THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY November 10, 1962
Historian's Philosophy of History Mohit Sen
What Is History? by Edward Hallett Carr, Macmillan and Co,
London, 1962. Pp 155; price 21s.
T H I S s l i m volume w i l l i n t ime assume the dimensions
of a clas-
sical w o r k on h i s tor iography . T h e author is no mere
theoret ic ian of his tory. The many-volumed splend-our of his def
ini t ive work on Soviet history entitles h i m , along w i t h
Needham, to the status of the most seminal h i s to r ian w r i t i
n g i n Engl ish . W h e n such a man examines the ap-proach that
needs to be adopted if one is to be a f ru i t f u l h is tor ian ,
there is need for at tention by all and even a certain at t i tude
of reverence on the par t of a l l who would aspire to he
historians — or makers of h is tory .
M e n t i o n i n g the fact that his major work does not suffer
f rom a pauci ty of documentat ion or footnotes, the author immedia
te ly launches a de-vastat ing and yet subtle offensive on w h a t
he calls, very appropr ia te ly , the fetishism of facts and of
documents. " T h e bel ief in a hard core of histo-r ica l facts
exis t ing object ively and independent ly of the in terpre ta t
ion of the h i s to r ian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which
it is very hard to eradicate" (p 6 ) .
Clearly stating that 'history means interpretat ions ' , he
analyses the social background to the Gradg r in -d ian fondness
for "facts" wh ich suddenly seized the academic w o r l d in Eng
land , A social s i tuat ion had arisen when the class f rom whom
most of the historians came felt un-comfortable when they thought
of his torv as a causal process and as a m o v i n g whole.
D r a w i n g f rom his own experience he wr i t e s : "The h is
tor ian and the facts of h is tory are necessary to one another.
The his tor ian w i thou t his facts is rootless and f u t i l e ;
the facts wi thout their h i s tor ian are dead and meaningless. My
first answer. there-fore, to the question, 'What is His-t o r y ? '
is that i t is a continuous i n -teract ion between the h is tor
ian and his facts, an unending dialogue bet-ween the present and
the past" (p 2 4 ) .
Not only is select ivi ty essential f o r the h is tor ian , i t
is also i n -evitable. " T h e h i s to r ian , before he
begins to wr i t e h is tory , is the prod-uct of h i s to ry"
(p 3 4 ) . A n d he jus-tifies this aphor ism w i t h a b r i l l i
a n t analysis, more pa r t i cu la r ly , of the w o r k of Grote
and Lewis Namie r . The approach to the past is condi-t ioned by
the historian's place in and a t t i tude to the present and,
there-fore, as Croce said, a l l h is tory is contemporary .
But this need not mean an in -escapable personal and total re la
t i -v i sm. Carr says "the h is tor ian who is most conscious of h
i s own situa-t i o n is also more capable of trans-cending i t ,
and more capable of apprec ia t ing the essential nature of the
differences between his o w n society and out look and those of
other periods and other countries, than the his tor ian who loud ly
pro-tests that he is an i n d i v i d u a l and not a social
phenomenon" (p 3 8 ) .
Role of the Individual He adopts the same approach to
the subject matter of h is tory — w h i c h is the act ion of
massive social change ("numbers count in histo-r y " ) . In this
connection, he makes an i l l u m i n a t i n g examinat ion of the
favour i te p rob lem of the role of the ind iv idua l in his tory.
I t i s significant that the two greatest heroes in his-tory that
attract his at tent ion are Cromwel l and Len in , than whom none
was more conscious of the determined and destined nature of thei r
actions.
W i t h these basic tenets firmly en-unciated Carr takes up a
sustained polemic against the two most dis-t inguished
representatives of the so-called ant i -his tor ic is t school —
Ish iah Be r l i n and K a r l Popper. The i rony and the subtlety
of the pole-mic , no less than its range, are ad-mirab le . The his
tor ian as a stylist and not a mere pedestrian fact fac-t o ry
comes th rough on every page.
As far as causation in his tory goos he warns against acceptance
ei ther of the nineteenth century of causality ( ' " i ron laws")
and also of the now fashionable p lay ing up of " the unique na
ture" of each h is tor i -cal e v e n t and of its "essential
acci-d e n t a l l y " .
H o l d i n g that the role of accident is "seriously
exaggerated by those who are interested to stress its im-por tance"
— among w h o m he i n -cludes Trotsky (p 9 6 ) — h e stresses the
po in t that accidents themselves have a cause and the need to draw
up a h ie ra rchy of causes.
" W e dis t inguish between rat ion-al and accidental causes.
The former , since they are potent ia l ly appl icable to other
countries, other periods and other condit ions, lead, to f r u i t
f u l generalisations and lessons can be learned f r o m t h e m ;
they serve the end of broad-en ing and deepening our
under-standing. Accidental causes can-not be generalised and, since
they are in the fullest sense unique , they teach no lessons and
lead to no conclusions. But here I must make another point . I t is
pre-clsely this no t ion of an end in view which provides the key
to our treatment of causation in his-t o r y ; and this necessarily
involves value judgments . In te rpre ta t ion in his tory i s . .
. . always bound up w i t h value judgments, and causa-lity is
bound up w i t h interpreta-t i o n " ( p 1 0 1 ) .
This leads on to a view of His to ry as progress, which is
defined as the " t ransmission of acquired s k i l l f r o m one
generation to another" (p 1 0 8 ) . A n d prepress is in f in i t e
and i r re -versib'e ( though there may be seri-ous temporary
reverses and also "delayed achievement") . As far as the content of
progress is coneerned, he says " M a r x treats human labour as the
foundat ion of the whole edi-fice; and this formula seems
accept-able if a sufficiently broad sense is attached to l a b o u
r ' " (p 1 1 2 ) .
Thus we have the dialectical rela-t ionship between a
progressive science wh ich , in its t u r n , has pro-gress as its
centre of study. All his-torians need a sense of d i rect ion since
"h i s to r iography is a progres-sive science in the sense that it
seeks to provide constantly expand-i n g and deepening insights
into a course of event- wh ich is itself pro-gressive" (p 118)
,
1719
Book Review
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY November 10, 1962
A n d w i t h a robust op t im i sm Carr concludes his study w i
t h a depic t ion of the expansion of reason (where Freud i s
mentioned a long w i t h M a r x ) , the emergence of submerged
classes and areas on to the arena of h is tor ica l significance. W
e l c o m i n g the contemporary per iod as the great-est era of r
evo lu t ionary progress, he draws pointed a t tent ion to the
insu-l a r i ty and the regress of the lead-i n g academic circles
in West Europe.
I t i s not surpr i s ing , therefore, that the academicians in
England have been outraged by this book. Trevor-Rope, appropr ia te
ly enough in Encounter, has come out w i t h a screaming d ia t r
ibe against wha t he calls "Carr ' s success s tory" . W h a t is
equally relevant, however, is that our academic historians, over-
fami l i -a r w i t h Popper, B e r l i n , Tay lo r and Fisher,
have chosen to ignore this u t te r ly outs tanding book. I t i s
not only in West Europe that the histo-rians in the mass suffer f r
o m miasma and a lack of a sense of d i rec t ion .
W h e n so m u c h has been given and w i t h such fe l ic i ty
of expression, i t m i g h t seem c a r p i n g to cr i t ic ise .
Ye t two tentat ive c r i t i ca l suggestions seem to be in
order.
Firs t , the concept of law in his-t o ry . Carr does d raw up a
h ierarchy of causes but the o n l y d is t inc t ion he seems to
make is between ' 'accident-a l " and " r a t i o n a l " causes. I
t wou ld appear, however, that there is a hie-rarchy of ra t ional
causes (or neces-s i ty) as w e l l . There are laws in his-t o ry
wide enough to cover its ent i re range — the p roduc t ive
forces-pro-duct ion relations confronta t ion . There are other
laws specific fo r stages in his tory — e g , the d i f fe r ing
modes of m o t i o n of specific socio-economic formations — w h i
c h are less w ide in range. A n d w i t h i n these
socio-econo-mic format ions there are laws s t i l l fur ther
restricted — e g, the d i f f e r ing paths of development of Ch
ina and o f I n d i a i n our o w n epoch. I t i s on ly w h e n
the h i s to r i an has attempt-ed a study of these levels of laws
that he can come to examine "acci-denta l causes". In other words,
one would l i ke to emphasise more the range and impac t of laws
than Carr has done, perhaps, out of an un-necessarily unc r i t i c
a l adopt ion of what passes for the scientific theory of p r o b a
b i l i t y .
T h e second po in t of difference is w i t h regard to the
standards of pro-
gress and of significance in h is tory . A careful read ing of "
W h a t Is His -t o r y ? " leaves this reviewer, at any rate, w i
t h the uneasy feeling that Carr has come, in places, per i lous ly
close to what can be called the existentialist approach to h is
tory . T h e reference is to the concept of evolv ing ends to
evaluate an evolv-i n g process. This is t rue enough bu t there is
a pattern and a definite d i r ec t ion to this evolut ion wh ich
can also be made to y i e l d significance in terms of definite
standards.
Carr mentions M a r x ' s concept of labour but he does not go
fur ther and tell us of the d i f fe r ing socio-economic
formations bu i l t up on different patterns of organisa t ion of
labour w i t h d i f fe r ing scales of p ro-duc t iv i ty ,
understood in the widest sense. A n d yet M a r x ' s mode of
pro-
1 7 2 1
duc t ion w i t h i ts corresponding super-structure gives us a
c r i t e r i o n suffi-cientry r igorous and flexible w i t h wh
ich to evolve both his tory and historians.
To pu t i t ra ther exaggeratedly, the essence of h is tory does
not de-pend o n l y on its manifested exist-ence but its existence
is also impel led by its essence. A n d the task of the his tor ian
is not to rest t i l l he penet-rates to this essence. M a r x d i
d this for capital is t society.
A n d it is the best t r ibute one can t h i n k of to say that
Carr w i l l be among the foremost of those who help us to do this
for socialism. He be-longs to the great t r ad i t i on of those
creative historians w h o heighten human self-consciousness, w h i
c h is h is tory .
