ABSTRACT
The growth of rationalism was as indispensable to the unfettered use of ideas in history as to their unfettered use in science. The history of the human mind, continued Voltaire, was the truly important part of the human record. The new scientific attitude toward history was strikingly exhibited by Voltaire in his refusal to accept Tacitus at face value. Two of the ablest statements of the evolutionary philosophy of history are to be found in Walter Bagehot’s stimulating Physics and Politics and John Fiske’s Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, both the more typical for having been written in the heart of the Victorian era. The “Marxian interpretation” of history is really a Marxian philosophy, as imposing in scope, despite its materialistic temper, as any other philosophy. Marxian or pseudo-Marxian historians have interpreted the record of many communities and nations as primarily a history of the division and antagonism of classes—the class conflict.
