De la situation faite à l'histoire et à la sociologie
On the Situation Made for History and Sociology in Modern Times
Charles Péguy
I propose to investigate to a certain extent what situation has been made for history and sociology in modern times. This is an extremely difficult inquiry and one that has not commonly been attempted, perhaps because it was particularly difficult. It is therefore an inquiry for which we shall no doubt receive no assistance at all, and for which in particular we can expect no assistance from historians, nor still less from professional sociologists.
It is, finally, an inquiry that would be infinite if one had the presumption to propose pursuing it, so to speak, across its whole breadth, conducting it on its entire front, for then it would require nothing less than gathering up everything as one goes, as in Beauce one sees those yoked teams and those squads of mechanical harvester-binders advancing on a single oblique front at the pace of the horses, harvesting, gathering, and binding the whole vast world across a great breadth and right across the full breadth of a wheat field. Weaker harvesters, less mechanical too, and in a more rebellious world, and infinitely strong, and infinitely vast, we shall be constrained to proceed by the very dry linear methods, and not by the voluminous or even superficial methods; we shall be constrained to follow as if a thread; we shall be constrained to proceed by successive approaches and deepenings — which in no way means successive approximations — by soundings that we shall push as far as we can, by tunneling, by mine galleries, and by all the means of sapping.
We shall not advance on a front, nor across any breadth; but we shall move in file; and we shall often need to take cover.
We shall thus have to make a particularly fruitful, and moreover particularly inevitable use here, of the method of rare cases, unique cases, eminent or representative cases, extreme cases, supreme cases, and more particularly and properly of limit cases.
Thus linear, thus guided, our inquiries will be perpetually double inquiries, because we shall have to search separately what is the situation made for history in modern times, and what is the situation made for sociology in those same times; history and so-called sociology maintain a relation such that history forms a system of knowledge of the first degree or base degree, and sociology would form a system of knowledge of the second degree, a second degree or degree that would rest upon the first degree or base degree.
History and so-called sociology maintain a relation such that history forms a whole first system of knowledge, or base system, and so-called sociology would form above it a second system of knowledge, a higher system, resting upon the first.
It follows that history and so-called sociology, considered as instituting two superimposed systems of knowledge, and two systems in a sense independent of each other, maintain a relation such that: all that is gained in certainty for history is not thereby gained for sociology, and on the contrary, all that is lost in certainty for history is automatically lost for sociology as well.
Sociology is a supposedly reformed history. Wherever history is uncertain, automatically and with the same uncertainty, sociology is uncertain. Wherever history is certain, it does not automatically follow that sociology is certain; rather, it must still and always prove its case.
It must always bring a proof of its own. It cannot share history’s proof like a loaf of bread.
If I do not know an event with certainty, it automatically follows that I cannot even imagine with certainty a law of which this event would be the matter; if I believe that I know an event with certainty, it does not automatically follow — it remains to be proved — that I can even imagine with certainty a law of which this event would be the matter.
Thus, with respect to certainty, history is independent of sociology and sociology is independent of history; each of the two has only its own certainty, if there is any; with respect to uncertainty, on the contrary, history is independent of sociology, but sociology is dependent on history.
History has uncertainty and has no certainty for sociology.
History does not guarantee sociology.
This is already a question of the necessary and the sufficient; it is necessary that history be certain for sociology to be certain, and it is not necessary that history be uncertain for sociology to be uncertain; it suffices that history be uncertain for sociology to be uncertain, and it does not suffice that history be certain for sociology to be certain.
All proof of certainty administered for history is valid only for history, and everything must be begun again for the superimposed sociology; any proof of uncertainty on the contrary administered against history is automatically valid and nothing remains to be begun again against the superimposed sociology.
As there are two stories of difficulties, there must also be two stories of studies.
In a previous work, entitled Zangwill, to which one may be excused for not referring, I had endeavored not to lose my footing starting from two illustrious examples, and I had been led to investigate what situation is made for history in modern times, starting from Taine and Renan; these two great masters had been, perhaps involuntarily, of some assistance to us; but it would be inviting the gravest disappointments to imagine that in general one will receive much assistance from historians in this inquiry.
I mean qualified or professional historians. And it is perhaps because Taine and Renan were not as much as one believes, as much as they themselves believed, as properly, as purely, as solely qualified and professional historians, that they were then of some assistance to us.
But the true qualified historians; the true professional historians, truly?
The immense majority of historians are recruited today from the functions of teaching; and as there is nothing so contrary to the functions of science as the functions of teaching, since the functions of science require a perpetual anxiety, and the functions of teaching on the contrary imperturbably demand an admirable assurance, it is not surprising that so many professors of history have not been accustomed to meditating on the limits and conditions of historical science.
They barely do history, they can barely do it, they are barely equipped and situated to do it; let us not ask them to do criticism, philosophy, metaphysics. Let us stick to history.
Those who belong to primary education are officially charged, under the government of the prefects, their hierarchical superiors, with teaching the people a free, secular, and obligatory history; under the government of the Republic they are required to teach the people a history of republican defense; under a reactionary government they would be compelled, still more brutally, to teach the people a history of reactionary defense. And even if they had the political and social freedom to teach a simply historical history, it is not proved that, save for rare and very honorable exceptions, they would have the taste for it; the other freedom, the most important, the interior freedom, the freedom of the mind; primary teaching demands such a force of affirmation, if only to maintain the most elementary discipline among the pupils, and historical science demands on the contrary such a force of permanent hesitation, that it would take a perpetual miracle for the same mind to hold both attitudes at once.
Contrary to what is generally believed, it is in secondary education, and not in higher education, that there are today both the best historians and more good historians. However much the secondary teachers are pulled between the forces of primary education, which draw them downward, and the forces of higher education, which draw them upward, between the force of affirmation of the primary and the force of hesitation of the higher, they nonetheless maintain a unique equilibrium, by the sole fact that they lead a modest, poor life and have remained in permanent contact with the realities of departmental life. This middle class was the strength of the nation of historians. It is among them that one finds the most true historians, that is to say men who passionately seek the truth of past events, particularly of human events, and who most ordinarily find it, insofar as we shall see it is possible to find it.
It is a capital error of modern times in the organization of historical work to believe that instruments and methods — which have their importance, a certain importance, but a wholly methodical and instrumental importance — have a capital importance, and one so perfectly total that they must supply everything. One thus obtains and launches into the circulation of higher education those artificial thin young men who more or less approximately possess instruments and methods, but who possess no content. As if ignorance of the present were an indispensable condition for access to knowledge of the past.
It is a capital error of modern times in the organization of historical work and in the estimation of historians to believe that instruments and methods are everything and to imagine that probity is nothing; it is probity on the contrary that is central; a man who has probity, lacking instruments, has much better chances of having access to some truth than a man who has only instruments, lacking probity.
Very great scientific discoveries, the greatest perhaps, at least until now, have been made with instruments that today seem crude to us. Great historical discoveries too have been made with relatively crude instruments. To what degree all the instruments in the world, modern ones, and all the apparatus, when probity is nil, no longer serve for anything at all — as the old man used to say, to what degree in a word — in the word of another old man, an older one still — science without conscience is the ruin of the soul: this we have seen sufficiently, recently, by the scandal, moreover perfectly useless, provoked by that impostor Mathieu, one of the greatest impostors the earth has ever carried.
Of all the modern historians, Renan was eminently designated to perceive the immense difficulties or impossibilities, metaphysical or physical, human or natural, that oppose the constitution of a historical science, modern, thus understood. He was not one of those historians who do not meditate. One could almost say on the contrary that meditation was his natural state, and moreover his preferred state. That it was the foundation of his nature and of his mental and sentimental life. He was Breton. He had been Catholic. He was of Catholic race. He had remained Catholic, and generally Christian, a little more than he believed, much more than he said, still more than he let be understood, infinitely more than we have been told since. He was a man of meditation. He had served a fairly long apprenticeship of the sacerdotal life. Now he was not a man to forget an apprenticeship. He was at bottom, and beneath certain appearances of gaiety, a man of sadness, of the salutary and wholly healthful sadness. All these appearances of gaiety were for his sadness only coverings of modesty. Sometimes almost immodest. In default of the gift of tears, he kept deeply, beneath all appearances, through so many insincerities, one would almost dare say through all insincerities, beneath all worldliness, he eternally kept this original and metaphysical gift of sadness; a long experience, a personal experience of the religious life had introduced him irrevocably to metaphysical meditation; a perpetual concern not to be ridiculous, even in his own eyes, and for that reason not to be duped, even by himself, almost advantageously replaced in him a certain love of truth.
The other historians ordinarily do history without meditating on the limits and conditions of history. No doubt they are right. It is better that each person ply his trade. There would be a great deal of time lost in the world if everyone did metaphysics, and Descartes himself did not wish that one devote to it more than a few hours per year. In general it is better that a historian begin by doing history, without looking so deep into it. Otherwise nothing would ever be done. It is the same with history as with all other human occupations. A mathematician who remained fascinated all his life by the postulate of Euclid and by the other mathematical postulates and definitions would perhaps not advance mathematics very far. And perhaps besides, trying to make up for it on the other hand, he would not advance metaphysics very far either, if he were not a gifted metaphysician, if he were not born a philosopher.
In all human occupations the division of labor normally operates thus: situating themselves equally and together at the place of postulates, principles, definitions, conditions and limits, of situations made, the scientist and the artist, very liberally granting themselves all that, which is asked, considering all that as going without saying, as seen and understood, starting from that precise point immediately descend the course of their respective sciences and their arts. But situating himself equally and together with them at that same precise point, at that point of difficulty, the philosopher sits down, and will not move from there until he has cleared up these difficulties, which are generally not to be cleared up. Hence his dignity, his singular worth, his grandeur and his lamentable wretchedness. Hence the others despise him and fear him, and sometimes hate him, they shrug their shoulders, but sometimes they lower their eyes. And he has enough for his entire life, which is a poor human life, like the others, and he will never reach the end, for it would take several lives; and no man will ever reach the end, for it would take an eternity. For beyond the difficulties there are the impossibilities, and the insuperable contrarieties.
Few men, and should we call them merely men, few men circulate above this point of discernment. Above this point of rupture and contrary opposition. Few men come and go at their will above this point. But some go. And others come. Some ascend. And it is the others who descend. And the truly very great men are perhaps only those very rare geniuses who have had the gift of going and coming like gods above this point of human rupture, of going and coming in their entire freedom above this point of fatal division, in their entire unity above this point of dismemberment, in a continuous march above this point of capital discontinuity.
Thus Michelet.
A man like Michelet is an essential historian in the same sense that Rembrandt is a painter and Pascal a thinker, equally irreplaceable, and a work like his Histories is made like the Ninth and like Polyeucte, equally indestructible, equally indisputable; it is made in the same way, and the reproaches one hears made to Michelet, as to Corneille, as to Pascal, are very precisely those that someone who was not a musician would make to Beethoven, that someone who was not a painter would make to Rembrandt.
Quite other is the situation of a Renan, and it is an almost truly unique situation. On the one hand he is not one of those essential men, that is to say he is not one of those men in whom this point of rupture does not appear. And on the other hand, beneath appearances of frivolity that often went so far as to seem to become odious worldliness, it is constant that he had constant metaphysical, philosophical, religious preoccupations. But his occupations as historian and his preoccupations as philosopher did not communicate with each other. Sometimes he was on one side, sometimes on the other. Sometimes he moved in his occupations. Sometimes he moved in his preoccupations. He was two men. But never did he pass from one to the other in a continuous movement.
For this reason he will be particularly precious to us in our inquiries. A Michelet is not convenient for small people like us.
Nowhere does this concern in Renan appear as much as in that singular book, singularly copious, unique in form and substance in all his work, which he himself entitled The Future of Science (thoughts of 1848). A testament before life, perhaps the most sincere of all, a testament on the threshold of his life as a man. A testimony between two lives, a testament after the completion, after a first completion, which he could believe definitive, of the sacerdotal and religious life, an engagement, a promise, testimony, vow before the beginning of the second career, before the inauguration of the scientific career.
At first glance The Future of Science is a young man’s book, especially if one compares it to the other works of Renan; a certain, a singular abundance, almost a redundancy; something like a warmth, an enthusiasm; a perpetual commotion, a copious, generous movement, a movement of vibration and perpetual back and forth upon itself.
It is indeed thus, in this character and in this sense, that this book is generally read; and generally presented; it was thus that it became the breviary of a whole generation, precisely the generation that carried the religion of historical science to its highest point of development, the generation that immediately preceded us.
And yet this book, as we shall see in a somewhat thorough study, is at bottom an extremely cautious book. All the talent, all the infinite suppleness of the author, of the young author, all an erudition immense for that age, or that wishes to pass for immense, tends only to mask, envelop, and drown the difficulties, the metaphysical impossibilities of history prematurely apparent to an alert intelligence. The whole book is full of these difficulties, these impossibilities. The whole underlying effort of the book is to entangle them together. So that the reader, enthusiastic or charmed, can no longer find his way. It is an immense and perpetual diversion of enthusiasm, let us say the word, a veritable abuse of confidence.
Of this truly historical law, in the sole sense we can recognize for this insidious expression of historical law, we have had the most recent and the most eminent illustration in that affair which we now have the right to retain, today when a liquidation and a general rehabilitation have definitively made it enter the domain of history, definitively frozen it, buried it in the past; we have therefore had the most illustrious example, the most illustrious exemplary case, in that immortal Dreyfus affair, which will no doubt furnish the historian the most brilliant illustrations of a very great number of laws.
Such was the mechanism, schematized, of that immortal Dreyfus affair, such is the mechanism, schematized, of all great human affairs, and also of all the small ones, which are much more numerous than the great ones, and supposedly much more important: one sometimes sees, not very often, sincere conversions; one never sees, or virtually never, counter-conversions, or super-conversions; that is to say subsequent and superior conversions, second conversions, second conversions in the opposite direction. Such will properly be one of the laws of conversions. These are operations that are done once, and that is already something. But there is no danger of their being done twice.
One can indeed burn one’s bridges behind oneself, at least some persons can; but if you burn them before you as well, you would be on an island.
No men are as basely conservative, as ferociously reactionary, as those traditional conservators of the revolution, for inasmuch as their situation is a unique situation, so much are they fierce in defending it. They have been heroes, perhaps authentic — once in their life. But they did not know what it was, the first time, when they undertook to be heroes. And they were so afraid, that time, when they saw what it was to be heroes, when they saw how tiring it was, and dangerous, and that ill fortune could befall you, that they swore to themselves in the depths of their hearts that there was no danger of their being caught at it again. But in order still to keep the pride, in their new situation, they conceived the idea of making heroism a lifetime function of State, and they appointed themselves the irremovable functionary-heroes.
They have thus kept everything.
What is most inexplicable in the world is not error, it is not so much truth, as this singular survival and this progress of truth.