Mises, Ludwig von. Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution

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282 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

scious impulse by attaching to his actions reasons ac-

ceptable to his superego. He is not consciously cheating

and lying. He is himself a victim of his illusions and

wishful thinking. He lacks the courage to look squarely

at reality. As he dimly surmises that the cognition of the

true state of affairs would be unpleasant, undermine his

self-esteem, and weaken his resolution, he shrinks from

analyzing the problems beyond a certain point. This

is of course a rather dangerous attitude, a retreat from

an unwelcome reality into an imaginary world of fancy

that pleases better. A few steps further in the same

direction may lead to insanity.

However, in the lives of individuals there are checks

that prevent such rationalizations from becoming ram-

pant and wreaking havoc. Precisely because rationaliza-

tion is a type of behavior common to many, peo-

ple are watchful and even often suspect it where it

is absent. Some are always ready to unmask their

neighbors' sly attempts to bolster their own self-respect.

The most cleverly constructed legends of rationalization

cannot in the long run withstand the repeated attacks

of debunkers.

It is quite another thing with rationalization de-

veloped for the benefit of social groups. That can thrive

luxuriantly because it encounters no criticism from the

members of the group and because the criticism of

outsiders is dismissed as obviously biased. One of the

main tasks of historical analysis is to study the various

manifestations of rationalization in all fields of political

ideologies.

PSYCHOLOGY AND THYMOLOGY 283

6. Introspection

The passionate quarrel of the introspectionists and

anti-introspectionists refers to the problems of natural-

istic psychology and does not affect thymology. None

of the methods and procedures recommended by the

anti-introspectionist schools could convey any informa-

tion and knowledge about the phenomena which thy-

mology explores.

Being himself a valuing and acting ego, every man

knows the meaning of valuing and acting. He is aware

that he is not neutral with regard to the various states

of his environment, that he prefers certain states to

others, and that he consciously tries, provided the con-

ditions for such interference on his part are given, to

substitute a state that he likes better for one he likes

less.

It is impossible to imagine a sane human being

who lacks this insight. It is no less impossible to con-

ceive how a being lacking this insight could acquire it

by means of any experience or instruction. The cate-

gories of value and of action are primary and aprioristic

elements present to every human mind. No science

should or could attack the problems involved without

prior knowledge of these categories.

Only because we are aware of these categories do we

know what meaning means and have a key to interpret

other people's activities. This awareness makes us dis-

tinguish in the external world two separate realms, that

of human affairs and that of nonhuman things, or that of

final causes and that of causality. It is not our task here

284 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

to deal with causality. But we must emphasize that the

concept of final causes does not stem from experience

and observation of something external; it is present in

the mind of every human being.

It is necessary to emphasize again and again that no

statement or proposition concerning human action can

be made that does not imply reference to ends aimed

at. The very concept of action is finalistic and is devoid

of any sense and meaning if there is no referring to

conscious aiming at chosen ends. There is no experi-

ence in the field of human action that can be had with-

out resorting to the category of means and

ends.

If the

ob-

server is not familiar with the ideology, the technology,

and the therapeutics of the men whose behavior he ob-

serves, he cannot make head or tail of it. He sees peo-

ple running here and there and moving their hands, but

he begins to understand what it is all about only when

he begins to discover what they want to achieve.

If in employing the term "introspection" the positivist

refers to such statements as those expressed in the last

four words of the sentence "Paul runs to catch the

train," then we must say that no sane human being

could do without resorting to introspection in every

thought.

Chapter 13.

Meaning

and Use of the Study of History

The Why of History

THE EYES of the positivist philosopher the study

of mathematics and of the natural sciences is a prepara-

tion for action. Technology vindicates the labors of the

experimenter. No such justification can be advanced in

favor of the traditional methods resorted to by the his-

torians. They should abandon their unscientific anti-

quarianism, says the positivist, and turn to the study of

social physics or sociology. This discipline will abstract

from historical experience laws which could render to

social "engineering" the same services the laws of phys-

ics render to technological engineering.

In the opinion of the historicist philosopher the study

of history provides man with signposts showing him the

ways he has to walk along. Man can succeed only if

his actions fit into the trend of evolution. To discover

these trend lines is the main task of history.

The bankruptcy of both positivism and historicism

raises anew the question about the meaning, the value,

and the use of historical studies.

Some self-styled idealists think that reference to a

thirst for knowledge, inborn in all men or at least in

the higher types of men, answers these questions satis-

factorily. Yet the problem is to draw a boundary line

between the thirst for knowledge that impels the phi-

285

286 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

lologist to investigate the language of an African tribe

and the curiosity that stimulates people to peer into the

private lives of movie stars. Many historical events

interest the average man because hearing or reading

about them or seeing them enacted on the stage or

screen gives him pleasant, if sometimes shuddering,

sensations. The masses who greedily absorb newspaper

reports about crimes and trials are not driven by

Ranke's eagerness to know events as they really hap-

pened. The passions that agitate them are to be dealt

with by psychoanalysis, not by epistemology.

The idealist philosopher's justification of history as

knowledge for the mere sake of knowing fails to take

into account the fact that there are certainly things

which are not worth knowing. History's task is not to

record all past things and events but only those that

are historically meaningful. It is therefore necessary to

find a criterion that makes it possible to sift what is his-

torically meaningful from what is not. This cannot be

done from the point of view of a doctrine which deems

meritorious the mere fact of knowing something.

The Historical Situation

Acting man is faced with a definite situation. His ac-

tion is a response to the challenge offered by this situa-

tion;

it is his re-action. He appraises the effects the

situation may have upon himself, i.e., he tries to es-

tablish what it means to him. Then he chooses and acts

in order to attain the end chosen.

As far as the situation can be completely described

MEANING AND USE OF STUDY OF HISTORY 287

by the methods of the natural sciences, as a rule the

natural sciences also provide an interpretation that en-

ables the individual to make his decision. If a leak in the

pipe line is diagnosed, the course of action to be re-

sorted to is in most cases plain. Where a full descrip-

tion of a situation requires more than reference to the

teachings of the applied natural sciences, recourse to

history is inevitable.

People have often failed to realize this because they

were deceived by the illusion that there is, between the

past and the future, an extended space of time that can

be called the present. As I have pointed out before,

the concept of such a present is not an astronomical or

chronometrical notion but a praxeological one. It re-

fers to the continuation of the conditions making a

definite kind of action possible. It is therefore different

for various fields of action. It is, moreover, never possi-

ble to know in advance how much of the future, of the

time not yet past, will have to be included in what we

call today the present. This can only be decided in

retrospect. If a man says "At present the relations be-

tween Ruritania and Lapputania are peaceful," it is un-

certain whether a later retrospective recording will in-

clude what today is called tomorrow in this period

of present time. This question can only be answered the

day after tomorrow.

There is no such thing as a nonhistorical analysis of

the present state of affairs. The examination and de-

scription of the present are necessarily a historical ac-

count of the past ending with the instant just passed.

Mises, Human Action, p. 101. See also above, pp. 202 f.

288 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

The description of the present state of politics or of

business is inevitably the narration of the events that

have brought about the present state. If, in business or

in government, a new man takes the helm, his first task

is to find out what has been done up to the last minute.

The statesman as well as the businessman learns about

the present situation from studying the records of the

past.

Historicism was right in stressing the fact that in

order to know something in the field of human affairs

one has to familiarize oneself with the way in which

it developed. The historicists' fateful error consisted

in the belief that this analysis of the past in itself con-

veys information about the course future action has to

take. What the historical account provides is the de-

scription of the situation; the reaction depends on the

meaning the actor gives it, on the ends he wants to at-

tain,

and on the means he chooses for their attainment.

In 1860 there was slavery in many states of the Union.

The most careful and faithful record of the history of

this institution in general and in the United States in

particular did not map out the future policies of the

nation with regard to slavery. The situation in the

manufacturing and marketing of motorcars that Ford

found on the eve of his embarking upon mass produc-

tion did not indicate what had to be done in this field of

business. The historical analysis gives a diagnosis. The

reaction is determined, so far as the choice of ends is

concerned, by judgments of value and, so far as the

choice of means is concerned, by the whole body of

MEANING AND USE OF STUDY OF HISTORY 289

teachings placed at man's disposal by praxeology and

technology.

Let those who want to reject the preceding state-

ments undertake to describe any present situation—

in philosophy, in politics, on a battlefield, on the stock

exchange, in an individual business enterprise—without

reference to the past.

History of the Remote Past

A skeptic may object: Granted that some historical

studies are descriptions of the present state of affairs,

but this is not true of all historical investigations. One

may concede that the history of Nazism contributes to

a better understanding of various phenomena in the

present political and ideological situation. But what

reference to our present worries have books on the

Mithras cult, on ancient Chaldea, or on the early dynas-

ties of the kings of Egypt? Such studies are merely

antiquarian, a display of curiosity. They are useless, a

waste of time, money, and manpower.

Criticisms such as these are self-contradictory. On the

one hand they admit that the present state can only

be described by a full account of the events that have

brought it about. On the other hand, they declare be-

forehand that certain events cannot possibly have influ-

enced the course of affairs that has led to the present

state. Yet this negative statement can only be made

after careful examination of all the material available,

not in advance on the ground of some hasty conclusions.

290 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

The mere fact that an event happened in a distant

country and a remote age does not in itself prove that

it has no bearing on the present. Jewish affairs of three

thousand years ago influence the lives of millions of

present-day Christian Americans more than what hap-

pened to the American Indians as late as in the second

part of the nineteenth century. In the present-day con-

flict of the Roman Church and the Soviets there are

elements that trace back to the great schism of the East-

ern and Western churches that originated more than a

thousand years ago. This schism cannot be examined

thoroughly without reference to the whole history of

Christianity from its early beginnings; the study of

Christianity presupposes analysis of Judaism and the

various influences—Chaldean, Egyptian, and so on—

that shaped it. There is no point in history at which we

can stop our investigation fully satisfied that we have

not overlooked any important factor. Whether civiliza-

tion must be considered a coherent process or we

should rather distinguish a multitude of civilizations

does not affect our problem. For there were mutual

exchanges of ideas between these autonomous civiliza-

tions,

the extent and weight of which must be estab-

lished by historical research.

A superficial observer might think that the historians

are merely repeating what their predecessors have al-

ready said, at best occasionally retouching minor de-

tails of the picture. Actually the understanding of the

past is in perpetual flux. A historian's achievement con-

sists in presenting the past in a new perspective of un-

derstanding. The process of historical change is actu-

MEANING AND USE OF STUDY OF HISTORY 291

ated by, or rather consists in, the ceaseless transforma-

tion of the ideas determining human action. Among

these ideological changes those concerning the specific

historical understanding of the past play a conspicuous

role. What distinguishes a later from an earlier age is,

among other ideological changes, also the change in

the understanding of the preceding ages. Continu-

ously examining and reshaping our historical under-

standing, the historians contribute their share to what

is called the spirit of the age.

Falsifying History

Because history is not a useless pastime but a study

of the utmost practical importance, people have been

eager to falsify historical evidence and to misrepresent

the course of events. The endeavors to mislead posterity

about what really happened and to substitute a fabri-

cation for a faithful recording are often inaugurated by

the men who themselves played an active role in the

events, and begin with the instant of their happening,

Sometimes historical research succeeds in unmasking inveterate

errors and substituting a correct account of events for an inadequate

record even in fields that had up to then been considered fully and

satisfactorily explored and described. An outstanding example is the

startling discoveries concerning the history of the Roman emperors

Maxentius, Licinius, and Constantinus and the events that ended the

persecution of the Christians and paved the way for the victory of the

Christian Church. (See Henri Gregoire, Les Persecutions dans VEm-

pire Romain in Memoires de l'Academie Royale de Belgique, Tome 46,

Fascicule 1, 1951, especially pp. 79-89, 153-6.) But fundamental

changes in the historical understanding of events are more often

brought about without any or only slight revision of the description

of external events.