Butterfield (Herbert) The Whig Interpretation of History

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The Whig Interpretation of History
Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979)
(1931)
Preface
1. Introduction
2. The Underlying Assumption
3. The Historical Process
4. History and Judgements of Value
5. The Art of the Historian
6. Moral Judgements in History
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Preface
The following study deals with "the whig interpretation of history" in
what I conceive to be the accepted meaning of the phrase. At least it
covers all that is ordinarily understood by the words, though possibly it
gives them also an extended sense. What is discussed is the tendency
in many historians to write on the side of Protestants and Whigs, to
praise revolutions provided they have been successful, to emphasize
certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which
is the ratification if not the glorification of the present. This whig
version of the course of history is associated with certain methods of
historical organization and inference – certain fallacies to which all
history is liable, unless it be historical research. The examination of
these raises problems concerning the relations between historical
research and what is known as general history; concerning the nature
of a historical transition and of what might be called the historical
process; and also concerning the limits of history as a study, and
particularly the attempt of the whig writers to gain from it a finality
that it cannot give.
The subject is treated not as a problem in the philosophy of history,
but rather as an aspect of the psychology of historians. Use has been
made of words like conjuncture and contingency to describe what
appear as such to the observer and to the historian. The present study
does not concern itself with the philosophical description or analysis
of these. And its theses would be unaffected by anything the
philosopher could state to explain them or to explain them away.
H. B.
September 1931
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1. Introduction
It has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as
a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of bygone
generations he can lift up the fallen and beat down the proud, and by
his exposures and his verdicts, his satire and his moral indignation, can
punish unrighteousness, avenge the injured or reward the innocent.
One may be forgiven for not being too happy about any division of
mankind into good and evil, progressive and reactionary, black and
white; and it is not clear that moral indignation is not a dispersion of
one’s energies to the great confusion of one’s judgement. There can be
no complaint against the historian who personally and privately has
his preferences and antipathies, and who as a human being merely has
a fancy to take part in the game that he is describing; it is pleasant to
see him give way to his prejudices and take them emotionally, so that
they splash into colour as he writes; provided that when he steps in
this way into the arena he recognizes that he is stepping into a world
of partial judgements and purely personal appreciations and does not
imagines that he is speaking ex cathedra. But if the historian can rear
himself up like a god and judge, or stand as the official avenger of the
crimes of the past, then one can require that he shall be still more
godlike and regard himself rather as the reconciler than as the avenger;
taking it that his aim is to achieve the understanding of the men and
parties and causes of the past, and that in this understanding, if it can
be complete, all things will ultimately be reconciled. It seems to be
assumed that in history we can have something more than the private
points of view of particular historian; that there are "verdicts of
history" and that history itself, considered impersonally, has something
to say to men. It seems to be accepted that each historian does
something more than make a confession of his private mind and his
whimsicalities, and that all of them are trying to elicit a truth, and
perhaps combining through their various imperfections to express a
truth, which, if we could perfectly attain it, would be the voice of
History itself. But if history is in this way something like the memory
of mankind and represents the spirit of man brooding over man’s past,
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we must imagine it as working not to accentuate antagonisms or to
ratify old party-cries but to find the unities that underlie the
differences and to see all lives as part of the one web of life. The
historian trying to feel his way towards this may be striving to be like a
god but perhaps he is less foolish than the one who poses as god the
avenger. Studying the quarrels of an ancient day he can at least seek to
understand both parties to the struggle and he must want to
understand them better than they understood themselves; watching
them entangled in the net of time and circumstance he can take pity
on them – these men who perhaps had no pity for one another; and,
though he can never be perfect, it is difficult to see why he should
aspire to anything less than taking these men and their quarrels into a
world where everything is understood and all sins are forgiven.
It is astonishing to what an extent the historian has been Protestant,
progressive, and whig, and the very model of the nineteenth-century
gentleman. Long after he became a determinist he retained his godly
role as the dispenser of moral judgements, and like the disciples of
Calvin he gave up none of his right to moral indignation. Even when
he himself has been unsympathetic to the movements of his own
generation, as in the case of Hallam[1], who bitterly opposed the Great
Reform Bill and trembled to think of the revolutionary ways into
which the country was moving, something in his constitution still
makes him lean to what might be called the whig interpretation of
history, and he refuses historical understandings to men whose attitude
in the face of change and innovation was analogous to his own. It
might be argued that our general version of the historical story still
bears the impress that was given to it by great patriarchs of history
writing, so many of whom seem to have been whigs and gentlemen
when they have been Americans: and perhaps it is from these that our
textbook historians have inherited the top hat and the pontifical
manner, and the grace with which they hand out a consolation prize
to the man who, "though a reactionary, was irreproachable in his
private life". But whether we take the contest of Luther against the
popes, or that of Philip II and Elizabeth, or that of the Huguenots with
Catherine de’ Medici; whether we take Charles I versus his
parliaments or the younger Pitt versus Charles James Fox, it appears
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that the historian tends in the first place to adopt the whig or
Protestant view of the subject, and very quickly busies himself with
dividing the world into the friends and enemies of progress. It is true
that this tendency is corrected to some extent by the more
concentrated labours of historical specialists, but it is remarkable that
in all the examples given above, as well in many others, the result of
detailed historical research has been to correct very materially what ad
been an accepted. Protestant or whig interpretation. Further, this whig
tendency is so deep-rooted that even when piece-meal research has
corrected the story in detail, we are slow in re-valuing the whole and
reorganizing the broad outlines of the theme in the light of these
discoveries; and what M. Romier[2] has deplored in the historians of
the Huguenots might fairly be imputed to those in other fields of
history; that is, the tendency to patch the new research into the old
story even when the research in detail has altered the bearings of the
whole subject. We cling to a certain organization of historical
knowledge which amounts to a whig interpretation of history, and all
our deference to research brings us only to admit that this needs
qualifications in detail. But exceptions in detail do not prevent us from
mapping out the large story on the same pattern all the time; these
exceptions are lost indeed in that combined process of organization
and abridgement by which we reach our general survey of general
history; And so it is over large periods and in reference to the great
transitions in European history that the whig view holds hardest and
holds longest; it is here that we see the results of a serious discrepancy
between the historical specialist and what might be called the general
historian.
The truth is that there is a tendency for all history to veer over into
whig history, and this is not sufficiently explained if we merely ascribe it
to the prevalence and persistence of a traditional interpretation. There
is a magnet for ever pulling at our minds, unless we have found the way
to counteract it; and it may be said that if we are merely honest, if we
are not also carefully self-critical. we tend easily to be deflected by a first
fundamental fallacy. And though this may even apply in a subtle way to
the detailed work of the historical specialist, it comes into action with
increasing effect the moment any given subject has left the hands of the
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student in research; for the more we are discussing and not merely
inquiring, the more we are making inferences instead of researches, then
the more whig our history becomes if we have not severely repressed our
original error; indeed all history must tend to become more whig in
proportion as it becomes more abridged. Further, it cannot be said that
all faults of bias may be balanced by work that is deliberately written
with the opposite bias; for we do not gain true history by merely adding
the speech of the prosecution to the speech for the defence; and though
there have been Tory – as there have been many Catholic – partisan
histories, it is still true that there is no corresponding tendency for the
subject itself to lean in this direction; the dice cannot be secretly loaded
by virtue of the same kind of original unconscious fallacy. For this
reason it has been easy to believe that Clio herself is on the side of the
whigs.
[1] «Henry Hallam, 1777-1859, historian, born at Windsor on 9 July
1777, was the only son of John Hallam, canon of Windsor (1775-
1812) and dean of Bristol (1781-1800), a man of high character, and
well read in sacred and profane literature. The Hallams had long been
settled at Boston in Lincolnshire, and one member of the family was
Robert Hallam [q.v.], bishop of Salisbury. Later members had been on
the puritan side. Hallam's mother, a sister of Dr. Roberts, provost of
Eton, was a woman of much intelligence and delicacy of feeling. He
was a precocious child, read many books when four years old, and
composed sonnets at ten. He was at Eton from 1790 to 1794, and some
of his verses are published in the ‘Musæ Etonenses’ (1795). He was
afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1799. He
was called to the bar, and practised for some years on the Oxford
circuit. His father, dying in 1812, left him estates in Lincolnshire, and
he was early appointed to a commissionership of stamps, a post with a
good salary and light duties. In 1807 he married Julia, daughter of Sir
Abraham Elton, bart., of Clevedon Court, Somerset, and sister of Sir
Charles Abraham Elton [q.v.]. His independent means enabled him to
withdraw from legal practice and devote himself to the study of
history. After ten years' assiduous labour he produced in 1818 his first
great work, A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, which
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immediately established his reputation. (A supplementary volume of
notes was published separately in 1848.) The Constitutional History of
England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II
followed in 1827. Before the completion of his next work he was
deeply affected by the death of his eldest son, Arthur Henry (see
below). ‘I have,’ he wrote, ‘warnings to gather my sheaves while I can-
my advanced age, and the reunion in heaven with those who await
me.’ He fulfilled his purpose by finishing The Introduction to the
Literature of Europe during the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, published
in 1837-9. During the preparation of these works he lived a studious
life, interrupted only by occasional travels on the continent. He was
familiar with the best literary society of the time, well known to the
whig magnates, and a frequent visitor to Holland House and Bowood.
His name is often mentioned in memoirs and diaries of the time, and
always respectfully, although he never rivalled the conversational
supremacy of his contemporaries, Sydney Smith and Macaulay. He
took no part in active political life. As a commissioner of stamps he
was excluded from parliament, and after his resignation did not
attempt to procure a seat. He gave up the pension of 500l. a year
(granted according to custom upon his resignation) after the death of
his son Henry, in spite of remonstrances upon the unusual nature of
the step. Though a sound whig, Hallam disapproved of the Reform Bill
(see Moore's Diaries, vi. 221), and expressed his grave fears of the
revolutionary tendency of the measure to one of the leading members
of the reform cabinet, in presence of the Duc de Broglie (Mignet). His
later years were clouded by the loss of his sons. His domestic affections
were unusually warm, and he was a man of singular generosity in
money matters. Considering his high position in literature and his
wide acquaintance with distinguished persons, few records have been
preserved of his life. But he was warmly loved by all who knew him,
and his dignified reticence and absorption in severe studies prevented
him from coming often under public notice. John Austin was a warm
friend, and Mrs. Austin was asked to write his life, but declined the
task as beyond her powers (Mrs. Ross, Three Generations of
Englishwomen, ii. 118, &c.). During the greater part of his life he lived
in Wimpole Street, the ‘long, unlovely street’ mentioned in Lord
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Tennyson's ‘In Memoriam,’ and for a few years before his death in
Wilton Crescent. He died peacefully, after many years of retirement,
on 21 Jan. 1859. His portraits by Phillips (in oil) and by G. Richmond
(in chalk) show a noble and massive head.
Hallam was treasurer to the Statistical Society, of which he had been
one of the founders, a very active vice-president of the Society of
Antiquaries, honorary professor of history to the Royal Society, and a
foreign associate of the Institute of France. In 1830 he received one of
the fifty-guinea medals given by George IV for historical eminence,
the other being given to Washington Irving.
Hallam seems to have published very little besides his three principal
works. Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, sneers at ‘classic
Hallam, much renowned for Greek.’ A note explains that Hallam
reviewed Payne Knight in the «Edinburgh Review», and condemned
certain Greek verses, not knowing that they were taken from Pindar.
The charge was exaggerated, and the article probably not by Hallam
(see «Gent. Mag.» 1830, pt. i. p. 389). The review of Scott's Dryden in
the number for October 1808 is also attributed to him. At a later
period he wrote two articles upon Lingard's History (March 1831) and
Palgrave's English Commonwealth (July 1832) (see Macvey Napier's
Correspondence, p. 73). A character by him of his friend Lord Webb
Seymour is in the appendix to the first volume of Francis Horner's
Memoirs.
Hallam's works helped materially to lay the foundations of the English
historical school, and, in spite of later researches, maintain their
position as standard books. The ‘Middle Ages’ was probably the first
English history which, without being merely antiquarian, set an
example of genuine study from original sources. Hallam's training as a
lawyer was of high value, and enabled him, according to competent
authorities, to interpret the history of law even better in some cases
than later writers of more special knowledge. Without attempting a
‘philosophy of history,’ in the more modern sense, he takes broad and
sensible views of facts. His old-fashioned whiggism, especially in the
constitutional history, caused bitter resentment among the tories and
high churchmen, whose heroes were treated with chilling want of
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enthusiasm. Southey attacked the book bitterly on these grounds in
the «Quarterly Review» (1828). His writings, indeed, like that of some
other historians, were obviously coloured by his opinions; but more
than most historians he was scrupulously fair in intention and
conscientious in collecting and weighing evidence. Without the
sympathetic imagination which if often misleading is essential to the
highest historical excellence, he commands respect by his honesty,
accuracy, and masculine common sense in regard to all topics within
his range. The Literature of Europe, though it shows the same qualities
and is often written with great force, suffers from the enormous range.
Hardly any man could be competent to judge with equal accuracy of
all the intellectual achievements of the period in every department.
Weaknesses result which will be detected by specialists; but even in
the weaker departments it shows good sound sense, and is invaluable
to any student of the literature of the time. Though many historians
have been more brilliant, there are few so emphatically deserving of
respect. His reading was enormous, but we have no means of judging
what special circumstances determined his particular lines of inquiry.
Hallam had eleven children by his wife, who died 25 April 1846. Only
four grew up, Arthur Henry, Ellen, who died in 1837 (the deaths of
these two are commemorated in a poem by Lord Houghton), Julia, who
married Captain Cator (now Sir John Farnaby Lennard), and Henry
Fitzmaurice. He had one sister, who died unmarried, leaving him her
fortune» [article by Leslie Stephen, Dictionary of National Biography,
1890].
[2] Lucien Romier (1885-1944), French historian, author of Les Origines
politiques des guerres de religion, Paris, Perrin, 1913-14, Les Protestants
français à la veille des guerres civiles, Paris, 1917, La Conjuration
d'Amboise. L'Aurore sanglante de la liberté de conscience. Le Règne et la
mort de François II, Paris, Perrin, 1923, Catholiques et Huguenots à la cour
de Charles IX, Paris, Perrin, 1924, L’Ancienne France, des origines à la
Révolution, Paris, Hachette, 1948.
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2. THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION
The primary assumption of all attempts to understand the men of the
past must be the belief that we can in some degree enter into minds
that are unlike our own. If this belief were unfounded it would seem
that men must be for ever locked away from one another, and all
generations must be regarded as a world and a law unto themselves. If
we were unable to enter in any way into the mind of a present day
Roman Catholic priest, for example, and similarly into the mind of an
atheistical orator in Hyde Park, it is difficult to see how we could know
anything of the still stranger men of the sixteenth century, or pretend
to understand the process of history-making which has moulded us
into the world of today. In reality the historian postulates that the
world is in some sense always the same world and that even the men
most dissimilar are never absolutely unlike. And though a sentence
from Aquinas may fall so strangely upon modern ears that it becomes
plausible to dismiss the man as a fool or a mind utterly and absolutely
alien, I take it that to dismiss a man in this way is a method of
blocking up the mind against him, and against something important in
both human nature and its history; it is really the refusal to a historical
personage of the effort of historical understanding. Precisely because of
his unlikeness to ourselves Aquinas is the more enticing subject for the
historical imagination; for the chief aim of the historian is the
elucidation of the unlikeness between past and present and his chief
function is to act in this way as the mediator between other
generations and our own. It is not for him to stress and magnify the
similarities between one age and another, and he is riding after a
whole flock of misapprehensions if he goes to hunt for the present in
the past. Rather it is his work to destroy those very analogies which we
imagined to exist. When he shows us that Magna Charta is a feudal
document in a feudal setting, with implications different from those
we had taken for granted, he is disillusioning us concerning something
in the past which we had assumed to be too like something in the
present. That whole process of specialized research which has in so
many fields revised the previously accepted whig interpretation of
history has set our bearings afresh in one period after another, by
摘要：

1TheWhigInterpretationofHistoryHerbertButterfield(1900-1979)(1931)Preface1.Introduction2.TheUnderlyingAssumption3.TheHistoricalProcess4.HistoryandJudgementsofValue5.TheArtoftheHistorian6.MoralJudgementsinHistory2PrefaceThefollowingstudydealswith"thewhiginterpretationofhistory"inwhatIconceivetobethea...

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