In 1734, the Enlightenment thinker Voltaire was wanted by the High Court of Paris for publishing his Philosophical Correspondence, and he had to take refuge in the small town of Sire and live in the house of his girlfriend Madame de Châtelet. Madame is a strange woman who likes to read all kinds of scientific books, but she is very disgusted with history, and feels that reading history books is useless, just a pastime when bored. Madame's criticism was sharp, she said: What does it matter to me, the modern French woman, knowing that Eyer inherited the throne of King Hakan of Sweden and knowing that Uthman was the son of Etollur?
This kind of criticism is indeed very good, and we can't help but ask ourselves -- knowing whether Qin Shi Huang's character was cruel, whether the intelligence of the Shu Emperor was low, and whether the rule of Ming Wuzong was violent, what does this have to do with me, a modern city dweller? The emperor generals, princes, and heroes and strategists in the "Zizhi Tongjian" have long since become thousands of years of dry bones, and what is the significance of knowing their deeds and personalities for my bank deposits? Mocking Yue Fei, overturning the case of Qin Juniper, touting Wei Zhongxian, and belittling Shi Kefa, what does these behaviors have to do with my interests? Is history a useless science? Is it useful to read history books?
In order to persuade Madame De Châtelet to attach importance to history, Voltaire wrote the Treatise on Customs.
<h1>Is the controversy over historical issues meaningful? </h1>
The controversy between Newton and Huygens promoted the development of optics; Adam Smith's controversy with mercantilism contributed to free trade and the national economy; And Bacon's controversy with scholasticism also promoted the emancipation of the mind. This progress brought about by controversy is rarely seen in the field of history.
The pen and ink lawsuits among historians are more of a verbal dispute: the birth father of the Jin Yuan Emperor, the birth mother of Ming Chengzu, the marriage of XiaoZhuang, and the violent death of the Yongzheng Emperor have all caused a lot of controversy, but these arguments do not seem to have much significance for the development of historiography. To this day, they are still unresolved, and I am afraid that they will be thousands of years from now. The truth of history may never be revealed, but what use is this truth for us? In addition to satisfying the curiosity of experts and scholars and the gossip desire of history lovers, what is the help for the governance of the country and the knowledge of individuals? When two people fight over this kind of historical suspense and write articles to criticize, the wise bystander will secretly think: Look, these nerds are going to quote the scriptures to talk nonsense again!
History is like a great court, every historical figure has been judged by his own time, and they have either received honor or punishment while they are alive, and over time, all will become dead bones. Li Linfu and Qin Ju enjoyed great honor and death before they died, and escaped due punishment, which was the fault of the times and an irreparable fault. Later generations do not think about taking history as a mirror and clarifying contemporary politics, but instead seek pleasure in the dissection of the corpses of the dead - how, do you really think that the belated justice is still justice? The First Emperor of Qin, the Sui Dynasty, never met you, nor did you see or hear his voices, and their administrative gains and losses have been responded to by Chen Sheng and Li Mi's uprising. Every character in history should be sentenced by his own time, and what is the significance of posterity overturning the case against a pile of dry bones!
The field of history is filled with too many such pointless arguments, resulting in people's cognitive ability only staying at the surface level, not digging deep into the inner things, so history seems so impractical. In this case, the real history books are generally not popular, while the historical novels are very popular —history becomes a pure pastime.
<h1>History is the trajectory of the development of human society</h1>
Voltaire told Madame De Châtelet that studying history is not useless, and that the reason you find it useless is because you are learning it in the wrong way. Historians always have to pursue detail in their history, and they have collected all credible materials and compiled them into a voluminous historical dictionary for future generations to consult. When the reader studies history, if he does not look at it from the height of total connection, but follows the pace of the author, intending to read this historical book made up of countless materials, then he will only cling to the details of history and will not see the whole general trend.
History books are like dictionaries, editors always want to be rich and complete, and readers only consult valuable information. If a person picks up a dictionary and reads each word in strict order from A to Z, what a rigid fool it is to know how stupid it is to abandon the strange words and learn more about the commonly used content, and in the end he will not be able to read the articles made up of these words even if he recognizes many words. The same is true for the study of history, if we pick up the Book of Han, from the Benji to the Column Biography, one mechanical reading after another, and finally we will know these masters, but do not understand the entire history of the Western Han Dynasty.
Some people who read history only see the personalities of the characters, the events and personal encounters, but they cannot read the development of production, the rise and fall of dynasties, the change of customs, and the mutation of spirits--they do not understand the trajectory of human social development through chaotic events. Thus, in their view, history is almost stagnant, with no development and progress between epochs, and some mere repetitions of chaos and ruin. They do not know that the present has developed from the past, so history seems strange and useless before them. Thus, Voltaire said:
"The details in the history books that don't tell any problems are like the baggage of an army, which is a burden. The human brain is very small, and if it is stuffed with details, it will cause intellectual decline. Therefore, the discussion must be considered in the big picture, and the details should be gathered in the dictionary by the person who wrote the chronicle, in case it is necessary to examine it. ”
In our opinion, whether Qin Shi Huang's father was Lü Buwei and whether Emperor YuanShun was the son of the Duke of Yingguo or not belonged to the insignificant "details", which did not affect the historical trend of the Qin state sweeping the world and the demise of the Yuan Dynasty in the slightest, and the controversy of clinging to these issues could not be learned.
"King of French Thought" – Voltaire
<h1>Voltaire believed that history books should play a role in the enlightenment of thought</h1>
Acknowledging that history is a rising development rather than stagnation and reincarnation is a major feature of Voltaire's view of history. At the same time, he was an Enlightenment thinker, so he paid special attention to the development of the human spirit.
In Voltaire's eyes, the history of the development of human society means that the human spirit has moved from ignorance to reason, from religious superstition to enlightenment progress. He criticized Pfendorff's history books as mere piles of material and anecdotes in which we could not read about changes in the country's military strength, population increases, ethnic integration, changes in laws, changes in customs, and growth in national wealth. This kind of history book only has people and events, but no human civilization.
In the barbaric, ignorant and authoritarian Middle Ages, history books should provide a mirror for people to rediscover the glorious art, advanced technology, and enlightened politics of ancient Greece and Rome, and to play the role of enlightenment. However, people see nothing in the history books except the great achievements of the emperors, the power of the nobles, and the intrigues of the harem. History buffs adored the exploits of the emperors, learned the machinations of the nobility, imitated the struggles of the harem, but did not recognize their humble and pitiful social status and the reality of inequality, and they were keen to learn the bad habits of the upper echelons, but they became more and more ignorant and corrupt every day.
In addition to historical materials, history books should play their role in ideological enlightenment, so that readers know what ignorance is and what is reason. It is necessary to enlighten them to pursue progress and development, to use their own reason to think independently of problems, rather than to be the echo worms of the ancients, to imitate the deeds of their ancestors, and to inherit the bad habits of self-deception from history. Voltaire said:
It was in this spirit that I wrote The Age of Louis XIV. Law, art, and fashion are my main subjects of study. Subtle historical facts are incorporated into the narrative only when they cause major events. ”
Historical facts should be included in the history books as a "dictionary", and when we study history, we should not stick to these details, but should explore the trajectory of historical development and serve the present. In the field of history, there should be fewer talkers and more enlighteners.
<h1>Voltaire on the history of China</h1>
In "The Theory of Customs", the author's appreciation for Chinese historiography is revealed, and Voltaire believes that Chinese historians are rigorous and serious, respect reality, and pursue accuracy. He said:
"While other peoples fictionalized myths, Chinese wrote their histories with brushes and celestial meters in their hands, a simplicity that has no precedent elsewhere in Asia."
While Christians fabricated stories such as the Great Flood and the Great Fire, Sima Qian's "Records of History" excluded allegorical myths such as the female snail patching up the heavens and the post-shooting sun, Chinese did not conceitedly invent the changing times of the earth, but truthfully recorded reliable things. In the "Records of History" does not even trace back to Fuxi and Shennong, Sima Qian wrote that "at the time of Xuanyuan, the Shennong clan declined", which shows that he knew that there was a Shennong clan before the Yellow Emperor, but he started with the Yellow Emperor, saying: "Yu read the spy record, and the Yellow Emperor has had a number of years since then." "Because the genealogy and chronology before the Yellow Emperor are lost, it is not traced back to Shennong, which is the rigor of Tai Shi Gong." Voltaire has great respect for this pragmatic spirit, saying:
"China's history books do not date back to the barbaric times when humanity needed someone to deceive them in order to control them. The history books of other peoples begin with the origin of the world ... It all goes back to the origin of all things and the formation of the universe. This kind of arrogance, Chinese, is not at all. Their history books are only the history of historical periods. ”
Chinese science is not progressive, but ethics is mature. In China, there are few theocratic regimes, and Chinese history books do not preach ignorance, but include the experience of governing the country, the inheritance of the canonical system, the changes in humanistic customs, and the virtues of ancient and modern figures. Voltaire praised the Book of Shang, believing that there were no miracles or prophecies, nor did it record political deception. The Shang Shu contains the Yao Dian as a calendar, and the Yu Gong, which introduces geography, both of which are chapters against ignorance.
In the eyes of the ancients, "history" is second only to "Tao" learning, Lü Zuqian took the spirit of seeking truth from historiography as his ideological system, and Gu Yanwu extracted the whole picture of the county under heaven from the history books, analyzed China's public opinion, mountains and rivers, enlistment, reclamation, water conservancy, water transportation, financial planning and other issues, and used it to help govern the country. The realistic spirit of historiography is the "inner sacred way", and the kung fu used in the world is the "art of the outer king", which cannot be understood by those who are obsessed with details.
Reading history is not only beneficial to me, but also beneficial to the world.