from the fact that after seriously and minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political doctrines
as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an
actual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they involuntarily describe it as resulting from an
exercise of powerand say plainly that that was the result of
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Napoleon’s will. Speaking so, the historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show that the new
force they have devised does not account for what happens
in history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a power which they apparently do not recognize.
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Chapter III
A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: ‘What moves it?’
A peasant says the devil moves it. Another man says the
locomotive moves because its wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in the smoke which
the wind carries away.
The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To refute him someone would have to prove to
him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have
to explain to him that it is not the devil but a German, who
moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man
who says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for having once begun to analyze he ought to
go on and explain further why the wheels go round; and till
he has reached the ultimate cause of the movement of the
locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he has no
right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is
carried back has noticed that the wheels do not supply an
explanation and has taken the first sign that occurs to him
and in his turn has offered that as an explanation.
The only conception that can explain the movement of
the locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the
movement observed.
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The only conception that can explain the movement of
the peoples is that of some force commensurate with the
whole movement of the peoples.
Yet to supply this conception various historians take
forces of different kinds, all of which are incommensurate
with the movement observed. Some see it as a force directly
inherent in heroes, as the peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting from several other forces,
like the movement of the wheels; others again as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.
So long as histories are written of separate individuals,
whether Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not
the histories of all, absolutely all those who take part in an
event, it is quite impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception of a force compelling men to
direct their activity toward a certain end. And the only such
conception known to historians is that of power.
This conception is the one handle by means of which the
material of history, as at present expounded, can be dealt
with, and anyone who breaks that handle off, as Buckle did,
without finding some other method of treating historical
material, merely deprives himself of the one possible way
of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of power
as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the universal historians and historians of culture
themselves, for they professedly reject that conception but
inevitably have recourse to it at every step.
In dealing with humanity’s inquiry, the science of history up to now is like money in circulationpaper money and
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coin. The biographies and special national histories are like
paper money. They can be used and can circulate and fulfill
their purpose without harm to anyone and even advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind
them. You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes
produces events, and such histories as Thiers’ will be interesting and instructive and may perhaps even possess a tinge
of poetry. But just as doubts of the real value of paper money
arise either because, being easy to make, too much of it gets
made or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also
doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either because too many of them are written or because in his
simplicity of heart someone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?that is, wants to exchange the current paper
money for the real gold of actual comprehension.
The writers of universal histories and of the history of
culture are like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to substitute for it money made of metal
that has not the specific gravity of gold. It may indeed make
jingling coin, but will do no more than that. Paper money
may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by tokens
of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold
is gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but
also for use, so universal historians will be valuable only
when they can reply to history’s essential question: what is
power? The universal historians give contradictory replies
to that question, while the historians of culture evade it and
answer something quite different. And as counters of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who
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agree to accept them as gold, or among those who do not
know the nature of gold, so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering humanity’s essential question,
serve as currency for some purposes of their own, only in
universities and among the mass of readers who have a taste
for what they call ‘serious reading.’
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Chapter IV
Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to
the divine subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen
man and the subjection of that man’s will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions take a single step till it
has chosen one of two things: either a return to the former
belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force
producing historical events and termed ‘power.’
A return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and so it is essential to explain what is meant by
power.
Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war.
We are so accustomed to that idea and have become so used
to it that the question: why did six hundred thousand men
go to fight when Napoleon uttered certain words, seems to
us senseless. He had the power and so what he ordered was
done.
This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given him by God. But as soon as we do not admit
that, it becomes essential to determine what is this power of
one man over others.
It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man
over a weak onea domination based on the application or
threat of physical force, like the power of Hercules; nor can
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it be based on the effect of moral force, as in their simplicity some historians think who say that the leading figures
in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special
strength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot
be based on the predominance of moral strength, for, not to
mention heroes such as Napoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history shows us that neither a
Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the contrary
were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they
ruled over.
If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in
the moral qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for elsewherein the relation to the people of the
man who wields the power.
And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence, that exchange bank of history which offers to
exchange history’s understanding of power for true gold.
Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by
expressed or tacit consent, to their chosen rulers.
In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a state and power might be arranged were
it possible for all that to be arranged, it is all very clear; but
when applied to history that definition of power needs explanation.
The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power
as the ancients regarded firenamely, as something existing
absolutely. But for history, the state and power are merely
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ment but a phenomenon.
From this fundamental difference between the view held
by history and that held by jurisprudence, it follows that
jurisprudence can tell minutely how in its opinion power
should be constituted and what powerexisting immutably
outside timeis, but to history’s questions about the meaning
of the mutations of power in time it can answer nothing.
If power be the collective will of the people transferred to
their ruler, was Pugachev a representative of the will of the
people? If not, then why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was taken prisoner at Boulogne,
and why, later on, were those criminals whom he arrested?
Do palace revolutionsin which sometimes only two or
three people take parttransfer the will of the people to a new
ruler? In international relations, is the will of the people also
transferred to their conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred to Napoleon in 1806? Was
the will of the Russian people transferred to Napoleon in
1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to
fight the Austrians?
To these questions three answers are possible:
Either to assume (1) that the will of the people is always
unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have
chosen, and that therefore every emergence of a new power,
every struggle against the power once appointed, should be
absolutely regarded as an infringement of the real power;
or (2) that the will
