practising historian can legitimately recognize in human development is “the play of the contingent and unforeseen:”
One intellectual excitement, however, has been denied me. Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in History a plot, a rhythm, a pre-determined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows wave; only one great fact, with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations; only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and unforeseen. This is not a doctrine of cynicism or despair….[1]
The view expressed in the passage is so widely held that it will repay closer study. As it stands there is a certain ambiguity in it. If it is taken to express Mr. Fisher’s disbelief in some kind of theological determinism like that of Augustine and Tolstoy, or of the purposive idealism of Hegel and the dialectical materialists, no one interested in scientific history can take objection to it. Yet events that follow each other “as wave follows wave” certainly suggest a rhythm which in any case is different from the meaning of a plot and the finality of a predetermined pattern. And although a thing may be unique—our Earth, for example—there are many generalizations that may validly be applied to it. But the author’s basic meaning is clear—and mistaken. The “one” great fact of contingency that he stresses is no more basic or important than another great fact, viz. the limits of contingency in human affairs.
Chains of consequences are not strictly necessary, but we may count upon them nine times out of ten, and often more frequently. Introduce technology into a culture, even one hostile to the foreign values associated with technology, and a whole series of effects, from the establishment of an armament industry to political centralization, will ensue. Humiliate a defeated enemy without utterly destroying his potential powers of rearmament, and there will be another war in a generation. Let a nation wax fat and grow pacific while its neighbour remains hungry but well armed, and the prosperous country will be overrun as soon as a plausible pretext can be found. If those who start a civil war fight only defensive battles, it is only a matter of time before their cause is lost. Call a general strike without
- ↑ H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe, vol. I., p. vii., London, 1935.
