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Some Points of Gontagt Between History and Natural Scienge. Edgar Wind (1936)
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7/18/2019 Some Points of Gontagt Between History and Natural Scienge. Edgar Wind (1936)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/some-points-of-gontagt-between-history-and-natural-scienge-edgar-wind-1936 1/8
OXFORD
,UNIVERSITY
PRESS
AMEN HOUSE, E.C. 4
London
Edinlmrgh
Glasgow New
York
Toronto tyfelbourne Capetown Bombay
Calcu tta Madras
HUMPHREY MILFORD
PUDLISIIER
1 0 T H E
UNIVERSI l Y
P ILOSOP Y
I STORY
Essays presented to
E R N S T
C A S S I R E R
Edited by
RAYMOND KLIBANSKY
and
H. ] PATON
OXFORD
AT THE GLARENDON PRESS
1936
7/18/2019 Some Points of Gontagt Between History and Natural Scienge. Edgar Wind (1936)
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viii
PREFACE
never-failing
support without
which
the
present publication
would have been impossible; to its Director, Dr. Saxl, to its staff,
and to those ofits collaborators, especially Dr. H. Buchthai and
Dr.
0
Kurz, who
have helped
to
proeure the
illustrations;
to
Dr. L. Labowsky
and
Miss M.
A.
Cox, who have so freely given
us ~ h i r time and
their help;
to Mrs. E. Gundolf for permission
to mclude a chapter from one
of
thc still unpublished works of
the late
Professor Friedrich Gundolf;
to the
scholars who
under
took the arduous task of translating
the
foreign contributions
into idiomatic English; and finally to
the
officers of the Glaren
don Press for their constant advice and assiduous care in an
undertaking
of
no little difficulty.
R.K.
H.J. P.
OXFORD,
February 1936
CONTENTS
A
DEFINITION OF
THE
CONCEPT OF HISTORY.
By
J·
HUIZINGA, Leiden
.
.
THE
HISTORICITY OF
THINGS. By
s. ALEXANDER, Manchester .
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY. By L
BRUNSCHVICG, Paris
27
•
ON THE SO-CALLED IDENTITY OF HISTORY
AND
PHILO-
SOPHY. By
G. cALOGERO, Pisa
. 35
RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY,
AND
HISTORY.
By
c. c. J W En n ,
Oxford
53
I(
CONCERNING
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. THE DISTINC
TIVENESS OF THE PHILOSOPHIC ORDER. By :E. GILSON,
Paris
TOWARDS AN
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.
By n.
GROETHUYSEN,
Paris
THE
TRANSGENDING OF
TIME IN
HISTORY.
By G.
GENTILE,
Rome
SOME
AMBIGUITIES IN
DISGUSSIONS
CONCERNING
TIME.
By L. s. STEBBING, London
THE UNIVERSAL
IN
THE STRUCTURE
OF
HISTORICAL
KNOWLEDGE.
By T. LITT, Leipzig
ON THE OBJECTIVITY OF HISTORICAL
KNOWLEDGE.
By
F. MEDICUS, Zürich
THE FORMATION OF OUR HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY.
By
:E. BREHIER, Paris
f PLATONISM
IN
AUGUSTINE S PHILOSOPHY
OF
HISTORY.
By
E. HOFFMANN, eidelberg
6r
77
gr
I25
1
37
159
173
<
THE CARTESIAN SPIRIT AND HISTORY. By L. LEVY-BRUIIL,
Paris
191
VERITAS
FILIA TEMPORIS.
By
F.
sAXL, London
197
ET
IN
ARCADIA EGO.
By E. PANOFSKY, Princeton 223
X
SOME
POINTS OF CONTACT
BETWEEN
HISTORY AND
NATURAL
SCIENCE. By E. WIND,
London
255
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5
4
ET IN
ARCADIA EGO
taken over from the G · . . .
that
the De
h
uer?mo
pamtmg
m the Corsini Gallery and
vons Ire verswn was b b
1
'
between I625
and
628 Th
t. p ~ o
y executed as early as
was suggested to Po b
U ~ I
Israt errmprobable
that
the subject
hardly have
met e f ~ ; ~ ~ ~ 6
y t
~ p r e l a t e
Rospigliosi, whom he could
having h ld fl .32, w en the 1atter retu rned to Rom e after
0 e a
pro
essorship
at
the University
of
Pisa since r62
he
l i ~ e ~ f n ; a ~ e f hand
Bellori's Statements as to Poussin, with
Jhom
are quite
r e l i : ~ ~ l ~ : e : : ~ ~ ~ n a i ~ o n t a c ~ d u ~ i n g
the l atter' s 1ater years,
connexion with Poussin's
Ä r c a d ~ s
at e
te_Hs about
the prelate's
groundless either, though
l i g h t l y l ~ n ~ ~ ~ ~ u r ~ s
m.Ight notl'be altogether
~ : ; ; : : ~ h ~ , r ; ~ : " : ; : , o ~ ~ 7 a ~ o i a p h e ; : ' : . ~ ~ : : ' t a : : : , ; ~ : , ; ~ ; ; ~ : : ;
Louvre picture f r ~ m p . dospig
I?SI
mig. t have ordered the
tioned the fact
that
he
~ ~ s s m , an on
this occaswn might have men
of
the subject
wh
h '. e:.re1ate, cou1d boast the original invention
Poussin
but
to
G u ~ r c i ~ ~
\ ~ ~ ~ ~ e ,
h e l ; o u 1 ~
hhave suggested not to
between
I
6 d 6 · e cou easi Y ave
met
at
any
time
with the
J : s i u ~ ~ I h ~ f ' w en
the
youn?
nobleman studied
at
Rome
'Aurora Ludovi;i' w
~ t t ~
e young J?amter worked at his famous
known to be a t - fl e .more easi1y as the 'Aurora Luriovisi'
is
rans
ormatwn or
rather
a practical criticism
so
to
d : ~ ~ a ~ l ~ : ~ ~ ~ l o ~ i n ~ n ~ A w h i c h . ~ a s
the pri.de
of
the
later
Pope's
f
h. .
em
s uro ra m the Casmo Rospigliosi
IS
were true
t
wou1d be no 1
·u
.
Clement
IX
wh } d 1
ess
I
ustnous a person
than
Pope
. o la transp anted to the soil
of
Arcadia the medieval
~ ~ ~ p ~ ~ ~ d
a(i:xpr:ss:d
in the legend of the Three Living and the
Histriomastix
a ~ I m l a r way as he
had
transformed the content of
Vita
H ')
&c., mto the
~ c e n e
represented
in
Poussin's
Ballo
della
. .
umana
' and had
comed the phrase Et in
Arcadia e
h.
~ u ; ; ~ ~ o ~ f C f a c t ~
?ar:not be traced back beyond its
a p p e ~ a : c ~ c ~ ~
orsm1
p1cture.
I give this conjecture only for
what
it
is
worth
but it
would b .
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a y t i v \ ~ a r ~ o n y
with the Statement
of ~ l l o r i and
in
e n ~ i ~ ~
WI
t e somewhat moralizing t
h
hl h . .
spirit
of
Rospigliosi's
l t
d . ' ye
Ig
Y umamst1c,
Clemente
IX
I8 . I erar y poetreal works (cf. G. Beani,
' 93, G. Canevazzi,
Papa
Clemente IX
Poeta
M d
rgoo; Dff. Alaleona,
Bulletino della
Societd
F i l o l o g i c ~
o m ~ n a o g e ~ 4 a ,
PP· 71 . . • '
SOME POINTS OF GONTAGT BETWEEN
HISTORY AND NATURAL SGIENGE
y E D G A R W I N D
I
SHALL be
concerned here
with some, but by
no means
with
all, of
the points of contact between history
and
the
natural
sciences.
It is not my
intention,
for
instance,
to dwell
on well-known
facts
which have not
ceased tobe facts for
being
ignored or
forgotten
by professional philosophers.
In
spite of
Fichte-and some minor
autonomists
ofthe mind-history (taken
in
the customary
sense of
the term,
as
history
of human
fate
and achievement)
began
only at
a
certain
stage ofthe
develop
ment of nature. The earth had to separate
from
the sun and
acquire such motion, shape,
and tcmperature
that
living
bcings
could develop on it before History
was (to
adopt Kant s
phrase-
ology) made possible'.
When we, therefore,
speak
of
points
of contact between
nature
and
history, we may begin
by
recalling
the
trivial fact
that
between
the
two there
is a
contact
in
time
and
hence
a
transition. Once the
form
of
this
transition is
being
inquired
into, the most dreaded questions begin to make their appear
ance. What
is the relation between inorganic matter and
organic
life? How
did we
evolve
from
a
state of
nature
to one
of conscious
control? How did primitive man,
magically subjecting
him
self
to nature s
powers and
apparently living in an almost
a-historical
form, produce
his 'civilized'
descendant who,
in the
moulding of
his
surroundings,
creates
and experiences
historic
changes ? I shall
not
discuss
any ofthese
questions.
My
problern
is far
more modest. Instead ofinquiring into
cosmic
or cultural
events
which
mayillustrate the
temporalintersectionoftheworlds
of
nature and history, I
shall
confine
myself to indicating some
formal
points
of
correspondence between these two
worlds-or,
tobe
more
prccise,
between the
scientific
methods which render
each
of
them an object of human knowledge
and
experience.
The mere
assertion
that there are such correspondenccs
may
appear
heretical to
many. German
scholars
have taught
for
decades that,
apart
from adherence to the most general
rulcs of
1
The following refers
in
particular to the schools of Dilthey, Windel
band,
and
Rickert.
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256 SOME POINTS OF GONTAGT BETWEEN
logic, the studyofhistoryand thenaturalsciences are to each other
as pole and
anti
pole,
and that it
is the first duty of any historian
to forswear all
sympathy with the
ideals ofmen who w ould like
to reduce the whole world to a mathematical formula. This
:evol.t was
no
doubt
an
act
of
Iiberation in its time.
To-day
it
Is _rmntless. The very concept
of
nature in opposition to which
D1lthey proclaimed his Geisteswissenschaft has long been aban
~ o n e d by the s c i e ~ t i s t s
t h ~ m s : h : e s
and the notion
of
a descrip
twn
o f nature which mdiscnmmately subjects
men
and their
fates h ke rocks
and
stones to its
'unalterable
laws' survives only
as a
mghtmare
of certain historians.
Thus
it need not be symptomatic of a sinful relapse into the
method
of thought so generously abused as 'positivistic', if in
what o l l o w s s o m ~ exa.mples.
are
chosen to illustrate
how the
very
questwns that histonans hke to look upon as
their own
are
also raised in natural science. The all too sedentary inhabitants
of
the 'Globus intellectualis' may, it is true, think
it
incredible
that their antipodes do not stand
on their
heads.
I. Document and Instrument
In defiance of
the
rules of
traditional
logic,
circular
argu
m ~ n t s
are the normal method
of
producing documentary
ev1dence.
An historian who consults his documents in order to interpret
some political event
can
judge the value
of
these documents
only
if he
knows their place within tbe very same course of
events about wbicb be consults tbem.
In tbe same way, an art-bistorian wbo from a given work
draws _an inference concerning
tbe
development of its author
turns mto an art-connoisseur wbo examines tbe reasons for
attributing
this work to tbis
particular master: and
for tbis
purpose be must presuppose tbe knowledge
of tbat
master's
development
wbich
was
just wbat be wanted
to infer.
Tbis cbange
focu_s
fron:
tbe
obje;t
to
tbe
means
of
inquiry,
and
tbe ~ o n c ~ m i t a n t mverswn of object
and
means, is peculiar
to.most 1 ~ t o n c a l
~ t u d i : s and tbe
instances given may
be
multi
phed. lzb. An. mqmry concerning
tbe
Baroque, wbicb uses
Bermm
s.
beoretical utt:rances as a source for explaining the
style _of bis works, turns mto a
study
of
tbe
role
of
tbeory in tbe
creative process of Bernini.
An
inquiry concerning Gaesar's
monarchy and tbe principate
of Pompey, rnaking use
of
I
HISTORY AND NATURAL SCIENCE
257
Cicero's writings as its main source, becomes a study
of tbe
part
played by Cicero
in
the conftict between the Senate and the
usurpers. . . .
Generally speaking tbis
migbt
be
termed tbe
d1alectiC
of
the
historical
document:
that
the
information which one tries to
gain
with the help of the document ought
to
be
presupposed
for its adequate
understanding.
Tbe scientist is subject to the very same paradox. The
pbysicist seeks to infer general laws
of n a t u r ~
by instrumen_ts
tbemselves subject to tbese laws.
For
measurmg heat,
a ftmd
like quicksilver is chosen as a
standard,
and
it
is claimed
that
it
expands evenly
with
increasing
warmth.
Y
et
how
can
such
an
assertion be made without knowledge of the laws of thermo
dynamics? And again, how c a ~ tbese la;vs k n ~ w n except
by measurements in wbicb a ftmd, e.g. qmcksilver, S used as a
~ t a n d a r d
Classical mechanics employs
measuring
rods
and
clocks that
are transferred from one place
to
another; the assumption being
tbat this alteration of place leaves
untouched
their constancy as
measuring instruments. This assumption, however, e x p r e s s e ~ a
mechanical
law
(viz. tbat
the
results of measurement are m
dependent of
the
state of motion)
the
validity o f w l ~ i c b
must
b_e
tested by instruments wbicb, in
their
turn,
are rehable
only
1f
tbe
law
assumed is valid.
The circle thus proves in science as inescapable as in history.
Every instrument and every document participates in tbe struc-
ture whicb
it is meant to reveal.
1
Il. The Intrusion
ri
the
Observer
It is curious tbat Diltbey sbould bave considered this participa-
tion as one
of the
traits which distinguish the study
of
bistory
from the natural sciences. In bis Einleitung in die Geisteswissen-
schaften be
admits that
tbe study of
'social bodies'
is
less precise
tban
that of'natural
bodies'.
'And
yet',
be
adds,
'all
this
is
more
tban counterbalanced
by
tbe fact
that
I who experience
and
know myself
inwardly, am
part of this s o i ~ l body.
he
individual is, on tbe one hand, an element m the mteractwns
'
For
a more detai ed analysis of this fact and
an exposition
of some of its wider
implications,
cp.
as Experiment und die J;letaphysik Tübingen,
1934, and 'Can
the
Antinomies
be
restated?' Psyche vol. xtv, I934·
4114
Ll
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258 SOME POINTS
OF
CONTACT BETWEEN
of
society, reacting to its effects in conscious will-direction
and
action,
and is at
the same time the intelligence contemplat
ing and investigating all this' (p. 46 sq.).
That
human agents, who form the substance of
what
Dilthey
calls the socio-historical reality', experience and know them
selves
inwardly is
a bold assertion.
It
transforms one of
the
most troublesome moral precepts
( Know
thysclf ') into a plain
and
ordinary
matter of fact, which is contradicted by both
ancient and
modern
experience. Whatever objections may be
made
to
the current
psychology
of
the
unconscious,
it
is
un
deniable
that
men do
not
know themselves
by
immediate intui
tion
and that
they live and express themselves on severallevels.
Hence,
the
interpretation of historical documents requires a far
more complex psychology than Dilthey's doctrine ofimmediate
experience with its direct appeal to a state of feeling. Peirce
wrotc in a draft of a psychology
of
the development of ideas:
it
is the beliefmen
betray and not that
which they parade which
has to be studied.'
1
Once the direct appeal to inner experience
is
abandoned,
Dilthey's
remark
ceases to contain
anything
that a physicist
might
not
apply to himself: I myself, who am handling appa
ratuses
and
instruments,
am
a
part of
this physical
world; the
individual (i.e.
the
physical technician and observer) is,
on
the
one
hand,
an element in the interactions of nature, and he
is
at
the same time the intelligence calculating ;md investigat
ing all this.'
Let
it not
be objected
that
by this 'physical travesty' the
meaning
of
Dilthey's statement
is
completely destroyed. True,
the
profundity has disappeared, and what remains seems to be
rather trivial. But what the statement now conveys is not only
simple, but also true: The investigator intrudes into the
process
that
he is investigating. This is what the supreme rule
of
methodology
demands.
In
order to study physics, one must be physically
affected;
pure
mind does
not
study physics. A body is needed
-however
much
the
mind
may
interpret -which transmits
the
signals that aretobe
interpreted.
Otherwise,
there
would be
no contact with the surrounding world
that
is
tobe
investigated.
Nor does
pure
mind study history.
Forthat
purpose, one must
'Issues of Pragmaticism', in
The Monist
xv, 1903, p. 485.
Reprinted
in
Collected Papers
of
Charles Sanders Peirce
v, p. 297, Harvard University Press, 1934
(ed.
by
Charles
Bartshorne
and
Paul
Weiss).
I
;
HISTORY AND NATURAL SCIENCE 259
be historically affected; caught
by
the mass of past experience
that
intrudes into the present in the shape of
tradition :
de
manding, compelling, often only narrating, reporting, pointing
to
other past
experience which has not as
yet been
unfolclecl.
Again,
the
investigator is in the first instancc a receiver of
signals to which he attends and which he pursues, but on whose
transmission he has only a very limited influence. The register
ing ancl digesting of these signs, the functioning
of
this whole
'receiving apparatus ,
cannot
be reducecl to
the
vague formula
of
traditional
antitheses ('bocly
and
soul',
inward
ancl
outward ).
The only antithesis that does
apply
is that between
part
ancl
'whole'. By his intrusion into the process
that
is to be studied,
the stuclent himself, like every one of his tools, becomes part
object of investigation; part-object to be
taken
in a twofold
sense: he is, like any
other organ
of investigation, but p rt of
the whole object
that
is
being investigated.
But
equally it is
only apart of hirnself
that,
thus externalizecl into an instrument,
enters
into
the object-world of his stuclies.
A
limitin Y
case might certainly be imagined where this part
of his p e r s o ~ becomes equal to the whole: w.here the
~ l i s t o ~ i n
ceases to be anything
but
a
product
of the h1story he 1magmes
hirnself
writing;
where
the student
of
documents
is
hirnself
at
best only another document
of the
historical contagion to which
he is a prey. Nor will it be clenied
that
this limiting case is occa
sionally almost reached;
just
as there are said to be physicists
whose working process comes alarmingly near to
that
of
thc
machirres with which they are conversant. But
if any
one were
to look upon this as
the normal
conclition, and to
proclaim
the 'inescapability of such material ties'-without a sense of thc
steps and grades that hold. g o o ~ here-he w o u l ~
commit.
the
mistake opposite
tothat
wh1ch d1ssolves all mate.nal con.nexwns
into mere associations of ideas. However true t remams that
pure
mind
cannot pursue. either ~ i s t o r y r physics, because
these things
clo
not affect lt
matenally,
lt s also t r ~ e that
material contact
does
not
suffice
to
supply these sCiences w1th
a conscious agent.
f he
physicist were nothing
but
a physical
apparatus, there
woulcl be no physics;
nor
would history exist,
if the historian were merely an historical clocument. (The very
formulation of these sentences contains a contradiction, for
the
worcls apparatus ancl
document
cannot be clefined at all
without
relation to some one who uses them for some purposc.)
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6o
SOME POINTS
OF
CONTACT
BETWEEN
It follows that we must
admit
a major
or minor
feat
of
in
telligence in
every
act
of
measurement or textual criticism but
that we
ought
to define this feat
of
intelligence as a
mode
of
behaviour,
that is, as a
type
of event. The critical interpretation
of
a
document by an
historian, considered as
an act in time
is
in
the first i n s t ~ n c e an event, no less than, say, the anger ; r joy
caus.ed by thrs ~ o c u m e n t as a biased contemporary may have
feit rt.
In the
hrstorian, too,
if he is
cnthusiastic
about
his sub
ject, somcthing
of
this anger or joy will reverberate. However
by the application of the
critical
method the raw excitement
r:fined
to
a more
thoughtful
mode of
behaviour.
He does not
s1mply follow hisspontaneaus
emotion, instead
he
appeals (more
or less ~ ~ c u r a t e l y
and
successfully) to a system
of grammatical
a n ~
cn.tical ~ · u l e s on
which
he bases his interpretation and
whrch, m therr
turn,
are tested
by
being applied.
Corresponding to
these grammatical and critical axioms the
experimental
physicist
has
his axioms ofmeasurement. He,pre
s ~ p p o s e s them and
appeals
to their rules, in order to
show
that
hrs method is correct. But what is the basis ofhis confidence
that
these rules will be a safe guide
in
the investigation ofhis subject?
A
pre-established
harmony , in the sense
of
Leibniz,
is unaccept
able
to-d ay. So is
Spinoza s doctrine of
a necessary
identity in
the order
and
connexion
of
things
and
'ideas'.
1
Kant had
tried
to eliminate
the
problern
by the
Copernican emotion
in
his
Critique
ri Pure
Reason,
which
made
the order
of
hings dependent
upon the order of ideas, i.e. the forms
of
judgement. Yet in
th.e Critique
ri
]udgement, the
problern
of the harmony of na{ure
With our understanding
die
Zusammenstimmung der Natur zu
unserem
Erkenntnisvermögen) is again
raised; only to
be
solved
o n ~ e m.ore by h ~ t a priori and
generalizing
method ofreasoning
whrch IS
called
transeendental deduction . Here
we
have the
~ r u x
of
all
such
t?eories : the
problern
is neither
capable,
nor
m
need,
of a
u ~ z v e r s a l
solution. What
is
actually an experi
m e ~ t a l
h ~ p o . t h e s i s h ~ s been a ~ e n for a
metaphysical
or epistemo
logical pnnc1ple; whrch explams
why
all these doctrines without
exception,
provide
a theory of truth, bu t not of error:
2
Error
E t l ~ i c a pars ii, prop. vii:
Ordo
et connexio iclearum idem est ac ordo et
connex o
rerum.
•
2
Cf.
Spinoza s
'?':ivat/v<:' . e ~ p ~ a n ~ t i o n .
?f
error Ethica, pars ii, prop. xxxv)
based on proposJUon: NJ ul m Jde1s posJtJvum est, propter quod falsae dicuntur
(prop. xxxm).
HISTORY AND NATURAL SCIENCE
6r
can only be accounted for if the methodical rulcs of invcstiga
tion are considered as part o the
experimental
hypothesis.
The
investigator
who
constructs and manipulates his
instrumcnts
believing
that
his method conforms with the gen?ral laws ?f
nature,
may
be
compared with the
driver
of
a v e h ~ c l e who, m
a country whose language
and
habits he knows but rm_rerfectly,
assumes that
he
is conforming with traffic regulatwns.
An
epoch-making event
in
a
laboratory
is often ~ o t . so
very_
different
from
an ordinary road
accident. However,
t
1s
pecuhar
to
the
physicist
that-within
controllable
limits-he
does
not
s l ~ u n
but
seeks these collisions, because
by them he
learns somethmg
of the structure
of the
occurrences
he
wants to investigate, and
of the rules
of
the game which he hypothetically presupposes.
The
physicist
about
to
abandon
one
ofhis
hypotheses ?ught
rejoice, for
he
finds an unexpected
opportumty
for a chscovery
(Poincare, Science
et
Hypothese, iv, p. g). It is für the sake ofthese
cliscoveries that
he
insertshirnself
into the
process,
and the
rules
according to which
he
cloes so are proved by the outcome
of
the experimenttobe either true or false, or doubtful. . .
This intrusion,
of
which every investigator must
be
gmlty rf
he wishes to make
any
sort
of
contact with bis material
and
to
test
the
rules
of
his procedure,
is
a t h o r o u g ~ l y real event.
_
s:t
of instruments
is
being
insertecl, ancl
the
grven
constellatwn rs
thereby disturbecl. The physicist clisturbs the
atoms
whose
.composition he
wants
to
study.
The
historian
clisturbs_the s l ~ e p
of the document that he
drags forth from a clusty arcluve. 1lus
worcl 'clisturbance' is
not
to be taken as a metaphor,
but
is
meant
literally.
Even the
astronomical physicist acts clisturb
ingly on nature when he ~ l i t s up a
b ~ a m
_of light that
has c o ~ e
from the stars, in order to mfer
the
clrrectwn
and
speed
of the1r
motion.
True he cloes
not
clisturb the
star,
but the nexus
of
nature in w h i ~ h the star is
only
a member. To the
historian
it
might,
incleed, souncl like a metaphor if he is
told
th.at the
clocument
is
clisturbed
by
him.
For involuntanly he
prctures
it
as a
material piece of paper, which
cloes
not
mincl
.whether
it
is
lying
in
a cupboarcl
or on
a table. How:ver, .rf we look
upon it as an historical o b ~ e c t ancl consrcler rts present
status-viz. how it has been
drscarded
and forgotten-as part
of
the historic process itself, then this process is indeed 'clis
turbed
by
him who
brings
the forgotten worcls back
to e ~ o r y ;
often a very unpleasant clisturbance-as when a traclrtwnal
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262
SOME POINTS
OF
CONTACT
BETWEEN
hero-worship is endaugered b d.
ness.
f
the t
~ d ·
b y a. Sclosure of the hero's weak-
erm
lstur ance IS take
.
ffi
sense so that
1
·
1
b n m a su c1ently wide
' em races every
r i
·
or intensification that . t amp 1 catwn, confirmation,
, lS o say ever I' ·
evcry factual alteraf f b y qua ltatlve as weil as
wn
°our
ehef no
histor· 1 · · ·
unclertaken without
the
intenf f . lCa mqmry lS ever
I t 'll b . wn o creatmg such a disturbance
.
WI
e notlced that I am no k . .
that concern ourselves b
spea
mg
of disturbances
rather
than
the
ob. , , .our own e Ief and
our
own behaviour,
thc subject
of
our
s ~ ~ ~ t : v e
order of historical events,
which
is
historicai events
and ~ ~ ; : : ~ ~ e t t ~ e n
the.
j ~ c t i v e
order
of
detcrmined by it no h . e le that IS dlrectecl to ancl
speak
of a traclitional ~ : ~ ~ w ~ ~ ~ ~ c l a r y ca_n
be.
clrawn.
If
I
documentary discover this p as bemg d:sturbecl by a
the one
having the o{-'ective can be expressed m
two
forms,
own belief
fo
t
b order of events, the other our
, r 1 s su
~ e c t
r Tl.he
effect
Nachwirkung) of
this
man
is moclified
by
th
C lSCOVery. lS
2·
Our present opinion of th . .
cliffers
from
that p r e v i o u s { ~
~ ~ ~ : owmg
to this cliscovery,
B ; ~ ~ e s ~ e n t c n c e s
are
peifectly
equivalent,
ancl I woulcl strongly
were any one to say th t h fi
phoricai ancl onl th d a t e rst sentence is meta-
' y e secon can
be
taken Iit
v·
as an historical event, the 'effect' f
h
h
era
y. Iewecl
speaks
is
no less real h o w I the first sentence
from a star tak t
_Jet
us say, the transmission
of light
toricai s p a ~ e a n ~ n t ~ s a p. yslcal process. It can be tracecl in his
oflight in the
p a c ~ ~ ~ t
With
t ~ e same
precision as the migration
the
formcr
case th m ~ c o n t m u u m ofphysics. It is true that in
that
expancl in fl e ":'ay
Isn
ot pavecl with Gaussian co-orclinates
our
mterc angeable clim . b .
by
symbols of histori c I . . enswns, ut IS markecl
least as insistent ancl s i ~ ~ I g m ; yet they speak a language
at
In
fact in a . . m cant as any mathematical equation
t . , competltwn between science and history th h .
onans
woulcl
be
sure to s . . ' e
IS-
symbois the h 1
c ~ r e
one pomt: m
dealing with
their
the p o l i ~ h e / a p ~ : : r ~ : ~ : ~ a / ~ z ~ ~ what physicists, clazzled by
noticed. namely that d:Ir equatwns, have only recently
their i n ~ u i r y r e ~ c t s
o:vtehry I s c o v e ~
regarding
the objects of
· e
constructwn
of their · I
JUSt
as every
alteration
of th . I
Imp
ements;
discovery The H . e Imp ements makes possible new
.
ermeneutics of Schleiermacher and
Boeckh
'
HISTORY AND NATURAL. SCIENCE 263
who in the field of philology gave this rule its dassie expression,
might have carried as a motto
the
words that Edelington put
at the end of his book on the modern theory of gravitation:
'We
have
found a
strange foot-print
on the shores of the un
known.
Wehave
devised profound theories,
one
after another,
to account for its origin. At last, we have succeeded in
reconstructing
the creature that made the foot-print. And lo it
is our own.
1
III.
The
Selj-
Transformation o Man
I may be pardoned for returning
to
the natural scienccs
with
this anthropomorphic
phrase.
For it would
almost
seem as
if
we hacl
not
yet carried anthropomorphism far enough
in
this
field. With
the
historical approach it has proved impossible to
separate man from
his historical antecedents.
Every
change
of
our ideas about
our
ancestors entails a change of
our
icleas
about ourselves and will indirectly affect our behaviour. In
precisely the same way, it ought to
be
recognized that those
successful
disturbances by which we
intrude
into the
natural
world which surrounds us amount in the last resort to clis
turbances,
that is modifications,
of
our
personal
equipment.
The
dividing
line
between
man
and
his
surroundings
can
no
more be
fixed
in
this case
than
the
line
of
clivision
between
man
and his antecedents could
be
fixed in the other.
It is an old puzzle where to draw the
line
between man and
the
objects of his
environment.
His head,
we
clarc say, quite
certainly belongs to him; without it,
he
would lose his identity .
But how
about
his
hair?
And ifwe let
him
have
that,
how
about
his
hat? Ifhis
hat is taken
away,
or its
shape
is altercd, is not
the entire
form of
the man altered as weil? A man
accustomed
to
walking
with a stick becomes another man
if
this stick is tak:cn
from
him. His
gait changes, his gestures, possibly his
whole
constitution.
There
is much in the
magic
doctrines of sympathy
which, after rational sifting and re-interpreting, might help to
illuminate
this
problem.
Butthereis
no
neecl
to
dcscend
to such
gloomy
depths
to bring this wisclom to light. Did not
Plato
dread
even
art and banish it
from
the
state,
because it trans
mutes ( charms
is
his word) the man who exposes hi rnself to
1
Space, Time and Gravitation Cambridge, 1929 ,
p. 201
2
These observations do not refer
to the
problern of external
and
internal
rela
tions.
The
question I
am
discussing is
that of
bio-physical,
not
of logical, trans-
formation.
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26<t HISTORY AND NATURAL SCIENCE
it?.
Right up
to. the most recent times the poets, often without
bemg aware
of
1t, have agreed with him,
and
gloried in their
power to
transform.
1
Schalars have as a rule been more cautious. Their claim
is
based
on
even
juster
foundations, but its exercise would entail
a far greater :isk, as the
~ v i d e n c e
in their case is more striking.
Students
of
h1story are still surprised, though this fact has Iong
been known, that any alteration
of
our
knowledge
of
past events
:nay
also a l t ~ r
our
present behaviour.
The
corresponding claim
m
n ~ t u r a l s C i e n c ~
1s more generally
recognized.
Any
discovery
w1thm the domam
of
what is
usually called
the
external
world
of physics may Iead to
technical innovations
which
change
our
p e r s o n a ~
b:hav10ur. These technical innovations
may at first
have hmited s c ~ p e . Pcrhaps
it is
only a new way
of
handling
~ o m _ e
mstrument m the laboratory. Soon, however, the effect
mfrmges on the pragmatism
of
daily life, where it evokes wonder
or ?orror. There is no great
invention, from
fire to flying,
wh1ch has .not been hailed as an insult to some god. But if
e ~ e r y
p h y ~ I c a l a_nd ~ h e m i c a l invention is a
blasphemy,
every
bwlog1cal
mventwn S
a perversion.
2
. Until recently, the study
of
Nature
and
History was con
sJdered a
contemplative occupation ,
confined
to men
who
locked themselves up in their libraries and l a b o r a t o r i e ~ where
they ~ s c p e d fr?m the turmoil
of
the world into the quiet and
secluswn
of
the1r thoughts. To-day, intentionally or not, they
threaten the
world
by their discoveries .
In an
.age w ~ e n not only reformers but despots as well often
base the1r p r e ~ t i g e less on ?od than on a limited knowledge of
nature and
h1story, expenmental and documentary evidence
mould
the
destiny which controls
our
lives for
better
or for
worse.
But
even those scholars who desire now as before to
safeguard their work from
the
tumults
of
the
moment
c ~ n o t
ignore
the
fact that
apparently independent
lines study
converge to-day
in
one point: this point
is
the self-transformation
of man
who has b e ~ o m e lord
and
victim
of
his own cognitions.
In the study
of h1s
self-transformation, scientific
and
historical
research have worked too long independently. It is timethat they
should
be combined.
Translated from the German.
See the synopsis in
6kios
<P6ßos Untersuchungen
über die
Platonische
Kunslphilosophie , Zeitschrift
ür
Aesthetik u. allgem. Kunstwissenschaft
vol. xxvi,
1932, PP· 34·9-73·
2
J B. S. Haldane,
Daedalus
London, 1924, p. 24.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL
SIGNIFICANCE OF
COMPARATIVE
SEMANTICS
ß HENDRIK J
POS
E
VEN
to
the
inexperienced
immature mind
speech is an
object of
wonder.
In so
far
as this attitude
produces
an
intellectual content, it leads to a conception of
the
relation of
speechtothat
which
is
expressed
by
it,
namely
objects.
Word
and meaning, which in
the
unreflective activity
of
speech
are
always
bound
together,
are by
intellectual analysis
brought
face
to face, and thus there arises a relation which
is
at
the
sametime
a comparison. Wonder,
in
breaking
up the
identity, brings to
light a distinction in virtue of which the process
of
speech is
analysed into
sound
and thing.
The
suppressed identity tries
to
re-establish itsel f
by
means
of the
question:
How can thc word
represent
the
object, how
can
it stand for
the
object? The
answer to this question does notleadback to
the
original identity,
but does lead in
the
direction
ofit. From
this arises the
attempt
to trace the sound
back in
some way to
the
object, to show
the
sound as proceeding
from
the
object
already in existence. Here
we
have the copy theory of
specch as
an
answer to the question.
This theory
attempts
to
understand the
relation between
word
and
object on
the
basis
of
similarity. t takes its stand on those
instances
which seem to
be
examples
of
such
similarity, where
sound signifies sound.
t
secks to grasp
the
original elements
of
speech in
the imitation of
sound shown in
actual
speech.
The
relatively few instances in which a sound signifies a sound
seem
to place
the
origin
of the
rise
of
speech clearly before us.
Sound,
before
it
became
the
symbol
ofthe
object, was identical with the
object:
it
was
the
object before it
came
to
mean
it.
The
conception
of an
original similarity
of
sound
and meaning
holds only
within narrow
limits, for most words arenot like
their
objects.
The
copy theory must take
a
new form
here,
if
it
is
to
maintain itself. Where there
can be
no similarity between word
and object, such a correspondence must nevertheless have been
present originally. This way out, however, is only a partial
help.
A similarity of sound and object is only possible with objects
which,
if
not themselves sounds, are at
least
like sounds. Now
most
of the
objects signified
by
words
do not
conform
to
this
4144
ill