History seems to assume that this force is taken for granted of itself and is known to every one. But in despite of every desire to admit thi. new force as known, any one who reads through very many historica works cannot but doubt whether this new force, so differently understooc by the historians themselves, is perfectly well known to every one.
II
What is the force that moves nations?
Biographical historians, and historians writing of separate nations, understand this force as a power residing in heroes and sovereigns. According to their narratives, the events were entirely due to the wills of Napoleons, of Alexanders, or, generally speaking, of those persons who form the Subject of historical memoirs. The answers given by historians of this class to the question as to the force which brings about events are satisfactory, but only so long as there is only one historian for any event. But as soon as historians of different views and different nationalities begin describing the same event, the answers given by them immediately lose all their value, as this force is understood by them, not only
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jii-rently, but often in absolutely opposite ways. One historian asserts th. an event is due to the power of Napoleon; another maintains that it produced by the power of Alexander; a third ascribes it to the in- ilcrice of some third person. Moreover, historians of this class contradict or another even in their explanation of the force on which the influence of he same person is based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon’s peer rested on his virtue and his genius; Lanfrey, a Republican, de- cl;es that it rested on his duplicity and deception of the people. So that hiorians of this class, mutually destroying each other’s position, at the saie time destroy the conception of the force producing events, and give nanswer to the essential question of history.
Vriters of universal history, who have to deal with all the nations at 01 e, appear to recognise the incorrectness of the views of historians of Sfarate countries as to the force that produces events. They do not recog- n; this force as a power pertaining to heroes and sovereigns, but regard itis the resultant of many forces working in different directions. In dcribing a war on the subjugation of a people, the writer of general htory seeks the cause of the event, not in the power of one person, but iithe mutual action on one another of many persons connected with tl event.
The power of historical personages conceived as the product of several fices, according to this view, can hardly, one would have supposed, be r;arded as a self-sufficient force independently producing events. Yet eiters of general history do in the great majority of cases employ the :iception of power again as a self-sufficient force producing events and i nding in the relation of cause to them. According to their exposition vv the historical personage is the product of his time, and his power only the product of various forces, now his power is the force pro- :cing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, for instance, and others, in one place, ;olain that Napoleon is the product of the Revolution, of the ideas of 189, and so on; and in another plainly state that the campaign of 1812 d other events not to their liking are simply the work of Napoleon’s ongly directed will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in eir development by Napoleon’s arbitrary rule. The ideas of the Revo- tion, the general temper of the age produced Napoleon’s power. The iwer of Napoleon suppressed the ideas of the Revolution anti the general mper of the age.
This strange inconsistency is not an accidental one. It confronts us at 'ery turn, and, in fact, whole works upon universal history are made ) of consecutive series of such inconsistencies. This inconsistency is re to the fact that after taking a few steps along the road of analysis, ese historians have stopped short halfway.
To find the component forces that make up the composite or resultant rce, it is essential that the sum of the component parts should equal ie resultant. This condition is never observed by historical writers, and insequently, to explain the resultant force, they must inevitably ad-
mit, in addition to those insufficient contributory forces, some furt r unexplained force that affects also the resultant action.
