d falsifies the facts of
history;"[6-1] and it has been acutely pointed out by the philosopher
Hegel, that it contradicts the notion of progress and is no advance over
the ancient tenet of a recurrent cycle.[6-2]

I need not dilate upon these errors. They must be patent to you. No
matter how noble the conviction, how pure the purpose, there is
something nobler and purer than it, and that is, unswerving devotion to
rendering in history the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.

I now turn to another opinion, that which teaches that--

3. History should be a portraiture, more or less extended, of the
evolution of the human species.

This is claimed to be the "scientific" view of history. It was tersely
expressed by Alexander von Humboldt in the phrase: "The history of the
world is the mere expression of a predetermined, that is, fixed,
evolution."[6-3]

It is that advocated by Auguste Comte, Draper and Spencer, and a few
years ago Prof. Gerland, of Strasburg, formulated its basic maxim in
these words: "Man has developed from the brute through the action of
purely mechanical, therefore fixed, laws."[7-1]

The scientist of to-day who hesitates to subscribe to these maxims is
liable to be regarded as of doubtful learning or of debilitated
intellect. I acknowledge that I am one such, and believe that I can show
sound reasons for denying the assumption on which this view is based.

It appears to me just as teleologic and divinatory as those I have
previously named. It assumes Evolution as a law of the universe, whereas
in natural science it is only a limited generalization, inapplicable to
most series of natural events, and therefore of uncertain continuance in
any series. The optimism which it inculcates is insecure and belongs to
deductive, not inductive, reasoning. The mechanical theory on which it
is based lacks proof, and is, I maintain, insufficient to explain
motive, and, therefore, historic occurrences. The assumption that
history is the record of a necessary and uninterrupted evolution,
progressing under ironclad mechanical laws, is a preconceived theory as
detrimental to clear vision as are the preoccupations of the theologian
or the political partisan.

Any definition of evolution which carries with it the justification of
optimism is as erroneous in history, as it would be in biology to assert
that all variations are beneficial. There is no more certainty that the
human species will improve un