essentially “divinatory,” that is, its chief end and aim is toward the future, not the present, and therefore the impress it leaves on national character is far less permanent, much more ephemeral, than either government or language. This is constantly seen in daily life. Persons change their religion with facility, but adhere resolutely to the laws which protect their property. The mighty empire of Rome secured ethnic unity to a degree never since equalled in parallel circumstances, and its plan was to tolerate all religions – as, indeed, do all enlightened states to-day – but to insist on the adoption of the Roman law, and, in official intercourse, the Latin language. I have not forgotten the converse example of the Jews, which some attribute to their religion; but the Romany, who have no religion worth mentioning, have been just as tenacious of their traits under similar adverse circumstances.

The Arts, those of Utility, such as pottery, building, agriculture and the domestication of animals, and those of Pleasure, such as music, painting and sculpture, must come in for a full share of the ethnologist’s attention. They represent, however, stadia of culture rather than national character. They influence the latter materially and are influenced by it, and different peoples have toward them widely different endowments; but their action is generally indirect and unequally distributed throughout the social unit.

These four fields, Language, Government, Religion and the Arts, are those which the ethnologist explores when he would render himself acquainted with a nation’s character; and now a few words about the methods of study he adopts, and the aims, near or remote, which he keeps in view.

He first gathers his facts, from the best sources at his command, with the closest sifting he can give them, so as to exclude errors of observation or intentional bias. From the facts he aims to discover on the above lines what are or were the regular characteristics of the people or peoples he is studying. The ethnic differences so revealed are to him what organic variations are to the biologist and morphologist; they indicate evolution or retrogression, and show an advance toward higher forms and wider powers, or toward increasing feebleness and decay.

To understand them they must be studied in connection and causation. Hence, the method of the ethnologist becomes that which in the natural sciences is called the “developmental” method. It may be defined as the historic method where history is lacking. The biologist explains the present structure of an organ by tracing it back to simpler forms in lower animals until he reaches the germ from which it began. The ethnologist pursues the same course. He selects, let us say, a peculiar institution, such as caste, and when he loses the traces of its origin through failure of written records, he seeks for them in the survivals of unwritten folk-lore, or in similar forms in primitive conditions of culture.

Here is where Archæology renders him most efficient aid. By means of it he has been able to follow the trail of most of the arts and institutions of life back to a period when they were so simple and uncomplicated that they are quite transparent and intelligible. Later changes are to be analyzed and explained by the same procedure.[11 - How different from the position of Voltaire, who, expressing, the general sentiment of his times, wrote, – “The history of barbarous nations has no more interest than that of bears and wolves!”]

This is the whole of the ethnologic method. It is open and easy when the facts are in our possession. There are no secret springs, no occult forces, in the historic development of culture. Whatever seems hidden or mysterious, is so only because our knowledge of the facts is imperfect. No magic and no miracle has aided man in his long conflict with the material forces around him. No ghost has come from the grave, no God from on high, to help him in the bitter struggle. What he has won is his own by the right of conquest, and he can apply to himself the words of the poet:

“Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet,

Heilig glühend Herz?” (Goethe).

Freed from fear we can now breathe easily, for we know that no Deus ex machina meddles with those serene and mighty forces whose adamantine grasp encloses all the phenomena of nature and of life.

The ethnologist, however, has not completed his task when he has defined an ethnos, and explained its traits by following them to their sources. He has merely prepared himself for a more delicate and difficult part of his undertaking.

It has been well said by one of the ablest ethnologists of this generation, the late Dr. Post, of Bremen, that “The facts of ethnology must ever be regarded as the expressions of the general consciousness of Humanity.”[12 - Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, Bd. I., s. 5. (Leipzig, 1894.)] The time has passed when real thinkers can be satisfied with the doctrines of the positive philosophers, who insisted that events and institutions must be explained solely from the phenomenal or objective world, that is, by other events.

Sounder views prevail, both in ethnology and its history. “The history of man,” says a German writer, “is neither a divine revelation, nor a process of nature; it is first and above all, the work of man;”[13 - “Das Geschichte ist weder eine Offenbarung Gottes, noch ein Naturprocess, sondern eben Menschenwerk.” Tobler in the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Bd. XII., s. 201.] an opinion reiterated by Prof. Flint in his work on the philosophy of history in these words: “History is essentially the record of the work and manifestation of human nature.”[14 - History of the Philosophy of History, p. 579.] In both sciences it is the essentially human which alone occupies us; it is the life of man.