ABSTRACT

Western historians, fifty years ago, would never have affirmed that national States or parliamentary regimes might escape the corruption which gnaws at all the edifices raised up by the pride of men in defiance of the law of historical development. History is made by men who act, in circumstances which are not of their own choosing, according to their ambitions or ideals and their imperfect knowledge, sometimes succumbing to their environment, sometimes conquering it, bowed down under the weight of immemorial customs or uplifted by a spiritual force. Philosophies of history of the Marxist type bring order to the chaos of events by relating it to a few simple principles of interpretation, and postulating an irresistible movement towards the fulfilment of human destiny. The idolatry of history arrogates to itself the right to ignore the brute facts or to give each of them the meaning which will fit in with an allegedly definitive system of interpretation.