ABSTRACT

Relation between Biography and History. Without going into the broad issues of historical foundations, I think it is allowable to conceive of history as events carried out by the promptings of individuals, allowable, because I am aware of other conceptions of history, but this is no place for arguing such a portentous issue. It all depends on what we choose to include as history, and on how much weight we are willing to attach to circumstances and conditions. The eruption of a volcano in Italy, the flooding of a river in Portugal, an earthquake in Japan, or a famine in China are surely not to be associated with the doings of an individual. But an uprising, war, and other political or economic upheavals can be traced usually to the operations of some one individual ; and the hands of individuals can be detected even in the shaping of events which follow natural disasters or arise in the face of national perils. This view is not altogether incompatible with either historical materialism which ascribes historical events to the economic needs of the people or with objective idealism which regards progress as an unfolding of the Absolute Idea throughout the ages.