Both Buckle and Comte had very ‘European’ ideas of History, with both men firmly of the belief that the rise of science meant an inextricable change for history. They thought that due to the success of science, history would have to follow in its style and that history now had to be about these laws and the new scientific world, rather than the narrative history of ‘description’ and ‘moral lessons’ of old. This ‘science school’ of history grew increasingly discontent with the methodology of history at the time and these feelings were accentuated with the publication of Charles Darwin’s ‘evolution of species’. They saw the ongoing scientific revolution from the 1700’s and wanted a fresh angle on how to approach history, due largely to the changing nature of western society and western thinking at the time.
Critics of Buckle such as James Anthony Froude said believed that history could never be a science due to its lack of laws and should concern itself with presenting the facts and not trying to invent scientific theories. In 1864 he commented: “It often seems to me as if history is like a child’s box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We have only to pick out such letters as we want, arrange them as we like, and say nothing about those which do not suit our purpose”. (Evans p54)
The French equivalent to Buckle was positivist historian Hippolyte Taine. Like Buckle, Taine was heavily influenced by German historians due to their critical approach to history. Yet Taine went further, rejecting the notion of ‘uniqueness’ in history, it was Taine who wished to construct a concrete set of laws to study history with. Taine used models from physiology and psychology in order to form some type of laws for studying history. Ultimately it was how people were shaped by their geographical conditions and their race that Taine wished to develop, as he viewed this as the most important part of history.
A more ‘moderate’ positivist was Numa Denys Fustel de Coulanges who believed in the “positivism of the document” (Breisach 276). Like German historians, Coulanges believed that history should be examined impartially, with all opinions kept aside so as not to sway the reader in any particular direction. However, despite this scientific method of enquiry, Coulanges had no intention of forming a set of universal laws for the study of history, maintaining that history should be scientific through its approach and focus on documentary and source evidence only. (Breisach 276).
With the advent and rise of the social sciences during the 19th century, questions began to arise as to the similarities of history and the social sciences. The German historian Wilhelm Dilthey saw history as being different and distinct from the natural sciences and was in favour of its association with the social sciences. Dilthey sought to do for the social sciences what Emmanuel Kant did for the natural sciences, and saw social scientists as having an advantage in that they could identify with their subjects much better than those studying the natural sciences. He saw social scientists having the benefit of seeing their subjects from the ‘inside’ rather than from the exterior, as in natural science. In order to illustrate his point that the social sciences were better than the natural sciences he compared the feelings we can relate to, to those that we cannot, such as the feeling of a planet orbiting the sun. “We can understand the human world with more certainty than the natural world because it is a product of our own making…we are able to understand what it is like to hope, loathe and fear as we can never know what it is like to be a planet orbiting the sun”. (Warrington 2000:66)
If we except Dilthey’s idea of social science as being able to be studied both inside and out, it is easy to see how this could be applied to the study of history. Unlike the natural sciences, we can look inside history. As it is people who shape history, we can look at and examine these people in ways that natural scientists could never achieve. Dilthey embraced the idea that humans were ‘temporal beings’ and that while they could be studied and understood better than the natural sciences, there was no binding theory as to how humans behave. He believed that humans made decisions based on their past experiences and how they thought these would relate to their future. Ultimately it was the unpredictability of humans that lead to history being considered apart from the sciences. With no universal law as to how people behave under any circumstances, human behaviour and more broadly history -because of the inseparable link between man and history- could never be known or predicted as happens in the natural sciences, therefore history could never truly be considered as a science in that regard.
As well as the question as to whether or not history was a science, we are also compelled to look at the comparisons between history and science as to which is ‘better’ mode of enquiry. Perhaps a minor aspect of the debate between science and the social sciences was the insecurity of those in the social science school. This debate has carried on into the present day, with the various comparisons between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Interestingly throughout the duration of this debate, it is more often than not the social scientists trying to be ‘scientific’ in the eyes of natural sciences, than the other way around. With some historians concluding that it was the fact that scientific knowledge is cumulative (where history is not) that form the distinction between the natural science and social science. (Evans p47)
When we examine the debate between those who saw history as a science and those who saw it as a social science, it is crucial that we appreciate the uproar and fundamental impact of Charles Darwin and Russel Wallace’s ideas on the ‘Origin of Species’ in more depth. This debate had a profound impact on both the science and religious communities in the 1870s and 1880s. The debate also draws historians into the fold as up until then, many historians had considered the Christian religion as a keystone in the study of history. They used it as a landmark which all history was built around, the most obvious example of this being the Christian calendar. With Darwin’s groundbreaking new thesis on the origins of man, the historical world were plunged into bitter arguments on whether to accept religion’s role and – to a certain extent – dominance over history, or to break away, following the concrete and factual path of science and the merits of scientific enquiry for history.
In the debate between science and religion, and on which side history fell, there were great differences between how the western world embraced the idea. Darwin’s writings were consumed and accepted much more easily in America and in France than in Britain. Historians such as Bentley have even gone as far as to say that “…one could make a case for British singularity in witnessing a surprising persistence of religious category and assumption as the basis of its historiography” (Bentley 2003:44). Therefore the debate over science and religion often reached many different conclusions in many different countries. Therefore one part of the answer to the question is that the debate was more heated in countries such as Britain, where there was much more feeling that history should keep its grounding in religion. With America and France accepting the idea of evolution much more easily, the question of how scientific history was, was less important.
The problem for those who believed that history was not a science, was that they were faced with the prospect that if man evolved from lesser beings and god was not his direct creator, the idea of a ‘divine plan’ of history began to be less defensible. If mankind evolved from apes as Darwin suggested, then those who believed that man was fulfilling some greater purpose on earth found it hard to maintain this argument. As mentioned these historians believed that there was a divine plan, whereby man was created, would exist and ‘do good’ on earth and ultimately would return to heaven. They believed that history was the documented record of man’s time on earth and was to be studied to ensure that future generations could learn from man’s moral mistakes. If one accepted Darwin’s claims, that man merely evolved from lesser beings, then the nature of history and the motives for studying history changed inextricably. With no clear starting point or plan as to how and why man was on earth, and when his time would end, the theory of a ‘divine plan’ lost its legitimacy. It was this bleak view that formed the crux of many Darwinist’s views, with the divine creation of man a myth, religion’s influence and legitimacy within history was made redundant.
Essentially the question as to whether or not history was a science became so important in the second half of the 19th century because it was then that historians had to choose which side they were on and determine how central religion was to history. Historians such as Leopold Von Ranke believed that history should be studied with the same scientific objectivity of the natural sciences, but that ultimately it was the hand of God that directed history, through this idea of a divine plan. He discredited the methods of the social sciences, believing them to lack the discipline of history.
Ranke placed great importance in the use of primary sources and believed that these were necessary in studying history. Interestingly, while Ranke believed in the divine plan, he used sources to support his statements and beliefs much more than writers such as Comte, who were criticised for rarely backing themselves up and citing their sources. Ironically it was Comte and not Ranke who failed to follow through on his ideas with documentary evidence, despite the fact that he was an advocate of the importance of scientific method and the role of science in history.
Therefore the driving factors as to whether or not history was a science are much too murky to form one concrete answer in this debate. The conflict between science and religion coupled with the need for a ‘legitimate’ reason to study history by academics formed a large part of the debate as to whether or not history was a science.
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Evans, Richard J, In Defence Of History. Granta Publications, 2000.
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Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Fifty Key Thinkers On History. (Routledge, 2004), p.9.
Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Fifty Key Thinkers On History. (Routledge, 2004), p.9.
Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval & Modern 2nd Edition. (The University of Chicago Press, 1994) p.274.
Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval & Modern 2nd Edition. (The University of Chicago Press, 1994) p.275.
Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval & Modern 2nd Edition. (The University of Chicago Press, 1994) p.274.
