Definition

• History cannot be easily defined, and there is no universally agreed definition among historians.
• Historians express conflicting views regarding the nature, significance, and value of history.
• Each definition of history explains some aspects, but not the whole, due to its many points of view.
• History has been approached from various perspectives, leading to more varied definitions than even the novel.
• Interpretations of historical materials by historians like Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Kalhana, Gibbon, Spengler, Toynbee, and Will Durant have resulted in different “Histories.”
• The Greeks were the first to give a rational meaning to the term history.
• The word history itself is derived from the Greek word “istoria”, meaning enquiry, research, exploration, or learning.
• The German equivalent of history is “geschichte”, meaning an intelligent and intelligible narration of past events.
• The Arabic word “tarikh” stands for chronology.
• The Sanskrit word “itihasa” refers to legend.
• One definition of history is “the study of man’s struggle through the ages” against nature, wild beasts, and other humans who tried to oppress or exploit him.
• Another definition of history describes it as “a significant record of events of the past”, a meaningful story depicting what happened and why.
• History can also be defined as “a mirror of the past as though it were present”.
• Herodotus titled his work “History of the Persian War”.
• The German word for history, “Geschichts”, stands for event.
• The Arabic term “tarikh” refers to dates.
• The Sanskrit terms itihasa and Charitra mean long tale or legend and the biography of great men or a survey of events, respectively.
• The Greeks in the 5th century BC played a key role in shaping the future course of history.
• They developed a reasoned approach to the past, critically pursuing the authenticity of materials.
• Greek historians like Herodotus and Thucydides applied a method of investigation to reach conclusions about the past.
• This Greek historical-mindedness and spirit of inquiry led to various definitions of history over time.
• St. Augustine discovered spiritual meaning in history, asserting that God ruled human affairs and placed God in history.
• Aristotle suggested that history is an account of the unchanging past.
• E.H. Carr defined history as “a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts”, an unending dialogue between the present and the past.
• G.J. Renier defined history as “the story of the experiences of men living in civilized societies”.
• A.L. Rowse described history as “the record of the life of men in their geographical and physical environment”.
• Thomas Carlyle stated that history is “the essence of innumerable biographies”, particularly focusing on the accomplishments of great men, warriors, rulers, artists, or prophets.
• G.W.F. Hegel, the German Idealist philosopher, envisioned history as the progressive realization of the World Spirit, a non-material phenomenon he termed the Absolute or Universal Idea.
• Karl Marx saw history as “the activity of men in pursuit of their ends”.
• Lord Acton defined history as “the unfolding story of human freedom”.
• Robin G. Collingwood, a philosopher and historian, gave a metaphysical twist to history, stating “All history is the history of thought”.
• If we distill these viewpoints, a useful working definition of history emerges, particularly for a practicing historian:
  
  1. History as events (res-gestae)
  2. History as records
  3. History as reflective thought (historia rerum gestarum)

Characteristics of History

• Doctors may disagree on the definition of history, but there is significant agreement on its cardinal characteristics.
• History is chronological. The time element is the backbone of history, providing continuity and a sequence to events. Significant events are arranged in their time sequence, and the intervals between them are fixed.
• History concerns socially significant events and answers questions about human deeds that have affected the destiny of people.
• History is humanistic. It is a narrative of human actions, including deeds and misdeeds, successes, and failures. It seeks the cause of events in human agency, not divine influence. Human will freely chooses its ends and is limited by its own forces.
• The power of intellect helps humans apprehend their goals and work out the means to achieve them. In essence, history occurs due to the direct result of human will.
• The fourth characteristic is that history proceeds through interpretation of evidence based on documents. Past events gain meaning and contemporary relevance through interpretation.
• History is a special form of thought. It provides answers to questions about the nature, object, method, and value of studying the past.
• History is a science because it is an inquiry that seeks to uncover facts, striving to discover what is unknown and find things out.
• Lastly, history is autonomous. It is an independent branch of study with its own concepts, theories, and methodology to collect and evaluate data, leading to meaningful conclusions.

Nature of History

Is History Science or Art?

• The term “history” is derived from the Greek word “istoria”, meaning enquiry, research, or exploration.
• Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian, is honored as the Father of Scientific History for realizing the hope of his predecessor Herodotus to achieve a scientific knowledge of past human actions.
• Thucydides was predominantly influenced by Hippocratic medicine, which is evident in his description of the plague and his investigation into the laws governing historical events.
• However, humanism, not scientific temper, was the dominant characteristic of Greco-Roman historiography.
• The scientific outlook of Greco-Roman historiographers was largely obscured in medieval Christian historiography.
• With the Renaissance, a revival of humanistic views on history occurred, and accurate scholarship regained importance.

Impact of Science on Historiography

• The impact of science on historiography at the end of the eighteenth century was incalculable.
• As science contributed to man’s knowledge of the world, it also advanced his understanding of the past.
• The method by which science studied the world of nature was systematically applied to the study of human affairs throughout the nineteenth century.
• The Newtonian tradition, Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics (1851), and Darwinian Evolution brought history into the realm of science.
• These developments reinforced the practice of applying scientific principles to historical writing.
• The evolution of science confirmed and complemented progress in history.
• Fascinated by the scientific method, J.B. Bury declared in the early twentieth century that “History was a science and had nothing to do with literature.”
• John Seeley also asserted that history was a science, separate from literature.

History is a Science

• History can be considered a science in several respects.
• First, as an enquiry after truth, history is a science. It is an inquiry or research, not just collecting what is known and arranging it. It aims to discover what is unknown, making it a means to an end, not an end in itself.
• Second, like science, history begins with the knowledge of our own ignorance and proceeds from the known to the unknown, from ignorance to knowledge, from the indefinite to the definite.
• Third, history seeks to find things out. It answers questions posed by historians. History, as the science of res gestae, attempts to answer questions about human actions in the past. In short, it is an investigation to determine what happened at a specific time and place.
• Fourth, history is based on evidence and reasoning. It is built on facts like a house is built on stones. However, simply accumulating facts is not enough to make it a science. The data must be scientifically analyzed, classified, and interpreted.
• Fifth, history employs scientific methods of enquiry. It uses methods such as observation, classification, formulation of hypotheses, and analysis of evidence. The inductive method of collecting facts and interpreting them is a key scientific approach in history.
• Sixth, like scientists, historians approach their subject with a scientific spirit, aiming to acquire accurate knowledge. History seeks to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To the extent that history adopts a rational approach to uncover the truth, it can be considered a science.

History is an Art

• The question of whether history is a science or an art was hotly debated, especially in Germany during the last decade of the nineteenth century.
• The general consensus favored the idea that history is a science.
• However, this view was countered by Benedetto Croce, the distinguished Italian historian, who argued that history is an art.
• In his first essay on the theory of history, “History subsumed under the Concept of Art”, written at the age of 27, Croce asserted that history is an art.
• Earlier, Dilthey in 1883 and Simmel in 1892 had compared history to art.
• Later, A.L. Rowse reiterated that, despite the use of scientific methods in historical writing, there will always remain an element of art in history.
• Rowse emphasized that reducing history to a natural science would suppress key aspects of introspective knowledge and misapply a false analogy with the sciences.
• It is unfortunate that methodologists and theorists often view the essence of history and the writing of history as secondary.
• The art of writing must be used in support of the historian’s work.
• Wrong theories about history do not necessarily lead to bad history. Croce and Collingwood provide proof that incorrect theories can still result in valuable historical writing.