Abstract

Professor Gallie of Queen’s University, Belfast takes his history seriously, in the spirit of R G Collingwood, and like Collingwood, he gives the impression of knowing what the historian is about. He inspires confidence by reference to a wide range of historical writing, instead of the one or two faded examples which tend to turn up again and again in books on the philosophy of history. Gallie’s primary purpose may be seen as a blow against the kind of systematised history which Marxism stands for. He is opposed to this and to all sociological approaches to history because they misrepresent the nature of the task which confronts the historian. For Gallie, history is essentially narrative. Narrative is indeed too weak a word. In Gallie’s view, the historian tells a story. Our attention is held because the element of the unexpected is always present as it is in a story. A rational predictable construction of a Marxist type is ruled out because of the multiplicity of contingent events round which history revolves. History for this reason is distinct from science. The historian, in Gallie’s view, is not concerned with events in so far as they are specific instances of general laws. The scientist who ignores history, however, does so at his peril. Men who assume that scientific progress is inevitable and regard history as irrelevant are disregarding the fact that scientific development has taken place in some societies but not in others. Gallie’s pages on this topic are among the most illuminating in the book. Where he is perhaps open to criticism is in pressing the analogy of history to story telling too far. It may be argued that what the historian is after is surprise. He is trying to show us that the past is not as we thought it was but different. This may be achieved in ways other than story telling. For example, the sociologist or anthropologist may teach us to look at the past in a new light. Place medieval England and twentieth century Africa in juxtaposition and handy dandy, which is the justiciar and which is the thief? This method of illuminating the past is analogous to putting two photographs together or two caricatures. Whatever it is, it cannot be described as story telling. If we regard surprise as our criterion, we may also rule out both the plodding story tellers, who bore us with banalities, and the Namierites who are equally predictable in their own sphere. In a word, we will banish the bores from history. Professor Gallie in this entertaining book may be said to have banished boredom from his own pages. He is an example to philosophers and historians alike.