Like the legendary Tantalus cup history evades definitions. There are as many definitions of history as there are historians! To define history precisely is difficult but is not impossible, In the words of Schillar “To render its subject more familiar is the first business of definition”
- Definition is a definite aid to understand the subject clearly, concisely and completely. If properly formulated, it can serve as an effective tool for terse thinking on a subject.
In fact, definition, by its very nature, is bound to be flexible, corrigible, relative and at best and hoc. No definitions are final. “Definition is a pair of pins which people prick into a map to mark the beginning and the end of the road they can agree to follow together”. Let us consider some such pins with coloured heads.
Philosophy Drawn from Examples
- Dionysius of Halicarnassus (C40 – 08 B.C.) one of the earliest Greek writers who introduced the art of historical writing and author of Persica in five volumes , defined history as “Philosophy drawn from examples”. In this definition he had laid emphasis on „Philosophy‟ and „examples‟. By philosophy he meant the ability to draw or learn a lesson from the study of the past, by „examples‟ – he meant actual occurrences or events from real life situations and not legendary tales or imaginary cock and bull stories. To put it simply, history is an orderly account of the lessons learnt from real life examples and experiences as recounted and recorded.Dionysius considered history as the essence of human experience. Is not history the story of the experiences of the human past/ The Greek genius thought that a study of human experience will have universal value. Validity and utility. Also, lesson learnt from the school of experience will serve as example to emulate and foot steps to follow by the contemporaries as well as the posterity. „Piety to the past is not for its own sake nor for the sake of the present so secure and enriched, that it will create a better future‟.
In this sense, history is the record of experiences of men living in societies. Such experiences may be passive or active. Men require a knowledge of what life has done of them as much as they must know what they themselves did when faced with certain situations or challenges. In other words, history is „the story of the experiences of men living in civilized societies‟. Lord Acton meant the same when he defined history as „ a generalized account of the personal actions of men, united in bodies for any public purposes whatever‟.
All history is contemporary history, declared Croce.
History is concerned neither with the past by itself, not with the historian‟s thought about it by itself but with the two things in their mutual relations, asserted Collingwood. Thus, the philosophical explanations expounded by later historians were all a commentary on the definition given by Dionysius.
An Account of an Unchanging Past
How about the other Greek historical thinkers/ Herodotus, the Father of History, considered history as the record of the results of enquiries into what men had done and achieved so that their memory was not perished from the world. Thucydides, the father of Scientific History, viewed history as the story of things or events worth being remembered. According to him only unique happenings shall constitute history.
Aristotle defined history as „an account of the unchanging past”. He considered history as unchanging because human nature is unchanging. The intentions, motives and expectations are constant. Hence the recurrence of war and peace, revolution and restoration, progress and regress, expansion and exploitation down the ages. As Aristotle himself said „even god cannot change the past‟. Polybius, the greatest of the later historians of Ancient Greece, also subscribed to this view.
History Makes Men Wise
- Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) the incomparable Renaissance experimental thinker, defined history as “a discipline which makes men wise”.
- According to him history is not a mere collection of facts, nor a catalogue or chronology of events, but a discipline which inculcates wisdom in its readers.
- Wisdom is not mental alertness but wrong, useful and useless, practical and impractical, eternal and ephemeral. Historical knowledge based on experience, refined by reflection, perfected by perception makes men wise.
- “Wisdom for a man‟s self”, says Bacon, is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it falls”.
Crafty men condemn history, simple men admire it and wise men use it for the benefit of mankind-words of wisdom indeed. In history we converse with the wise, as in action with fools! With pardonable modification we may say that the inquiry of historical truth, which is the love making or wooing of it, the knowledge of such truth, which is the praise of it, and the belief of this truth, which is the enjoying of it.
- The Dutch proverb succinctly summarizes the truth of Bacon‟s dictum “a donkey does not twice hurt itself on the same stone”!.
History is the Essence of Biographies
- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). The Scottish historian and the author of Hero Worship, defined history as “ the essence of innumberable biographies of great men”.
- He considered history as nothing but the life story of great men. He is in fact the originator of the Great ment Theory of History.
Caryle considered mighty men as den-gods with a clear perception of history. All historical events ate the manifestation and realization of thoughts of great men. Those who dare and do shape the destiny of the people and live long in name and fame.
- Great men play the leadership role in responding to the challenge of the time. In short, the history of the world is the story of great men.
- However, Carlyle‟s definition narrows the scope of history and restricts the role of other forces and factors which shape history.
History is Past Politics
- John R.Seelay (1834-1895), the originator of the Cambridge School of History, was the author of the oft – repeated definition that “History is past politics and present politics is future history”.
- He believed that the ancient history was of little value and attached more importance to the teaching history was of little value and attached more importance to the teaching and research of modern history. He considered history as a school of statesmanship.
- He held the views that practical politics was the was the proper domain and the warp and woof of history.
- Politics is the raw material out of which history womb of the past carries the seed of the present politics which sprouts into future history.
- The purpose of history, is, therefore to impart instruction in the art and craft of politics which will guide rulers to govern their countries.
In this Life and Times of Stein, Seeley showed how Prussia was transformed into a modern state by the political genius of Stein. His classical work. The Expansion of England traced the history of British imperialist politics and dealt with her conflict with France in the eighteenth century. Seeley traced the development of England as a great political power in his The Growth of British Policy. All his works centered round the belief that “without atleast a little knowledge of history no man can take a rational inerest in politics”. He also say, “politics are vulgar when they are not liberated by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight to its realations to practical politics”. History is about men and the historian tells the tale of human collectivities going through active and passive political experiences.
Historian‟s knowledge is based upon his understanding of the way in which men felt, thought and behaved. In the words of Powick “How incomprehensible history would be if human nature had not remained the same?”.
History is Science
- J.B.Bury (1861-1927), an erudite English historian, made the oft-quoted definition that “History is simply a science, no less and no more”, when he delivered his Cambridge inaugural lecture in 1903.
- Born and brought up in an Age of Science, he laid down certain principles and methods of history.
- Bury was furious about applying and attributing a cause of every event of similar kind. He revolted against the method of the empirical sciences of nature.
- He proclaimed that historical thought was a new thing in the world, different from natural science, with a special characted of its own.
- Bury thought that history offered to mankind a new view of the world and a new armoury of intellectual weapons. He brought a new intellectual attidude towards history.
- He established the uniqueness of historical thought. He refused to subscribe to the view that history is a mere reservoir of facts or storehouse of information.
- He viewed history as an independent discipline to be scientifically studied for its own sake. History must be based on observation, explanation and validation.
- Burry rejected the idea that history is an art and a branch of literature for the simple reason that “the sanctions of truth and accuracy could not be severe” in art and literature.
- In his essay on Darwinnism and History (1909) Bury attacked the idea that historical events can be explained by reference to general laws. It must be said to his credit that he made history an object of scientific thought.
- By asserting that history is simply a science Bury had done a yeoman service to ensure the autonomy and dignity of historical thought.
History Unfolds Human Freedom
- Lord Action (1884-1902), successor of Seeley as regius professor of Modern History at Cambridge, came out with the conclusion of that “History is the unfolding of human freedom”.
- He attempted a secular definition of history. He thought that freedom and freewill alone will bring out the full potential of mankind.
- Ability and creativity, intellect and innovation flourish only in an atmosphere of unfettered freedom.
- Liberty and freedom, not the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms, shall therefore be the use concern of history.
- The American colonies were inspired and united to achieve Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness in 1776.
- The French people staged a revolution in 1789 to secure Liberty. Equality and Fraternity.
- Since then liberty and freedom became the beconlights for those who were enslaved and exploited.
- According to Lord Action historical events take place when human freedom was suppressed and they also take shape when free will is given free play.
History is Contemporary
- Benetto Croce (1866-1952), the most distinguished Italian historian, is credited with the cryptic aphorise that “all history is contemporary history”.
- In his inimitable words: “the practical requirements which underlie every historical judgment give to all history the character of „contemporary history‟ because however remote in time events thus recounted may seem to be, the history in reality refers to present needs and present situations wherein those events vibrate”.
- What Croce meant was that the history consisted essentially in seeing the past through the eyes of the present and the light of its problems.
- Croce‟s conviction was that the main work of the historian must not merely to record the events but also to evaluate them.
- Historians convert past events into history. This is possible because historical events and episodes are rehearsed, reenacted and relived in the minds of historians.
- Past events are presented as history after a mental metamorphosis of the historian in whose thought history materializes. Hence, history always remains contemporary.
- In other words, history is what thought the historian‟s mind, since it is his mind which gives history its content, meaning and significance.
- R.G.Collingwood echoed the thought of Croce when he said that the subject matter of history is “that which can be reenacted in the historian‟s mind” Carl Becher, the American historian, reiterated the same idea thus; “… the facts of history do not exist for any historian till he creates them”.
- R.G.Gollingwood (1889-1943), the celebrated author of The Idea of History, following the footsteps of B.Croce, asserted that “all history is the history of thought”.
- According the his history is the re-enactment in the historian‟s mind of the thought whose history he is studying. He goes to the extent of saying that “Of everything other than thought, there can be no history”.
- Collingwood was convinced that history did not consist in a mere recital of facts; It is the reconstitution of the past in the historian‟s mind based on empirical evidence.
- The Process of such reconstitution involves the selection and interpretation of facts; this is what makes them historical facts.
- Collingwood elaborated his thought further when he said that history was concerned neither with the past by itself, nor with the historian‟s thought about it by itself, but with the two things in their mutual relations. His dictum means two things”
- One, the inquiry conducted by the historian himself; and secondly, the series of past events into which he inquires. A past act is a dead wood unless it is resurrected by the historian by understanding the thought they lay behind it.
- Therefore, the past which a historian studies is not a dead past, but a past which in some sense is still living in the present.
- Hence, all history is the history of thought. That is the reason why Collingwood asserted that the historian must re-enact in thought what had gone in the mind of his dramatis personae, so that the reader in his turn will re-enact what goes on in the mind of the historian.
- In other words, historian‟s imaginative understanding of the minds of the people with whom he is dealing with is a precondition to give shape for the thought behind their acts.
- “Study the historian before you begin to study the facts”, instructs E.H.Carr.”. “History is the historian‟s experience; to write history is the only way of making it”, says Prof.Oakeshott”.
History, is “an unending dialogue between the present and the past”
- E.H.Carr, the admired author of What is History? defines history as “a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past”.
- He contends that the facts of history are not pure and as such they are always refracted through the mental prism of the recorder.
- Hence, what is important are not historical facts but the historian who makes use of these facts. To make use of facts the historian needs imaginative understanding in order to know and study the minds of the people with whom he is dealing with and the thought behind their acts. Such an understanding is possible only through the eyes of the present since the historian is the product of his age.
- Thus, the historian starts with a provisional selection and ordering of facts, which belong to the past, understands them imaginatively and interprets them from the plan of the present, since he is part of the present. “The historian without his facts is rootles and futile; the facts without their historian are dead meaningless”.
- In short, history is a perennial and perpetual interaction between the historian and his facts an eternal conversation between the present and the past.
History is the Experience of Men
- G.J.Renier, the dauntless Dutch historian, after surveying several definitions of history ventures his own. According to his history is “the story of the experiences of men living in civilized societies”.
- History is story because like a story it is an admixture of theory and of preconceived notions. It is not a mere narrative which is like gold can be used only in the form of an alloy.
- A narrative is turned into a story when it contributes to the performance of its social function.
- In other words, history must serve a social purpose. The historian must, therefore, understand the events he narrates and to explain their social significance.
- For instance, a matter of fact knowledge of the catalogue of events of Napoleon‟s life is not sufficient for the purpose of the historian. What is more important is to know the place of these events in Napoleon‟s life and their effect upon other events.
- Thus, the task of the historian is nor merely to explain the past but to recount the story of the experience of men living in civilized societies.
- In this sense, the life of the homo sapiens which is said to have covered 3,00,000 Years is not the theme of the historian. His concern is about the life of civilized men during the past 5000 Years.
- History is not the narration of deeds of Robinson Crusoes who lived entirely for themselves but the story of human actions with social importance, actions which have served some social purpose.
History is the interaction between Society and Geography
- According to A.L.Rowse “History is essentially the record of the life of men in their geographical and their physical environment. Their social and cultural environment arises from the interaction of the one, with the other, the society and its geographical conditions”.
- Rowe‟s definition underlines the inevitable interaction between the societal development and geographical condition.
Purpose and function of history
- Three Dimensional Definition
- The oft-quoted definitions of history considered above reflect the minds and moods of historians. Some of them are significant, some are exhortations, some are sheer distortions and none is definite, precise and final.
- This is understandable because history by its very nature is dynamic, not static. It implies formation, development and growth of human societies and civilizations which are always in ferment.
- In fine, the three-dimensional definition of history is that, 1)it is a record of socially significant past events; 2)a narrative – descriptive account of such events and 3)an interpretative evaluation of historic happenings.
- History proper is confined with the first, whereas historiography is concerned with the second and third dimensions of history.
Characteristics of History
- Though doctors disagree on the definition of history, there is a large measure of agreement about the cardinal characteristics of history.
- First, history is chronological. The time element is the backbone of history. The significant events of the past have been arranged in their time sequence and the intervals between them are fixed.
- Time is the hyphen that connects events, provides continuity to changes and furnishes sequence to them.
- Secondly, history is concerned with socially significant events and answers questions about human deeds which had affected the destiny of the people.
- Thirdly, history is humanistic. It is a narrative of human history. History is the record of human deeds and misdeeds, successes and failures. It endeavors to find the cause of historical events in the personality of human agents, not a divine agency.
- Human will freely chooses its own ends and it is limited by its own force. The power of the intellect apprehends the ends and works out means to their achievement.
- In other words, whatever happens in history happens as a direct result of human will.
- The fourth characteristic of history is that it proceeds by the interpretation of evidence based on documents.
- Past events become meaningful and attain contemporary relevance only through interpretation.
- Fifthly, history is special form of thought. It provides answers to questions about the nature, abject, method and value of the study of the past.
- Sixthly, history is a science. It is a science because it is a kind of inquiry seeking to find out facts. It endeavours to find out what is not Known and to find things out.
- Seventhly, history is a study of change, causes and consequences of change –political, social, economic, artistic, philosophical, scientific and technological.
- Historians attempt to explain changes in man‟s ideas, social formations and institutional transformations.
- Eighthly, history is for the sake of human self – knowledge. The capacity of man is manifested through his deeds. The test of what man can do is in what man has done.
- History teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.
- Ninthly, history is a process. It is unbroken and continuous. The process is dialectical in nature; something is changing into something else.
- Listly, history is autonomous. It is an independent branch of study. It stands on its own credentials. It has developed its own concepts, theories and methodology to collect, collate and evaluate data and arrive at meaningful conclusions.