Some Problems of the Connection between Technical Development and Economic History

Abstract

Crane Brinton has made a sharp distinction between the speculations of prophets like Spengler and Toynbee, and the professional narrowness of scientific academic historians. I admit quite frankly that I feel myself rather closer to the professional narrow-minded academic historians than to the speculators, and I am afraid that when I try to speculate I am stepping on very marshy ground. To demonstrate my point, let me begin with a statement of Raymond Aron which appears in his Introduction to the Philosophy of History (p. 75):

History, according to a classical formula, is the spontaneous memory of societies. The past which is of interest, is first that of the group: historical curiosity seems to be connected with the feeling each individual has of belonging to a whole which transcends him. This is certainly true for primitive forms of history, but in so far as individuals have become conscious of themselves, the historian is no longer limited to exalting by memory, to justifying by legend, or to consecrating by an ideal example, a collectivity or a power. He undertakes his inquiry as he approaches present problems following the variations of social reality and personal judgement.

It is certain and cannot be too emphatically stressed that the natural sciences cannot be arbitrarily transposed into history, as has at times occurred.