Before the end of World War I, the German philosopher Spengler revised a manuscript that had been completed before the outbreak of the war, and published the first volume of "The Decline of the West" in July 1918; as soon as the book came out, it quickly caused an uproar in Western cultural circles. Less than a year later, the smoke of the First World War gradually dissipated, and the Dutch cultural historian Hejzinha published the masterpiece of cultural history that has not fallen in the middle of the Middle Ages in 1919, licking the wounds of the First World War, which has not fallen to this day. The circulation of Heizimha's Dutch work depended more on a wider audience of English translations, the most far-reaching of which was undoubtedly the 1924 translation of The Decline of the Middle Ages, in which Heizimha himself participated; it is clear that this more explicit translation seems to be reminiscent of The Decline of the West, which came out at about the same time.
Spengler
In fact, it is difficult to say that there is a definite and specific influential relationship between "The Decline of the West" and "Autumn in the Middle Ages", and scholars rarely discuss the two works together. However, when it comes to the study of the cultural history of Sheizimha, some scholars will point out in particular: if there is an atmosphere of the times before and after the First World War, this atmosphere is undoubtedly an excessive obsession with recession - whether it is the clouds of war, the epidemic that led to the early death of Max Weber, or the economy that is about to fall into crisis soon after, "Will the world be better" seems to be a question of the times. "The Decline of the West" and "The Autumn of the Middle Ages", as the two masterpieces that came out of this era, can also be regarded as the embodiment of this trend of thought of the times.
The second volume of The Fall of the West was published in 1922, a year after Hejzinha published a lengthy essay entitled "Two Men Wrestling with Angels," the first half of which focused on Spengler and his The Fall of the West. That is to say, before the publication of The Decline of the Middle Ages, Heizimha had at least read the first volume of The Decline of the West.
As we all know, in the book "The Decline of the West", Spengler's study of the history of world civilization is a kind of "cultural morphology" study. In 1929, Hejzinha also revised the Task of Cultural History (which mentions Spengler) on the basis of his 1926 speech, which clearly pointed out that the main task of cultural history was to formally understand and describe the concrete and real process of civilization. This view also seems to clearly show the implicit link between The Fall of the West and the cultural history of Hejzinha.
However, from the perspective of "Two Wrestling With Angels", Heizinha does not actually give too high a high evaluation of the specific content described in Spengler and The Fall of the West. He distinguished Spengler from professional historians as a "genius amateur"; he had a rather negative view of The Decline of the West, as nothing more than a repetitive high-pitched work of self-praise, as if he meant that this amateur exaggeration was not worth the trouble of people. However, Heizimha's approach is the opposite of what he gives, not only revealing that he has made meticulous reading notes of The Fall of the West, but also making it clear that it is a work of genius that we should respect.
Hejzinha formally entered a career in teaching and researching professional history in 1905, when he took up his position as professor of history at the University of Groningen and delivered an inaugural speech. At the outset of the speech, it is stated that historiography has fallen into a state of confusion in the face of the impact of the natural sciences, and has begun to doubt whether it can become a "science" that can be "measured by the standards of physics"; and "Aesthetic elements of historical thought", as the title of the speech, itself shows in a very clear way that by emphasizing the "aesthetic" elements of historical research, Heyzinha actually refuses to accept the domination of history by the "scientific" standards in the sense of natural science. In other words, through the contrast between "aesthetic" and "scientific", Heizimha emphasizes a certain contrast between "history" and "nature"; and such a contrast, as Heyzinha points out in Two Men Wrestling with Angels, is precisely the general idea hidden in The Fall of the West. However, although this contrast is a cliché that Heizienha has always cherished, it is by no means the reason why The Fall of the West is worthy of respect; Heizinha not without irony points out that Spengler mistakenly believes that he has discovered this new path, but in fact, this concept of contrast has long been known.
Heizinha
In terms of the timing of the speech, the title and point of view of Heizimha's speech can easily remind scholars familiar with the history of historiography of the inaugural speech delivered by the British historian John Bury when he became professor of modern history at Cambridge two years ago, and there is a well-known quote in this speech that seems to be in direct opposition to Hejzinha's point of view: "History is a science without compromise." ”
The intent of Berry's famous remarks in his inaugural address was precisely to show that history was still not a science, at least when he succeeded Lord Acton as Professor of Modern History at Cambridge; the nineteenth-century historical revolution that seemed to make history a science—lord Acton, who had listened to Ranke," summed up the nineteenth century of historiography as the era of the revolution in historiography in his inaugural address in 1895—was not in fact finally completed. For Berry, history failed to become a science because it could not fundamentally get rid of the "old shell" that distinguished it from other sciences, especially literature and art, and the so-called other sciences were the natural sciences such as geology and astronomy mentioned by Berry in his speech; that is, history eventually became a science, which essentially meant that it had to reach the scientific height of the natural sciences. However, Berry is also very clear that history is ultimately different from the natural sciences, at least in terms of the object of study, so on the question of how history can reach a scientific height, Berry emphasizes one of the most decisive factors: the establishment of the "concept of human development" as the central concept governing the study of history. For it is only by accepting such ideas that historiography can finally sever its ancient relationship with moral philosophy and literary rhetoric and begin to "establish a closer connection with the science of objectively dealing with universal facts."
Why did Berry place special emphasis on the "concept of human development" in the context of historical change? The answer to this question can be found in Heizimha's inaugural address two years later. The latter, speaking of the impact of the natural sciences on historiography, goes on to point out that "in the time of Comte and Spencer", history had no choice but to allow sociology to "take over the whole field of history" if she wanted to attain the dignity of science. Heizimha's account points to the fact that contemporary historiography is usually mentioned, namely, that although traditional historiography has faced the impact of the development of natural sciences, since the second half of the nineteenth century, the direct criticism of traditional historiography has actually come more from the emerging discipline of sociology, which also studies the phenomenon of human civilization. Thus, on the question of the scientificization of history, Heizimha's speech focused primarily on the relationship between history and sociology, focusing on two interrelated questions that this relationship inevitably raises: Should true historiography be limited to the study of historical events or must it be necessary to try to reveal some kind of scientific law? Should historians care first and foremost with individuals or groups? These two problems pointed out by Hejzinha are extremely crucial to the scientificization of history, because they are precisely the logic of sociological criticism of history: sociological research focuses on the whole development of human social life, and the object of study focuses on group facts that are universal, objective, and external to individual behavior and consciousness—such as "social facts" in the Sense of Durkheim, so that sociology can reveal a certain law of human social development in the same way that natural science reveals certain laws of nature Historiography, on the other hand, is unable to grasp the whole question of the development of human social life by focusing on individual facts and figures, and therefore cannot rise to the level of science in which a certain law can be revealed.
Thus, from the logical perspective of sociological criticism of history, Berry regards the "concept of human development" as the decisive factor in the emergence of historiography as science, apparently in response to such criticism. For this, Berry's later article mentioning Comte and Spencer can serve as a more explicit proof of this article, which was darwinism and history published in 1909.
In terms of the content and ideas of the discourse, Darwinism and History can be regarded as a sequel to Berry's inaugural address, and at the same time can be seen in a sense as a response to Heizimha's inaugural speech. In Berry's inaugural address, the acceptance of the dominance of the "idea of human development" meant that historiography could only be a science if it focused on collective facts, as sociology did; but for Heizienha, the reproduction of history could not be "seen only by the forest and not by the tree", and he therefore opposed the "human society, groups, and combinations" as the only legitimate object of historical study. In the article "Darwinism and History", Bury pointed out the concerns of Sheizinha in his inaugural address, and was clearly aware that the role and role of the individual in the development of human history throughout the process will always be the "Achilles heel" of the scientificization of history. However, Berry did not deny the rationality of history as a science, and he further demonstrated this rationality with the help of a doctrine that is Darwin's theory of evolution, as shown in the title of the article. In his view, the theory of evolution runs through the "human kingdom" and the "animal kingdom." The discipline of studying the "animal kingdom", such as biology, is a natural science in the strict sense, and sociology and history undoubtedly belong to the discipline of studying the "human kingdom"; in this sense, the theory of evolution looks at human beings from the perspective of animal evolution, and thus raises the theory of evolution to the height of scientific hypotheses, which means that the discipline of studying the "human kingdom" can be like the discipline of studying the "animal kingdom" as long as it focuses on the development of the entire human society and even the evolutionary problem. Become a science that can rise to the heights of natural science. Therefore, for history to become such a science, it is necessary to establish the "concept of human development" implied by evolution as the central concept governing the study of history, as emphasized in the inaugural address.
Berry
Evolution, as the key thesis of Darwinism and History, constitutes the fundamental rationale for the scientificization of history. Although Berry clearly pointed out in the text that evolution is different from progress involving value judgments, the theory of evolution gives history the possibility of becoming a science, which gives scientific history a seemingly "scientific" basis to the background of progress theory. This is reminiscent of Berry's famous conceptual history book, The Idea of Progress, published in 1920, in which the overall tone of the work suggests that scholars who argue for the scientificization of history in terms of evolutionary theory seem precisely inclined to believe—or more accurately, "hope"—that humanity will continue to advance and progress toward worldly happiness.
After the publication of Darwinism and History, the secret confrontation between Heizinha and Berry continued, but Hejzinha's most direct refutation of the key arguments put forward in Darwin's Theory and History appeared in the "Tasks of Cultural History" written nearly twenty years later, when the concept of evolution in the sense of human historical development or the theory of historical progress with evolution as the core has long become a "distribution license that meets the standards in the intellectual market" in Heizinha's pen. The contest between Sheyzinha and the scientific history based on evolution also seems to have become an almost desperate struggle.
However, despair is not without comfort. Soon after the publication of Darwinism and History, the outbreak of World War I soon had an impact on progressive beliefs in various senses. Berry's turn to the historical study of the concept of "progress" in the year of destiny proves from a certain aspect that people's beliefs in the concept of "progress" with "evolution" as the core have begun to waver. All of this seemed to bring some comfort to his struggle. However, for Heizinha, the greatest comfort is actually something in the form of words, and this comfort is "The Fall of the West", which he confesses in "Two People Wrestling with Angels", which has a healing effect on him. This post-war masterpiece, which accompanied the fortunes of history and with the aid of a conception of decay as opposed to progress and evolution, sounded a clarion call against shallow beliefs in progress; although its author, as Hejzinha clearly pointed out, was not the first to abandon the progressive view, in Heyzinha's view, his strength in expressing it was undoubtedly unprecedented.
The Fall of the West may bring more to Heizinha than just comfort. The "Task of Cultural History" discusses the concept of evolution in the initial part, and in this respect, the article finalized in 1929 can actually be regarded to some extent as a summative exposition of the above-mentioned struggle, implying that Heyzinha did not shelve or postpone this debate for nearly two decades, but rather in some way refuted the idea of evolution and the related theory of progress, and the title of the article shows that this approach is the practice of writing cultural history. One of the most representative of these is "Autumn in the Middle Ages" and the more widely circulated "Decline of the Middle Ages".
Autumn in the Middle Ages
The "autumn" or "decline" of the Middle Ages refers to the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, a period that in many historical narratives is often a critical turning point in human history towards modern civilization, or to be precise, it is often seen as the eve of the Renaissance or as a prelude to a new modern culture. In this regard, Itzinha's choice of this period as the subject of the practice of writing cultural history does not seem to be accidental, but precisely to target the theory of historical progress, which is clearly implied in this narrative, using metaphors and images such as "autumn" or "decline", to compare the last two centuries of the Middle Ages to a certain life in nature, and to regard it as the end of the Middle Ages, which gradually declined after maturity.
The historical imagery and narrative tone of Hejzinha's reference to the late Middle Ages is exactly similar to that of The Decline of the West. Two years after the publication of Autumn in the Middle Ages, Hejzinha pointed out in "Two Wrestling With Angels" that in Spengler's historical narrative, the fate of culture, like the youth, adulthood, old age and death of life, the germination, maturity and wilting of plants, and the spring, summer, autumn and winter of nature, must undergo the process of withering and dying. Of course, this does not mean that Heyzinha's overall definition of the late Middle Ages was influenced by Spengler, but it is undeniable that Spengler's work gave Heizingha more courage on the question of the progressive view of the evolution of human history, and Hejzinha thus embarked on a similar path to Spengler; it is at this point that Heizingha paid his respect to The Fall of the West.
On the level of opposition to progress, Hejzinha believes that Spengler is "a man who wrestles with angels"; how can Hejzinha not be such a warrior? However, Hejzinha did not choose to go hand in hand with Spengler on related issues. As a historian, Heizinha was well aware of the madness that Spengler fell into as a philosopher. "The Decline of the West" brought him more than just comfort, but it did not give him the wisdom and confidence to face history after opposing the theory of progress. In Two Men Wrestling with Angels, he finally declares that he must part ways with Spengler.
The year after the publication of Autumn in the Middle Ages, the year in which The Idea of Progress was published, the English writer Wells published a historical book in the form of a single edition, the best-selling Compendium of World History. Then, in 1921, Wells used this work to be recognized by Hejzinha as another "man who wrestled with the angels."
Wells
A subtitle of the Compendium of World History is "A Concise History of Life and Mankind," which blends geology, paleoanthropology, and history, from the formation of the earth, the origins of living things, and human beings to the history of the modern world. Heizimha's evaluation of the book was rather low, and he considered it "useless except pleasant", and its author not only exaggerated the value of precision science, believing that historiography, which is essentially in the form of laws, would soon become such a science, but also measured history by this modern scale based on scientific value, naively believing that "the next generation will do better than this generation". As far as the scientificization of history based on the theory of evolution is concerned, the Compendium of World History can undoubtedly be regarded as one of the best popular books to promote the scientific concept of history. From this point of view, Hejzinha's full of bad reviews of the Compendium of World History can also be regarded as a debate between him and scientific history; it is precisely for this reason that Heyzinha's bad comments on Wells seem to be far greater than Spengler's.
However, the article may end surprisingly, with Sheizinha arguing that The Fall of the West is profound, worthy of respect, but not sympathetic; the Outline of World History, while full of naïve optimism, presents lessons of "great elegance, firm faith, and exalted hope." In this respect, Wells's wisdom was far superior to Spengler's.
The meaning of Sheizimha's judgment is obvious. He rejected the scientific history based on evolution and its way of looking at history, but likewise would not follow Spengler and fall into the ecstasy of Dionysus. He knew that scientific historiography would still have a permanent dominance, and that in The Task of Cultural History he would still criticize the dominance of the concept of evolution over modern scholarship; but he was equally aware that well-like wisdom and confidence in times of doubt and obsession with decay required the same courage to wrestle with angels.
For Hejzinha, both Spengler and Wellsian historical narratives are reflections on the significance of contemporary world history, an exposition of the fate of modern man. Heizinha's choice was to retreat to the so-called modern eve, the end of the Middle Ages. The cultural historical imagery of "autumn" or "decline" is clearly a challenge to the history of science, which implies the undertones of progress, and the implicit dialectical meaning of it—the disintegration of the old culture at the same time implies the "coming of a new form"—is the calmness and confidence in facing history and the future after opposing the progressive view. This sobriety and sanity between despair and hope may require far more courage than Spengler despair and Wellesian confidence. In this sense, it can be said that Hejzinha, a historical researcher who considers himself not a "pure-blood", is also a warrior who wrestles with angels. It is also in this sense that one can understand why "Autumn in the Middle Ages" or "The Decline of the Middle Ages" is, as Heizinha himself put it in his 1943 essay "The Road to My Historiography", a work of "fighting with manhood".