KM Ved Fly and The Fly-Bottle - Encounters With British Intellectuals

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Books by Ved Mehta
FACE TO FACE
WALKING THE INDIAN STREETS

FLY AND THE FLY-BOTTLE: ENCOUNTERS WITH
BRITISH INTELLECTUALS
Fly and the Fly-Bottle

Encounters with British Intellectuals

by
Ved Mehta
An
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FIRST EDITION
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For William Shawn
For one day

is
in thy courts
better than a thousand.
-Psalm 84
"What is your aim in philosophy?To show the fly

way out of the fly-bottle."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
the
"Philosophical Investigations"
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
Battle Against the
Bewitchment of Our Intelligence

1
CHAPTER TWO
The Open Door

46
CHAPTER THREE
Argument Without End

106
CHAPTER FOUR
The
Flight of Crook-Taloned Birds
193

HAPTER
A
Battle Against the
Our
of
I've
ON
Bewitchment
Intelligence
spent some happy years in Oxford, and to keep
in touch with
am most
England
home with
at
read her newspapers.
the Guardian, but
I also like
to
look at the correspondence columns of the Times, where,

in
an exception
to the
writers are identified
reader.
I relish
of letters
Times
tradition of anonymity, the
by name and speak
a contest of words,
becomes
for
me
off
shake
verbal barrages.
walk during
my
and the Times page
a street where
each morning and see the people of
commoners
directly to the
stroll
and
began taking
this
engaging daily
undergraduate years at Balliol College,
Oxford, and I've kept up the habit, whether
One autumn day
can
England lords
hands, spit at each other, and set
myself in Paris, Damascus,
promenade,
New
in 1959, as I
was
Delhi, or
talcing
my
have found
New
York.
intellectual
met Bertrand Russell, under a signboard
"Review
reading
Refused."
Gollancz
"Messrs.
have
recently published a book by Ernest Gellner called

"
'Words and Things/

this
book before
he said as he hailed me.
was published and considered
it
and accurate
careful
now
of a
analysis
philosophy, an opinion which

I
"I
certain
read
it
school of
expressed in a preface.
learn that Professor Ryle, the editor of Mind, has
written to Messrs. Gollancz refusing to have this book
reviewed in Mind, on the ground that
it is
abusive and
cannot therefore be treated as a contribution to an
academic
an editor
losophy
Such a partisan view of the duties of
subject.
is
is
deeply shocking. The merit of a work of phi-
always a matter of opinion, and
prised that Professor Ryle disagrees with

of the work, but
Mind has
dation, offered a
forum
am not surmy estimate
hitherto, ever since
its
foun-
for the discussion of all serious
and competent philosophical work. Mr. Gellner's book

is
not 'abusive' except in the sense of not agreeing with
the opinions which he discusses.
If all
books that do
not endorse Professor Ryle's opinions are to be boycotted

in the pages of
Mind, that hitherto respected periodical

mutual-admiration organ of
will sink to the level of the
a coterie.
All
who
losophy will regret

I
care for the repute of British phithis."
did care for the repute of British philosophy.
in a sense, a
dominant philosophy, with Existentialism,
in the present-day world.
the idea of studying

there
It is,
and indeed
is
it
had gone up
British
known
to
Oxford with
philosophy has
its
home
generally as "Oxford phi-
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
losophy," even though
from
detractors, taking their cue
it
However,
linguistic philosophy.
a few essays on philosophical subjects to
me
Intelligence
so-considered petty linguistic concerns, insist on
its
calling
its
Our
of
just
my
reading
made
tutor
realize that the linguistic inquiries then being under-
taken at Oxford had
little
stood by philosophy, so
connection with what
Now
took up history instead.
was a Reader
under-
immediately abandoned
it
and
recalled that Gellner
London School
in Sociology at the
of
Economics, a home for angry intellectual orphans, while
was Wayneflete Professor
Gilbert Ryle
Philosophy
Oxford,
at
of Metaphysical
which
from
he
edited
the
extremely influential, eighty-five-year-old philosophical
The notion
Mind.
journal
thinkers interested me,

Blackwell's,
While
my
an attack on Oxford
of
and
dashed
a letter to
off
favorite bookshop, for Gellner 's book.
waited for
it
subsequent issues
to arrive, I impatiently read the
of
the
Times,
eager
to
see
by Ryle.
Russell's gauntlet taken up, preferably
It
Earl
was.
This important spokesman of the philosophical Establish-
ment
replied four days after Russell's challenge.
His
terse, to the point, and full of refer-
communication was
ences for diligent readers: "In the book referred to by

Earl Russell
ness are
made
about 100 imputations of disingenuous-
against a
number
of identifiable teachers
of philosophy; about half of these occur
on pages 159-192
and 237-265."
The shooting had
just
philosopher, out of
begun.
An
humor with
eighty-seven-year-old
"a
certain
school of
philosophy," had clashed with

neither of
them lacked a
its
retinue.
standard-bearer, and
The day
after Ryle's
note appeared, the Times carried a third letter under

the heading of the week, "Review Refused," this one
written
by a correspondent named Conrad Dehn.
the imputations are justified,"
Dehn
not be a good ground
Ryle's
Gellner's book], while
[for
argued, "this could

refusal
they are not
if
"If
to
review
should have
thought a review in Mind would provide an excellent,
even a welcome, opportunity to rebut them."
was
also a letter
from G. R. G. Mure, the
Warden
English Hegelians and the
He,
Oxford.
too,
was on the
tolerably free society," the
last of
the
Merton College,
of
side of Russell.
Warden
There
"In a
wrote, "the ban,
the boycott, even the too obtrusively cold
shoulder,
tend to promote the circulation of good books as well

as bad.
One can
Oxford philosophy
cism, will
now
scarcely expect that the linguistical
that their pupils will."
taken
this
long self-immunized to
tutors,
rush to Blackwell's, but

I
was delighted
am
that
criti-
confident
Mure had
occasion to speak out against any philosophical
establishment; while
was
at the university, the under-
graduates used to say of the
Warden
that he couldn't
declare his mind, because half a century ago Russell
demolished Hegel and since then no respectable philosopher had dared acknowledge himself a Hegelian
openly.
On
the following day,
himself.
"My
found a
letter
from Gellner
book," the polemicist wrote, replying to
Battle Against the
Ryle, "does not accuse linguistic philosophers of 'disin-
genuousness.'
let
This word does not occur in
alone one hundred times.
and methods
doctrines
does attack linguistic
as inherently evasive.
claim does not require
(though
...
conscious dishonesty.
It
am
once,
it
This
does not exclude)
it
sorry to see Professor
Ryle resorting to one further device, the exclusion of

criticism as indecorous,
and thus evading once again
the substantive issue of the merits of linguistic philosophy."
me
Gellner's letter left
baffled.
wondering whether Ryle had an excuse

ing the book.
My
skepticism
was
was not shared by a
knighted gentleman, Sir Leslie Farrer, private

to the
Queen, who appeared on the same page
Sir Leslie
still
for not review-
solicitor
as Gellner.
defended the author of "Words and Tilings"
with a sharp tongue.
"Ridicule,"
he wrote,
"is
one of
the oldest and not the least effective weapons of philosophic warfare, but yet
we
find Professor Ryle
speaking no doubt 'ex cathedra on a matter of faith or

morals,'
propounding the dogma that making fun of
members
of the Sacred College of Linguistic Philoso-
phers
mortal
is
True, Ryle's
sin.
word
Gellner was the
'abusive'
first
and
his
description of
second that he
'made imputations of disingenuousness,' but those who

read 'Words and Things'
may
agree with
me
and
I trust
they will be
that 'made fun of
is
many
a more accurate
description."
Sir Leslie
troversy.
was the
In the
sixth disputant in the Gellner con-
first
week
of
"Review Refused," the
Times must have received many

but of the
that
six
five-to-one support of Gellner
my
indicated a confidence in him that, in
not completely justified by his
Now
was an under-
them
Olympian
as
my
bout in the Times shattered
this
view
and quiet wisdom, they
of their serenity. Instead of age
had youth and energy and anger.

all
was
did not associate public letter-writing with
philosophers; I continued to think of

sages.
opinion,
Despite encounters
letter.
with some worldly philosophers while

graduate,
subject,
selected, five took the Gellner-
it
The Times'
Russell side.
on the
letters
my mind
pictured in
the philosophers in England racing to the Times
office
with their dispatches
now
that Gellner's
book had
given them an occasion for their precious pronouncements.
The day
Times
after Sir Leslie's letter, the
respondence page was
silent
cor-
on philosophy, but the
Queen's peace was broken the next day by John Wisdom,

a
Cambridge professor
of
philosophy,
and "Review
Refused," already a heap of pelting words, continued

to grow.
Wisdom's loyalty
and resembled that
know whether
it
was
Russell's letter
"I
have not read
to Ryle's philosophy.
Such a
Ryle's cause.
do not
it.
Mr.
Lord
carried the suggestion that Professor
Ryle refused the book a review because
false."
"I
right to refuse a review to
he asserted.
.
was unquestioning,
of a cardinal to the Pope.
Gellner's book,"
.
to Ryle
letter
That suggestion
could hardly do
But the next day
it
opposed
believe to be
much
Saturday
sell-Gellner brigade's secure position in the
is
to
advance
the
Rus-
Times column
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
was
Our
of
Intelligence
by the charge
for the time being shaken
of B. F.
McGuinness, a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. His

philosophical
to
though
fusillade,
He began
tremely effective.
meet the following argument:
that truth
is
no
are not to be credited, since they

is
no
attempt to poison the wells.

logical warfare has
teaches
he teaches
this
come from a man who
He
virtue.'
ex-
"Newman had
Newman
'Dr.
virtue; his denials that
teaches that truth
was
undramatic,
impressively,
described
subtler
it
as
an
form of psycho-
been discovered. You belabour your
opponents for systematic disregard of truth and con-
you add
later that there
conscious dishonesty.
Thus you can
sistency, but
both knaves and
fools.
no question of
is
safely
call
them
they expostulate with your
If
account of their views and practices, you reply:

typical
evasion!
doctrines
when
They would disown
criticized.'
of nothing but error!'
own
you are charged with
If
being abusive, your answer
their
'A
is:
1 have accused them
In his letter
Mr. Gellner has
even managed to use both kinds of riposte at the same
The following
time.
book that seem
to
are
me, in
some
of the phrases in his
their context,
tantamount to
accusations of dishonesty: 'camouflage' (p. 163), 'evasion'
(p.
(p.
164), 'pretence' (p. 169), 'spurious modesty'
170), 'invoking rationalizations according to con-
cow the neophyte into

to avow an opinion be-
venience' (p. 171), '[devices] to

submission' (p. 186), '[refusal
cause
it]
would ruin
one's
(p. 188), 'trick' (p. 189)."
reputation,'
'insinuation'
After this letter, I joined
up
with the minority
The
Ryle,
Wisdom, and McGuinness.
following Monday, a letter appeared from Kevin
Holland, an undergraduate at Worcester College, Oxford.
Holland pealed precedents of "imputations of

genuousness," and he advanced as
many
McGuinness had advanced
of Gellner's position as
support of Ryle's. "In the 'Philosophy of Leibniz'

for example,"
disin-
facts in support
in
1900),
he wrote, "Russell accused Leibniz of a
kind of intellectual dishonesty. Forty-six years
later, this
charge was repeated in 'A History of Western Philoso-
Ten
years
ago Professor Ryle published a book in which,
with
phy,'
and Aquinas joined Leibniz
in the dock.
deliberate abusiveness,' he characterized a belief held
by most ordinary people

body] as
'the
dogma
[that
of the
man
Ghost
in the Machine.'
spite of their 'abusiveness,' these three
by many
has a soul in lus

In
books are regarded
as philosophic classics." I put
down
the Times
reconverted by the undergraduate to the Russell-Gellner

position that a philosophical
work could
heap curses on philosophers, and

read.
It
might even turn out
the battle
went
it,
the
was
over and
initial
injustice it
wide discussion
in
about
After a few days,

there
its
classic.
I
For
me
now saw
was more than corrected by the
would read
When
it
the
book
and make up
worth.
when
was a ponderous
names,
for Ryle's indiscretion
the newspaper.
arrived from Blackwell's,
my own mind
be a
the victory, as
As
to the majority.
to
call
deserve to be
still
looked at the Times again,
epistle, in dignified diction,
from
Battle Against the
Thomas Creed:
a Queen's Counsel, Sir
that a true philosophy thrives
No
accusations.
one,
however
inept,
and
criticism
who
sat
knew
"Socrates
on blunt
the
at
feet of the robust
Oxford philosophers of 40 years ago
was ever allowed
to forget the scene
when
Socrates,
taunted by an exasperated Thrasymachus with being
'a
thorough quibbler,' with 'asking questions merely for the

sake of malice,' with needing a nurse to stop his drivelling,'
implored his accuser to abandon his proposed
departure from the discussion so that a problem might be

further examined between them.
So far from refusing
review Socrates forced further discussion on the recalcitrant
modern Oxford?
Many
will
Is
Is
Socrates
Plato's 'Republic'
forgotten
in
no longer read?
hope that a purchase of Mr.
will enable
tions
...
Thrasymachus.
Gellner's
book
undergraduates to ask those awkward ques-
and make those accusations and insinuations of

'pretence,' 'bamboozling,' 'trick,'
'evasion,' 'camouflage,'
which caused Oxford philosophy
tutors of
an
earlier
generation such unfeigned delight, a delight only ex-
ceeded by the
with which they exploded the
relish
arguments of their accusers."
Next day,
J.
W.
N. Watkins was in the paper.
knew
something about him from the gossip of the undergraduates in
my
day, and pegged
had thought
Gellner's
man.
someone
to play the
was a white
and Things'
flag:
is
it
him immediately
was about time
peacemaker, and Watkins'
"Let
all
parties
as
for
letter
concede that "Words
often impolite. But having conceded this,
io
let
us
remember
that etiquette
The
thing in philosophy.
is
best
not the most important
way
for linguistic phi-
losophers to repel Mr. Gellner's attack
squeamishness about
down
to the rebuttal of its arguments."
its
is
to
overcome
indecorousness and get
their
few days
later,
Alec Kassman, editor of the journal published by the

august Aristotelian Society, faced up to some questions
that
had been bothering me. His
analysis
proceeded in
the measured rhetoric of an intellectual editorial: "The

essential issue
is
whether or
it
not whether or not Mr. Gellner's book
is
meritorious; nor whether or not
is
not,
if
abusive,
it is
is
it
abusive; nor
therefore unfit for review:
a fundamental one of professional ethics
gravamen
letter:
Tf
and
is
contained in one protasis in Earl Russell's
all
books that do not endorse Professor Ryle's
opinion are to be boycotted in the pages of Mind,'
The
charge, therefore,
suppress criticism of his
allegation in general terms
a direct traverse
that
the ground that the

sell flatly
denies
is
own
views.
rhetorical:
Clearly,
it is
be substantiated.
sufficient if a single case

is
etc.
one of dishonorable conduct
is
Ryle abuses his editorial powers so as
in that Professor
to
its
the review
the
more than
The
reply
was declined on
book was found abusive. Earl Rus-
this:
It
is
not "abusive" except in the
sense of not agreeing with the opinions which he discusses' (.
Professor Ryle's
among
others).
He
no opinion on the instances indicated by the
The moral
save that
offers
editor.
case has not progressed beyond this stage
many
evidently wishing to support Earl
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
Russell, depart
from him upon
(for example, Sir
may
for review
Our
Intelligence
this critical point.
Thomas Creed
claim that the book

fit
of
.)
11
They
seem mostly
to
well be abusive and no less
on that account.
It is
quite possible that
the editor's claim that an abusive book does not deserve
Mind
a review in
however,
is
ill-founded or injudicious.
a side issue,
is
if
in fact the
view
is
he genuinely held and acted on. The accusation

that he
is
unduly
sensitive, or unwise,
biased against any
detriment of his journal.

specific
replied.
charge in some
It is
as
critic
.
is
made
publicly rebutted the
The
allega-
a disagreeable one, and as serious as could be
against a philosopher in Professor Ryle's position.
he cannot, he should say

editor
is
consequent
about time that he did; the pages of Mind
Earl Russell can sustain
If
not
and Earl Russell has not
detail,
are available to illustrate editorial policy.

tion
is
but that he
such, to the
He
That,
one which
and journal may be
he should show
it,
so,
this.
If
that the reputation of both
cleared.
That
is
the heart of
the matter."
Even though Mr. Kassman argued from a

opposed to mine I was
Russell-Gellner I had to
in
up
sticking to the side of
still
admit that he had succeeded
making the best possible defense
my mind
position
for Ryle.
made
not to look at any more letters from the
could not help glancing
philosophical combatants, but
at the succeeding issues of the
Times
just in case Russell
should answer Mr. Kassman. Nineteen days after Russell
had attacked the philosophical Establishment, he was
12
back in print with a
"There are two different
reply.
points at issue," Russell remarked, closing the controversy. "First,
is
anything in Mr. Gellner's book 'abusive'?
Secondly, should a book containing anything abusive

be,
on that account alone, refused a review
As
to the
word. ...
first
point, 'abusive'
cannot
'reply'
is
.
Mind?
in
not a very precise

since Professor Ryle
has not given a single instance of a single sentence
which he considers abusive.

to
quote at
least
up
know, he has not yet done. As
much more
important point,
that a serious piece of philosophical
refused a review even
everybody
would
if it
to
example, Nietzsche's 'Beyond
to
after saying
'that
T abhor
him the invention
principles
traffic
Ryle
would
upon mutual
do not think
work should be
be
abusive.
Good and
Take, for
In this
Evil.'
blockhead John Stuart
Mill,'
the man's vulgarity,' attributes
of the
fain
to the
does contain passages which
admit
book he speaks of
and
to Professor
one passage which he considers abusive.
This, so far as I
second and
It is
Golden Rule, saying: 'Such
establish
human
the whole of
would
services, so that every action
appear to be a cash payment for something done to
us.
The hypothesis here
do
is
ignoble to the last degree.'
not accept these opinions of Nietzsche's, but

philosophical editor
think a
would have been misguided
if,
on
account of them, he had refused a review to 'Beyond
Good and
Evil,'
since this
piece of philosophical work.
was undoubtedly a
I
serious
note that neither Professor
Ryle nor anyone else has denied that the same
is
true of
Battle Against the
Mr. Gellner's book."
13
Firmly turning his back on the
philosophical Establishment, Russell stumped resolutely
away, carrying most of the medals.
Through the
fight over
renewed and rather
English
Several
losophy.
"Words and Things,"
about the conclusion of
publications
hostilities,
eagerly, but they did not tell
me
on-the-one-hand,
said,
ran
and
very
acquired
editorials
read them
much about
the
The Times wrote
philosophers working in England.

typical
persistent interest in Oxford phi-
on-the-other-hand
its
leader.
It
on the one hand, that Gellner's book "caricatures
prey," and that his "barbs are not of the carefully
its
polished kind."
on the other hand, that the
It said,
carica-
tured philosophers "stick closely to their lasts" with

"enviable academic patronage," and regard "philosophical
problems as a
sort of cerebral neurosis
The
their job to alleviate."
leader in the Economist
no more enlightening about the nature of

neurosis.
are?"
it
are
is
was
this cerebral
modern philosophers hated if they
would claim
us what to do.
that, as philosophers, they
When other
to
be the people who
ought to be giving us directions about

cannot, they cannot."
can
direction posts are falling
down, philosophers are assumed
was
it
asked. "Hardly any of them, despite their other
diversity,
tell
"Why
which
The tone
life.
of these
But
if
they
two comments
fairly representative of the editorial voice of Britain's
intellectual press.
Gellner's book,
unsatisfactory.
It
when
was
it
finally
arrived,
was equally
passionate, polemical,
and
dis-
14
Fly and the Fly -Bottle
and grouped disparate thinkers indiscriminately
jointed,
this much was
apparent even to a novice
had bewildered
editorials
ner bewildered
me
prevented
me by
me by
like
their opaqueness; Gell-
England
from seeing through to the philosophers.
talk to
my
my
was
next
living
to
visit
of the philosophers
and
their activities.
found myself in London.
later, I
or four
three
started
decided that on
them about
Sometime
to
but
would seek out some
which
his flood of glaring light,
At the time of the turbulent correspondence,

in America,
me. The
philosophers
for
wrote
appointments
and
by
researches into contemporary philosophy
approaching an old Oxford friend of mine, even though
he
is
by no means the most unprejudiced person about.
As an undergraduate, he read
Classics
and Greats, the
English-speaking world's most thorough study of classical

literature,
language,
and philosophy, and
history,
Greats' concession to our age
modern
philosophy. All
the time he was working at philosophy, he hated
he did
it
as a job,
and because he was naturally
after his Schools (the final degree examination)
it,
but
brilliant,
he was
courted to be a professional philosopher at Oxford; he
remained true
down
to his
temperament, however, and turned
the offer, deciding to
sit it
out in London until he
spotted a good opening in Oxford classics. In the meantime, he has
amused himself by composing Greek and
Latin verses and prose, and turning the poetry of Hopkins,
Pound,
Eliot,
and Auden
into lyrics in the style
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
of the
Greek Anthology or
Having been trained

of
six,
he reads the
of
Our
Intelligence
15
of Vergil, Horace, or Petronius.
and Greek since the age
in Latin
literature of these languages almost
faster than that of his
own
language, education
characteristic of almost all the
is
country.
This classical, or
contemporary English philosophers. Aside from
about
my
friend
is
his Vic-
most typically philosophical thing
torian training, the
that he constantly smokes a pipe
a habit that has long been the sine qua non of English
Over some mulled
philosophers.
claret
late
ning in his Chelsea back-street basement
one eve-
flat,
he
sur-
veyed the subject of philosophy from the tremulous

heights where
it
it
had
led him,
and he talked
to
me
about
too frankly and unprofessionally to wish to be iden-
tified,
so
I'll
During
men
sit
call
him John.
their four years as undergraduates, the Greats
for altogether twenty-four three-hour papers,
John said he imagined that one-third of
his time
been spent doing philosophy and preparing

tions in logic
and moral and
and
had
for examina-
classical philosophy.
"The
examination in classical philosophy was straightforward,
meant, for the most part, reading the works of
since
it
Plato
and
Aristotle,"
philosophy
he explained. "For logic and moral
we were supposed
to
do a certain amount
of philosophical history, but in fact

little;
we
followed
and
started
it
believe
But these
by doing a
up by writing
we were meant
historical
tutorial
essays on
to
we
did extremely
on Descartes and
Locke and Berkeley,
do a couple on Hume.
people are just for exercise; they
i6

into the exam.
need not be brought
never once men-
tioned them, and the examiners are really rather bored

to
have you do
mostly read
so, I think."
men
John said that Greats
contemporary philosophers, because the
philosophers at Oxford are concerned only with their
own
puzzles.
They
are not very
problems that interested

little
much occupied with
John actually went into phi-
as forty years ago.
losophical training when, after dabbling a

history of different schools, he read
stein's "Philosophical Investigations"
A.
J.
"Language,
Ayer's
even as
earlier philosophers,
and two books
through several times, once making notes
of "Individuals"
He
make much
sense of
came
it.
in issues of
Mind and
the
first
easier volumes,
on
part, of his study
was
articles
the Proceedings of the Aristotelian
richest repositories of
I.
Oxford philosophy.
not
is
Q. but to develop minds, John
more important than the

Alas,
by
ethics,
But the bulk,
insisted that his handling of the Schools questions
had read.
half
because he
rest,
Since the main purpose of the Greats course
produce Professor
Essay
After Strawson, to
Richard Hare and P. H. Nowell-Smith.
and the most important
An
read only the
and then skimmed the
John's great relief,
to
work
then turned loose on P. F. Strawson's "Intro-
in Descriptive Metaphysics."
Society
to
the way.
all
duction to Logical Theory" and "Individuals:
couldn't
of
Truth and Logic" and "The
Problem of Knowledge," both of which he had
He was
in the
little
Ludwig Wittgen-
list
of books
and
was
articles
he
once the results were published, as
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
custom enjoined,
He
Intelligence
17
the Schools papers were burned,
all
and John could reconstruct

from memory.
Our
of
answers only
his brilliant
considered his logic paper to be the
paradigm, both because logic
is
the centerpiece of Oxford
philosophy and because the principles of logic can be

applied to other branches of the subject.
Examiners
therefore tend to read the logic paper with
more care
than any other. "Um," he began, recalling his paradigm,
was
"there
in
my
a question
head
my
didn't do: Is
hearing a noise
as mechanical as the passing of a noise
Can our
senses be explained away in mechanical terms? One
that I did attempt but abandoned was 'Who is Socrates?'
the figure that people greeted when they saw it coming with the words 'Hello, Socrates,' or the person who
through a telephone?' The suggestion here
was Socrates? You

body
that
because
it
sounds as
guised as Socrates. Since
about
this, I
that I
is
the case,
know
not
mind
this
is
it
it.
also not very
went around as
went around
it
the
dis-
make up my mind
But a stock old war
did complete was
possible for
me
'If I
not to
know
know
And what I said about it must have

lines: To know that a thing is the case
is
very straightforward
in a certain position.
ice melts
if
couldn't
It's
is
it?'
been on these
is
that
couldn't write about
horse of a question that

that
Socrates.'
body
the
is
answer, 'This
can't
went around with
nice to say, 'This

Socrates,'
clearly
is:
when
the sun shines
If I
stuff
to
have
my
know, for instance, that
the sun shines, this means that

don't go skating.
In that case,
when
it's
per-
"
i8
know that ice

now arises
fectly possible that I don't consciously
melts
of
when
the sun shines. But the question
whether
that
know
analyze
still
it
Once you do ask
further:
whether you know
it
is Now,
is
wonder what
is
to
yourself
think the answer to this
I said.
you sometimes
that
But
unconsciously, can you give your-
wrong answer? And
self the
answer
unconsciously, and the answer
it
possible never to have considered this.
it's
say,
Um.
'I
The
know whether
Well. Yes.
don't
I know it unconsciously; I don't know whether I really

know it or whether I'm just guessing.' So far so good.
But can you now go on to say, 1 thought I didn't know
that ice melts when the sun shines, but then later on I
found out
came
to
it
My
did'?
certain
feel
you
conclusion was that you could
know
didn't
and then when you
it,
you found out you
Take
did.
Suppose they said 'Do you know how
And
such a knot?' and you said 'No.'
were drowning they threw you a

knot on your
When you were
saved, they
know how
it
after
did
say either 'Yes,
example:
to tie
such and
all,
would
and said
all
'Tie that
in tying
say, 'Well,
could
the time, but I
was
certain that I didn't before I started drowning' or

just
found out
threw
me
the
how
to
it
it came
to
me when you
line.'
By now, John was

have stopped him
away madly
do
it.
you did
And you
didn't you?'
know
when you
then
and you succeeded
life belt,'
to tie
line
this
if
so lost in philosophy that

I
had wished
at his pipe, and,
to.
He was
couldn't
puffing
without pausing, he went
A
on
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
to the next question
on
Our
of
Intelligence
"My
his logic paper.
favorite
however, was the answer to another ques-
in the paper,
'Could there be nothing between two
tion:
19
these Schools questions look very simple
What
thinking about them.
I said
about
All
stars?'
you
till
this
start
one was
'There are two senses in which there can be nothing
between two
stars'
which
going at such questions.
and
together,
two
if
stars are
they aren't exactly two stars
On
star.
the one hand,
if
way
of
there
is
not anything between two things, then they are
strictly
point
always a good
is
On
the other
if
nothing
were
adjacent, then, clearly,
they're
hand and
say to
to
this
you,
perhaps a twin
my
was
'There's
second
absolutely
between Oxford and Birmingham,' meaning
'There aren't any restaurants on the road,' or something

of that sort, in this sense there isn't anything
two
stars.
distinction thus
between
emerges between nothing
and a nothing, because when you answer the question
What
is
there between two stars?'
by saying 'There
anything between them,' you tend to think there
lump
nothing, a great
of nothing,
the stars apart. This, actually,

is
nonsense, because you can't have
naturally led
me
and a space.
between two
of
and there
when you
what there
If
you
can't
say
which
there's
nothing
much
account
between them. You tend
not very satisfactory, because the
it,
between space
neither can you give
a great expanse of Space, with a capital
holding
nothing,'
that
is
think about
to discuss the difference
stars,
is
'a
it is,
isn't
to say there's
'S,'
way you
and
this is
use the ordi-
2o
nary word 'space'
my
and
table
is
to say there
is
and presumably there
a great
lump
lump
if
you say there

saying a great
of Space, that's like
of nothing or of time, which, of course,
leading.
My
is
nothing between Oxford and Birming-
ham, there could be nothing between two

nothing you could give a
thought
it
mis-
is
conclusion was that in the loose sense, in
which there
is,
it,
a distance between table and
is
door that can be measured. Whereas

is
my
a space between
and that means you can measure
door,
name
worth giving a name
But
sort that interests you.
be nothing between two

nothing between two
or nothing of the
in the strict sense there can't
because
stars,
stars,
or nothing you
to,
to,
that
stars;
there were
if
the stars would be on top of
each other.
How
you
an example of what Greats people actually
this as
was
tedious, I agree, but I
just giving
do."
We
poured some
claret,
success with Schools and,
wisdom
in putting the
reluctantly drank
From
philosophy.
the
intellectual
if
to
my
that
pyrotechnics.
for a definition.
some more
insistence, to
researches
Oxford
into
his
He
Oxford
had received
was
philosophy
accurate, mental gymnastics, or, at best,
grasped the essence, so
and
his
paradigm answer
impression
distinct
simplified,
upon
toast to John's
whole subject behind him.
also
his
and drank a
claret,
He
went
But
wasn't
sure
pressed him for his
had
own
view,
twitched nervously, offered

into a sort of trance,
puzzling things like "Philosophy at Oxford
is
me
and said
not one
Battle Against the
thing but
many
things"
21
and "Some of the philosophers
there are in one sense doing the
same thing and yet
And how
another sense doing quite different things."

things they did were the
same and yet
in
the
different could
emerge only by talking about the philosophers individually,
and even then
And
although he didn't say
thing for
course,
sible,
me
to
was
likely to get
do would be
modern philosophy
it,
them confused.
he implied that the best
to
read Greats
is
just a part)
of which, of
and,
if
pos-
get acquainted with the philosophers themselves,
He
as "people."
who had
suggested meeting Gellner, as the
man
roughly broken the calm of Oxford philosophy;
Russell, as a
born controversialist
mistresses of both science
and
who had
art as
no one
served the
else
had
in
the twentieth century; Strawson, as an antidote to Russell

(
"Strawson
of
what
is
is
now
far
and away the most
original thinker
often called the Oxford philosophy"); Ayer,
as a brilliant thinker
Europe and
whom
who had
his pipeline
from Central
neither the Russells nor the Strawsons
could overlook; Stuart Hampshire, as a philosopher with

a civilized view of the whole subject
in
he
had one
foot
Continental thought, and the other in the whole
history of philosophy;
and Richard Hare, who repre-
sented the impact of Oxford philosophy on morals
the rights and wrongs of living; and certainly one femi-
nine philosopher, because women's invasion of the field
was a
sort
of
twentieth-century
Then John went on
to use
philosophical
what appeared
adaptations of Chinese proverbs, like
"We
to
are
me
event.
English
all squirrels
22
and we go round and round
in cages
shown the way

out?
We
questions
out."
were back
as
And how was
to reading Greats.
Oxford
"Is
philosophy,
suspended in a vacuum?"
we
until
I to find
are
my way
To such
direct
geometry,
like
received negative answers.
"No," he said once, "in one sense
we have
as
much
real
substance as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and are even
doing their
wanted
my way
to find
dence of
back
in another sense
what
live)
for
confi-
mind with
(who taught men, among
do and how to
to
..."
and
to the clarity
his Schools answers, so I pried at his
ancient philosophers
things,
But
sorts of things.
my
other
lenses.
"Does each of the Oxford philosophers fancy himself a

have never seen them hanging
Socrates?" I asked.
"I
around
and
street corners
in Athens, with
athletic rooms, as Socrates did
unwashed
aristocratic
young men,
to
cheer philosophical disputations and to jeer crowds of

fools."
"You're mixed
pouring
up
me some
in
difficult
business," he
He went on
claret.
to
said,
explain the
connection between the ancients and the contemporaries.
"The idea of Greats philosophy," he

a few years of work
thinking
any
man.
the
It
in
clear
and precise
high-powered undergraduate can unravel
sort of puzzle
smiled.
training
said, "is that after
more
or less better than the next
of being non-technical." He
we assume the pose of knowing
of course, how to think, and that is the
which we consider ourselves superior to
makes a technique
"Like Socrates,
nothing except,
only respect in
Battle Against the
as,
other people. For us
him
philosophy
me
about
to think,
it
to a certain degree,
ordinary language
is
and
in the longer dialogues of Plato
we
T.aws' where
learn
method and philosophy,

and
provided Plato
problems, were in
be two things
'This
is
his
the
quite
choose
say,
two
is
about
lot
meant by saying "The horse
and the
about Socrates'
through his
many
how one
a white horse.
is
things'?
together solved this puzzle
Socrates
by saying
white'
is
of
who
their
thing could
How
could
white' without saying
that
was
partook of the eternal, and perfect,

invisible
especially true
is
of the Pre-Socratics,
a horse and this
one thing
really trying
'Republic'
master with
difficulties
once
at
this
filtered, of course,
Some
devoted pupil's mind.
which was
we
so,
was
Socrates, like us,
it,
to solve linguistic puzzles,
'This
for
ought not to be a technical business. Although
he did not know
you say
was
it
23
but don't press
ordinary language'), and
this
and Plato
what was
that the horse
Form
horseness,
but really more horselike than any
Form whiteness:
white. The theory of
worldly Dobbin; and ditto about the

it
was whiter than any
earthly
Form covered our whole world
of ships
and shoes and
humpty-dumptys, which, taken
all in all,
were shadows
approximations
Using the sharp
whittle Plato
those
of
tools in
down
his metaphysical
our
to size
invisible,
new
linguistic chest,
of
'is'es;
we can
and say that he invented
world of Forms
of different kinds
Forms.
perfect
to solve the
problem
you see how an Oxford
counterpart of Plato uses a simple grammatical tool in
24
solving problems like this.
Instead of conjuring
up an
imaginary edifice of Forms, he simply says there are
two
different types of
The
of identity.
The second
By
first
'is'es
one
of predication
points to the object
named:
simple grammatical analysis
this
This
asserts a quality:
'This
we
and one
is
is
white.'
a horse.'
away the
clear
rubble of what were Plato's Forms. Actually, an Oxford

philosopher
fining
is
closer to Aristotle,
a thing
for
example,
who
'virtue'
often,
when
asked
de-
himself,
'Does the definition square with the ordinary views of
men?' But while the contemporary philosophers do have

antecedents, they are innovators in concentrating most
of their attention
on language. They have no patience
with past philosophers:
Why
bother listening to
men
whose problems arose from bad grammar? At present,
we are mostly preoccupied with language and grammar.

No one at Oxford would dream of telling undergraduates
what they ought
lead."
to do, the kind of life they
That was no longer an aim of philosophy, he
explained, but even though philosophy

its
ought to
had changed
in
aims and methods, people had not, and that was the
reason for the complaining undergraduates, for the bitter

attacks of Times' correspondents,
his turning his
Both of us more or
time, very
when
much
thinking
as
less
We
for
stopped thinking at the same
one puts down an
suddenly
intellectual
becomes impossible.
about some claret?" both of us

empty.
and even, perhaps,
back on philosophy.
vigorously stirred
work
"How
The decanter was

some more claret, sugar,
said.
Battle Against the
and
ring,
and while we were waiting
Tamino
was
resolution
curtains
Temple
of
The
sinking.
drawn
for a drink,
"The Magic Flute."
at the
25
and put the brew on the gas
spices in a caldron
to a portion of
like
felt
we
claret revived
I
much
very
Wisdom, except
against the night,
listened
it,
that
my
and, with
pressed on with
my
researches.
Talking with John,
Oxford philosophy
least
when
phers.
it is
is
came
to feel that present-day
movement
revolutionary
asked him about the fathers of the revolution.
Again he was evasive.
Strictly speaking,
it
was
fatherless,
except that Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and
Wittgenstein
all
University figures
of them, as
"were
state of things at Oxford."
direction,
John continued,
it
Ludwig
happened, Cambridge
responsible for the present
Blowing pipe smoke
in
which was proclaimed
to the
is
atom-
his logical
world in a
series of
lectures in 1918; the driving force of these lectures
a distrust of ordinary speech.

that
you had
to get
my
"I think the aspect of Russell's
philosophy that will be remembered

ism,
at
seen through the eyes of past philoso-
He
argued
at that
was
time
away from ordinary language (and
disastrous grammatical errors of past philosophers
'is'es
again), which did nothing but foster misleading notions,
and construct a language on a mechanical model
like
the symbolic logic of his and Alfred North Whitehead's

'Principia Mathematica,' published in 1910
that
would
in turn correspond to the logical structure of the universe.
He
thought that you could take any statement
26
and break
up
it
into
atomic parts, for each part
its
would have a meaning, or a

he was trying
do was
to
What
reference, or both.
to build a formal logical sys-
tem, so that you could do arguments and logic on computers.
But
now thought
it is
among
that,
he confused meaning and reference, and
wrong way, and
sentences in a totally
losophy
is
other things,
broke up
also
therefore his phi-
considered to be mainly of historical interest."
By now, I felt very much as though I were

Temple of Knowledge, if not of Wisdom, and
he would
John
if
too.
He
like to tell
me
asked
about Moore,
little bit
he would do
said he wouldn't like to but
because he supposed he had
inside a
it,
"Moore was a common-
to.
sense philosopher," he began. "Almost unphilosophically

so.
His most famous
Sense,'
article
was
which was mostly concerned with morality. His
common-sense view was, on the

Dr. Johnson's:
I
Common
'A Defense of
can look at
am
it,
certain that
touch
it,
my hand
bang
grass
ment ('God
is
is
green')
like
by
green,
naturalistic state-
we know
intuition.
because
it
question
'How do
it itself
know
the grass
is
be
neither
like
greenness
a basic quality.)
good?,' he agreed with most people,
state-
both kinds
Goodness was not

could
analyzed in terms of any basic qualities,

or hardness, nor was
here because
and a non-naturalistic
good'), he held that
of statements to be true
naturalistic,
is
like
against the table.
it
While he did distinguish between a
ment ('The
much
surface, very
On
green or
who would
the
God
is
reply,
Battle Against the
'Because
know
Bewitchment
so,
it's
and
Our
of
Intelligence
you don't know
if
27
so,
it's
too bad!'"
John said that Oxford people owed
their
faith
in
men to Moore. But it

who made John puff furiously at his
ordinary language and ordinary
was Wittgenstein
pipe.
"There are two Wittgensteins, not one," he
"There
is
said.
the Wittgenstein of 'Tractatus Logico-Phil-
osophicus,' published in 1921,
Wittgenstein
of
and the
'Philosophical
totally different
Investigations,'
posthumously, a quarter of a century
later.
printed
I'm almost
certain to give a misinterpretation of Wittgenstein,"
went on humbly but vigorously, "but

he was trying
to find out the basic constituents of the
world, and in a
way
niscent of Russell's
Wittgenstein,
John
in the 'Tractatus'
was remi-
his 'Tractatus' attempt
1918
try.
According to the
first
was ultimately made up
the world
of
basic facts, and these were mirrored in language: accord-
was
ingly, a proposition
basic facts were
The
qualities.
But these could not

I
your eyes
my
for exin my leg.
exist
eyes, or a feeling
without having some definite
mean, you could not
just
it had
definite color.
to
be some
have a patch before
could not just have a feeling in your leg
some
definite
Now,
and basic
of basic objects
basic objects were sense data
ample, a patch before
quality.
a picture of the world.
made up
sort of feeling.
And you
it had
When you
to
be
attached a
particular color to the patch or specified the sort of

feeling in your leg,
you had basic
facts,
which language
28
An example
mirrored or could mirror.
of a basic sen-
tence that mirrored a basic fact was 'Here, now, green,'
meaning that you had
datum
your eyes a sense
in front of
Just as the world
was
essentially
built out of these basic facts, so language
was
essentially
that
was green.
The
built out of basic-fact sentences.
down
philosopher was to break
used in language
into
'My wife
sees a green table'
constituent parts. In the 'Investigations,' Wittgen-
its
completely
stein
like
business of the
the complex statements
thought
gave up
his
philosophical
that
'Tractatus'
ideas,
arose
perplexity
and
because
people abused the ordinary ways of speech and used a
was perfectly
rule that
right in
all
own
its
area to cover
another area, and so they got into a muddle; he thought

that
you could disentangle the puzzle by pointing out

were misusing ordinary language. As he wrote,
that they
a battle against the bewitchment of our
'Philosophy
is
intelligence
by means of language.'
in his
most quoted phrase,

If in
fly-bottle.'
Russell,
in
It
was
'the fly the
like
way
was
like
he was
like
the 'Tractatus' Wittgenstein
'Philosophical
Investigations'
showing,
out of the
Moore, a common-sense man. Wittgenstein now thought

that
you couldn't ask what the structure of
you could only analyze the language

talked about
were found
late
them
various
in a
all
ways
game
it.
lot of different
in language,
and
it
which people
types of structure
was impossible
under any one heading.

of expression as so
of chess, to
in
reality was;
He
many
to assimi-
regarded the
different pieces
be manipulated according
to
Battle Against the
certain rules.
one
It
was quite wrong
set of statements to another,
several types of statements
for
29
apply the rules of
to
and he distinguished
example, common-sense
statements about physical objects, statements about one's
own
thoughts and intentions, and moral propositions.
was the philosopher's job
It
to find out the rules of the
language game. Suppose you had been brought up from
By
a small child to play football.

sixteen,
you played
You probably
quite
it
know
didn't
the time you were
according to the rules.
the names of the various
you never made
rules or what, exactly, they said, but
a mistake about them, and
do you play
I
this
way, and not
always have played
someone
sible for
that?*
come along
rules
you
Now,
this way.'
else to
down what
write
when anyone asked you 'Why

just said 'Well,
would be pos-
it
as
an observer and
you were playing by,
observed you long enough.
if
he
Like the observer on the
football ground, a philosopher should primarily investi-
gate what the rules used for communication are."

Just
when
thought
had absorbed
"I
hope
is
necessarily a firm connection
haven't
left
all this,
John
said,
you with the impression that there

between
Russell,
Moore,
and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and present-day

Oxford philosophy, on the other.
argue that the late
J.
Some people would
L. Austin, in the
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford,

to
do with shaping thinking
else,
White's
fifties
had
as
at the university as
much
anyone
including Wittgenstein. Also, you mustn't overlook
the role of logical positivism in
all this."
John said he
30
would prefer not
to say anything
about Austin, because
he had very mixed feelings about him.

positivism
well,
Oxford, was the

of
Professor
Englishman
positivism
to
to
Ayer,
Logic
of
at
English intellectual
Vienna and made the acquaintance of some of
the so-called Vienna Circle

discuss,
among
England
his reputation for life
months
six
Truth and Logic," a
later
of
together
by returning
and writing "Language,
tract of logical positivism. "If I
put
it
all
around the kennel, but
so,"
members
who had come
other things, Wittgenstein's "Trac-
Ayer made
tatus."
to
J.
to proclaim the princi-
the
the most famous European philosophers
to
logical
After his graduation from Oxford, in 1932, he
world.
went
first
logical
But
was another matter. A.
Wykeham
appointed
recently
ples
that
may
John concluded, with a smile, "he has pattered

always been on his
he's
Viennese leash."
I
knew
it
was getting
more philosophy,
late,
but
for the road.
asked John for a
We
and before we packed up
claret,
little
had some more
for
the night,
he
quickly served up logical positivism.
The
logical positivism of the thirties, I learned,
a skeptical movement.
that could not
be
Thus,
ingless.
about morality,
absurd.
mean,
verified
all
all
It
claimed that any statement
by sense experience was mean-
statements about God,
all
statements
value judgments in art were logically
For example, "Murder
is
wrong" could only
at best, "I disapprove of murder," or,
precisely,
was
"Murder! Ugh!"
What made
still
more
a statement like
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
"There
was
dog
is
my
in
that I could verify
could see the dog, beat

bark,
it
and watch
The room was
went
If I
with a
it
He
tired.
31
into the garden, I
get bitten, hear
stick,
old bone.
smoke by now,
thick with
a very un-English way, had kept
Both of us were
Intelligence
neighbor's garden" meaningful

it.
chew on an
it
Our
of
for John, in
windows
the
all
put on some
coffee,
closed.
and we
chatted about this and that, after which, instead of

trundling to
my own
lodgings,
dossed
down on
his
sofa.
The next day,
hung around
to sort out
my
philosophy
administered
first
philosopher on
of Ryle, I
had been
pro, but John
by the sharp mind
came
friend, until the time
the
John's room,
trying
thoughts after the injections of Oxford
my
first
me
for
list.
to call
of
my
on Gellner,
During the Times' siege
pro-Gellner, then anti, then
had watched the whole
detachment of a philosopher.
He
gave
affair
me
with the
a rationalizing
Good editors were eccentric people, and

who ruled scholarly periodicals tended to be
explanation:
potentates
even more eccentric than their counterparts on popular

magazines. Then he handed
(autobiography
opened
editorship of Mind,
to
me
a
a copy of G. E. Moore's
passage
which made
me
about
shift
my
Moore's
weight
about uncomfortably on the Gellner-Ryle seesaw.

1920, on Stout's retirement
an
office
'New
"In
from the Editorship of Mind,
which he had held since the beginning of the
Series' in 1892," I read, "I
was asked
to succeed
32
him

as Editor; I
have now been Editor for more
than twenty years. ...
think
that I have suc-
ceeded in being impartial as between different schools

of philosophy.
principles laid
have
accordance with the
in
tried,
down when Mind was
and
started
re-
peated by Stout in the Editorial which he wrote at the
New
beginning of the
Series, to let merit, or, in other
words, the ability which a writer displays, and not the

opinions which he holds, be the sole criterion of whether
work should be accepted.
his
The most
noticeable
me and Mind under

under me the number of
between Mind under
difference
Stout seems to
me
to
be that
book reviews has considerably diminished.
This has
been partly deliberate: under Stout there were a great
number
of
very short reviews, and
have thought
(perhaps wrongly) that very short reviews were hardly

of
any
use.
But
it is
partly, I
am
of thoroughly businesslike habits

also because,
on
knowing what a tax
myself to have to write a review,

asking
others
reason,
to get
am
to
undertake the
afraid
it
is
owing
afraid,
my
part,
to lack
and partly
should have
felt it
have been shy about

task.
Whatever the
the case that
have failed
many books which ought
reviewed a good
to
have been reviewed."

After reading these honest words of Professor
fanatical about avoiding prejudices
ner with an open mind.
me
Moore
good editor and a perfect gentleman, who was
to his
home,
in
S.W.
went
to see Gell-
got on a bus that would take

15,
and an hour
later I
found
Battle Against the
33
myself on the edge of a middle-middle-class settlement
where houses stood out
sparsely,
Trucks and broken-down
signs.
like
little
many road
so
cars
sluggishly
wheeled themselves through the growing suburbia
car-
rying vegetables, meat, and a few people to the
city.
A man
was standing
a baby in his arms.

in!"
he
said.
in front of Gellner's house, holding

It
was
"Come
Gellner.
man
Gellner (a
Come
in!
of thirty -four) proved to
be dark, of medium height, and casually dressed. His

hair
was uncombed, and he had the
intellectual.
We
to his wife.
He was
his wife
about
inside,
and
and
that,
in the
to
an offbeat
me
we
room, so
chatted
learned that he was born in
Czech parentage, spent
and had come
air of
and he introduced
reluctant to talk philosophy while
and the infant were
this
Paris of
went
England with
his
boyhood
in Prague,
his family just before
the war.
When
Mrs. Gellner took the baby upstairs, he
diffi-
dently pointed out twin tape recorders in a corner of

the living room.
"These Grundig machines produced
'Words and Things,'
my
"
he
"The Memorette recorded
said.
words and a secretary
Economics, thanks to
formed
my
this
at the
London School
magical
voice into typed copy."
Stenorette,
He
trans-
spoke in a
quick and rather harassed way, as though the tape

corders were at that
moment
of
re-
catching his words on an
ever-shrinking spool.
"I
was going through the Times correspondence the
other day," he went on.
"I
have kept a complete
file
34
of
it.
was
up on my
As
elated to find that most of the people lined
side."
far as Gellner
was concerned,
losophers at Oxford were

of
them were
interested
("Oxford philosophy," he
it
more
only
said,
gathered,
in
linguistic
they
all
by the
shared in common.)
setting
all
analysis.
was a misnomer,
grouped the philosophers by the
practice, rather than
phi-
all
or less alike, since
since
of
their
method which
linguistic
Instead of regarding phi-
losophy as an investigation of the universe
or
edge as a
("There are
more
sort of inventory of the universe
things in heaven
dreamt of
in
and
earth,
knowl-
Horatio, than
your philosophy"), to which wise
from the beginning of time had been

linguistic philosophers
are
men
adding the
handed over the universe
to the
students of the natural sciences and limited philosophy

to
an inquiry into rules of language, the gateway to
human knowledge. They analyzed language

mine what could and could not be
in a sense
ment
of
what could and could not
sense.
and therefore
exist.
Any employ-
words that did not conform
dictionary usage
"But
be treated
to
the rules of
was automatically dismissed
answer," Gellner said,
as proper nouns."
To
to deter-
said
"all
as non-
words cannot
clarify his point,
he
read a passage from one of his Third Programme broadcasts:
"The
have scriptural
reason
status
why
the dictionary does not
[according to him,
all
linguistic
philosophers use the Oxford English Dictionary as the
Holy Writ
of philosophy]
is
that
most expressions are
Battle Against the
Bewitchment
Our
of
Intelligence
35
not [proper] names; their meaning
is
by the
and the paradigmatic
specification of their use
not really exhausted
Their meaning
uses that occur in the dictionary.
way with
usually connected in a complicated
is
a whole
system of concepts or words or ways of thinking: and

it
makes perfectly good sense
a name,
is
makes sense
rechristening
to say this
and are
He pegged
sense."
its
although
still
word, unlike
to say that a
mistakenly used in
paradigmatic use.
we have
It
not done any
continuing to use
it
in
its
old
the rest of his criticism on the prac-
titioners of linguistic philosophy.
"Out of the bunch of Oxford philosophers," he

"I
suppose
in
some ways
most.
said,
who
have the strongest aversion to Austin,
found
them
typified the things I dislike about
his lecture technique a creeping barrage,
going into endless detail in a very slow and fumbling
way.
He
ance;
it
to
used
this style to
was a kind
browbeat people
of brainwashing.
him was on some committees
that
The
into accept-
nearest
we were
both
always took some trouble not to get to
bers
of.
him
personally, because I disliked his philosophy
knew
that sooner or later I
would attack him and
got
memknow
and
didn't
wish to be taken as a personal enemy. With Austin,
had an impression of someone very strongly obsessed

with never being wrong, and using
devices to avoid being wrong.
his
immense
He
all
kinds of dialectical
intimidated
caginess; like Wittgenstein,
me
with
he never stated
the doctrines he was trying to get across
or,
actually,
the crucial thing was stated in informal sayings, which
36
never got into print. Thus he artfully shielded himself
from challengers. To Oxford philosophers Wittgenstein,

like Austin, is
They
another
god who can do no wrong.
little
mainly because he gave up his
like Wittgenstein
achievements in the technical
and
field
his
power
as a
mathematical magician for the ordinary language of a

plain
man or,
language
rather, the kind of ordinary
that an undergraduate
who
has studied the classics in
Greats can take to pieces."

Linguistic philosophers
were thought
bral neurosis, Gellner said.

lieved,
one had
sional interest.
to alleviate cere-
To understand them, he
be-
to turn to sociology, his present profes-
"About the
milieu from which
social
these Oxford philosophers arose," he went on rapidly,

"I
can say nothing except what
the ninth chapter of
haps there
my
one improvement
is
reading of C. P. Snow,
ter."
"The
when
have already said in

second thought, per-
that,
could have
on the basis of
made
in
my
my
chap-
Gellner said that had Snow's brilliant pamphlet
Two
Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" existed
Gellner wrote his book, he would have invoked
for Snow's characterization of the
up
On
book.
his philosophical alley.
losophers
is
it,
two cultures was right
"The milieu of
linguistic phi-
a curious one," Gellner continued.
"As Sir
Charles, in his pamphlet, points out, there are these two

cultures
literary
tionally the literary

tige.
But
for
one and a
scientific
one
and
tradi-
one has always enjoyed more pres-
some time
it
has been losing ground; tech-
nology and science have been taking
its
place.
Only
Battle Against the
in
Oxford has the
Bewitchment
of
Our
Intelligence
managed
literary culture
There Greats
unchallenged supremacy.
37
to retain
still
an
remains at
the apex of the disciplines, and within Greats the brightest
young men are often selected
But
The
time ago
and her
losophy
is
to as to
say
would have perished a long
Linguistic phi-
which they use

have nothing
in order to con-
left to do."
to his Stenorette tape recorder, Gellner
me, "Would you
morning?
like to
It really
sense you could say
Things.'"
the Greats
nothing more than a defense mechanism of

intellectuals,
ceal the fact that they
Turning
why
weren't for the social snobbery of Oxford
self -perpetuating philosophers.

is
self-
the highest sort of activity?
literary culture
if it
gentleman
this
philosophers.
there any widespread theory
Is
anybody can subscribe
form of philosophy
no.
become
there any intellectual justification for this
is
appointed aristocracy?
that
to
it
hear something
sums up
is
my
was
position,
asked
dictating
and
in a
the essence of 'Words and
nodded, and he flicked a switch.
"Philos-
ophers in the past were proud of changing the world
and providing a guide

pered through the
for political life," the voice whis-
little
speaker of the tape recorder.
"About the turn of the century, Oxford was a nursery

for running
an empire; now
the world exactly as
it
is.
it is
The
have their job cut out for them

of English power.
which
is
This
is
a nursery for leaving

linguistic philosophers
to
rationalize the loss
the sociological background
absolutely crucial to the understanding of
guistic philosophers."
lin-
38
Gellner stopped the machine and said, "There you
my
have
whole sociological
'Words and Things,'
sociology of the philosophers.
book now,
coffee table
view of
If
up a copy
and read
his book,
me
of
sort of book,"
As
far
a sentence or two from
he
it,
and
I
it.
"How
said.
cushy
nasty can you really
my
is
concerned,
future rather than se-
attacked the philosophical Establishment,
as long as the present philosophers
will
remain in power,
never have a position at an Oxford college.
Whether
cles
failed to get a
professional philosophy
as
its re-
job-hungry people do not write
*Words and Things' ruined

cured
Sir Charles."
Commentary from the
"Words and Things" because he had
get?
In
which implied that he had written
job at Oxford. "Dash
my
stop.
were writing the
would use Veblen and
Gellner picked
Full
analysis.
used Thorstein Veblen for the
be accepted again
I will
in philosophical cir-
remains to be seen."
Gellner offered to drive

transportation he
getting to the
me
had a small
truck,
London School
missed his commuter
train.
back
of
We
to
the city.
which he used
For
for
Economics when he
bounced
noisily along
the road, Gellner making himself heard intermittently
over the engine
clatter.
He had more
or less given
up
formal philosophy until the philosophers should once

again address themselves to "great issues." While waiting for the change, Gellner was studying the Berbers
of Morocco.
He
visited
served their social habits.
them now and again and ob-
He
considered himself a syn-
Battle Against the
one who
optic thinker
saw things
from
as a whole,
He was
the viewpoint of their ultimate significance.
39
not
a softheaded visionary, and his education at Balliol, tradi-
most rebellious Oxford
tionally the
him
to battle with the philosophical Establishment for
unpopular views.
his
had prepared
college,
He
thought that with "Words and
Things" he had galvanized
men
of
good sense
into tak-
ing his side.
Gellner
me
left
reflective.
was
my
sorry that
philosopher should dislike his colleagues so much.
was
he should turn out to be a harassed man.
sorry, too, that
But then
first
knew
well that prophets are
made
of strange
stuff.
Next day,
walked round
with Earl Russell at his house.

himself,
by
and
his pipe,
I instantly
have a
to Chelsea to
He opened
talk
the door
recognized him as a philosopher
which he took out of
his
mouth
do you do?" Lord Russell looked very
to say,
alert.
"How
mop
His
of white hair, swept carelessly back, served as a dignified
frame for
gave
life to
floor study,
and the
large
his learned
a wintry face.
and animated eyes
eyes
He showed me into
his
that
ground-
which was sandwiched between the garden
street.
number
It
was a snug room,
full of
books on a
of subjects: mathematics, logic, philosophy,
history, politics.
The worn volumes stood
as
an impres-
sive testament to his changing intellectual interests; they
were wedged
in
with rows of detective
fronted Victorian bookcases.
stories in glass-
"Ah!" he said.
"It's
just
40
four!
think
wife has
left
exaggerated.
ring.
It
we
can have some
tea.
my
see
good
us some tea leaves." His "ee" sounds were
He
put a large Victorian kettle on the gas
must have contained
little
water, for
sang like
it
a choir in a Gothic cathedral. Russell ignored the plain-
song and talked, using his pipe, which went out repeatedly, as a
baton to lead the conversation.
Now
and again
he reached out to take some tobacco with unsteady

gers from a
our
tea,
tin.
to
were comfortably
he began interviewing me.
with philosophy
jolly
When we
when my
life
Why was
was
settled
fin-
with
concerned
in peril?
should
well be doing something about the atomic bomb,
keep the Russians and Americans from sending us
all
Anyone might personally prefer death
to
up
in flames.
slavery,
but only a lunatic would think of making
this
choice for humanity.
At present, when he wasn't working on nuclear

armament, he used detective
have
"to
to
stories for
dis-
an opiate.
"I
read at least one detective book a day," he said,
drug myself against the nuclear
threat." His favorite
crime writers were Michael Innes and Agatha Christie.
He
preferred detective stories to novels because he found
that whodunits
were more
real than howtodoits.
The
characters in detective stories just did things, but the
heroes and heroines in novels thought about things.
you compared sex scenes
in the
of pastime they got into
and out of bed with
two media,
If
in his sort
alacrity,
but in the higher craft the characters were circumspect;

they took pages even to
sit
on the bed. Detective
stories
Battle Against the
were much more
The paradox was
lifelike.
be
of thrillers did not try to
were
real,
were
fore
unreal
41
that authors
and therefore they
real,
while the novelists tried to be real and thereunreal.
nuclear
we
the things
The
things
we most
war might turn out
believed to be
to
be
and
real,
real philosophy
took to be the most
unreal.
The
him was eventually tamed by the
savior in
tea,
and the elder statesman of philosophy reminisced a
bit
about Moore and Wittgenstein, his Cambridge juniors,
and said a few caustic words about today's philosophers

in
Oxford and Cambridge.
sophical position for

still
some
tidy system
1898
down.
to
I
me
was. Like
we
and
asked
it
on the
it is
structure,"
was
"My model
child,
Communism,
life
and
It
gave
it
society.
first
In
to climb
was mathematics
logic that led
me away
that
from
puerile."
his
system of mathematical
belief that language
not so
he
is
applied rigorous logic to Hegel, he be-
he had based
if
philo-
that was!), well, almost everyone
came fragmentary and
"No,
its
simply followed him.

to logic,
my
started out being a Hegelian.
be a Hegelian. Moore was the
Hegel. Once
logic
the questions about
(how long ago
seemed
took
it
all
changed
time," he said.
mathematics. You see,
answers to
"I haven't
much
said. "I
had a
structure.
that I believe language has a
simply think that language
is
often
way of expressing things. Take a statement like 'All men are mortal.' Now, that has an unnecessary implication when stated in words; that is, that
a rather messy
42
there are men, that
men
exist.
But
if
you
translate this
statement into mathematical symbols, you can do away
with any unnecessary implication.
remember most was
thing I
to see
He was
to melt.
it
About Moore
the
One had
only
his smile.
such a gentleman. With him,
manners were everything, and now you know what
mean by
'gentleman.'
just wasn't done.'
ously.
To be
That was
know
to take
something too
suppose present-day Oxford philosophy
it
tlemanly in that sense
who
who
gen-
takes nothing seriously.
You
his best pupil was,
and he
asked him
said 'Wittgen-
'Because, Bertrand, he
said 'Why?'
stein.'
pupil
seri-
is
Moore ever made?
the best remark
one time
my
is
only
always looks puzzled.' " Lord Russell chuckled.
"That was such a good remark, such a good remark.
was
Wittgenstein was always
and Wittgenstein.
After Wittgenstein had been

to
man?'
me and
me,
said, 'Tell
puzzled.
pupil for five terms, he
sir,
am
a fool or a wise
why do you want to know?'

He said, 'If I am
become an aeronaut if I am a wise man,
shall
the kindest thing to say.
a philosopher.'
told
him
over the vacation, and

first
my
I said, 'Wittgenstein,
perhaps not
a fool,
It
very characteristic of both Moore
also, incidentally,
came
Left, for example, in politics
to
do a piece of work
when he came back
for
me
read the
sentence and said, 'Wittgenstein, you shall be a
philosopher.'
had
to
read just a sentence to
Wittgenstein became one.

out, I
was wildly
At that time,
excited.
When
I
know it.
came
his 'Tractatus'
think less well of
his theory that a proposition
it
now.
was a picture
Bewitchment
Battle Against the
was
of the world
was
know how
and
so engaging
really a Tolstoy
Intelligence
43
Wittgenstein
original.
and a Pascal
fierce Tolstoy
Our
of
You
rolled into one.
was; he hated competitors.
If
another novelist was held to be better than he, Tolstoy
would immediately challenge him

precisely this to Turgenev,
pacifist
he was
know how
about his pacifism.
just as fierce
Wittgenstein.
And you
He was
was the same with
it
a mathematical mystic. But after
Oxford philosophers.
just like the
ing Oxford philosophy.
become
has
did
he became more and more remote from me,
'Tractatus'
It
He
Pascal became discontented with mathematics
and science and became a mystic;
phers.
to a duel.
and when Tolstoy became a
Don't
so trivial. I don't like

like
have stopped read-
have gone on
to other things.
most Oxford philoso-
They have made
them.
much
thing very great. Don't think
trivial
some-
of their apostle Ryle.
He's just another clever man. In any case, you have to
admit he behaved impetuously in publicly refusing a
view of the book.
He
should have held
it
re-
over for two
years and then printed a short critical review with Gellner's
name
misspelled.
To be
a philosopher now, one
needs only to be clever. They are

pressed for information, and
like information.
Once,
College High Table
and
between
was
in their local politics.
duced
brilliant
still
was dining
what the
difference
am
embarrassed when
all
old-fashioned and
at
Oxford
Exeter
asked the assembled Fellows

liberals
and conservatives
Well, each of the dons pro-
epigrams and
it
but after half an hour's recitation
was
I
all
very amusing,
knew no more about
44
'
liberals
and conservatives
the beginning.
in the college than I
Oxford philosophy
like that.
is
had
at
have
respect for Ayer; he likes information, and he has a
first-
class style."
Lord Russell explained that he had two models
own style Milton's
prose and Baedeker's guidebooks.
The Puritan never wrote without
passion, he said,
the cicerone used only a few words in

sights, hotels,
reason,
and
for his
Passion
restaurants.
economy the signature
man, Russell wrote with
recommending
was the voice
of
As a young
of brilliance.
Sometimes Milton
difficulty.
and Baedeker remained buried
and
in his prose until
it
had
been redone ten times. But then he was consoled by

Flaubert's troubles
and achievements.
Now,
many
for
years past, he had learned to write in his mind, turning

phrases, constructing sentences, until in his
grew
into paragraphs
changed a word
in a
synonym
"When
and chapters.
in his dictated
for
Now
they
he seldom
manuscript except to
slip
word repeated absent-mindedly.
was an undergraduate," he
pipe, "there
memory
said, sucking his
were many boys cleverer than
I,
but
passed them, because, while they were degage,

passion and fed on controversy.
I still
thrive
I surI
had
on opposi-
tion.
My grandmother was a woman of caustic and biting
wit.
When
gentle. I
she was eighty-three, she became kind and
had never found her
so reasonable.
She noticed
the change in herself, and, reading the handwriting on

the wall, she said to me, 'Bertie,
she soon was."
I'll
soon be dead.'
And
Battle Against the
Bewitchment
After tea, Lord Russell

told
him about
my
searches at Oxford.
came
of
Our
to the
Intelligence
45
door with me.
intention of pressing on with
He wrung my hand and
my
re-
chuckled.
"Most Oxford philosophers know nothing about science/'

he
said.
"Oxford and Cambridge are the
last
medieval
all right for first-class people. But their security

harmful to second-class people it makes them insular
islands
is
and gaga. This

for
some but
is
why
English academic
sterile for
many."
life is
creative
HAPTER
TW
The Open Door
MY
more
in
first call
Hare, of
Oxford was
Balliol,
influential
who,
at the
renowned throughout the

his selfless teaching,
He
is
is
one of the
Oxford teachers of philosophy.
evangelistic zeal for the subject
his field,
house of Richard
at forty-two,
and
famous for
for writing
an exciting book in
his eccentric tastes,
in 1952.
which
countered for myself while lunching with him.

arrived,
in
he was
is
university for his kindness, for
"The Language of Morals," published
also
His
He
consumes him.
sitting in a
caravan
en-
When
study on wheels
He
much
the front garden of his house, reading a book.
hailed
me
easier to
from the window, and
work here than
you agree?"
He
said, "I find it
in the house.
It's
quieter, don't
looked like a monk, though he wasn't
dressed like one; he wore a well-made dark tweed jacket
and well-pressed dark-gray

his legendary red
flannel trousers
and green
tie on.
and
he had
After talking for a
few minutes through the door of the caravan, we went

46
The Open Door

house and joined Mrs. Hare and their four
into the
dren for lunch.
47
chil-
His children
relaxed at his table.
I felt
spoke in whispers and were remarkably well-mannered.
His wife was douce and poised.
had been
told that
invitations to his country-house reading parties during
by able undergraduate
vacations were coveted
phers at Oxford, and
At the
table,
we
music very much
he said
all
at
there
is
one point.
things.
I
my
one of
it
it's
to
Also,
what
better for one to catch
as a whole.
to Beethoven. I'd never
of Beethoven.
way
very catholic
deliberately don't have a gramo-
think
I will.
principal relaxations,"
"I listen in a
I
of choosing one's
modern
take in quite a lot of
day
philoso-
could see why.
on the wireless instead
don't enjoy
that one
talked about Hare's interests. "I like
it's
kinds of music.
phone, because
now
listen to
on the wireless
although
stuff,
in the hope
it
own
have
to listen
go and get a gramophone record
As a schoolboy,
liked
him very much,
but when the war began I was as I think most of us

were, or anybody at all sensitive very troubled by war
and whether one should be a

plain why, but
it
pacifist.
And
can't ex-
suddenly became clear to me,
listen-
ing to Beethoven and to Bach and comparing them, that

as food, musical food, for
tion,
Beethoven was exceedingly
But principally
to
anybody
me
superficial.
in that kind of situa-
superficial
To be
precise,
one wintry day in 1940 that
his
and
it
insipid.
appeared
music rang ex-
ceedingly hollow."
At the end of lunch, Mrs. Hare told us she would
48
bring us coffee in the caravan, and
wagon
his
asked him
was a key
there
if
"No," he said forcefully.
it.
ophy
The most
that
is
to
a method that
isn't
do philosophy as we
characteristic thing about
we
Oxford philos-
on clear thinking, and
insist
suppose
and philosophers are agreed on what
scientists
good argument.
tutes a
followed Hare to
to linguistic philosophy.
"There
any fool can get hold of in order
do
retreat.
especially important in
consti-
Clear thinking, of course,
is
my own field of moral philosophy,
because almost any important moral question arises in

a confused form
when one first meets it. But most of

who come up to Oxford are not going
the undergraduates
to
be professional philosophers; they're going
and parsons and
servants
businessmen.
can do
is
analysis
read the
them
And
to teach
is
politicians
civil
think the most important thing I
them
to think lucidly
frightfully useful for this.
letters
be
to
and lawyers and
to the
and
linguistic
You have only
Times unfortunately
as soon as I've read them, or I'd give
to
forget
you an exam-
to come across a classic instance of a problem that

made clearer for one, and perhaps would have been
made clearer for the writer, by the ability to take statements to pieces. My own hobby is town planning. I read
ple
is
quite a lot of the literature, and
immense harm
is
it's
done I mean
perfectly obvious that
not just confusion, aca-
demic confusion, but physical harm, roads being

the
wrong places and
that sort
don't think clearly enough.
of thing because
In philosophy
itself,
built in
people
unclear
The Open Door

thinking has led to a lot of mistakes, and
my
think
job to take pupils through these mistakes and
them the blind

go on from
way
stand them. That
it is
show
Careful attention to language
there.
is
49
They can
alleys in the city of philosophy.
think, the best
is,
not to solve problems but to under-
what, as philosophers,
we
are mainly
concerned with."
I
asked how, exactly, attention to language helped in
understanding problems.
"Suppose
and not
said, 'That chair
'That can't be right.' Well,
you wrote down
you wrote down
say partly
because you've learned, you
spelling
and you've
'fulfill,'
word
called using the
you, 'That
that
'not.'
you
is
you learned not
He
like to call
it
If
right.'
if
of
how
to spell,
do a thing
somebody
red,' he's
says to
doing something
It's
The words
it's
skill
(if
which you mastered when you
to use the
word
because
to reason.
on a
do a thing called
see, to
And
it
Well, this
do when you learned the word
that),
learning to use the
of logic.
be
has offended against a certain rule of
became aware
how
how
'not.'
to
can't
f-u-l-l-f-i-1.
also learned to
both red and not
say,
the same
it's
way and you saw
that
'fullfil'
spelled
'fullfil,'
page, you would say, 'That can't be

is
both red
is
would make you say 'That
sort of thing that

right' if
over there
he replied. "This would make you
red,' "
word
'not.'
Of
'not' isn't exactly like
also
course,
learning
knowing something about
mastering a very elementary piece

for 'not' in different languages are
the same, but not quite the same; there are variations.
50
For example,
'I
in
Greek you've double negatives; you
have not been neither
This
is
why Oxford
to the
temple nor to the
philosophy
based both on simple
is
reasoning and on exhaustive research into language

this particular case, into the
word
by
in Singapore
hewn from
ficial
and Thailand, where
community
own
of the prison,
learned,
were
Japanese prison camps
his experiences in
the rock of his
in
'not.'"
Hare's ideas about moral philosophy,

influenced
say,
theatre.'
all
values had to be
conscience.
In the arti-
he came to realize that
nothing was "given" in society, that everyone carried his
moral luggage in
conscience, and
his head; every
this,
man was born
with his
rather than anything in society, he
found, was the source of morality.
"A prisoner-of-war community
is
(As he once wrote,
a society
which has
to
be formed, and constantly re-formed, out of nothing.
The
whether military or
social values,
civil,
which one
has brought with one can seldom be applied without

scrutiny to this very strange, constantly disintegrating
situation.")
Indeed, the rough draft of his
"The Language
of
Morals" on
He went on
in the
to tell
book,
the strength of which
he was eventually elected a Fellow of
mered out
first
Balliol
was
ham-
grim and barren prison compounds.
me
that his present views,
which were
a development of his old ideas, were that ethics was the

exact study of the words one used in making moral judg-
ments, and that judgment, to be moral, had to be both

universal and prescriptive.
"that
if
you say 'X ought
to
"This means," he explained,
do
Y,'
then you commit your-
The Open Door

the view that
self to
ought to do
you ought
do
way,
if
to
do
it,
then
you were
you say that
If
in the
it isn't
in X's position,
if
to
do
it
straight-
ought to do
Y but
same circumstances you ought
a moral judgment at
all."
your conscience always be your guide.
let
you
you have said that
you are bound
Y, then
possible.
you don't think that

to
if
Furthermore,
also.
51
In effect,
"If
you do
not assent to the above propositions," Hare went on energetically, "then
in
you do
opinion, really believe
You cannot answer
any moral judgments.
questions
my
not, in
by disguising them
as 'is'-questions."
'ought'-
He
ad-
mitted, however, that most of the philosophers at Ox-
ford were not
much
interested in moral philosophy. For
had
that sort of philosophy one
and
to
go
to the
Continent
to Existentialism.
What was
the relationship between Existentialism
and
British philosophy?
"The thing wrong with the
Existentialists
Continental philosophers," Hare said,
had
their noses
rubbed
what they mean.
sometimes think
You
ophy here you read a thing
to
you "What do you mean by
to tell him.
think
ultimately, the
see Iris
it's
see, if
because they
you learn
philos-
your tutor and he says
that?'
and then you have
what makes us good philosophers
method
Murdoch about
of teaching.
But you ought
Existentialism.
big books." He'd read only

said.
and the other
that they haven't
in the necessity of saying exactly
don't have a tutorial system.
to
"is
little
He had no sympathy
is,
to
She's read the
Existentialist books,
for people less
he
good than
52
Miss Murdoch
who
as a stick with
which
phers.'
Was
on Existentialism and use
"let rip
it
Oxford philoso-
to beat 'the sterile
"
possible to
it
be a philosopher and have a
reli-
gious faith?
Hare pointed out

were practicing
Catholics:
some
that
of the Oxford philosophers
He went on
Christians.
Anscombe;
Elizabeth
her
name some
to
husband,
Geach (who, though he was not teaching

was
Peter
at Oxford,
"one of us"); B. F. McGuinness; and Michael
still
Dummett.
you wish
"If
be
to
"you've got to look for some

religion, science,
he went on,
rational,"
way
and philosophy.
of reconciling formal
I
personally think you
can reconcile only two of these things. As a philosopher,
you can work out your own personal

or
may
but
not conform to what any particular church says,
think
and then
slightly sophistical, say, to
it's
insist that
Hell
'When the bad go

that the
bad go
is
revealing.
call it 'empirical':
So
much
think
if
for the scientific prin-
you are a Catholic and
be a philosopher, you're almost bound
do one of two
mal kinds
and
to Hell, they will verify the statement
to Hell.'
ciple of verification!
are going to
attitude
philosophers
three masters, and the
all
they reconcile religion and science
They take the dogmatic
pure
be a Catholic
Some
is scientific.
here think that they can serve
way
which may
religion,
things.
One
of philosophy
linguistic analysis,
is
to
to stick rigidly to the for-
I mean
mathematical
and that land of
thing.
logic,
The
The Open Door

other
to
is
do ordinary philosophy
my
sort
53
but
with
said
must
a distinct slant."
It
take
was getting
my
leave.
and
late in the afternoon,
We
went back
into the house, so that I
could say goodbye to Mrs. Hare, and she insisted on our

taking another cup of coffee.
hope your afternoon
"I
has been worthwhile," she said. "I have learned
philosophy
know from reading
the proofs of
the
all
my
hus-
band's books."
Mr. Hare had been candid and informative.

all
good
tutors,
he was a
little
idiosyncratic
Like
and some-
what oracular but very approachable.

Next morning,
dropped
in
on
Iris
Murdoch.
Elizabeth Anscombe, and Philippa Foot
She,
make up
the
squadron of Oxford's feminine philosophers, and they
and Richard Hare make up the constabulary
Among
philosophy at the university.

students, Miss
saint,
Murdoch has
of moral
her friends and
the reputation of being a
and she has no enemies. She's
likely to
go about
without a thought for her dress and without a penny in

her pocket, and this absent-mindedness perhaps has
its
source in her custom of living and thinking in two worlds
philosophy
and
with
and aplomb.
facility
literature
both
Two
and
was surprised
which she inhabits
of her engaging novels,
"The Bell" and "Under the Net,"

cently,
of
had read very
re-
that a writer of such gifts
should be only a part-time novelist. She greeted
me
at
54
the door of her study, in Saint Anne's College, and
was immediately drawn

pearance, very
much
She had a
to her.
like
my
image of
and
straight,
celes-
blond hair unevenly clipped.
determined to steer
her about her writing.
my way
"I do my
to philosophy
my
paper and
characters,
done. But terms
philosophy
Yes,
do
is
until I get things
haven't written any philosophy lately.
find time to read a lot of novels, but I don't
my
serious reading. No, I don't think
any direct connection between philosophy and
writing. Perhaps they
sort of
and carry on
down with some
devote mostly to reading and teaching
think I trespass on
there
by asking
writing at home, during
vacations," she said haltingly. "I settle
is
expression cast in the rough features of a peasant,
tial
my
striking ap-
Joan
St.
way in
do come together
what morality
considering, for example,
and what goes
into
an undergraduate
making
at the
She had been
decisions."
same time
as
in a general
Hare and,
like
him, had read Greats, but, unlike him, she had come
accidentally to professional philosophy.
of the
in
war put her
London during
went
in
The aftermath
touch with Existentialism.
"I
was
the war," she recalled, "and afterward
to Brussels to
do refugee work. In Belgium, there
was a tremendous ferment going
on; everyone
was rush-
ing around reading Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre.

I
knew something about them from my undergraduate
days, but then
read them deeply."
England and Cambridge
and
to
She returned to
study French philosophy
to look at English philosophy afresh.
Wittgenstein
The Open Door
had
and she regretted very much
just retired,
had arrived too

however,
up
led
it
55
that she
His philosophy,
late for his lectures.
towered over the university, and she was
still
to
by Professor John Wisdom, a
Wittgenstein's,
disciple of
and Miss Anscombe, a pupil and
lator of Wittgenstein's,
whom
trans-
Miss Murdoch had known
from her undergraduate days.

I
asked Miss Murdoch
she had ever seen Wittgen-
if
stein.
He was
"Yes.
her
way
very
very good-looking," she replied, feeling
"Rather small, and with a very,
like a novelist.
intelligent,
sharpish, intent, alert face
He had
and piercing eyes
face
shortish
and those very piercing
chairs and, of course, his

setting
camp
couple of deck
just a
bed.
Both he and
were very unnerving. His extraordinary
ness of approach
and the absence
of
eyes.
And he had two
a trampish sort of appearance.
empty rooms, with no books, and
any
his
direct-
sort of para-
phernalia were the things that unnerved people.
mean,
with most people, you meet them in a framework, and

there are certain conventions about
and
so on.
alities.
tion
I
on
didn't
There
isn't
how you
all his relationships.
well,
them,
naked confrontation of person-
But Wittgenstein always imposed
know him
talk to
this confronta-
met him only twice and
and perhaps
that's
why
always
thought of him, as a person, with awe and alarm."
She stopped talking suddenly, and

fore she resumed.
in
common,
Then she
it
was some time be-
said that she
had some
as a moral philosopher, with Miss
tilings
Anscombe
56
and Mrs. Foot. The three
of
was the monarch
of the universe, that
They were
values from scratch.
to
Miss Murdoch
his
She
or whatever."
and sees God
dis-
in a particu-
said. "Philippa is in the process
of changing her position."

fully
he constructed
add that the three of them were very
similar. "Elizabeth is Catholic

lar color,"
certainly united
interested in "the reality
man transcendent
that surrounds
went on
them were
view that the human being
in their objection to Hare's
As
for herself, she
had not
worked out her own views, though sometimes she
did find herself agreeing with the Existentialists that

every person was irremediably different from every other.
Would
she perhaps compare the moral philosophy in
England and France,
ment
that she
"Some
asked,
remembering Hare's com-
had read the big books.
of the
French
English philosophers err
Existentialists feel that certain
when
they picture morality as
a matter of consistency with universal rules," she answered. "The Existentialists think that even though you
may
own
endorse the rules society offers you,
it is still
your
The
Exis-
individual choice that you endorse them.
tentialists feel that
you can have a morality without pro-
ducing consistent or explicable rules for your conduct.
They allow
for a
of morality, in
much more
personal and aesthetic kind
which you have
to explain yourself, as
it
were, to your peers."
As she talked on,
much more an
it
became
clear to
intuitive person than
regarded ideas as so
many
me
that she
was
an analytic one, and
precious stones in the
human
The Open Door

diadem. Unlike Hare, she found
diadem locked up
in
Tower
Jewels in the
it
57
hard to imagine the
an ivory tower, or
like the
Crown
"Most English philoso-
of London.
phers," she said, "share certain assumptions of Wittgen-
and Austin. You might want
stein
persons.
to look into
them
as
They were the most extraordinary men among
us."
After saying goodbye to Miss Murdoch,
Magdalen College. There
researches on to
draw out G.
J.
Warnock, who held one
my
carried
intended to
of the keys to the
Austinian legend. This legend was as ubiquitous as the

stained-glass
windows, and
it
might be presumed
to
il-
J.
L.
luminate the dark room of Oxford philosophy, for

Austin,
quest,
who had
died a few months before
had dominated Oxford
in
much
began
my
way
that
the same
Wittgenstein had dominated Cambridge.
In the course
of an Oxford-to-London telephone call, I asked John,
"What was the source
of everyone's veneration of Aus-
more
analytically than unkindly, "Every
tin?"
cult
and he
said,
needs a dead man."
to primitive Christianity,
He
likened the Austinian sect
though he added that he did
not think the worshippers would ever be blessed with

a
St.
Paul.
As
it
happened,
tures, just
had attended one
out of curiosity, while
and had been entranced by

at,
he was a
desiccated
tall
don.
of Austin's lec-
was an undergraduate,
his performance.
and thin man, a
sort of
To
look
parody on the
His face suggested an osprey.
His
58
voice
was
and
flat
metallic,
a note of disillusion.
ing by
It
The day
itself.
was
like a
He
lem of Knowledge."
then he began taking

this?"
He
read
it
it
in a convincing
that you cannot trust your senses,

He
were much more frequent than
when people saw
way, and
"What does he mean
passage about people's having illusions
if
said that the
made
in fact
a stick in water and
it
this
it
was
sound
was
as
looked bent,
they were inevitably deceived into thinking that

tually
his
heavily on Ayer's argument
because they are sometimes mistaken.
if it
opened
present, he
to bits:
down
bore
with regard to illusion
as
be stuck on
to
telephone speak-
by reading aloud a page from Ayer's "The Prob-
lecture
by
and seemed
sounded
it
ac-
bent. Austin turned around to the blackboard
and, leaning forward, drew a sort of triangle with a thin,
crooked
stick.
us.
stick in
"What
it.
is this
"A cocktail
He
a cherry at the end of the
supposed
to be?"
he asked, facing
And he drew a stem and

"How many of you think
glass?"
asking as he did
bucket?"
He added
so,
lectured in a
deadpan
room with Ayer's deceived men,
all
a foot,
it
is
voice, peopling the
of
whom would
the glass to be a bucket. This was Austin's
way
take
of say-
ing that no more people were deceived by Ayer's stick

in the
water than by the glass on the blackboard, that
Ayer's argument about the fallibility of the senses
much
less
what the
cogent than he
out,
and that most of
logical positivists called illusions
a madman's delusions.
like this
made
day
after day,
was
was
were
told that Austin
in fact
performed
mocking, ridiculing, caricaturing,
The Open Door
work
exaggerating, never flagging in his
59
of demolition,
while the skeptical undergraduates watched, amused and
bemused, for behind the performance

there
was the voice
the
legend
of distilled intelligence.
trenchant remarks on philosophers would
Austin's
make
a small
volume of cherished quotations, and among them would

surely
W.
be a clerihew he wrote on the Harvard logician
V. Quine:
Everything done by Quine
Is just fine.
When
All
we want
To
fossick
is
to
be
left alone,
around on our own.
arrived at Magdalen,
found Warnock read-
ing the bulletin board in the porter's lodge.

slightly
looked
younger than Hare, and was round-faced and
went with round-rimmed
rather tweedy; his appearance

glasses,
He
though he didn't have any glasses on.
He
was,
however, wearing a rather nice, formal V-shaped smile.

Yes, he
was expecting me, he
to the Senior
said,
Common Room
for lunch.
the custodian of Austin's papers, but
of Christ
we
didn't talk about
Once we were
in the S.C.R., I asked
lightning attack he
and Dr. David Pears,
Austin right away.
him about the
me straight
Wamock was
and took
Church College, had made on Gellner and
Watkins in a discussion on the B.B.C. Third Programme

in 1957.
After Gellner's polemical book appeared, some
of his detractors
had claimed
that this broadcast
had
provided him with both the motive and the cue for writing
it
that when
the articulate Oxford pair defeated
6o
the less articulate Gellner and his
satellite,
Watkins, the
made Watkins sulk and Gellner write. "I

wish I'd known that that little rapping of the knuckles
would lead to the big storm," Warnock said. "Gellner
defeat had
a rather sensitive chap."
is
show even
been
told that
favorites,
and
had not expected him
much sympathy
this
Warnock was one
of Austin's
knew Austin was one
to
had
for Gellner, for I
two or three
of Gellner's
main
targets.
The lunch was a communal

general conversation, and
nock out
until
it
Fellows settled
aged
was time
down
to their
Warnock needed no
back and
an occasion for
was not able
to
when
draw War-
all
the other
newspapers and
we man-
for coffee,
to find a corner to ourselves.
Austin,
affair,
Once
had mentioned
further urging.
just sat
listened.
"Like Wittgenstein," he said, "Austin was a genius,
but Wittgenstein
fitted the
popular picture of a genius.
Austin, unfortunately, did not. Nevertheless, he did suc-
ceed in haunting most of the philosophers in England,
and
to his colleagues
gence was never at
up
in the night
it
seemed that
rest.
Many
of
his terrifying intelli-
them used
to
wake
with a vision of the stringy, wiry Austin
standing over their pillow like a bird of prey. Their daylight hours
were no
better.
They would write some
osophical sentences and then read
them over
phil-
as Austin
might, in an expressionless, frigid voice, and their blood
would run
cold.
Some
of
them were
so intimidated
by
the mere fact of his existence that they weren't able to
publish a single article during his lifetime."
The Open Door

Austin's all-consuming passion
went
sects,
He
and
of reading books
thought of words as
which needed
belled,
to
61
was language, Warnock
and he was endlessly fond
on,
on grammar.
be grouped,
if
they were in-
classified,
and
was not put
just as the entomologist
la-
off
by
the fact that there were countless insects, so the existence

of thousands of words, Austin thought, should not be a
deterrent to a lexicographer-philosopher. "Austin,"
nock
acts'
said,
"wanted philosophers
these
War-
to classify these 'speech
promises, prayers, hopes, commendations."
In Austin's view, most philosophers in the past had
stumbled on some original ideas and had spent their

time producing a few illustrative examples for their
theories,
and then
as soon as they
were
safely
dead other
philosophers would repeat the process with slightly different original ideas.
This practice had frozen philoso-
phy from the beginning

cumulative
state.
of time into an unscientific, non-
Austin wanted to thaw the ice of ages,
by unflagging application
of the intellect,
and make
philosophy a cumulative science, thus enabling one philosopher to pick up where his predecessor had
"He envisaged the future
task of philosophers as the
compilation of a super-grammar
sible functions of
words
left off.
and
this
catalogue of
all
was perhaps why he
enjoyed reading grammar books so much/' Warnock
"He was extremely
pos-
rigid in pursuit of details,
said.
and he had
the patience and efficiency needed for this difficult task.

If
he had not died
know
his detailed
ful things."
at forty-eight
he
work might have
had cancer, you
led to
some beauti-
62
"Was Austin influenced by Wittgenstein?"

"Oh, no," Warnock said quickly. "In all
papers there
I
is
no evidence that he ever
do remember one or two of
asked.
of Austin's
really read him.
his lectures in
which he
read a page or two of Wittgenstein aloud, but
how
always to show
it
was
incomprehensible and obscure the
how
Austrian philosopher was, and
easily
he could be
parodied and dismissed."

I
to
was getting worried by the
fact that I
admire Austin as a man, and
things about
him
said,
was supposed
"Were there some
were human?"
that
"Oh, yes," said Warnock, with a smile that indicated a

faint
my question. "He was one

He taught us all absolute ac-
donnish disapproval of
of the best teachers here.
curacy."
I
repeated
"He
really
quietly.
One
"It
my
question in a slightly different form.
was a very unhappy man," Warnock
worried him that he hadn't written much.
lecture, 'Ifs
and Cans,' which appeared
ceedings of the British
but
few
it is
Academy
in 1956,
in the Pro-
became famous,
mainly a negative work, and he published very
articles and, significantly,
read, of course
an
gins of everything he
queries,
said
went over were
and condemnations.
to give the
not a single book.
He
enormous amount and the mar-
When
filled
he went
with notes,
to
Harvard
William James lectures, in 1955, he took
everyone there by surprise.
Because he hadn't written
anything, they expected his lectures to be thin, for they
judged the worth of scholars according to their big books.
The Open Door
From
was
63
his very first lecture they realized that his reading
To add
staggering.
of microphones,
and
to his writing block,
this
ing, like Sir Isaiah Berlin; this
happiness.
began
He
to peter
was another source
of un-
took enormous pride in teaching, but this
out in his
last years,
had reached the summit of
ward the end
he had a fear
prevented him from broadcast-
of his
life,
and go permanently
Berkeley, where he
when he
felt that
he decided
to
pack up
to the University of California in
had once been a
visiting professor
and where he thought he'd have more influence

teacher.
To-
his influence at Oxford.
therefore,
he
as a
But before he could get away from Oxford, he
died."
Warnock was
in the
editing Austin's papers,

of
middle of straightening out and
and he
bad undergraduate essays
his tutor at Balliol.
told
me
there were scores
that Austin
had written
"These essays were of
little
for
value be-
cause his philosophy tutor set him useless subjects," War-
nock
said.
It
was probably
his education at his public
school, Shrewsbury, rather than at Balliol, that got

his Firsts, the
Magdalen
essays, his papers included only
two
him
Besides the bad
tutor thought.
sets of lectures
one on perception, the other the William James addresses.
But both of them were in note form, and would not
much more
had
total
when Warnock
sentences. Warnock was
than eighty thousand words
finished turning
them
worried by his task of
into
filling
out his master's lectures.
If,
by some miracle, the Austin- Warnock composition did
add up
to a
hundred thousand words, then the publishers
64
might be persuaded
some volumes.
to bring out the
work
in
two hand-
Otherwise, there would be only one
posthumous book, along with the few published

as a record of Austin's genius.
(Some time
articles,
later,
the
Oxford University Press brought out a small book,

"Sense and Sensibilia," by Austin, reconstructed from
manuscript notes by Warnock. )

his
many devoted
pupils,
There were, of course,
and they would commemorate
him.
Austin's family
"He married a
life, I
pupil,
learned,
had been conventional.
"He was a good husband and
said.
daughter,
Warnock
and had four children,"

a
good
His
father.
now eighteen, is about to come up to Oxford;

who is seventeen, is going to do engineer-
his elder son,
ing.
and
The
is
boy of fourteen,
third child, a
about to go up to
and looks very much
my
like Austin,
hopes for him. The youngest child

It
was time
porter's lodge
to go,
and
with me,
as
is
very clever,
He
school, Winchester.
talks
and we have great

is
girl."
Warnock walked out
to the
asked him a bit about himself.
Unlike most of the other philosophers about, he had not

read Greats straightway.
bination of
nomics
modern philosophy,
before
cial
Sir Isaiah Berlin,
and
Political
managed
political science,
com-
and eco-
He had been very fortunate in

now Chichele Professor of So-
Theory, for his tutor, and also in having
a philosopher for his wife.
gether
P.P.E.
going on to a year of Greats and a prize
fellowship at Magdalen.
having
He had done
She and Warnock had
to-
the Jowett Society (for undergraduate
The Open Door
65
philosophers ) , and they had decided to get married after
they were officers emeritus.

free will
fire.
be able
called after
me was
to see Strawson.
you some more about Austin," he
to tell
me, waving.
walked back
to
my
old college, where I'd been given
up
a guest room, to pick
my
mail,
and was delighted
from John, who had an uncanny
find a letter
never failing me; he seemed to sense

I
writing a book on
one of the oldest chestnuts in the philosophical
His parting injunction to
"He'll
He was
my
gift
to
of
questions before
could put them. Just as Oxford philosophy, in his words,
"made a technique
of being non-technical,"
a technique of helping his friends

effort.
It
me up
cheered
John made
without apparent
to find out that his
impatience
with philosophy did not extend to his friend's researches.
He
said that I shouldn't miss
not only
is
is
Austin, he
at
"He
the best philosopher in the university but
also unrivalled as a teacher of
new
discovering
seeing Strawson.
it,"
John wrote. "He's
stars in the philosophical firmament."
went on, had
his equal in Strawson; indeed,
one meeting of the exclusive Aristotelian Society,
creme de
la
crime of
all
philosophical societies, Straw-
son had roundly defeated Austin in a disputation about
Truth
truth that Austin
Next day,
had never acknowledged.
waited for P. F. Strawson, Fellow of Uni-
versity College, Oxford, in his Senior
Strawson,
and
who
is
Common Room.
considered by both undergraduates
his colleagues to
be the most high-powered and
ere-
66
ative philosopher in England, arrived just a
greeted
I
me
He had
apologetically.
and
blue eyes with what
took to be a permanently worried expression, and, at
forty-one, looked like an elderly

I
little late
asked him to
did, in a
tell
me
little
bit
young man. At lunch,

about himself, which he
modest fashion that by now
had stopped
He had been
sociating with philosophers.
as-
schooled in
Finchley, a suburb of London, he said, and he
had read
Greats about the same time as Hare, Miss Murdoch, Miss
Anscombe, Warnock. His
career, like theirs,
had been
interrupted by the war, the close of which found
teaching in Wales.
was
"I didn't
until I got there,"
he
said.
know what
him
provincialism
He had been
delighted to
get an appointment to Oxford, partly because Oxford
had more philosophy

university.
This,
in
its
curriculum than any other
he explained, was the reason that a
philosophy planted in Cambridge had flowered at Oxford.
Cambridge now had only two eminent philosophers
John Wisdom
and R. B. Braithwaite while Oxford
was swarming with them. Without the buzz-buzz, there

would be no philosophy, he
said; the university
would
be a hive minus the honey.

After lunch, as
felt I
the
climbed up the steps to his room,
was leaving the Oxford
of lost causes behind
way he moved suggested subdued
by the window, and
was aware
for
some
confidence.
time, as
we
me
We sat
talked,
of the acrobatic motions of Strawson's legs,
which were now wrapped around one of the

a writing table and
now
slung
over
legs of
another chair.
The Open Door
We
many
talked about other philosophers as so
outside preying on the insects that Austin had
them.
I felt I'd
window
the
sill
67
birds
dug up
reached the augur of philosophy.
were lying the proofs
"Philosophy in
for
On
of an article called
England," which was stamped "Times
Literary Supplement, Special Issue on the British Imag-
Strawson admitted that he was the author of
ination."
the
anonymous
for
some
and while he went
piece,
to telephone
with his permission, at the
coffee, I glanced,
paragraph:
first
An
Australian philosopher, returning in i960 to the center
more than a decade,

He had
which every new move was
of English philosophy after an absence of
remarked on, and regretted, the change he found.

a revolutionary situation in
left
delightfully subversive
that,
and
liberating.
though the subject appeared
still
He
to
returned to find
be confidently and
energetically cultivated, the revolutionary ferment
subsided.
Where
there
had been,
eral
and triumphant movement
now
number
of individuals
and ends, often
interests
When
in
seemed
it
had quite
to him, a gen-
one direction, there were
and groups pursuing divergent
in a relatively traditional
Strawson had returned to his chair,
manner.
asked him
whether he agreed with the Australian philosopher.
that "the view of the
said
he did
was
essentially right."
For a
Australian philosopher
fuller statement of his
conclusions, he modestly directed

at the
end of
Even
ful
in the
whether
ents
it
He
me
to the
own
summary
his article:
heyday of the
linguistic
numbered among
more than a
its
movement,
it is
doubt-
adherents or semi-adher-
substantial minority of British philosophers.
68
It
was associated primarily with one place
there
it
centered around one
man Austin
Oxford and
its
most
explicit
advocate and most acute and wholehearted practitioner.
heyday was
write
its
When
short.
own
history,
impetus has been
lost;
Its
movement begins
a revolutionary
to
something
at least of its revolutionary
and
appearance of "The Revolu-
in the
tion in Philosophy" [by A.
J.
Ayer,
Paul, D. F. Pears, P. F. Strawson, G.
W.
J.
C. Kneale, G. A.
Warnock, and R. A.
Wollheim, with an introduction by Gilbert Ryle, 1956]

and of G. J. Warnock's "English Philosophy since 1900"
.
(1958) there were signs that eyes were being lifted from the
immediate task, indications of pause and change. Indeed,
the pull of generality
was
felt
by Austin
himself,
he died, was beginning to work out a general

theory of acts of linguistic communication.
who, before
classificatory
It is still
too early
what definite directions change will take. In spite of

the work of Ayer, who never attached value to the linguistic
idea, and who, in his most recent book, "The Problem of
Knowledge" (1956), continued to uphold a traditional empiricism with unfailing elegance and skill, it seems unlikely
that he or others will work much longer in the vein. There
to say
are portents, however, of a very different kind.
One
pearance of a persuasive study entitled "Hegel:

nation" (1958),
by
J.
Action" (1959), with

of mind,
the ap-
N. Findlay. Hampshire's "Thought and

its
linking of epistemology, philosophy
and moral philosophy,
is
highly indicative of a trend
from piecemeal studies towards bolder syntheses;
how
is
Re-exami-
it
shows
the results of recent discussions can be utilized in a con-
struction with both Hegelian
and Spinozistic
affinities.
Straw-
(1959) suggests a scaled-down Kantianism, pared of idealism on the one hand and a particular con-
son's "Individuals"
ception of physical science on the other.

logic
and language takes on a tauter
tone in the work of logicians
who
line
The philosophy
of
and a more formal
derive their inspiration
The Open Door
69
mainly from Frege. Finally, some of the most successful work

of the period has
been
in the philosophy of
mind; and
it
seems reasonable to suppose that further studies will follow

of Mind"
(1949), Wittgenstein's
(1953), and Miss Anscombe's "Intention"
(1957) and that, in them, Ryle's explicit and Wittgenstein's
upon
"Concept
Ryle's
"Investigations"
be refined and
had reason enough to
implicit suggestions of systematization will
The
reassessed.
Australian philosopher
When
claim that he found a changed situation.

of this fact of
bitually
change
comment on
nificant first-hand
placency
it is
may be
finally filters
knowledge
through to those
who
ha-
the state of philosophy without any sig-
acquaintance with
expected.
it,
reactions
com-
of
In the anticipated face of these
worth reaffirming that the gains and advances made
in
war were probably
as
the dozen years which followed the
made
A new
great as any which have been
in
in the history of the subject.
level of refinement
an equivalent period
and
accuracy in conceptual awareness has been reached, and an
method has been
established
which
augur to divine in more detail the
flights
addition to philosophical
will,
or should, be permanent.
my
wanted
of the philosophical birds,
was
and asked him
to tell
me what
next.
"Fifteen years ago," he began, with a
"we were perhaps
over-confident,
nod
to the past,
and dismissed the
problems of the great thinkers of the past as mere verbal

confusions.
It
was
right after the war,
and we were
mesmerized by Wittgenstein and Austin."

still
under
five years
their spell,
Some were
he continued, but within the
most had wandered out of the magic
"Was the
Russell
and Gellner charge of
last
circle.
sterility
in
70
philosophy applicable, then, only to the

the war?"
He
me
after
asked.
thought
he
so,
said, adding,
"They are thinking of
things like Austin's Saturday mornings."

tell
decade
first
He went on
that these meetings admitted only Fellows,
to
no
professors or others senior to Austin. Austin and his pet
colleagues whiled
away
tinguishing shades of
tions of
words
like
their Saturday
was very
fertile
this
method,
sterile
with Austin," Strawson
with anyone
said,
apparently not for Sir Isaiah Berlin and Stuart
approach was uncongenial to him, and

genius lay in breathing
Most
up
life
"though
Hamp-
because the whole
Sir Isaiah didn't last very long,
shire.
dis-
"rules," "regulations," "principles,"
"maxims," "laws." "Even

else,
mornings by
meaning and the exact applica-
in
any case
his
into the history of ideas.
of the other brilliant philosophers, however, turned
This was perhaps what gave Oxford
regularly."
philosophy some sort of unity in the eyes of
its critics,
Strawson thought, but they overlooked the fact that on
weekdays Austin did encourage (with

do research
ology.
of his
in perception
"Even on
life,
his
in
results) people to
psychology and physi-
Saturday mornings, toward the end
he was coming around
to
more general
sorts
of questions," Strawson added, waggling his feet on the

table.
He
then echoed a sentiment I'd heard again and
men in
the present, we are
traditional way of
again at Oxford: "Austin was one of the kindest

the university."
now
He went
rediscovering our
doing philosophy.
Ryle
on, "As for
way
is
to the
composing a book on Plato
The Open Door
and
Aristotle,
will,
Warnock
is
and I'm writing a
everything was
now
71
reworking the problem of free
volume on Kant." Thus,
little
and he imagined that the
in ferment,
future might hold a philosophical synthesis chiselled and
shaped with
linguistic tools.
Strawson's scout brought in some coffee, and both of
us sipped
it
gratefully. I spent the
remaining time piecing
He
together Strawson's intellectual biography.

early
fifties
which he
logic
spent the
writing "Introduction to Logical Theory," in
tried to explode Russell's theory that formal
was the road
to a perfect,
unmessy language. Logic
was simple and ordinary language was complex, Strawson maintained in this work, and therefore neither could
supplant the other. But
it
was
really his "Individuals,"
published in 1959, that contained his present views.
devoted the second half of the

distinctions presented in
viduals,' "
he
to
fifties
He
working out the
"Individuals."
"In
my
'Indi-
said, "instead of analyzing the language, I
ask what the necessary conditions of language are. Like
Kant,
reach the conclusion that objects exist in space
and time, and that our language
is
derived from them,
rather than the objects from the language. This enables
me
to state that the concept of a person precedes the
idea of
mind and body
includes
mind and body, before we think
or body.
Through
dualistic
problem
entities,
that we think of a person, which
this
concept of persons
how mind
can interact on each
and body,
other.
think of myself as an objective person
of either
mind
solve the old
if
two separate
answer that
which
can
subsumes
72
both mind and body

other persons. In
in the
It is
when
my
same sense
postulate the existence of
view, people's existence
that, for
example, this table
hard because everyone agrees that
does not
whether
make any
it is
sense to say This
But
really hard.
objective
is
if
not
is
hard.
is
hard, and
it is
so,'
it
or to ask
everyone had a different
opinion about whether this table was hard or not, the

fact of the table's hardness would, for that very reason,
cease to be objective, and one would have to speak in
some such terms

table.'
as
1 have
the peculiar sense of this
people had peculiar senses of the table,
If
would deprive the table
holds for existence generally.
For the existence of any-
thing would be a private experience
agree about
it.
In
my
ment about the hard

the table
exists.
the hard table
people didn't
if
'Individuals' I establish that agree-
table
But the
we
it
This argument
of existence.
is
tantamount to saying that
sort of objectivity
we
ascribe to
cannot quite ascribe to pain, for ex-
ample, because people do not agree about other people's

pain,
If
and people do not
they did,
same way
less, I
am
By now,
we
that
feel pain all at the
same
time.
should be able to talk about pain in the
we
talk
about the hard table. Nonethe-
able to establish that pain

his legs
is
objective."
were completely entangled with those
of the hard table, but
it
was quite
clear to
me
that
he was
one thing and the hard table another, and that both of
them (hard table more than he) were

also quite clear to
me
that
if
objective.
men were no
It
was
longer just
clockwork machines, or Pavlov's dogs with ivory-tower
"
The Open Door

bells ringing for their intellectual food,
(
or the
which
mind )
son's "Individuals"
discarded forever
my
73
then metaphysics
until the publication of Straw-
Oxford philosophers thought they had
was now
back in the picture. With
the edifying thought that I had a

objective as
body,
took
mind
my leave
some sense
in
as
of the scaled-down
Kant.
returned to
my
he had come up
college
to consult
the Bodleian Library.
down on
and found John
some
classical
Once beer was
in its buttery;
manuscripts in
served,
we
settled
a bench in a corner.
"I don't really
smiling, "but
my
want
to talk
your subject," John
said,
curiosity has got the better of me."
come from Strawson," I said. "He explained

notions about mind and body, but I did find
"I've just
to
me
them
"As
his
difficult.
I told
What do you
think about them?"
you in London," he began, reluctantly but
good-humoredly,
"I
only
skimmed the second
half of
'Individuals.'
"Yes, yes," I said.
"Go
"The ideas contained

history,"
know
John
said.
on."
in Individuals'
have a very long
"Without going into
all
of
it,
you
that in the thirties Wittgenstein talked a lot about
the problem of
mind and body. His
pupils kept elaborate
authorized notes, which were only recently published as
'The Blue and
Brown
Books.' It
that Ryle brought out his 'The
galled Wittgenstein very
was during
his lifetime
Concept of Mind,' which
much, since
it
contained
many
74
Ryle had reached most of his
of his unpublished ideas.
conclusions independently, but this did not assuage old
Wittgenstein,
who had
allowed himself to be beaten at
the publishing game."
John swallowed some beer and then fumbled
in several
As he
pockets for tobacco, pipe cleaner, and matches.

pipe, he
his
filled
"Would you
of
like to
blew a question
my
in
know something about
direction:
'The Concept
Mind?"
would, especially since Ryle, for personal rea-
I said I
was unable
sons,
me. "Well,
to see
it is
a great
has had enormous influence," John said.
Ryle talks about the question 'What

also talks,
more
what he
rather,
caricatures as, 'die
The
had maintained
plain,
a body
Pavlov's
dogma
behaviorists,
that there
dogs
"In this book,
knowledge?' and
about what he
significantly,
in the Machine.'"
is
work and
and
calls,
or,
of the Ghost
he went on to
ex-
was no mind but only
that all statements
sup-
posedly about the mind were covertly about the body.
For them, thinking came down

the larynx, for
move,
as
if
when you
to
merely a movement of
think you can feel your throat
you were talking
to yourself.
Ryle became
convinced that the behaviorists had not conquered the

classic
problem of the mind and the body, and went on
to ask the classic question of
to the
pain,
body how
how do
gets from the
When
the two halves meet.
I get, say,
sensing a pain; or
how
how one
when
mind
I feel
from the pinched nerve ends

I
am
revolted
does, say, the sulphur applied to
by a bad
my
a
to
smell,
nostrils find its
The Open Door
way
my mind?
to the inside of
Mind," Ryle,
monly held
dismissed the com-
consists of
mind and the body, the body being

audible, tastable, touchable,
being
and smellable, and the mind
He
touchable, and unsmellable.
two halves, the
material, or visible,
or invisible, inaudible, untastable, un-
spiritual,
caricatured this dualism
Ghost in the Machine. The Ghost-in-the-Machine
as the
men
thought that
flash,"
when one
one was referring
acts, unlike
said "I feel a pain" or "I see
to a private
mental
by the person who performed them.
agreeing with the behaviorists, said that in fact

perfectly well whether other people
and know
things
things,"
know how
my
so on, but just
means
me
it.
can read
mind,
that
if
we know
"You
his actions.
invisible, inaudible,
you put a book
tell
If I
and
in front of
That kind of thing. There's a whole
series of potential statements that
Ryle's
"Ryle,
to read,' this doesn't say anything about
the private state of
such
want things and hate
John continued.
whether someone knows something by

'I
act;
the movements of the body, were not veri-
fiable except
say
among
formulated by Descartes,
human person
others, that the
75
In "The Concept of
like the behaviorists,
theory,
expression
at
will.
can thus be 'unpacked'
Ryle reached the trium-
phant conclusion that there are not two parts to the person but, rather, one entity, which
body. This conclusion

doesn't recognize any
plus.
is
not quite
mind
is
well,
it's
not just
behaviorism which
but posits
a machine with a
As always, though, various people were soon
satisfied
as dis-
with Ryle as he had been with the behaviorists,
j6
and
had been with Descartes' Ghost-
as the behaviorists
my
in-the-Machine man. For
supposed
clear what's
Mind,' except that

in the
mean
never been very
be wrong with 'The Concept of
myself do believe that there
machine and
without one.
to
part, I've
I realize
is
a ghost
do not see how you can get on

that this attitude
disreputable.
is
absolutely disreputable, not just unprofessional,
for today
my
belief
would be considered
full of logical
lacunae."
Because
wanted John
to
Ryle and Strawson before

philosophical fog in
my
make
"The Concept"
I lost
mind,
a connection between
miserate with him but pressed on.
improve on Ryle?"
"Strawson
is
in the
pause to com-
didn't
"How
does Strawson
asked.
very good in
this,
because he
tries to pre-
serve something from Descartes, on the one hand, and
behaviorism revised by Ryle, on the other," John
"He
says that
word
you
'thinking'
mental and
its
can't understand the
unless
meaning
said.
of the
you can understand both
its
physical aspects. Take pain, for example.
Descartes would have said that pain was only a mental

occurrence;
the behaviorists, with modifications from
Ryle, said that pain
ping up and
was mere physical behavior
down and going
'Ow!' or something like
that.
But Strawson says that you
word
'pain' unless
can't
you understand both

(
since both other people
and
and since both
understand the
its
aspects:
(1)
2 ) the f eeling of pain; and that
the hopping around and
in pain,
hop-
hop around when we are
also feel
it,
pain
is
checkable,
is,
The Open Door

in a
and other people), he
all
(which
the philosophers here are niggling at one or two
on persons, because most of
logical flaws in his chapter
them
who
in turn includes one-
able to add further pluses
is
Strawson's on to something new,
machine.
to the old
but
77
way, objective. Thus, by including both these aspects
in the concept of 'persons'

self
still
tend to cling to behaviorism. There's one chap
carries behaviorism to such
that even to
dream
tell stories in
the morning."
John rose
closes,"
he
"One
or
is
to go. "I
an extreme that he says
merely to acquire a disposition to
must get
to the Bodleian before
it
said.
two minutes more, John,"
begged, and he ac-
cepted another half pint.
John told
me
a few things about Ryle.
He came from
a family of clerical dignitaries, and this probably ex-
He was
plained his anticlericalism.

ginal public school"
and
at
educated in a "mar-
Queen's College, Oxford.
He
read both Greats and P.P.E., with enormous success, and
managed
at the
same time
to
be on the rowing crew.
The Senior Common Room atmosphere any Common
Room would do fitted him
like a glove.
liked drinking beer with his fellow-men.

to dislike intellectual matters
for reading,
He
He
and publicized
essentially
pretended
his distaste
but he had been known to reveal encyclo-
pedic knowledge of Fielding and Jane Austen.
He
loved
gardening, and he also loved going to philosophical conventions,
where
his
charm
overwhelmed
everyone.
Young philosophers swarmed round him and he was
too
"
78
He was
kind to them.
he would have been a
a perfect Victorian gentleman;
duck
sitting
on
Matthew Arnold's
he actually was for Gell-
criticism of Philistinism, just as

ner's attack
for
"Once, Ryle saw Isaiah
idle philosophy.
Berlin coming from a performance of Bach's B-Minor
Mass
"Berlin
was
absorbed by the moving experience he had
just
in the Sheldonian Theatre,"
totally
John
said.
undergone.
Ryle shouted to him across Broad
Isaiah, have
you been
John put down
he
go,"
said.
"I
listening to
mug and
his
some tunes
stood up. "I really must
hope you won't assume from
picture of Ryle that I don't like him.
my
don't share his distrust of imagination.
He
tion.
said that
that could
it
simply
You know, Hume
works
all his
was only a peculiar
to the imagina-
faculty of
mind
combine primary experiences, enabling one
picture centaurs
much
space in
little
hasty
Actually, he's a
very lovable man, and a highly intelligent one.
devoted very
Street,
again?'
and mermaids.
the same conception.
many
dane, like so
His
to
Well, Ryle has very
own images
are
mun-
gateposts, firm in the ground." John
waved and departed.
My
next call was at Professor Ayer's rooms, in
College.
had
He was
risen to greet
terribly
was
sitting at his desk, writing,
and
me, he
"Would you
said, rather grandly,
mind waiting a
paragraph of
recent,
my
bit?
address."
and he
augural lecture.
New
still
I sat
he
I'm just writing the last
His professorship at Oxford
had
down
after
to
deliver his public in-
across
from the philosopher
The Open Door

at work.
His whole appearance was very
was a rather small man, with a

slightly
striking.
fine, triangular
hooked nose. His curly
79
He
face and a
hair, turning silver gray,
was beautifully brushed; he seemed
to
have
just
come
out of a barbershop, and had a sort of glamorous sheen
had not theretofore met up with among the
that I
phers.
He was
back in
smoking not a pipe but a
And now,
long holder.
his chair
cigarette, in a
instead of writing, he
and impatiently twisting
philoso-
was leaning
his hands.
He
looked rather self-consciously thoughtful. Then he leaned
forward and started writing rapidly, and a few moments

later
he laid down
my
have written
birdlike voice,
his pen.
"There!" he exclaimed.
last sentence."
"I
Talking in a somewhat
he explained that
his lecture
surveyed
postwar philosophy in England and interpreted the

philosophical handwriting on the wall. If one thought of
philosophers as idealists and
out
and
had
realists,
the idealists were
been since the demise of Josiah Royce
F. H. Bradley (1924).
thus lacked a
soft,
The army
1916)
of philosophers
or idealist, wing, though
it
did have
marginal people like Hare, Foot, and Anscombe.
Its
tough wing was made up of Wittgenstein, Wisdom, Austin,
Ryle, Strawson,
and Ayer himself, with
positivism. "But then,"

sional to talk
Ayer chirped,
"it's
his logical
very unprofes-
about philosophers as tough or tender, dry
The whole idea is

He would leave all that out
or wet.
quite absurd, quite absurd."

of his final draft, he said.
We had a quick drink and then walked out of his beautiful college
and up Catte
Street
and down the High
to
8o
On the
the Mitre Hotel for some dinner.
which philosophers
too,"
is,
he
said.
way,
"Hampshire
is
told
had met. "A very good
it
the only other one
were you." Hampshire had
Oxford
wouldn't miss
if I
to take Ayer's
former chair at London University.
don't
you catch the
train with
ning?" Ayer suggested.
Ayer
selection
me
to
left
London
"I honestly think
"Why
this eve-
more Oxford
philosophers will simply mix you up."

I
said I
We
would think about
it
over dinner.
were soon dining, and during the meal
something about Ayer.
born of foreign parentage

father French-Swiss
his
and
learned
mother was Dutch,
his
the father, like Berlin's, had
been a timber merchant. "Though

successful
Like the great Berlin, he was
Isaiah's father
was
timber merchant, mine wasn't," he added,
playing with a silver watch chain and smiling. Ayer had
been a scholar
at Eton.
Church
most of
in 1929;
He had come up
his
rather undistinguished and

like the late thirties,
of undergraduates,"
of
its
my
to
Christ
Oxford contemporaries were
had been
which were
forgotten. "It wasn't
really the vintage years
Ayer explained. "Oxford owes many
Some of
Left Wing
great philosophers to the prewar harvest.
friends, post-university acquisitions, are
playwrights and novelists
I mean
people like John Os-
borne, Kingsley Amis, and John Wain.
I just like their
way of living, and perhaps this explains

why I find London much more exciting than Oxford
also, incidentally, why people sometimes connect me with
the so-called Left Wing Establishment. As for my intersociety
and
their
The Open Door

ests, I
the
rather like rereading old novels.
new
ones
when
they're written
love being on television and
think the B.B.C.
me
invite
only go through
by people
love watching
know.
it,
and
once every
at least
like
six
weeks
to lecture or to
'Panorama' and 'Tonight.'
stepdaughter, Gully, and

actually don't think
my
my
my
work every
'The
enjoy them very much.
subject
six
my
Both
television discussions interfere
philosophy, because
a four-hour day on
sophical
do
show those wonderful Westerns
Brains Trust,' and they
with
a wonderful institution. They used to
is
appear on the intellectual discussion program,
and programs
81
worked
consistently
if
could produce a philo-
months.
Though
came
to
philosophy from Greats, as almost everyone here did
for
that matter,
Russell,
all
recent English philosophers except
Wittgenstein, and Strawson were
and Latin
scholars
language
first
Greek
qua language has never
been a great passion of mine. This makes
me
mentally closer to Russell than to anybody
temperaelse,
and
probably rather a freak at Oxford."
By
the end of dinner, I
had decided
to catch the train
He had a first-class return ticket, so I

we had a big carriage to ourselves. He
with Ayer.
joined
him, and
pulled
Amis's "Take a Girl Like You" out of his briefcase and

laid
it
beside him, and then he put his legs
opposite and asked me, with a
little
up on the
smile,
if I
seat
had any
burning philosophical puzzles.

I said I really felt I
ject,
was steaming away from the sub-
but perhaps he could separate Wittgenstein and
82
Austin for me, since they had

like
now
got linked in
my mind
Siamese twins.
"Wittgenstein was interested in fundamental philosophical problems, Austin in language for
Ayer
said.
guist, in
its
own
sake,"
"Yet Austin, despite Gellner, was not a
any ordinary sense of the word; he was not
ested in etymology or in the growth of language.

plied himself only to the function of words."
that there
was some
for Austin
was an impersonal
was
genstein
He
lin-
inter-
He
ap-
agreed
truth in the view that philosophy

investigation but for Witt-
intensely personal.
Indeed, Wittgenstein
thought of himself as a living philosophical problem. "I

think that before you finish your researches, you ought to
read
Norman Malcolm's memoir
said.
"The book
is
in a sense a piece of destructive hag-
iography; the genre
any
case,
it's
Ayer
of Wittgenstein,"
is
hardly a model for anyone
not well written
but
it
in
does incidentally
reveal a few things about the saint of postwar philos-
ophy."
Ayer
also
said
that Wittgenstein
often
made
friends not because of their intellectual gifts but because
of their moral qualities, so that
around about him were a

thirties little
side
some
little
of the stories passed
fuzzy.
Until the middle
was known about Wittgenstein's ideas
Cambridge, for
out-
to give his teaching continuity
he
preferred the same band of disciples year after year.
And
although some of his students' lecture notes were
authorized and circulated, his ideas of the thirties were

available only to the elect until the posthumous publi-
cation of his "Blue and
Brown Books."
Wittgenstein's
The Open Door

pupils were very remarkable for their intelligence
83
and
sometimes for their reproduction of the Master's mannerisms.
His eccentricity was contagious, and few people
came
in contact
which
his habits,
ways
with him without acquiring a touch of

fitted
him, as a genius, but did not
who were
suit others,
just great intellectuals.
al-
His
most conspicuously distinguished pupil was Wisdom but
him was Miss Anscombe, whose
the closest to
of
translations
enough
his
in themselves to earn her a place in the English
Wittgenstein had a patho-
pantheon of philosophers.
logical fear that his ideas
who
brilliant
German works would have been
would be perverted by anyone
did not understand them
fully.
Although Ayer had
never been a pupil of Wittgenstein's, once he had pieced

together a statement of Wittgenstein's current ideas and
published
the
it
Polemic in the
in
forties.
Cambridge philosopher, and
"He had
snarling hostility.
Ayer
This had enraged
for a while
he showed a
that side to his character also,"
said.
Ayer picked up "Take a Girl Like You" and started

leafing
through
'Lucky Jim,'
work."
night.
The
"
it.
he
train
was
look out the
Ayer seemed very

I
racked
finally
"I don't really think
said.
my
"In
its
it's
as
way, that was a
good
as
first-rate
way through the

window was drowsy-making, but
jerkily jogging its
fresh.
sleepy brain for
some more
questions,
and
asked him whether there was one particular qual-
ity that all
He was
philosophers shared.
thoughtful for a
moment and then
said,
84
"Vanity. Yes, vanity
is
the sine
qua non
of philosophers.
In the sciences, you see, there are established criteria of

truth
and falsehood. In philosophy, except where ques-
tions of formal logic are involved, there are none,
and so
the practitioners are extremely reluctant to admit error.
To come back
to Austin,
feated
to
him
in
no one would deny the
in-
mind, and yet when Strawson de-
cisive quality of Ins
an argument about Truth,
it
never seemed
have once crossed Austin's mind that he was the van-
quished.
To
take another example, Russell attacks Straw-
son as though he were just another Oxford philosopher,
without reading him carefully.

Russell has a right to
without reading
it."
make up
Some
But perhaps
his
at his
age
mind about a book

were vain
of the philosophers
not only about their thoughts but about their personal in-
Ayer added. Wittgenstein dominated
fluence,
his classes,
and, of course, Austin was an absolute dictator at his
Saturday mornings.
"Is there
anything like those groups now?"
"Well, I've just organized one," Ayer said.
Thursday evenings, but

relaxed
way than
hope
we do
asked.
"We meet
things in a
more
either Austin or Wittgenstein did." His
Thursday meetings were very informal, he explained.

There was no preordained leader, but
to
make
sion effective only a handful of philosophers

to
join in.
Disputation took place after dinner over
whiskey or beer, and

for the term.
"Truth'
The
may be
coming back
the discus-
were allowed
it
centered on one subject, chosen
topic for the next term
was "Time."
going out," Ayer said, "but Time'
into the philosophical purview."
is
The Open Door
"What
"Is
is
85
the spread of Oxford philosophy?" I asked.
practiced far and wide?"
it
"There are some exceptions, but
Oxford a
find at
should say that you
fair representation of the
ophy that are studied
kinds of philos-
in England, for the simple reason
that Oxford staffs other universities with philosophers,"
Ayer
said.
ophy
is
"The
in the
real spread of Austin's linguistic philos-
Dominions and the United
States.
Ryle must take some of the responsibility.
Dominion and American

that
students,
he admits too many of them
For
He
and some people
this,
likes
feel
Oxford for post-
to
graduate work. Most students arrive already intoxicated
with the idea of linguistic philosophy, but they soon find
much more
the scene
Not
of
all
them
profit
diversified than they
by the discovery.
to their countries to practice Austin's
The
first-rate
had expected.
So,
many
return
methods wholesale.
W.
people in America, like
V. Quine, at
Harvard, and Ernest Nagel, at Columbia, and Nelson
Goodman,
at Pennsylvania, don't give a curse for
ford philosophy, but
Ox-
should imagine there are more
second-rate people doing linguistic analysis in America
than in England and the Dominions put together."
We
pulled into the Paddington station and, taking
separate taxis, closed the philosophers' shop for the night.
spent that night at John's.
rived,
when
and he had
I
woke
until the
the
up, so
left for
I
He was
in
the British
bed when
Museum
I ar-
library
didn't get a chance to talk to
him
middle of the afternoon, when he returned from
Museum
to
make
himself a sardine sandwich.
86
"What's on your philosophical agenda?" he asked, be-
tween
bites.
"I'm having a drink with Hampshire,"

"You'll like
idol of all the
many
him very much," John

young Fellows
"He's
said.
of All Souls,
mired by All Souls

Oxford.
This
how
men
figure,
who was
He added
not only
highly he had been regarded in
dergraduate days.
that
still
ad-
but looked up to by the whole of
could easily believe, because
the
still
where he spent
years before coming to London."
Hampshire was a great
bered
I said.
He had
remem-
my own
un-
been passionate about
also
Socialism in a youthful kind of way, which had
made
the
undergraduate societies court him as an after-dinner

speaker.
was
Intelligent
Oxford
at
least, since
the thirties
Left Wing, and he had been a patron saint of the
politically
conscious university.
His beliefs were rea-
soned, and he was emotionally committed to his ideas
rare thing for an Oxford philosopher
his convictions
and
were a matter of the heart
because
as well as of
the head, he had the rare ability to electrify clubs and

societies.
Lie
might share
Ayer had only recently returned

Ayer's Socialism
I
with Ayer, but
his politics
was perhaps
to
little
Oxford; besides,
remote.
asked John what he recalled about Hampshire.
"Well," he said, "as you probably know, he
pupil at his school
Repton and
der the influence of one of
its
was a
star
was very much un-
masters.
Hampshire
in-
herited his liberal principles from his mentor. Sometime

in the early thirties,
tified his Leftist
he came up
to Balliol,
where he
views with wider reading. The
last
for-
year
The Open Door
war found him
of the
know what
didn't
start discussions
out
to
by
of him, because he used to
saying, 'The
our foreign
if
87
Foreign Office, and they
in the
make
policy
first tiling
to
Socialistic'
is
do
to find
is
Hampshire
claimed he started doing philosophy because he liked to

argue, but in fact he avoided philosophical arguments."
Leaving John,
taxied to University
London University ) and found
time, of
shire standing
College
Professor
(this
Hamp-
on the steps of the building where he had
His hands were clasped rather boyishly be-
his office.
hind his back, and his curly blond hair was flying in the
wind. "Hello!" he called. "I've just locked myself out of
the office."
He
looked at
me
expectantly, as though
might have brought him the key.

handle of the door, he shook
vain for
to spring open.
it
it
some
stretch."
vigorously and waited in
"I like the
me
There
there.
Nevertheless,
we
tea,
isn't
pub
for
started in search of one.
We came upon a Lyons Corner House,

some
Oxford system of
"This sort of thing would
not locking doors," he said.
never have happened to
Taking hold of the
because Hampshire was
and ducked
Sitting
thirsty.
in for
down,
he surveyed the motley tea drinkers in the room and

said, "This is
what
I like
close to the people."
about London. You always feel
But the
clatter
and noise of Hamp-
people were so deafening that
shire's
we were
soon
driven out.
We
in
it,
finally spotted a
I
pub.
asked him about his
When we had
latest
settled
down
book, "Thought and
Action."
"I'm not very good at
summing up my own arguments,"
88
he
said.
from
my
"But
function
is
view of philosophy couldn't be further
Like the ancient philosophers,
Austin's.
advance opinions, and
really to
ophy should include the study

In fact,
think
it
of Continental thought.
about philosophy.
ought
feel
I try to
much
avoid
it
But he went on
in conversation as
to say
He and Ayer
much as posnew book
Murdoch, he was very
and
literature, and, in-
mostly working on aesthetics.

shared
was
Isaiah Berlin.
him
in Italy.
illustrate
write philos-
middle of the cultural stream of
in the
said that, like Miss
now
he hoped that his
interested in Existentialism
deed, was
many
He had
friends, but his closest friend

just spent
two weeks with
"Isaiah, rather indirectly,"
he
said, "does
one great aspect of Oxford philosophy
boon of just
uncomfortable talking
I'm writing about them, and since
He
don't really like to talk about things
ophy,
Europe.
to take cognizance
when
had put him
think philos-
of politics, aesthetics
should be an all-embracing subject.
also think English philosophers
sible."
our
I feel
talking.
the
As you know, he learned most of
his
philosophy at the feet of Austin. They were both at All

Souls at the
sit
around
and
same
in the
night.
time, in the thirties,
Common Room and
and they used
talk philosophy
to
day
During the war, once, Isaiah found himself
in
a plane, without Austin, and some mysterious thing hap-
pened
that
made him decide
Hampshire thought
that Berlin
to give
now
up philosophy."
regretted giving
up
philosophy, mainly because he missed the intellectual

stimulation of talking.
He had no
one to talk with about
The Open Door
the
his subject
or
two great
ford, so Berlin
There were only one
history of ideas.
and they were not
historians of ideas,
was forced
to
89
work
in solitude.
Ox-
at
Since his
great conversational gifts could not be exercised in the

service of his work,
he relied on an occasional American
who was
postgraduate student
him out
of the isolation
ward
studying ideas to bring
The reason
of his subject.
Berlin could not be counted as an Oxford philosopher
He worked
was simple.
Where
philosophy.
not at pure but at political
a pure philosopher might begin by
asking the meaning of the
one of
his lectures
tions of the
word
by
word
"liberty," Berlin
saying, "There are
'liberty'
negative
two
and
opened
sorts of no-
positive
the history of thought. Kant, Fichte, Hegel believed
Hampshire rose
to get another drink
upon by an African youth
him speak
I join
"If
little
in a public lecture hall.
you
really
and placed
it
He
to,"
Hampshire
who had heard
do you mind
if
over to our table.

said,
sounding a
bought the boy a double whiskey
sniffed at
while discomfiting
it,
with repeated compliments. "I heard,
"you're a
before him.
The boy only

shire
want
discouraged.
"Sir,
way
."
.
and was pounced
of about sixteen
you?" he asked, edging his
in
man
sir,"
Hamphe
said,
of great vision, really very great vision,
and you believe
in equality
independence for
Algerians
and Maltese."
Hampshire asked him about

said that he'd always
since hearing
wanted
his interests,
to
and the boy
be an engineer, but that
Hampshire he had wondered whether he
go
ought not to be a philosopher.

science,"
he remarked, with a
Hampshire counselled him
con-
sigh.
to
be an engineer. "In that
way, you can do more for your country," he

After a while, the boy
my
"I'm torn in
left,
said.
but the philosophical calm
if it could be called that of our conversation had been

Hampshire moved
shattered.
after
some nervous
hands
his
false starts,
restlessly,
began reviewing the
and,
gal-
Oxford philosophers. His words were reeled
lery of
in the rapid fashion of All Souls conversation,
whizzed
philosophical lights
genstein
would
past.
"On
off
and the
occasion, Witt-
say, "Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Witt-
genstein,' the 'W' Anglicized into a soft sound, instead
of the Teutonic
would smite
and
his
'V,'
'you are talking nonsense,' and he
He was
brow.
the only person permitted
no doubt the only person qualified
particular proposition.
was the chairman
He
Among
the
utter that
other things, Austin
committee of the
of the financial
Oxford University Press

in the world.
to
biggest university press
occupied the post with an envelop-
ing halo, and his terrifying efficiency raised him above

all
past
combe,
and future chairmen.

in
some ways,
has his mannerisms.
brooding seances.
is
Her
like
Elizabeth
Ans-
she
even
Wittgenstein
classes, like the Master's, are
She wrote a
series of letters to the
Listener in which she opposed awarding former Presi-
dent Truman an honorary degree, because of his responsibility for
dropping the atom bomb. She made an extraor-
dinary speech at the concilium, saying,
'If
you honor
The Open Door
Truman now, what

Hitlers,
what
Stalins will
you honor
puritanical in his views.
sive.
Warnock
talks slowly
next?'
Hare
Miss Murdoch
Strawson, very exciting.

spiral staircase for his
tions.
is
elu-
is
thin sheath over his
sharp mind for those who've only met him once.
Though sometimes may
build a
thought out of hairsplitting distinc-
Ayer, like Russell, well
known
as a philosopher,
performer on television, who, among
brilliant
91
Neros, what Genghis Khans, what
little
other achievements, can simplify.

that these philosophers
his
Gellner's charge
have things in
all
common
will not
bear examination. Sociology can be bad history. Sometimes
classifies
Gellner
may be
subjects
its
of
a victim of his
study indiscriminately.
own
art.
Good with
the
Berbers."
After saying goodbye to Hampshire, I returned to

John's
stein:
rooms and took from the
shelf
"Ludwig Wittgen-
Memoir," by Norman Malcolm, with a prefatory
biographical
sketch
by Professor Georg Henrik von
Wright, of the University of Helsinki. Because each meeting with a philosopher had
Wittgenstein,
I set
made me more
curious about
myself the task of finding out more
about him.
Ludwig
Josef Johann Wittgenstein
was born
in 1889.
His parents were Saxon, but at the time of his birth

they were living in Vienna. His paternal grandfather was
a convert from Judaism to Protestantism; his mother,
however, was a Catholic, and the child was baptized in
92
her
His father was an engineer, whose remarkable
faith.
intelligence
and
will
power had
him
raised
to a leading
position in the steel-and-iron industry of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. Ludwig was one of eight children.

Both of
his parents
home was
a center of artistic activity.
early education at
clarinet,
were extremely musical, and
received his
home, learning mathematics and the
and acquiring a burning boyhood wish
come a conductor. At
in Linz,
He
and
their
fourteen, he
after three years there
was
to be-
sent to a school
he was ready for the
engineering course at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin.
He
went
of
to
completed
his Berlin course in
two years and
England, where he registered at the University
Manchester as a research student. His
first
step on the
path of philosophy was the reading of Bertrand Russell's

"Principles of Mathematics," published in 1903, to
he turned when he wished
to
which
plumb the foundations
of
mathematics. After Russell, he read Gottlob Frege, the
German mathematician,
thus coming face to face with
the two most brilliant exponents of the "new" logic.
He
sought out Frege in Jena, only to be directed by him to
go back to England and study with Russell.
he was housed
in Trinity College,
By
1912,
Cambridge, whose
walls also enclosed Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore,
and
John Maynard Keynes. Young Wittgenstein was immediately befriended by them, and he found himself
part of the golden years of Cambridge.
He was
there
for eighteen months, and, in addition to his other work,
did some psychological experiments in rhythm and
mu-
The Open Door
93
Even though he was on intimate terms with the
sic.
leading minds of England, he did not take to the relaxed
atmosphere of Cambridge
In the autumn of 1913,
life.
he visited Norway, and he returned there
later that
same
year in a sort of intellectual huff, to live in seclusion near
he soon became
Skjolden;
father
had died
in 1912,
fluent
and
in
his stay at
Norwegian.
Manchester and
Cambridge had simply driven him deeper

sion
whose
history
was
as long as his
von Wright says
fessor
life.
into a depres"It is
he lived on the border of mental
true that
The outbreak
his life."
probably
illness,"
Pro-
opening of his sketch. "A
at the
fear of being driven across
His
followed him throughout
it
of the First
World War found him
a volunteer in the Austrian Army, and he eventually
fought on both the eastern and southern fronts. For Witt-
war was a time
genstein,
birth of great ideas.
Leo
of personal crisis
Tolstoy's ethical writings
warm
light of the Synoptic
he was excited by
his
and of the
At one moment he was calmed by
own
which led
and
Gospels
him
to the
at the next
revolutionary views.
Wittgenstein's earthquake hit the philosophers of the
twentieth century as hard as David Hume's cyclone
which swept away cause and

perience
had
The new
stein
in the
ex-
middle of the war, while Wittgen-
was reading a newspaper
rested
from the human
hit their eighteenth-century predecessors.
philosophical shudder started at the Austrian
One day
front.
effect
in a trench,
he was
by a sketch of a possible sequence of events
car accident.
As he studied
it,
ar-
in a
he became aware that the
94
diagram of the accident stood for a possible pattern of

occurrences in reality; there was a correspondence be-
tween the parts of the drawing and certain things
He
world.
in the
noticed a similar correspondence between the
parts of a sentence
and elements of the world, and he
developed the analogy, coming to regard a proposition as
The
a kind of picture.
way
the
is,
depicted
bined
reality.
structure of a proposition
Thus he
a possible combination of elements in

hit
upon the
central idea of his "Tracta-
Language was the picture
tus":
tatus"
that
which the parts of a statement were com-
in
The "Trac-
of the world.
and the Wittgenstein revolution
in philosophy
were
under way.
When
Wittgenstein was captured by the Italians, in
1918, he had the manuscript of
work
all
in his rucksack,
war
the
intact.
He
his first great philosophical
and he was able
philosophical problems, and
lished (first in
to bring
it
through
thought his masterpiece had solved
Germany,
the following year),
when
in 1921,
the work was pub-
and then
England,
in
some leading minds agreed, with
him, that philosophy had come to the end of
its
road.
Wittgenstein, on the other hand, was at the beginning of

his.
Both
He had
his livelihood
and
his reputation
were assured.
inherited a large fortune from his father, his
genius was proclaimed to the world, and he was free to

live in leisure
safe
In
and
intellectual preeminence.
ways were not those

the
fortune,
first
year
became
after
the
indifferent
of
Ludwig
war, he
to
the
But such
Wittgenstein.
renounced
success
of
his
the
The Open Door

'Tractatus,"
Vienna.
and
When
he taught
in
enrolled
in
Lower
schools in
a schoolmaster enabled
him
Austria for six years,
a time
He
Being
to another.
to lead a life of simplicity
seclusion, but Wittgenstein
himself or the world.
in
his education course,
wandering from one remote village
and
95
college
teachers'
he had completed
was not
at
peace with
gave up the profession and for
became a gardener, working mostly
at monasteries,
and, as he had done in the past, considered joining a religious order.
Once more, however,
the monastic
did
life
not seem to be the answer. Terminating his restless wanderings, he returned to Vienna,
and spent two
solid years
designing and constructing a mansion for one of his

ters.
A modern
building of concrete,
steel,
and
sis-
glass, it
provided an outlet for his particular architectural genius,
and according
to Professor
von Wright,
"Its
beauty
is
of
the same simple and static kind that belongs to the

sentences of the Tractatus.' " But architecture could not
contain Wittgenstein's soaring genius, and he spent
some
time sculpturing at a friend's studio. Again according to

Professor von Wright, his sculpture of an elf has a perfection of
stein's
symmetry that
recalls the Greeks.
Wittgen-
period of withdrawal from philosophy was
now
nearing an end. In Vienna, he heard a philosophical lecture
and decided that perhaps philosophy did have a
little
way
raise
some money
to go, so
he allowed
his old friend
for his return to
rived at his college in 1929,
Keynes
Cambridge.
and presented
He
to
ar-
his "Tractatus"
as a dissertation for a Doctorate of Philosophy
degree
g6
that
was a negligible accolade
worldwide reputation.
one, he
year
was elected a Fellow
with a
to a philosopher
later, at
the age of forty-
of Trinity College,
Cam-
bridge.
As suddenly
as a sketch of a car accident
had inspired
the ideas in "Tractatus," so a gesture of an Italian friend
destroyed them.
I
The
from Wittgenstein
gesture that divided Wittgenstein
II
was made sometime
in the year
10<33- "Wittgenstein and P. Sraffa, a lecturer in economics

at
Cambridge, argued together a great deal over the ideas
Malcolm
of the 'Tractatus,' " Professor
(they were riding,

stein
was
on a
I think,
describes must have the
and that which
same logical
logical multiplicity,' Sraffa
made
when Wittgen-
train),
insisting that a proposition
"One day
records.
form,' the
it
same
a gesture, familiar to
Neapolitans as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the underneath of his chin with an
outward sweep of the

asked: 'What
produced
is
fingertips of
one hand.
And he
the logical form of that?' Sraffa's example
in Wittgenstein the feeling that there
was an
absurdity in the insistence that a proposition and what

describes must have the
same
'form.'
on him of the conception that a proposition must

be a
'picture' of the reality
years before Wittgenstein II
it
it
This broke the hold
describes."
worked out
It
his
literally
was many
new
ideas,
but the old views, which at one time had finished philos-
ophy
forever,
were discarded
Wittgenstein
II,
in the train.
though he spent thirteen years
at
Cam-
bridge, did not surround himself with any of the atmos-
The Open Door
97
phere of an English college. The stark simplicity of his
way
would have put any undergraduate
of living
shame. His two rooms in Whewell's Court were

racks;
to
like bar-
he did not have a single book, painting, photo-
graph, or reading lamp.
He
sat
on a wooden chair and
did his writing at a card table. These two objects, with
two canvas
chairs, a fireproof safe for his manuscripts,
and a few empty flowerpots, constituted the

nishings of the
room
that served
him
classroom. His other concession to
total fur-
as both study
life
was a
and
the
cot, in
second room.
His classes were held late in the afternoon, and his
pupils arrived carrying chairs from the landing.
ways found the philosopher standing

room, by his wooden
height,
chair.
He was
in the
They
slender, of
medium
and simply dressed, habitually wearing a
shirt, flannel trousers,
al-
middle of the
a leather jacket, and no
tie.
flannel
Unlike
the other Fellows, he did not have any notes or set pro-
cedure for his lectures; he
just sat
on
his
wooden
chair
and, according to Malcolm, "carried on a visible struggle
with his thoughts." His lectures were simply a continuation of his other
waking hours; as always, he thought
about problems and tried to find

principal difference
lecture time
between
was the
and the
between a monologue
direct questions to the
bers of the class and let himself be

cussions, but
The
solutions.
his lonely hours
difference
and a dialogue. He would
new
drawn
mem-
into
dis-
whenever he sensed that he was stand-
ing on the edge of a difficult problem or a
new
thought,
g8
his
hand would
silence
emptory motion.
interlocutor
his
with a per-
he reached an impasse or
If
felt
confused, he would say, "I'm just too stupid today," or
"You have a dreadful teacher," or "I'm a
He
fool."
wor-
ried about the possibility that his teaching might stop the
growth of independent minds, and he was
by a
fear that
he would not be able
also besieged
but
to last the period,
somehow he always managed to go on.

The years of the Second World War found Wittgenstein
working
an orderly,
as
London, and then
Toward
Tyne.
Cambridge
first
at Guy's Hospital, in
an infirmary at Newcastle-upon-
in
the close of the war, he returned to
to take
up the Chair
Malcolm returned there
of Philosophy.
When
to study with him, in 1946, he
found Wittgenstein trying, with strenuous work, to

the depression that
dam
always threatened to flood him.
Wittgenstein was composing Ins "Philosophical Investigations" (which he kept on revising for the rest of his
life).
"One day," Malcolm
was passing
ress, the
a field
thought
recounts,
where a
first
play games with words.
game was
football
struck
"when Wittgenstein
him
in prog-
that in language
we
central idea of his philosophy
[in "Investigations"], the notion of
apparently had
its
time, most of his
day was spent
a language game,'
At
genesis in this incident."
writing the "Investigations."
in teaching, talking,
His only
relief
this
and
from the
constant motion of his thoughts was an occasional film

or an American detective magazine.
opiate,
and he ultimately
felt
But
this
was no
compelled to tender his
The Open Door

resignation
Malcolm,
when
did.
never convivial
Now
university.
to
be professor on Dec. 31st
at
began the
He
life.
99
was taken, he wrote
the decision
"I shall cease to
He
12 p.m."
the Vice-Chancellor of the
to
Late in 1947,
first
loneliest period of his
moved
to a guesthouse a
couple of hours' bus ride from Dublin, where he lived

friendless
easily,
and
and
painfully.
in a state of nervous instability.
He
tired
his
work on
He
wrote to Malcolm that he did not miss
"Investigations"
went slowly and
conversation but wished for "someone to smile at occaAfter
sionally."
five
months
at
guesthouse,
the
he
migrated to the west coast of Ireland, where he became

a legend
among
the primitive fishermen for his
But there was no
power
He went
to
tame
to
Vienna, visited Cambridge, returned to Dublin, rushed
birds.
rest for him.
again to Vienna, where a sister was

ill,
proceeded from there
colms, and
was forced back
by an undiagnosed
left for
and
to
now
dangerously
see the Mal-
to
England and Cambridge
He was
eventually found to
his sister
was
even then dying of
Austria and his family, but
he returned
quickly
illness.
America
His father had been destroyed by
have cancer.
disease,
to
to
came
England this
to
dislike.
He
it.
some months
this
He
later
time to Oxford, which he

called
it
"the influenza
area" and "a philosophical desert." After spending
some
time at Miss Anscombe's house in Oxford, he visited
Norway, only
doctor.
to return to
Cambridge and
live
with his
Never a happy man, he became convinced dur-
ing the last two years of his
life
that he
had
lost his
"
ioo
was
philosophical talent; he
He
of three of his brothers.

I
I
read the
last
also
haunted by the suicides
died in April, 1951.
paragraph of Malcolm's memoir:
"When
think of his profound pessimism, the intensity of his
mental and moral suffering, the relentless way in which
he drove
need for love together with
his intellect, his
the harshness that repelled love,

that his life
was
this
had been
it
When
John returned, he found
he
could have been a
He
losopher."
read aloud:
first-class
fusion
is
"
To me
if
He
in a
sombre mood.
conductor, mathema-
but he chose to be a phi-
started leafing through
like a
too high.
me
"A Memoir," and
'A person caught in a philosophical con-
man
in a
tries
room who wants
He
but doesn't know how.
tries
the
the chimney but
to get out
window but
it
is
it
is
too narrow.
he would only turn around, he would see that
the door has been open
To both
as
Yet at the end he

'wonderful!'
"Wittgenstein was a tortured genius.
said.
tician, architect, or sculptor,
And
inclined to believe
seems a mysterious and strangely moving utterance."
"Yes,"
He
am
unhappy.
fiercely
himself exclaimed that
all
the time!'
of us, this particular passage
seemed to stand
an epitaph for Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Next morning,
with the help of

the conclusions of
rolled out of
my
my
my
makeshift bed and,
jottings, started writing furiously
researches.
To my
complicated sentences streamed out of
and
discovered that
somehow
great surprise,
my
typewriter
had a philosophical voice keyed
to the right pitch.
The Open Door
"Modern philosophy,"
101
wrote, "has had two great
pushes, one from Russell and one from Wittgenstein,
and we're now waiting for another one. Like

losophies,
first,
its
what
that
it
says
true
is
these particular truths
are
and
more
Naturally, not
all reflective
Oxford than,
New
minds
say, in Paris,
lucid;
phi-
second, that
satisfying
and
alternative answers to the inquiring
at
all
claim to be heard rests on two assumptions:
will
than any
reflective
be better
Moscow,
New
mind.
satisfied
Delhi, or
York, but some clearly are. Oxford philosophers do
not claim to be sages.
In few cases, indeed, would the
claim be credited
should be made.
if it
By
their
They
admission, they are not wiser than other men.

often assert that their researches do not lead to
own
wisdom
but only relieve certain feelings of puzzlement (which
you are bound
to
have
if
you ask
their questions
Once
they have found answers to their questions, they go on

living
and,
before,
as
just
temporaries,
fortable fives in north
manage
to
unlike
many remain degage;
be
their
French con-
they lead dons' com-
Oxford (though even so a few
evangelists, Socialists, or great eccentrics).
This has led Gellner to ask what the point of their

activities
can be, since they seem to cure only a disease
they have induced in themselves and, in
Why
their students.
asks,
if
many
cases, in
should one pay philosophers, he
philosophy really, as Wittgenstein said, 'leaves
the world as
Certainly
it
many
is'?
Gellner 's
and boring, but there are

plenty of others
is
a mistaken objection.
philosophers are unadventurous, prosaic,
who
also Strawsons
are not.
and Ayers and
Whatever they may do
in
102
their private lives,

their
it
cannot correctly be said that in
work they leave the world
begins to see more clearly
how
then the world
it
truth than
truth
is
not as
was seen
it
was.
Indeed, once one considers
is.'
man
one
If
One man
in the past; the
disseminated, the
is
as
the rest of the world

sees
more
more widely
more the world
is,
this
changed.
is
seems
this, Gellner's criticism
For philosophy has never changed the world
absurd.
except by bringing to consciousness in the minds that
engage in
certain truths that they did not
it
know
did not
clearly) before.
know
Oxford philosophers are
fond of quoting a remark of Wittgenstein's to the

that there
members
If
need be nothing
common among
of a class of tilings called
we must
and
in
(or
effect
all
the
by the same name.
generalize about the Oxford philosophers
their subject, their philosophy
is
essentially agnostic,
not in respect to the question of God's existence but in

relation to
many
of the great problems
been taken
solution has in the past
losophy:
questions
whether
like
whose
as the
life
is
definitive
aim of phimeaningful,
whether history has a purpose, whether human nature

is
good
when
should
in
fact, all the
man
I live?'
questions that have to be asked
reflectively
It is
considers the question
'How
true that most Oxford philosophers
are not agnostic in religion; on the contrary, several are
Catholic or Protestant communicants.
But they regard
these matters as being outside their philosophy.
As men,
they decide to answer these questions in one way; as

philosophers, they teach and develop techniques that
are neutral in respect to the different answers to them.
The Open Door

"Oxford philosophers tend to talk chiefly
other
and,
make
is
one; another
subjects
inating to the simple.
subjects,
thing, necessary in order to
being illum-
which they interpret
quackery.
The
sionalism
means
tioners
'What
men' are
left
not without
but with old, dead, or quack
non-systematic.
thought
is
all
on profes-
Oxford philosophy, by comparison with
it.
is
at
good
as oversimplification or
that their insistence
that 'ordinary
any philosophy
the past,
is
is
keep the subject from 'popu-
larization,'
pity
as
most of the philosophers
Still,
go on thinking that technical philosophy
varieties of
they
Hampshire,
is
especially literary
philosophical ones succeeds in
to
if
a 'technique of being non-technical').
There are exceptions: Ayer
who on some
opposed
each
to
in cases like Wittgenstein's, to themselves.
These practitioners are highly technical (even

claim they
103
right
it
to
Where
deal
traditional
practi-
with questions
like
Truth?,' Oxford philosophers are liable to say,
following the later Wittgenstein, 'Look at

ent ways the
word
(They refuse
to look into the uses of
"true"
is
all
the differ-
used in ordinary speech.'
words
in extraor-
dinary speech, like poetry, because English philosophy
Hume by a prosaic contempt

When you have considered all
has been dominated since

for the imagination.)
the
ways
'true' is
used in ordinary speech, they say, you
have understood the concept of
'Truth.'
If
there
further question lingering at the back of your
('But
all
the same,
of a mistake
losophers.
what
is
Truth?'), this
hangover from reading
This approach
philosophy
is
is
mind
the result
earlier
phi-
as the study of
104
big
language rather than as the means of answering the
questions about
life
and the universe
- which
is
basically
Oxford philosothat of the later Wittgenstein, has given
phy a tendency
to formlessness. Until recently, the
body
in a vast
of philosophical thought has existed mainly
number
uses of
of
small articles minutely considering a few

some single concept. Only the aesthetic sense
some
of
of
its
practitioners
Hampshire, Strawson, and a
from overwhelming
"Now
is
to
to
there
is
breaking up;
- Wittgenstein
Ayer,
it
diffuseness.
a change coming.
all
I,
few others -has kept
The Oxford
the signs are that there
isn't
school
going
be an orthodoxy much longer - that things are going

the
get eccentric again. Austin is no more, and at
moment Ryle
is
not producing. Strawson
is
talking about metaphysics in the old vein,
going in for
and there
is
petering
every indication that the Wittgenstein wave is
tried
Ryle
since
out rather rapidly. In the ten years
to solve the
mind-body problem by a vast number of
concepts in
small chapters on different psychological
begun
'The Concept of Mind,' Oxford philosophy has
strict
the
to develop its own system builders. Probably
discipline of the late Austin helped induce guilt
about
uncoordinated
the looseness and untidiness that these
were creating
tidy
and
each one precise
researches
books, Hampin the subject as a whole. Two recent
shire's
'Thought and Action' and Strawson's Individuals,'
approaches to some of the most

value
puzzling traditional problems in philosophy: the
offer quite systematic
"
The Open Door

of
105
freedom of thought and the relation of intelligence
to morality, in the
the problem of sense data and
first;
The new system-
the mind-body puzzle, in the second.

atic quality
comes from a recent
linguistic philosophy
insight:
that while
the study of language, certain
is
wider truths can be deduced from the conditions that
must be presupposed
there
if
or language of the kind
we
is
to
be language
On
have.
at all
propositions de-
duced from the statement of such conditions, necessary

truths
like the relation
between the mind and the body
can be built systematically. The non-systematic decades
may have been an

to
aberration
partly,
the tendency of philosophers
stein
and
II
his
stylistic
architectural sensibility
lapses from
and
Wittgen-
the poetic and
he displayed in the
As Shakespeare said of the pedants

Lost,'
no doubt, owing
imitate
to
'Tractatus.'
in 'Love's Labour's
'They have been at a great feast of languages,
O! they have lived long on the
stolen the scraps.
alms-basket of words.' But then, as the proverb, more
than two thousand years old, has

particular
wooers,
and neglect philosophy' however
sciences
and
defined
however
who made
'Those that study
it,
studied 'are
like
Penelope's
love to the waiting-women.'
These sentences were no sooner out of
my
typewriter
than they seemed to have been written by a stranger.
Reading them over,

that they
couldn't shake loose the feeling
were one more walker on that common
where on a morning
stroll
I'd first
met Lord
street
Russell.
HAPTER THR
the course of
In
Russell,
my
philosophical conversation with
he had remarked, sucking
was an undergraduate, there were many

than
I,
but
"When
his pipe,
boys cleverer
surpassed them, because, while they were
had passion and fed on controversy. I still

thrive on opposition. My grandmother was a woman of
caustic and biting wit. When she was eighty-three, she
degage,
became kind and

able.
gentle. I
had never found her
She noticed the change in
handwriting on
so reason-
herself, and, reading the
the wall, she said to
me,
'Bertie,
I'll
soon
be dead.' And she soon was." Since Earl Russell was well
up
in his eighties at the time of this talk, I calculated
that he
must have spent nearly seventy adult years
devoted altercation.
on the easy road
was no doubt
106
of cleverness
that
in
Whatever progress the stragglers
the
might have made, there
tough,
intrepid
Russell
had
107
reached success by clambering up the brambly and precipitous path of intellectual controversy.
pandered
to
my
intellectual escapades,
tory
am
words
with the aid of newspaper
my
patches, from the ease of

subjects I
Russell's
long-standing predilection for following
particularly interested in
I read it at
Oxford
dis-
armchair. Since one of the
the
happens
to
be
his-
thorny journeys that have
stood out most sharply in the newssheets have concerned

historians.
The
parties
have more often than not been
made up of Englishmen, and their terrain has been

Britain. The smallness of English intellectual society,
the availability of space in newspapers and periodicals
of the better class (indeed, their encouragement of controversial material ) , the highly individual
nature of English scholars
all
and belligerent
have made England the
Nor was
perfect country for such energetic pursuits.
my
choice of history
tainties, revisions,
appeared to be
My
subject
and tentative
fair
game
all
known
truths
for
uncer-
its
bad one;
it
the way.
safari in search of historical truth didn't exactly
have a beginning, but the Encounter
article
entitled
"Arnold Toynbee's Millennium" (June, 1957), by H. R.
Trevor-Roper
who
Modern History
at
was appointed Regius Professor

Oxford in 1957
blast that could easily
"A Study
of History,"
reviewing,
labor
have
of the
was
off.
a memorable
The ten-volume
which Trevor-Roper was ostensibly
was the product
by one
me
set
of
most
of
more than twenty
tireless
of our time, Arnold Joseph
years'
and single-minded men
Toynbee, Professor Emeritus
io8
of the University of
London and former Director
of
Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
With unflagging
London.
zeal he
history of six thousand years
the
of civilizations.
He
from a response
to challenges,
the
power
with
its
religion
concluded that
cycles of a score
civilizations spring
and that they
of a "creative minority,"
flourish
by
and that they collapse
sometimes amid the ruins a
failure, secreting
and a new
had examined the
life
Charting the series of chal-
society.
lenges that produced great responses and higher religions,

as well as those that did not, he thought he
had proved
and creative minorities make
civilizations
that religions
and that the dead weight of
makes them. Of
all
civilization alone, for
majorities
and schisms un-
the societies considered, Western
Toynbee,
still
lives,
and even
has been tottering since the Reformation.
Its
it
chances
of redemption were faced in the last four volumes.
There
it
appeared that the weight of
against our survival, but

dictorily, that
man
history cannot rob
is
Toynbee
blessed with free will and that
him
of
it.
Our Western
can be saved by a recourse to

Botii the
historical laws is
insisted, rather contra-
civilization
faith, syncretist variety.
commercial success of the "Study" ("As a
dollar-earner
...
it
ranks second only to whiskey,"
Trevor-Roper gibed) and the despair that flowed from

the latter volumes galled Trevor-Roper.
at the time, the personal
Roper's pen had seldom,

writings of
modern
venom
if
that shot out of Trevor-
ever,
scholarship.
As was noted
been equalled
in the
(In 1957, Trevor-Roper
was generally known

teenth-century
109
one youthful work on a seven-
for
which was
archbishop,
distinctive
for
being anticlerical, and for a brilliant but rather journalistic
account of the
among
scholars for
demic brethren
last
to
whom
his aca-
Tawney,
be one of the great English
Wadham
College,
Trevor-Roper wounded at the
start of
and Lawrence Stone, of
historians,
on
attacks
in periodicals, notably R. H.
who was acknowledged

Oxford,
days of Hitler; but particularly
some powerful
Now
Stone's teaching career.)
pared with Toynbee's
style,
he bellowed
com-
that,
the writings of Hitler had
a "Gibbonian lucidity," and declared that the "Study"
was "huge, presumptuous, and
utterly humourless,"
not only "erroneous" but "hateful."
He
and
wrote, "Toynbee's
truly monstrous self -adulation
combined with
mental obscurantism
indeed emotionally repel
me."
[does]
For the Encounter
his funda-
the "Study"
critic,
was an
extravagant bid of Toynbee to set himself up as a
prophet
.
as
Hitler.
Had
not "Hitler, like
Toynbee
ranged over the centuries and crammed such
he found
system"?
it
Did not both
Hitler
and Toynbee see them-
selves as the phoenixes of the centuries, Messiahs
had
rolled
up Western
new age in
civilization
Hitler's case the
Nazi
new
tutti-frutti
...
mentator has described
Mother
Isis,
'a
it,
of St. Michael
who
and opened up a
era,
and
in Toynbee's
the wishful age of a syncretist religion of

"a
facts
convenient to select into a monstrous
all
faiths,
mish-mash,' as one com'of
the Virgin
and Mithras, of
St.
Mary and
Peter and
no
Mohammed,
lana' "? To
Maw-
Augustine and Jalalad-Din
of St.
Trevor-Roper, the scheming Messiah had
given himself
away
tenth volume
in
at the
beginning and the end of the
the acknowledgments,
pressed his gratitude
where he
ex-
in Trevor-Roper's words, "all
to,
who, since the beginning of History, have deserved

immortality by contributing
mind
ation of the ages, the
index,
...
to that ultimate cre-
of Toynbee,"
where Trevor-Roper, by
and
in the
diligent use of the tape
measure, discovered that the entry "Toynbee, Arnold

Joseph" occupied twelve column inches. With an ardor
somewhat
many hounding
in excess of
Roper transported himself

of the Messiah
volumes) and the

volumes). In
reciting "the
New
prewar
sLx
Testament (the four postwar
drowsy doggerel of the Founder's Litany
Mother
spirit of fun,
chilling
it
Old Testament (the
Isis,
Mother Cybele, Mother
Mother Kwanyin, have compassion on
Ishtar,
("Am
and found the devotees
the churches of Mish-Mash, they were
all
'Mother Mary,
No
to the centenary of the birth
("A.T. 100")
faithfully reading the
reviewers, Trevor-
serious?
humor.)
however, was
Alas,
at
work
us.
.'"
.
in the review.
am," the writer noted with
Indeed, the attack was so grave that
created a minor sensation, especially since
it
coin-
cided with talk of Trevor-Roper's appointment to the
Regius Chair of Modern History at Oxford, one of the
most coveted academic

ment.
gifts of
Her
Majesty's Govern-
Many, including quite a few Oxford students
and they often don't
like
Toynbee any more than does

Trevor-Roper
seemed
to
be as repelled by Trevor-
Roper's attack as he was by Toynbee's work, and
was made, some months
the appointment
questioned
advisability.
its
later,
They were supported
when
they
in their
doubts by the London Observer, which noted that some

people were "wondering about the influence on under-
man
graduates of a
article
capable of writing a considered
with such elaborate violence and personal hatred."
For some time, there wasn't the
faintest
whisper of a
reply from Toynbee; two final volumes of the "Study"
were delivered
as
though Trevor-Roper had never writ-
Debate, controversy, the arrows of cleverdom were
ten.
not weapons in Toynbee's quiver.
Then, after
years of silence, he did try to answer
many
all his critics in
heavy volume called "Reconsiderations," but the book
was remarkable
for the
absence of any
Roper, the crudest and most lacerating
Out
acknowledged.
were
Toynbee
("On the
article as a
tion,"
Was Toynbee
Toynbee noted, with exaggerated
say,
think
am
really don't think I am.'
a prophet'
courtesy,
"is
one
may have been
that one has expressed
is
would be
to
Perhaps the best answer
not a verbal but a practical one.
lieve that
"The imputa-
deal with, because the next most ridiculous
thing to saying,
is
of
whole, no comment,"
prophet, as Trevor-Roper had charged?
difficult to
was barely
and only one betrayed a hint
with a rare shrug.)
said,
critic,
Trevor-
of seven references to him, four
in the footnotes,
exasperation.
bite.
readiness to be-
mistaken in the views
surely incompatible with be-
112
own, but God's.
lieving that they are not one's
hope
this
volume of reconsiderations may
dissipate the spectre of
During the
that the professorship
was crouching
guessing,
effectively
the prophet.'"
years of Trevor-Roper's professorship,
first
was an uneasy
there
Toynbee
So
in his activities.
lull
Some
said
had mellowed him, others that he

Everybody was
in wait for big shikar.
some people with a greater degree
of appre-
hension than others, but Sir Harold Nicolson, doyen of

critics,
appeared able
to tread
on Trevor-Roper's toes
Writing of the only book issued ex
with impunity.
a collection of the Professor's miscellaneous

reviews Nicolson commented, "It seems to me that
cathedra
the Professor, for
all
the fine finality of his judgments,
lacks the daring scope of Toynbee, the majesty of Namier,
the incisive wit of A.
Wedgwood,
J.
P. Taylor, the taste of
the humanity of Trevelyan, or the
and modesty of Dr. A. L. Rowse.

of his lute there
is
Among
a wire of hate which
suddenly with the rasp of a banjo."
was believed
that
if
there
was a case
to
is
Miss
charm
the strings
apt to twang
Nevertheless,
it
be stated against
a historian, Trevor-Roper could marshal and present
evidence not only more destructively but more
the
elegantly than anyone else.

It
was
after nearly five years of the professorship that
a very spectacular fatted calf presented himself; he was

A.
J.
P. Taylor,
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Unlike Toynbee, Taylor looked for no grand design or
purpose in the universe, claimed no theory of history.
He was
dozen
who had written about a

many of which were standard
a polyglot scholar
historical studies,
works in
113
his
chosen period of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries.
If
more
anything, he was
illustrious
prey
than Toynbee; while practically everybody had stalked
Toynbee, not many had dared
to
pursue Taylor. In the
eyes of the professionals, Taylor had as

to his
name
as
any
many solid books

many of them
True,
living historian.
held against Taylor his regular contributions to certain
Sunday Express
sections of the vulgar press, like the

fact that
he wrote
just as often for
the
highbrow papers did
not seem to redeem him), and his regular television
appearances
his
Who's
regularly in television
lists
of
since
all this,
ever given on
lectures
first
don was not a
journalistic
uncommon phenomenon
away with
"Appears
programme, Free Speech," and
(script of
television)" but
very
entry boasts,
his publications, " 'The Russian Revolution
among
1917'
Who
and more,
England, Taylor got
in
Trevor-Roper came
until
along, in yet another Encounter article "A.

Hitler, and the War" (July, 1961) to
The book under attack this time was
Origins of the Second
World War."
It
J.
P. Taylor,
slaughter him.
Taylor's
"The
had arrived on
the historical scene like a thunderbolt, unheralded

the
usual
prepublication
retired to their dens to
talk.
While the
chew over the
book, like Toynbee's work before
some encomiums from the public
by
specialists
"Origins," Taylor's
it,
received
at large.
Statesman review, for one, began, "Mr. A.
J.
hand-
The New
P.
Taylor
ii4
is
Fty an d the Fly-Bottle
now
the only English historian
the
bow
of
Gibbon and Macaulay."
book was
that the
writing
who
went on
It
to claim
"a masterpiece: lucid, compassionate,
beautifully written in a bare, sparse style,
same time deeply
can bend
and
at the
was disturbing because
disturbing." It
Taylor assailed the assumption that Hitler and his hench-
men had
He
willed the war.
termed
tins
universally
held belief a myth, and concluded, in one disquieting

sentence, "The
war
of 19,39, far
was a mistake, the
The
blunders."
and
if
historian depicted Hitler as a rational
serious statesman
The
pedigree.
ing.
To
from being premeditated,
on both sides of diplomatic
result
whose foreign policy had a long
as
book reviewers noted
was not a madman, then
Hitler
were far-reach-
implications of this view
take one instance
Germans were
all
guilty.
Trevor-Roper soon emerged from

article
on Taylor was only a
his library,
little less
and
his
violent than his
response to Toynbee. In the "Study," the prophecy had

repelled him;
to
what repelled him
in the "Origins"
seemed
be the philosophy though Taylor was no more ready
to
admit he was a philosopher than Toynbee had been
to
admit that he was a prophet. In
that he
was simply trying
appear to
records."
some future
The philosophy
Taylor would scarcely

pher's
notebook.
fill
fact,
Taylor insisted
"to tell the story as
historian,
it
may
working from the
that Trevor-Roper ascribed to
a paragraph in any philoso-
According to
Trevor-Roper,
thought that there were no heroes or
Taylor
villains in history,
and that "the
determinants of history
real
objective situations
115
are
and human blunders." According
Trevor-Roper continued,
Taylor,
consist of the realities of
power;
"objective
human
to
situations
intelligence
is
best employed in recognizing these realities and allowing
events to conform with them; but as
seldom prevails in
human
intelligence
politics, the realities generally
to assert themselves, at greater
human
have
cost through the
mess caused by human blunders." Taylor might claim

to
be writing from the records, Trevor-Roper
said,
but
his philosophy could write his history for him. This was
how,
in Trevor-Roper's view,
both Hitler and Neville
Chamberlain could be painted by Taylor as

statesmen":
Both,
it
necessity" of 1918.
after
its
defeat,
it
"intelligent
seemed, followed the "historical
Since
Germany was not carved up
tended to revert to
its
natural position
of a great power. Hitler was, therefore, right
and
intelli-
gent in cooperating with this "historical necessity," for
he stood
to gain,
in yielding to the
and Chamberlain was
same
also intelligent
"historical necessity,"
though he
stood to lose.
With such a philosophy, how could there
be heroes or
villains?
that any historian
who
Trevor-Roper's insinuation was
looked at the world with these
neutral eyes obviously could not see the true Adolf

Hitler.
If
a historian was unable to see Hitler, whose
was within our memory

dered.
The charge was
what
all
the
could he see,
more severe
life
won-
for being
applied to a long-established and brilliant practitioner
n6
And how had
of the historical art.
a pass?
Taylor come to such
Trevor-Roper had his theories.
He exhumed
The
an old controversy about the Regius Chair.

Sir
late
Lewis Namier, accepted by Toynbee, Taylor, and
Trevor-Roper himself as a historian without equal in

it
was publicly rumored,
recommended Trevor-Roper over
his pupil, Taylor, for
twentieth-century England, had,
the Regius Chair, on the ground that Trevor-Roper
was
a preferable academic candidate for not having appeared
much on
television.
Trevor-Roper
now
"Is
it,
as
some have suggested,"
asked in Encounter, "a gesture of
posthumous defiance
to
his
former master,
Sir
Namier, in revenge for some imagined slight?

is
just as well that
devastating justice
it
it
is
posthumous: otherwise what
would have received!" His specu-
lations
on Taylor's motives did not stop
on, "Is
it,
as
Lewis
If so, it
He went
here.
Mr. Taylor's friends prefer to believe, mere
characteristic gaminerie, the love of firing squibs
laying banana-skins to disconcert the gravity
the balance of the orthodox?
and
and upset
Or does Mr. Taylor perhaps
suppose that such a re-interpretation of the past will

enable us better to face the problems of the present?
Theoretically, this
should not be his motive, for not
only does Mr. Taylor, in his book, frequently
tell
us
that the past has never pointed the course of the future,
but he has also assured us recently, in the Sunday Express, that the study of history
even general understanding:

is
to
amuse; and
it
its
can teach nothing, not

sole purpose,
would therefore seem
to
he
says,
have no
more
right to a place in education than the
117
blowing of
soap bubbles or other forms of innocent recreation."
who made
wondered
if
of history
would answer or
the historian
cloak of silence, as
day or two
apparently,
soap bubbles out
behind the dignified
Toynbee had done a few years
later, this
when
retreat
earlier.
question was settled for me,
received the June 9th copy of the
Times Literary Supplement. In a disturbing
letter of
two
sentences, Taylor dismissed the host of learned critics
who,
like
Trevor-Roper, had been dogging him and a
kind T.L.S. reviewer.
who
"I
have no sympathy with authors
resent criticism or try to answer
he wrote.
it,"
must however thank your correspondents

publicity
which they have given
my
"I
for the free
book."
Nevertheless, I looked through the subsequent En-
counters for a shriek of protest from Taylor.
some months
in the
It
in coming, but
September
issue,
it
It
took
was unmistakably there
and what a curious form
it
took!
was ominously headed "how to quote Exercises
for Beginners."
Two
columns of passages
Trevor-Roper's article summarizing and

gins,"
one
from
quoting "Ori-
and the other unedited quotations from the book
were
juxtaposed:
But what about the Euro-
pean Jews? That episode

conveniently
Mr. Taylor.
forgotten
is
by
Many
qualms
Germans
as
secution
had
one act of perfollowed
another
culminating in the unspeakable wickedness of the gas-
chambers.
But
few
knew
n8
how
to
protest.
Everything
which Hitler did against the

Jews followed logically from
the racial doctrines in which
most Germans vaguely believed.
does not
It
acter of a
who
"in
trine,
the
char-
In principle and doctrine
German statesman
was no more wicked

and unscrupulous than many
fit
principle
and doc-
was no more wicked
Hitler
contemporary
other
and unscrupulous than many
men. In wicked
other statesmen."
did them
And
But
so on.
if this
acts
states-
he out-
all.
was the non-answering way
of
replying to Trevor-Roper, at the end of his exercise
Taylor attempted a variation on the method:
[the
It
harm,
book]
perhaps
will
do
irreparable
harm, to Mr. Taylor's reputation as a serious historian.
The
Regius
Professor's
methods of quotation might

also
do harm
to his reputa-
tion as a serious historian,
if
he had one.
Appended
to Taylor's
columns was more prose from
Trevor-Roper. This time, his words were defensive, even

tame.
He
wrote that the exercises "are calculated to
spare him [Taylor] the trouble of argument and to give
lot of trouble
reader,"
me
and that
(or,
"if
more
likely,
bewilderment) to the
Mr. Taylor had been able to convict
of any 'quotation' comparable with his
own
version

of the
now
German documents
silent), or if
(a subject on which he
he had shown
my summary
inconsistent with his thesis as he so often
...
119
is
be
to
is
as
with himself
should indeed be ashamed."
Not long
from John, enclosing the
after this, a letter
transcription
of
between
confrontation
television
Trevor-Roper and Taylor on "The Origins of the Second
World War," reached me
in America.
"What
you weren't here for the sensational screen
impression
impact of Taylor's mind. Taylor would pinch
and take
was
and
my heart went
Roper appeared nervous,

hands writhing. As
But
the show.
nose
his
though he had an ulcer or
off his glasses as
in pain,
the
flame under the withering
spluttering
of
me
"Trevor-Roper gave
John's epistle read, in part.
shame
struggle,"
his
out to him, while Trevor-
mouth
little
jumpy, his
am concerned, Taylor stole

one mans opinion. No doubt
far as I
this is
there are others."
The debate had taken place sometime between

publication of "A.
J.
P.
Taylor, Hitler, and the
and that of the "Exercises

to
me
fight.
for Beginners."
that Taylor certainly hadn't gone
While the detailed

varied, the
body's
were that Taylor was blind
fire
ness (even
if
of the Jews,
book had been
two points that had drawn everyto Hitler's
wicked-
he excluded from the book the genocide
on the ground that
story of the origins of the war,
no excuse
War"
indicated
down without
criticisms of his
many and
It
the
it
was not part
everybody
said,
of the
he had
for discounting or ignoring altogether Hitler's
120
monomaniacal
visions in
"Mein Kampf,"
maunder-
his
ings about being the master of the world in "Hitler's
Table Talk, 1941-1944," and

to the Generals in 1937,
War
for the
of 1939")
his
Hossbach Memorandum
which became "the blueprint
and that Taylor had
be perverse (Munich, generally accepted
umph
of cowardice,"
was made by him
was best and most enlightened
that
all
out to
set
be "a
to
tri-
"a triumph of
in British life").
In a word, his critics accused him of being an apologist

for Hitler,
and an apologist
for appeasement.
now
perfectly obvious," Taylor
"It's
said in his
own
defense on TV, "that the wickedness he [Hitler] did, the
wickedness he inspired, particularly what went on in
Germany
of the
the dictatorship,
these have no
But
this.
was the
least original part of
good or
ill.
it
parallel in history.
seems to
dispute
for
later on, the extermination
Jews
That
in this
me
had gone
don't
that his foreign policy
what he contributed,
and
trying to say, not thinking of

Hitler's policy
it
this is all I've
in
sprang out of the
either
moral terms
German
been
that
history that
before. That in one form or another
Germany,
remaining united at the end of the First World War,
was bound
to seek to destroy the defeat;
was bound
to
seek to undo the Treaty of Versailles; and that the im-
petus of success in undoing this Treaty would carry
Germany forward,
unless
into being again a great
it
these are wicked things
to
want
be dominant
in
and dominant power
If
to
was checked
in
if
it's
some way,
in
Europe.
wicked for Germans
Europe, and not wicked, shall
we
say, for
Americans or Russians
to
be dominant
world, well then he was a wicked statesman. But
understand, except that
dislike
121
in the
I
don't
the Germans,
why
merely wanting your country to be the most powerful
world puts you into the head
in the
statesman.
The
[sic]
bach
Memorandum]
there's
going to be a great war in 1943-45
figures
more than once,
of,
Hitler
lays
it
wicked
down is
that
he uses
these
this is the thing that he's thinking
War which maybe he was
the Great
of a
basis of this blueprint [the Hoss-
planning for
1943-45, instead of that he got himself into a smaller
war
and how the
in 1939,
second,
can be a blueprint for the
first
don't understand.
If
Canada next
next week,
The war
some
war
against Russia, a
war
against
and
it
it
England and France,
When
for a historian to
events in the past
I try to
it
it
war
Munich was
British
life, I
judge them
enlightened people,
that the years
men
war
of 1939
was
not planned
perhaps this
on but when I
a triumph for
mean
took place against
all
is
judge
that
When
was best
and years before
of the Left
the
in terms of the
morality which then existed, not of mine.

that
war
judge
go
may
It
to take place against,
when he had
took place at a time
to take place.
wrong way
different
in 1943, but the
antagonists that he'd not planned
plane to
good planner.
not the war he planned.
is
you
along,
jet
on a motorcycle tour
don't think he's a very
of 1939
by
to fly
year, but instead goes
well be that he planned
man comes
know, and says I'm proposing
whom
say
in
that,
perhaps
122
I
equate too easily with
had attacked Czechoslovakia,

the inclusion of the Sudeten
was
in
the words
of one
was best
that
all
had
that they
Germans
that
said that
in Czechoslovakia
that a triumph for
all
those
the
them, Brailsford
of
worst crime of the peace settlement of 1919. ...
by
they
mean
who had preached
en-
lightenment, international conciliation, revision of treaties,
and
the liberation of nationalities from foreign rule,

so on."
For me, the books of Toynbee and Taylor had raised

disconcerting
which
questions,
answered by arguments over such
whether Toynbee
Western
really
civilization,
wished
no
could
be
longer
specific
points
as
to put out the lights of
and whether Taylor overlooked
the ferocious and destructive springs of Hitler's character.
More fundamental questions had begun to nag at me.

The majestic Sir Lewis Namier had furnished his "The
Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III"
one of the best
historical
works of our
time with
epigraph from Aeschylus' "Prometheus Vinctus":
an
took
"I
pains to determine the flight of crook-taloned birds,
marking which were of the right by nature, and which

of the
left,
and what were
after his kind,
their
ways
and the enmities and
of living, each
affections that
between them, and how they consorted together."

sense, history
was a movement
of birds,
that they
were empirical
If,
in a
Toynbee and
Taylor used very different methods to divine

insisted
were
historians,
it.
Both
yet one
used a telescope and the other a microscope.
123
Both
claimed to be objective historians, yet one indisputably

tilted his telescope to the
own
heavens and the other, by his
admission, confined the range of his vision to the
minutiae of foreign policy.

I
knew
that selection
From my
and exclusion were basic
of the historical method.
But the disparity
cedure of Trevor-Roper's two
me
it
study of history,
kills
was
principles
in the pro-
so great that for
could not be explained on the grounds of method
My
or temperamental differences.
perplexity, as I
was
soon to learn, was shared by a Taylor of Cambridge

E. H. Carr, Fellow of Trinity College
Trevor-Roper was laying low
his victims
was asking the question "What

merits, the question
that the answers
who,
is
even as
one by one,
history?"
On
its
was an engulfing one, and the
were
own
fact
delivered as Trevelyan lectures to
Cambridge undergraduates, broadcast over the B.B.C.,

reproduced in Listener
book, "What
articles,
Is History?,"
and
finally issued as a
contributed to the swell of
interest.
Carr, one of the most distinguished historians at

bridge,
his
began
own with
more
brilliant
his lectures
assailing a
few victims of
a cutting polemical style that
and
effective for
reasonableness, and
his trophies
by
seemed
sanity.
to
having an
Cam-
was
air of
all
the
cogency,
Prominent in the display of
be the head of
Sir Isaiah Berlin,
whose book "The Hedgehog and the Fox" and whose

lecture "Historical Inevitability"
a sober and intelligent thinker
had established him
on the question "What
as
is
124
'
"In
history?"
now
1954," Carr
said
attacking the
in
Chichele Professor, "Sir Isaiah Berlin published his essay
on
'Historical Inevitability.'
ment the argument

and Marx
is
He added
objectionable because,
actions in causal terms,

free will,
to
by explaining human
Even when he
dulgence by talking
evade their sup-
historians to
pronounce moral condemnation
on the Charlemagnes, Napoleons, and

.
talks nonsense,
Stalins of history.
he earns our
in an engaging
it
human
implies a denial of
it
and encourages
posed obligation ...
to the indict-
that the liistoricism' of Hegel
and
in-
attractive
way."
At the very
first
opportunity
were printed
lectures
Listener
Berlin
tried to fend
finished, "His short
that
is,
the spring of
in
way with
Carr
when
1961,
off in
Carr's
the
in
a letter that
the problem of individual
freedom and responsibility (the 'dead horse' which,

Mr. Carr's horrifying metaphor ...
a warning to us
life') is
all
of
in
Tiave flogged into
what may happen
to those
who, no matter how learned or perspicacious, venture

into regions too distant
from
of his indulgence towards
reciprocate
his
way
by
offering
him
their
my
my
own. Mr. Carr speaks
follies.
sympathy
in the difficult, treacherous
am
as
glad to
he gropes
and unfamiliar
field
of philosophy of history."
Carr, however, took Berlin's letter simply as an opportunity to redeliver his thrusts, in the Listener, at his
new-found sympathizer.
for his
summary
He
quoted chapter and verse
of Berlin's views:
One
ity"
[he recited abacus fashion], in "Historical Inevitabil-
...
Sir Isaiah writes: "I
do not here ["my
noted] wish to say that determinism

that
125
we
neither think nor speak as
if it
and perhaps impossible,
is difficult,
would be
ture of the world
and over again, he seeks
if
to
we
is
Can-
italics,"
necessarily false, only
were true and that
seriously
show
that determinism
do not
these arguments
If
in-
is
compatible with "the notion of individual responsibility,"
which he emphatically endorses.
it
what our picbelieved it." Over
to conceive
lead to the conclusion that "determinism must be false,"

I
do not see where they
Two,
lead.
Sir Isaiah dismisses
what he
who make
that those
"to explain
to
is
This seemed to
for,
this
... on
to
the ground
plea are involved in the fallacy that
understand and to understand
me
modern plea
calls "the
for a greater effort at understanding"
mean
is
to justify."
that the historian should not look
underlying social or economic causes of the two
say,
world wars,
lest
he should
in the process explain
moral responsibility of Wilhelm
II or Hitler
away the
German
or the
people.
Three, Sir Isaiah sharply dissents from the view
"that
Charlemagne or Napoleon or Genghis

Khan or Hitler or Stalin for their massacres" and from the
it
is
foolish to judge
view that
it is
"absurd" or "not our business as historians" to
praise "benefactors of humanity."

is
took this to
mean
that
it
wise and sensible and our business as historians to award
good or bad marks
When
wrote
to outstanding figures of the past.
my
lectures, I
stood on these three questions.

world,
thought
Now, with
knew where he
the best will in the
simply do not know.
To what
extent Hitler could help being Hitler, to
what extent he would be morally exonerated
if
he was
regarded as the product of his environment, to what
126
extent a historian could place himself in the role of
judge
all
were more than clockwork
My
false
The word
false.
epistle:
reason for not asserting that determinism must be
simple
is
indicate that
did not, and do not,
did not think
nism
it
know whether
by Mr.
"here," italicized
Carr,
in general in a lecture
that I claimed to
believe,
still
is
to
appropriate to conduct a
on
full-
history, not (as
he seems to
be
but did not
know
to
it
false
bother to show this in the lecture in question.
and
it
was meant
arguments for and against determi-
scale discussion of the
think)
if
who now thumped Carr
the scent had stuck to Berlin,
with a second solid
even
hares,
What
did say,
that the arguments in favour of determi-
is
nism are not convincing,
let
alone conclusive, and that accept-
more drastic revision of some

commonest convictions and notions than is usually allowed for. The belief, for instance, that men who acted in a
ance of
it
logically entails a far
of our
particular
limits,
way
in a particular situation could, within certain
have acted differently in
this
same
situation, in a
than merely logical sense of "could," seems to
me
to
more
be one
of these.
I
argued in
my
lecture that this assumption underlay the
normal thought and language of most
men and most
historians
(including Mr. Carr), whereas they do not imply ability

in
trary.
But
this fact,
against determinism,
that determinism
so;
[sic]
determinism as described by Mr. Carr, but rather the con-
only that
hypothesis
(as
it
it
at
may
may
not, of course,
is false, still less
if it is,
common men
although
is
create a presumption
tantamount to showing
that
it
must necessarily be
any rate for practical purposes, a valid

be), then
much
(including Mr. Carr)
that historians
and
assume or believe
will
turn out to be false.

I also
argued that
we
cannot really embrace determinism,
127
that is, incorporate it in our thought and action, without far

more revolutionary changes in our language and outlook
(some among them scarcely imaginable in terms of our ordinary words and ideas ) than are dreamt of in Mr. Carr's philos-
On
ophy.
the other hand, Mr. Carr
posing that
perfectly right in sup-
is
believe that the determinist proposition that in-
dividual (or indeed any) actions are wholly determined

identifiable causes in time
Mr. Carr believes that both these
individual responsibility.
irreconcilable positions are supported
common
by
not compatible with belief in
is
experience," whereas
what ordinary men assume.
by "common sense and
think that only the second
paradox that
It is this
is
is
at the
heart of the problem of free-will, and, as I have admitted

already,
do not know what
that Mr. Carr dismisses as a
thinkers have tried to
survived them
(2)
But
ly right.
my
if
he
view, use
is
pardon
to
from
infers
all
all"
to give
an example, that the better
he
too.
deny the proposition that

he
is,
once again, perfect-
certainly wrong.
is
we may be
But from
unfortunately,
him
this
it
we
It
seems to me,
understand ourselves,
to forgive ourselves for our
ians should not look for "social or
economic causes of the two
may
explain
moral responsibility of specific individuals; they

It is
own
does not begin to follow that histor-
world wars" because their discoveries
not.
should not,
their powers to understand and explain
action, then
actions.
many eminent
It has,
this that historians
human
the less liable
It is this issue
is.
as
survive
I fear,
Mr. Carr supposes that
If
"to understand all
in
do before him.
and may,
all
solution
its
"dead horse,"
away the
may
or
may
the business of historians to understand and to ex-
plain; they are mistaken only
if
they think that to explain
ipso facto to justify or to explain away.
not need stating were
some modern
it
historians,
is
This truism would
not for a tendency on the part of

in
their
understandable reaction
against shallow, arrogant, or philistine moral judgments (and
128
Fly and the Fhj-Bottle
ignorance or neglect of social and economic causes), to com-
the
mit themselves to the opposite extreme
total exonera-
tion of all the actors of history as products of impersonal
beyond conscious human control.

It is one thing to recognize the right of historians to
use words which have moral force, and another to order or
forces
(3)
recommend
only say
historians
again
language of
But
sible.
which
historians
marks
am
me
same
to
...
truth.
interest,
neither of us holds.
If
In
matters
and
to
be
moral judgment
like
he will not charge
know
that he
duties,
same
liable to the
therefore,
shall read,
of
and other men who seek
sincerely hope,
coming book, which

with eager
commanding
have the same rights and
difficulties,
lapses as other writers
can
"to outstanding figures of the past,"
accused.
to
historian's
neither desirable nor pos-
is
a far cry from this to inviting or
seem
to face the
judgments.
purge the
attempt to
to
evaluative force
all
it is
historians to give
of
deliver moral
to
that
to tell the
that in his forth-
all
me
his other works,
with views which
would not do
so willingly.
Carr had failed to decipher the philosophically
coded
of
signals
"Historical
Inevitability,"
hardly have failed to understand the
Cambridge
he
letter.
could
But the
historian unapologetically presented Berlin's
head as a trophy in the published book, alongside countless
dead and
living historians, including Trevor-Roper,
who was pinned
to the wall as a violent, almost irra-
tional conservative
by
scream that victory

servatives
is
his
own remark "When
radicals
indubitably theirs, sensible con-
knock them on the nose." Karl Popper, Pro-
fessor of Logic
and
Scientific
Method
School of Economics, whose "The
at the
Open
London
Society
and
Enemies" had made him a pundit without equal
Its
on the philosophy of
trophies
Carr's
and had
history,
and
despite
that
the
warnings of E. H. Gombrich, a strong
who
put him
also
on the side of Carr, was another of
partly
least
at
129
often does
his
prepublication
ally of Popper's,
"There
public letter writing.
is
something disarming," Gombrich had noted (again in

the Listeners epistolary tournament), "in
Mr. E. H.
Carr's picture of himself as another Galilei, facing a
bench of such obscurantist
inquisitors
Namier or Professor Popper

on
to his Marxist belief in the
who
is
more
Sir
Lewis
while boldly holding
predetermined movement
of history towards ever-increasing
Unfortunately, he
as
human
like Galilei's
self -awareness.
famous colleague
refused to look through a telescope."
In his book, Carr unhesitatingly held on to his belief,
Marxist or no, that
who
write
historical
it,
and
and
social
all
history
all
is
relative to the historians
are relative to their
historians
background. ("Before you study the
history, study the historian.
historian, study his historical
Before you study the
and
social environment.")
History was not objective (possessing a hard core of

facts)
but subjective (possessing a hard core of interpre-
Each generation
tation).
self,
and a good
vision
into
reinterpreted history to suit
historian
the future
was one who projected
or,
rather,
it-
his
one whose vision
coincided with the goals toward which history was advancing.

events,
History was progress, the forward march of
and a historian was judged
to
be good
if
he
left
130
the losers on the "rubbish heap of history" and picked

the winners of tomorrow. This, as Berlin,
who was
thus
far Carr's severest critic, pointed out, in his final estima-
tion of the
book
New Statesman was a "Big Battalion

although he acclaimed the book as
)
view of history"
bold excursion into
"clear, sharp, excellently written ... a
a region of central importance where most contemporary
philosophers and historians, unaccountably, either fear

or disdain to tread."
Even
as I put
down
view, which was remarkable for pulling
mors reached
me
that Trevor-Roper,
its
Berlin's re-
punches, ru-
whose conservative
views were destined by Carr to join the rubbish heap of
was bringing out
history,
By
this time,
my
pelling proportions,
art of the
his
Encounter chopping block.
armchair inquiry had grown to com-
and
was a captive
philosophy of history.
I felt
in the public library, I
England
now
is
the
home
came
to realize that
of historians doing historical
having grasped
philosophy,
an impulse to
After spending
talk to the controversialists themselves.
a few days
of the delicate
Germans, who, from Hegel
the
to
from the
leadership
Oswald Spengler, were
unchallenged champions of the subject; today the Continentals
who have
to Britain.
thoughts on the study tend to gravitate
myself the assignment of finding out
set
what the practicing

craft,
historians
think about their
and what they think the connection
their craft
same time
thinkers
and
their theories of history
that I
and
as
would come
men. Through
to
is
own
between
hoping
at the
know them both
my
as
reading of history,

I
was
familiar with the
historians
history.
who
names and writings
represent various
of
131
many
ways of looking
at
Besides Trevor-Roper and Toynbee, Taylor and
Carr, there were Herbert Butterfield, Master of Peter-
house, Cambridge; Pieter Geyl, Emeritus Professor of
Modern History at the University of Utrecht; C. V.

(Veronica) Wedgwood, a scholarly historian who wrote
popular history at
its
best;
and a number
of others
such quiet English historians as Christopher

fessor R.
W.
Hill, Pro-
Southern, the Reverend Dr. David Knowles,
G. R. Elton, Sir John Neale, David Ogg, and the late

Professors Richard Pares
and
Sir
cultivated their scholarly gardens
Lewis Namier, who

in
private.
(Berlin
and Popper occupy some undefined region between

tory
and philosophy, and
themselves.)
his-
their views merit a study
With an open
list
by
of historians to meet, I
started out for the colony of intellectuals,
my
first
stop
being the study of Trevor-Roper himself, in the History

Faculty Library, on Merton Street, in Oxford.
found Trevor-Roper who was born
year the First
World War started in
was seated behind a desk
in
his
1914, the
study.
He
in a cold, gray, almost bare
room, and he was a youthful-looking gentleman who,
one would guess, used a straight razor for a shave. His

voice
was
as bleak as the winter
wind from the open
window
beside his desk, and he had no time for pleas-
antries.
My
the
first
few questions
name Taylor made him
sit
fell flat,
but mention of
up, rather as a sullen
132
country squire might
when he
is
asked to talk about
said,
with a pure B.B.C.
his grouse shooting.
"I believe in
"In
accent.
clarity/'
he
my article on Taylor, there was not a single

well, maybe one or two! 'Emotive word'
emotive word
I
word
define as any
that carries with
a value judg-
it
ment."
I felt I
was
in the lion's den, but I asked
him
specu-
if
on Taylor's motives was not making some
lating
sort of
value judgment.
"I
was following
Taylor's stricture in the 'Origins' that
one must question the motive of every document," he

"For me, Taylor's book
replied.
worthless one.
It
is
a document, albeit a
must, therefore, have a motive. Before
speculating on his motives in writing the book,

consult one or
How
"He
Alan
they
shall
did he think the television debate had gone?
me Hughie, but I was not

from my manners," he said.
though
because
in private life
he
is
disconcerted or
"I
called
known
to
do not
looked at Toynbee's "Reconsiderations"?
"I refuse to
read any of him now," he said.
utterly repellent to
the whole
Was
as
did badly."
Had he
of rout
him
me
believe that in public debate one must
not give the impression of a private coterie.

think
did
remain nameless."
called
deflected
Taylor
two people
Minoan
and
it
rally.
me. His laws are

civilization in a
way
He
to
is
presented
fit
his laws
Etc."
true that he
for Encounter?
false.
"He
was preparing a piece about Carr
am
"I
"It is
reviewing
What
Is History?' at length,"
not a good book. Carr presents his
own
he
133
said.
side with
an enormous degree of sophistication, whilst his opponents are ridiculed.
For example, he denigrates the
role of accident in history
by saying
that people
who
argue from accident are arguing from the shape of

Cleopatra's nose, or the proverbial
They
killed the king.
monkey
are saying, 'Were
it
bite
not for the
shape of Cleopatra's nose, or the monkey bite that

the king, the course of history
we
Suppose
ent/
would have been
substitute for Cleopatra's
death of Churchill in 1939.
Am
that
killed
differ-
nose the
then to be told by the
Carrs of this world that the course of history would
have gone on pretty much as

For
of Churchill?
my
you
to
in a
month
Were
my
it
did under the leadership
other criticisms of Carr,
Encounter review, which
will
I direct
be on the stands
or two."
there any twentieth-century English historians
he admired?
"Not
really."
"Not even Tawney or Namier?"
asked. In the eyes
of
many
is
considered to be second only to Sir Lewis Namier.
professional historians in Britain, R. H.
The two men,

history
it is
one by
Tawney
thought, revolutionized the study of
brilliantly
employing economic
analysis,
the other by using psychological and biographical tools.

It is
said that
Tawney and Namier did
Marx and Freud had done
for sociology
for history
what
and psychology,
respectively.
"A colleague
of
Tawney 's
told
me
the other day,"
134
"
Trevor-Roper
said, "that
he used
to get very emotional
He
about evidence which contradicted his theories.
sometimes valued
Namier, though
"Whom
his conclusions too
think his
much.
method
is
do admire
a limited one."
do you admire unreservedly?"
asked.
"Gibbon."
"In this century?"
"One
two French
or
"Do you have any
historians."
theories
of history yourself?" I
asked.
"Yes. I believe in parallels in history
in the fourth century B.C.
tieth
century.
what
happened
can throw light on the twen-
believe in the law of
causation
causes y in history."
His credo was so unexceptionable that neither
Tawney
nor Namier nor Toynbee nor Taylor nor Carr would
argue with
it.
"Sometimes,"
away
said, a little cautiously,
the works of
men
like
"you explain
Toynbee and Taylor
in
terms of their prejudices. Are there any personal details
about you that could throw light on your
way
of writing
history?"
"Not
really,"
As soon
as
he
said.
had
left
of proofs of his
Trevor-Roper,
Encounter
article,
"E. H. Carr's Success Story." Like
got hold of a set
which was called
many
other reviewers,
Trevor-Roper took the Cambridge historian to task for

his
determinism (Carr had dismissed the people
who
tarried over the might-have-beens of history as players

"parlour-game");
of a
for
new
his
definition
from prejudice, Carr had
to
135
of
the
were not
"objective" historian (believing that historians

free
some degree redefined
objectivity in a historian, as "the capacity to project his
vision into the future");
and contingencies.
axe
fell
and
for disregarding accidents
But the weight of Trevor-Roper's
on Carr personally. Here, as
in his other
counter executions, the condemned man's personal
was made the scapegoat
for
some
of his views
In
you begin
life
time
this
with the emphasis on Carr's proposition, "Study the

torian before
En-
his-
to study the facts").
1939 [Trevor-Roper wrote], Mr. Carr published an
important book, "The Twenty Years' Crisis," in which he

appeared, as so often since, as a
lessly
"realist," cutting as ruth-
through the "utopian," "idealist" verbiage of
Zimmern and Dr. Lauterpacht
as
he
now
Sir
Alfred
cuts through the
antiquated liberalism of Sir Isaiah Berlin and Dr. Popper.
The upshot of his argument was that only the realities of

power matter, and that German power, and the ideas to
which it gave force, must be respected as a datum in politics.
The book was, as Mr. A. J. P. Taylor has recently called it,
"a brilliant argument in favour of appeasement." A few
years later, Mr. Carr changed his mind about the realities
of power, and during the war, when he contributed largely
to The Times, he became known as "the Red Professor of
Printing House Square." But suppose that, in the 1930s, he
had written a
history of
Germany, "objective"
in his sense of
the word, according to the evolving standard "laid

future,"
I
and disregarding "the might-have-beens
have no doubt
it
up
in the
of history."
would have been a brilliant work, lucid,

No doubt it would have been acute
trenchant, profound.
136
in analysis
and without crude error
same
the
wonder how well
or misjudgment.
Never-
would have worn: how

"objective," in any sense of the word, it would have appeared
to us now, when the Nazi success story has ended in discredit and failure. In fact Mr. Carr did not write a history
of Germany. But his great "History of Soviet Russia" bears
theless,
to "What Is History?" which that unwould presumably have borne to "The Twenty
For what is the most obvious characteristic
relation
written history
Years' Crisis."
"A History
of
it
of Soviet Russia"?
the author's unhesi-
It is
tating identification of history with the victorious cause, his

ruthless dismissal of
who
its victims, and of all

bandwagon. The "might-
opponents, of
its
did not stay on, or
steer, the
have-beens," the deviationists, the
rivals,
the critics of Lenin
are reduced to insignificance, denied justice, or hearing, or
space, because they backed the
them wrong, and the

side of History.
clerical
bigotry has
ruthlessness as this.
wrong
horse.
History proved
historian's essential task is to take the
No
historian since the crudest ages of
treated
No
evidence with such dogmatic
historian,
even in those ages, has
As
exalted such dogmatism into an historiographical theoiy.

Sir
Isaiah
wrote in his review of Mr. Carr's
Berlin
volume (and perhaps
it
this
is
in "Historical Inevitability"
as
much
as the
arguments
which has provoked Mr. Carr
pursue him so pertinaciously through these pages )

Carr's remaining
volumes equal
will constitute the
this
in the
Impressed as
European
I
his bullets at the
"If
to
Mr.
impressive opening, they
and objective truth and even-
justice in the writing of history
embedded
most monumental challenge of our time
to that ideal of impartiality
handed
first
which
is
most deeply
liberal tradition."
was by Trevor-Roper's
ability to
most vulnerable parts of
find chinks in everybody's armor, I
put
aim
his prey, to
down
"E. H.
Trevor-
Carr's Success Story" in a state of exasperation.
Roper had a
gift
137
for marshalling the faults of a historian
Toynbee, a Taylor, a Carr
without
a grain of
why the
why anyone read them,
why anyone took them seriously. He put me in mind of
a literary critic who has no love for writers, whose
sympathy.
After reading him, one wondered
books had been written at
criticism
is
not an enhancement of our understanding, an
invitation to read the
book again
interpretation, but simply
Yet the paradox was
seemed
to
all,
an instrument of destruction.
that in principle
Trevor-Roper
have no objection to historians who, in
put forward challenging theses.

in a lecture,
by Henri
in the light of his
He had
error,
written once
"Think of the great controversies launched
Pirenne's
Charlemagne.
famous
No one now
which he published
thesis
But how the
it.
Mohammed and
on
accepts
it
in the
form
in
living interest in
Europe's dark ages was re-created by the challenge
which he uttered and the controversy which he engendered! Think too of
Max Weber's famous
thesis
on the
Protestant ethic: a thesis of startling simplicity and

in
my
opinion
demonstrable
error.
But how much
poorer our understanding of the Reformation,

feebler our interest in
it
would be today,
if
how much
that chal-
lenge had not been thrown down, and taken up!

greatest professional historians of our century
always been those
who have
The
have
applied to historical study
not merely the exact, professional discipline they have
learned within
it
but also the sciences, the hypotheses,
138
human interest which however intermixed with

human error have been brought into it by the lay
the
world outside."
Perhaps the explanation of Trevor-Roper's Janus-like
posture, scowling at Pirennes
smiling at
them with the
with England. Even as

of historical
tual
and Webers with one
had been chasing the Hydra
and philosophical controversy, the
atmosphere
face,
him but
other, lay not with
intellec-
was thickening with hundreds
in Britain
of other altercations until the air
choked with a miasmic,
blinding fog. In a sense, to follow any of the proliferating controversies to
its
roots
ing about the intellectual
was
life
to discover oneself writ-
of a people.
Going
for the
largest game, creating an intellectual sensation, striking
a posture, sometimes at the expense of truth, stating the
arguments against a book or
its
author in the most relent-
sometimes violent way, engaging the interest of
less,
practically the
whole
intelligentsia
by using every nook
and cranny of journalism, carrying on a

of
words
in public
bitter
war
but keeping friendships intact in
private, generally enjoying the fun of going against the
grain
tion
all
were
these features prominent in historical disputaalso part of the
The more secure
broader English mental scene.
the castle of any reputation, the
battering rams arrived to assail
it,
and
Sir Charles
more
Snow
and Dr. F. R. Leavis were but the most spectacular

casualties of
what Hampshire
called "a ruinous conflict."

selves in
many
The
in the
New
Statesman
role of the papers
them-
of these personal or intellectual conflicts

could be glimpsed in the Spectators
first
139
publishing the
acrimonious and ruinous utterances of Leavisites and
Snowites and then closing the controversy with an editorial that
began, "Controversy on matters of intellectual
principle frequently has the disadvantage of obscuring
those issues which
read
all
intended to lay bare."
it is
"A Study
the volumes of
had not
of History," or actually
agreed with "The Origins of the Second World War," or

carefully listened for the thunder of the big battalions
monumental work on
Carr's
in
grasped the
I
implications of
full
had read enough
of,
in these historians as
next
visit
was
Chatham House,
in
probably
or
Is History?,"
but
and thought enough about, many
be excited by them, and
of the works to
My
Russia,
"What
to
be interested
men.
Arnold Toynbee,
to
who works
London the home
in
of the Royal
Institute of International Affairs.

I
arrived at the two -hundred-year-old house early one
afternoon,
and was shown by a watchful porter
on the second
floor
to a
door
marked rather portentously "The
Toynbee Room," but the professor who opened the door

was any tiling but portentous. Toynbee, who
three,
is
a medium-sized, alert-looking
head and a heavy nose.

serge
suit,
He was
which hung rather
who
he suggested a
saint
and
and yet
his prayers
Room appeared
to
is
is
man
is
seventy-
with a heavy
wearing an old blue
loosely
around him, and
wrapped up
in his theories
eager to please. The Toynbee
be a shrine not
so
much
to
him
as
140
world long
to a
Books on archeology, on ancient
past.
Greece and Rome, on China, on Egypt, on the Orient
were spread out
fireplace
"Oh," he said of
away from
it,
panel after panel of mosaics in a
like
Over the
cathedral.
portrait of
Toynbee.
rather apologetically, looking
this,
used to have a rather good print of the
"I
Parthenon there, but

this painting
was a
and
my
elder son presented
me
with
."
.
There wasn't a single volume on the twentieth cen-
and when
tury,
simply, "I keep
I
all
be leaving those
ones
We
the
to
leaving to
sat facing
"I
from experience that

in
how he managed
my
will
produce one
to
year.
it sits
lightly
read an enormous amount, but
"I
said
Chatham House."
have a very good memory, but
said.
home.
at
These more valuable
the family.
volume almost each
thick
Toynbee
this,
modern books
each other in a corner and talked.
asked Toynbee
he
am
commented on
know
what
exactly
ruled, ten-by-six notebooks
suppose
to
have a
knowledge about useful material. Sometimes
on me,"
it's
copy down
sort of foreI
take notes
years in advance of actually writing a book. I have just
been
for
in Italy in connection
which
with a study on ancient Rome,
have been unsystematically taking notes for
the last forty-odd years.
Whenever
come
out in one of
across an
my
interesting quotation, I
copy
it
have now
filled
twenty -five of them. Inci-
books, and
dentally, I
hand
have sold
text of 'A
my
note-
notebooks, along with the long-
Study of History,' to the manuscript
col-

lector
Arthur Houghton, of Corning Glass.
bore you,
was
in
America
Houghton and found some

side
It
come
did you
He
from the dead."
like returning
to write
If it doesn't
and
recently,
my writings,
some by Alexander Pope, who has an
was
"How
I
of
141
on
called
framed, alongexquisite hand.
laughed quietly.
your 'Study of History'?"
asked.
goes back to the First World War," Toynbee
"It all
answered
readily.
"I
happened
dides' 'Peloponnesian War,'
we were
tragic experience
when
such
for
one society
as a mortal
another society.
war
Two
it
struck
me
that the
going through had already
been experienced by the Greeks.
was possible
be rereading Thucy-
to
to
that
It
me
to
that
it
have experienced things
were
societies
came
still
in the future for
could be spaced wide
apart chronologically and yet be mentally contemporaneous. I
have been
at
work on the
With time banished

society,
Toynbee
'Study' ever since."
as a factor
said, a
from the
human mind
fruitful,
scientifically
of a
could compare
and contrast the experiences of various
make some
life
and
societies
valid generalizations
about man's experience in the universe. From the very

beginning, he went on, his whole enterprise had been
precarious.
There was the antipathetic climate of opin-
ion, the depression, the war,

life cycle.
He had
plained, "I
his
own
written his book under tremendous
mental pressure, and

not killed before
and a race with
its
it
was only by chance
inception.
came down from
"In 1911,"
Balliol
that
it
Toynbee
and made
was
ex-
straight
142
for Greece.
spent a year there, tramping about the
anybody and everybody, generally
talking to
villages,
learning about Greece.
map
staff
with me, which, among the other howlers,
dicated a nonexistent road.
being
drank a
thirsty,
Greek shouted across

water,
bad
it's
"If
found
in-
and,
it,
roadside water, until a
bad water,
to
throw
con-
but
off,
was not a second lieutenant
not, like half
Isn't it
it.
I'd
me, 'You shouldn't drink that
to
which took years
and did
raries, die in
thought
water!' Because of the
tracted dysentery,
in the war,
lot of the
because of the dysentery
work
had an inaccurate Austrian
my
extraordinary
college contempo-
how chance
does
in history?"
you believe
in chance," I asked,
"how can you
believe in historical laws?"

don't think I
"I
am
"I believe in free will.
determinist,"
Toynbee
said.
often think back to the interven-
tion of chance, like the death of Alexander the Great.
Had he
not died young, he might have politically united
the world.
Today, instead of two warring camps,
we
might have had a united world, with no nuclear sword

of
Damocles over our heads."

"But
"then
if
one chance can
affect history so," I insisted,
"
"Ah, yes!" he interrupted. "But Alexander the Great
is
an exception. In his case, no other Alexander came along

to
do the
and
it's
job.
In most cases, there are
a matter of chance
the recognition.
Many
who
many
candidates,
does the job,
who
gets
people had the idea of evolution
"
143
simultaneously in the nineteenth century, because the
time was ripe, but Charles Darwin got the recognition."
Granted
human
that, so to speak,
fruits
did ripen and
rot according to the seasons of civilizations,
Toynbee had the audacity
to formulate
from only a couple of dozen specimen
how had
climatic laws
societies?
would, of course, have liked hundreds and thou-
"I
sands of specimen civilizations to work from, but

the best
could with the samples
plied immediately. "Charles

'ten
All the criticisms
had not shaken
his
Darwin
many
specimens are too
did
had," Toynbee re-
says
somewhere
that
for a scientist.'
and reconsiderations, Toynbee
said,
fundamental belief that human
ex-
perience has a pattern, a shape, an order; indeed, he had

anticipated, in 1919,
opus,
all
when he
the criticism that
Today he stood alone
was
first
outlined his
magnum
heaped on
his head.
later
as a grand generalizer, but he
com-
forted himself with the thought that the days of the
microscope historians were probably numbered.
whether they admitted
it
or not,
had
eralizations for patchwork, relative
thought of
But
human
knowledge, and they
in the perspective of historiography, they
he
felt
most akin
and Ibn Khaldun, was

bee
sacrificed all gen-
experience as incomprehensible chaos.
the minority, and Toynbee, in

tine
said, "I
subjected to
to
all sorts
him
company with
Polybius,
in the majority.
was a scholar
of the customs,
They,
and you can,
I think,
were
in
Augus-
Roger Bacon,
"You
at Winchester,
of tribal customs.
St.
see,"
Toyn-
and naturally
fought
explain
many
away some
144
Fty and the Fly-Bottle
"
my
of
am
differences with the contemporary historians
by
a minority of one
saying
am
still
going against
the grain, against the tribal customs."
"But Augustine and Bacon weren't going against the
they
current of their times
were going with
"Indeed, they epitomized the

"That's true,"
other
Toynbee
their death.
nations."
I think,
you
spirit of their times."
said.
men whose work was
it," I said.
"But then there are
many
only recognized years after
see, that history
moves
in alter-
At the moment, he went on, we were passing
through a despairing time in intellectual matters, but a

period of generalization was not necessarily not just
around the corner. In any
mood
case,
he had not neglected the
of the century completely.
He had
kept his feet
on the ground of our times by producing "Survey of
In-
ternational Affairs," a series of yearly studies for the
Royal Institute of International
"I
knew
"As soon as
put pen to paper," he
first
two three-volume
in fact,
had been published and forgotten

Second World War.
He had
in the
shadow
The postwar volumes had
mood
in a slightiy different
tract for the times.
tried to
do
as a sort of
for history
what
Jung had done for psychology. Both he and Jung,
more
historical
and psychological
would be superseded,
as
he was concerned,
facts
came
as a matter of course,
if
in
sets of his "Study,"
of the
been written
it
said,
had would go up
that whatever reputation I
smoke." The
the very
he had entertained no hopes for
start of his "Study,"
in his lifetime.
From
Affairs.
as
to light,
but as far
even a quarter of his generaliza-
"

tions
were not
lost in
the sands of time, he would consider
work well done. He and Jung had come upon
his
not a small portent of the times.
ideas separately
discovery
of
Toynbee
said,
psychological
temporaneous
145
primordial
types,
their
Jung's
images,
was very
similar to his discovery of con-
societies.
"You know, Jung served
in the
Swiss artillery," Toynbee went on.
"Once, his unit was

They had been digging
digging a trench in the Alps.
hard for some time when an artilleryman shouted, in

exasperation, Tf
we
we
dig any farther,
will
come
to the
Mothers.'
Some
critics,
he added, had accused him, Toynbee, of
finding not just the

tain of facts
were one
bed of
under the moun-
civilizations
but gods as well; Mothers and civilizations
But
thing, gods another.
the death of
if
how
zations did give rise to religions,
could he help ap-
plauding their death, especially since the better

civilization
was
materially, the less vital
it
was
on, "I don't
ligion.
have a vested
If it doesn't
can't get
interest in
.
Toynbee
any one
re-
Although, of course,
away from my Judaeo-Christian background,
temperamentally
have any
bore you
off
spiritually?
"Since I do not believe in a personal god,"
went
civili-
difficulty
am
As a Hindu,
a Hindu.
in believing in
don't
many gods simulmay be the
taneously, or thinking that a syncretist faith
answer for our age. To Hindus,
which road, Siva or Vishnu, one

to
it's
of
no consequence
travels all
roads lead
Heaven."
I
asked Toynbee
if
his religious
views had provided
146
the motive and the cue for Trevor-Roper's violent attack.

"If it doesn't
bore you," he said,
puzzled by that
article.
why
ideas to be rubbish,
that, too, in
When
me to
adopt
If
did he bother with them, and
the onslaught was published, Encounter pressed

write an answer, but I'm pleased that
my
enemy's
my
didn't
In the original version of the
tactics.
Trevor-Roper, but
few harsh things about
wife edited them out, and I'm
For, you see, Trevor-Roper,
by overelectrocuting
me, really electrocuted himself. Of course, he hurt
much I
very
but
my
such a systematic and relentless fashion?
'Reconsiderations,' I said quite a
glad.
have been very
"I
Trevor-Roper thought
pain
feel
still
my
in
pinched
me
tail
."
.
Taking up the cudgels for him,

safely
have made short work of
his
"You could
said,
comparison of you
to Hitler."
"Did he compare
me
to Hitler?"
"Oh,
innocent surprise.
Toynbee asked with
I'd forgotten
that.
forced to write another volume of answers."
"And then
I shall
I said.
"Well, Pieter Geyl,
my
critic" Toynbee's
"brought out
my 'Reconsidera-
tone was affectionate
within ten days of
its
publication.
only written him a remonstrating
he goes on at
He
very pugnacious and persistent
a pamphlet answering and dismissing

tions' practically
may be
laughed.
certainly disclaim being a Hitler."
"Another volume!"
far, I've
this rate, I
may
letter,
but
So
if
well have to bring out
147
another book of answers." After a pause, he said, "By

the way,
what did you think was the most damaging
count in Trevor- Roper's indictment
in
case
should
write another 'Reconsiderations'?"
thought his quotations from your autobiographical,
"I
tenth volume were quite telling,"
may sound
"It
you
to
I said.
like double-talk,"
Toynbee
said,
reconsidering, "but I don't really believe in objective

history,
put on the table
my
I
my
the
methods
'Study.'
environment,
bag of
tools I
Such a record would
their
my
works for me.
younger
is
that
prejudices,
and
like
Thucydides
their lives
and
train-
have illuminated
certainly
a help to the readers of
it's
mother was a
historian,
my
an excellent monographer on the
Stuart dynasty, one of
it is
my
tried to
a professor of archeology at Cambridge,
sister is
literary critic,
think
know
'Study' to
elder sister
my
my
used in writing the
Often when reading historians
have missed not having a record of
ing.
volume
so in the autobiographical
and
my
so on.
sons, Philip,
Even
largely autobiographical
is
a distinguished
Philip's novel 'Pantaloon'
might
aid
some curious
future readers."
"But surely Trevor-Roper
is
complaining about the
autobiographical excesses rather than about the facts,"

I said.
"Yes,"
Toynbee promptly agreed.
of History' under
while
enough
enormous mental pressure.
was writing
in the
wrote 'A Study
"I
world
it,
didn't
to finish
it.
know
if
Also"
there
he
All the
was time
hesitated
148
"I
wrote some of those volumes under
having
You
lots of trouble.
my
see,
fire,
first
when
it.
wanted
to talk to
was
marriage had
me deeply, and ... in a sense, I

A tired man is apt to make mistakes."
collapsed, affecting
got over
him about the many
never
historians I
had been reading, but he had not seen Taylor's book and
had not heard
"What
of Carr's
and Tawney.
however, so
"I
am
ought to
to-day history,
mind
classical.
me
tell
human
then,
I didn't
know
what he got out
cal education
my
you that the climate of
my
my
educa-
classical education," I said.
that,"
of
it.
he
said.
am
not saying that a classi-
it
does endow
Gibbon had a point
men
"I can't imagine,
with some
me
common
of view totally opposite
can read him with pleasure,
could read
classical
energies on looking for
from mine, but nevertheless, because of

cation, I
he
ignorance of day-
stamps people with a uniform point of view
but, rather, that

properties.
fields,
experience."
"But Trevor-Roper had a

"Oh,
for
because of a
It's
tion that I've concentrated all
order in
Wedgwood
can't really judge them,"
"Before you censure
wholly
readily
very ignorant about their
suppose
He
the professional his-
but he thought he admired Miss
torians,
is
History?"
much about
admitted not knowing
said.
Is
his classical edu-
just as I think
he
with pleasure."
"Would Trevor-Roper grant Gibbon's reading you with

pleasure?" I asked.
'Terhaps not," Toynbee said, laughing.

It
was nearly
seven,
and Toynbee asked
me
to dine
"

with him at the Athenasum, a club that
more bishops per square inch than any other club

world.
my
wife in advance that
today."
He
many
see
very seldom go out," he said, "but
"I
might take you
said that, aside
He had
people.
from
have
said to
is
in the
warned
my
to
his family,
149
club
he didn't
lunch once a week with one
old school friend, a retired county judge, and some-
times he met a retired insurance executive.
he didn't so much walk as
street,
of
float
and he gave the impression of being a Gabriel
air,
among
the people.
In the club, Toynbee ordered

lentil
Out on the
on a thick cushion
medium-dry
soup, steak and kidney pie, and strawberry
talked
rather
expansively
about
journalist,
which had resulted
"Between Oxus and Jumna." "When

"I carry in
my
'Faust'
people
live
in a
little
while
book
called
I travel,"
he
said,
pocket a copy of the Bhagavad-Gita, a
volume of Dante, an anthology
and
and
ice,
seventeen-month
journey he had taken around the world a
back as a
sherry,
books
of the metaphysical poets,
read over and over again.
by Freud and 'Hamlet.'
I live
Some
by Jung and
'Faust.'
Toynbee's attempt to generalize, his regarding history

as a tapestry with recurring patterns, his ordering of the
life
of a civilization according to
its
religion
and
art
the
development of medicine and science, the basis for most

people's belief in
in his
work
no
human
progress, hardly gets a hearing
wonder the West has been on the de-
150
cline since the sixteenth century), his refusal to believe
that the faith of ages past in an orderly world has
Humpty-Dumpty, never
shattered like a
gether again
all
This, perhaps,
as a
are contrary to the predominant
Toynbee has
the reason
is
versity of Utrecht. Geyl,
mood.
attracted critics
Pieter Geyl, of the Uni-
is
who
to-
The most formidable
sweetshop invites children.
of the living critics, possibly,
been
be put
to
seventy-five, spent
is
more
than twenty years (1913-35) in England, beginning as a

correspondent for a Dutch newspaper and then becoming a professor
history
at
first of Dutch
London
with
indeed,
and
his reputation
Toynbee's
is
a part of
the
among
low. A.
J.
He
Dutch
English historical scene,
P. Taylor,
who
is
is
as high as
almost as sparing
and almost
as prolific
Toynbee, wrote a rapturous piece about Geyl for
seventieth
"When people
birthday:
'How then would you

historian.
historians strive
He
or
my
is
rather
I,
as
Even when he
,
The
is
wrong
am
no
at
Geyl
is
my
and
to-
is
historian, strive
whom
year
admire
wrong (and
strive
I think he
an historian can be.
historical significance of Dr. Geyl's
this
to avoid generalizing in
an
as only
which has been translated

acknowledged;
impatiently:
definition: Pieter
wards which other historians
sometimes ) he
his
represents the ideal towards which
turn) towards which
also.
ask
define an historian?'
an answer. This
loss for
an
of
well acquainted
is
the professionals
of compliments as Trevor-Roper,
as
and then
studies
University.
work (much
into English) has
its literary
is
.
of
been widely
significance, too,
was
when he was chosen
recognized,
Hooft Prize, the leading Dutch

style
is
unassertive.
of decision, his
to receive the P. C.
literary
award.
His
But when he has reached the point
words
fall like
the blows of a hammer.
His attitude towards historical evidence

his
151
well seen in
is
prolonged controversy with Toynbee. Faced with a
sweeping generalization covering the centuries, Geyl does
Mod-
not intervene with an equally generalized doubt.
unassumingly, he takes some individual case
estly,
the rise of the Netherlands, the British colonies in North
America, the unification of Italy
and
asks:
When
generalization accord with these facts?'

not, that
is
the end so far as Geyl
is
'Does the
it
does
concerned." Taylor
then, as a professional historian, used the occasion to dis-
charge some volleys at Toynbee. "But that
Toynbee," he wrote.
for
it is
nothing at
tions to suit his
moment, the
dence
is
all.
is
not even the beginning;
"It is
For, since he
makes up
convenience or his religious
fact that they
irrelevant to
not the end
generaliza-
whim
of the
do not accord with the

This was not
him."
evi-
Geyl
all.
could not even comprehend the workings of Toynbee's
mind: "He [Geyl] cannot bring himself
anyone should
fly
face of evidence as
so willfully
Toynbee
and so
to believe that
persistently in the
does. Therefore Geyl
back once more to wrestle with the convicted

hopeful that
of
no
avail.
this
time
he
will see the light.
Toynbee remains
more the damning sentence
is
incorrigible;
comes
sinner,
But
it is
and once
pronounced." And, Taylor
continued, "the same rigorous appeal to the evidence
is
152
shown
in the historical
name.
He
work with which Geyl made
challenged the accepted version of
Netherlands were divided.
Earlier historians
his
how
the
had
ex-
plained the division by differences of religion or of race
They did not
or of national character.
find these dif-
ferences in the historical evidence; they put the differ-
ences in from their

Protestants
own
wanted
experience or inclinations. Dutch
show
to
that Holland
had always
been predominantly Protestant and that Protestantism
was a superior
show
that
entity,
Belgian historians wanted to
religion.
Belgium had always existed
though no one noticed
looked at the evidence.
He
as
an independent
Geyl
at the time.
this
studied the contemporary
record and noticed the obvious things which no one had

noticed before: the decisive part played by the Spanish
army and the
less flattering to national pride,
Belgian.
rect;
This
is
a less in-
and romantic explanation than the older ones;
spiring
it is
line of the great rivers.
It
and
whether Dutch or
has only the virtue of happening to be cor-
it is
now
did not realize
it.
difficult to
The
imagine a time when
discrediting of the older version
and the substitution of a better one, firmly based on

dence,
is
men
one of the most beautiful
evi-
historical operations
in our lifetime."
With
leading
Taylor's tribute as
me
my
guide
he
seemed
be
out of the medieval, theological world of
Toynbee and
into the
modern, medical world of Geyl
made my way to Utrecht to see the Dutch

One of his pupils, who met me at my hotel,
I
to
historian.
the Pays-

Bas, the morning
me
arrived, told
bit
little
153
about him.
"Both Geyl's father and his grandfather were doctors,"
me, "and while
his pupil told
cision of
his
an operating room, as a
mind
still
man he
is
has the prevain as only
a humanist can be. Once, in a seminar, a student argued

that one
day national
might disappear, leaving
barriers
the world with one state and one language. Geyl pounced
on him: 'But what about
was
immortal Dutch prose?'
It
said with a touch of irony, but only a touch of irony.
Some
of his works, even
saying,
anyone wants
'If
Common
hostile to the
Dutch language
This
tion.
is
his country
much
very
to
know what
and
its
who opened
gentleman
Market because he
will disappear in such
history.
tall
went
home by
he can
somewhat
fears that
an organiza-
In that sort of way, he
is
knew
it
to Geyl's house.
the bicycles in the doorway.
the door, proved to be an impressive
man
with the gray beard of the wise
and the narrow smile of the

an unobtrusive hearing
aristocrat.
aid, a
blue
gray jacket, and gray trousers.
He
him up
think,
believe he's
a conservative."
a Hollander's
Geyl,
translated,
not just love of the language but love of
After some lunch,
was
now, he won't have
well learn Dutch.' In fact,
jolly
the
my
He was
tie,
invited
me
to follow
a narrow wooden stairway, and showed
was
wearing
an English-style
as thick with books as the
me
into
Toynbee
his study.
It
Room, but
Geyl's books
Behind
desk was a two-shelf display of various edi-
tions
his
and
had a
distinctly
translations of his works.
He
modern
look.
picked out the
154
smallest volume,
his
English translation of the four-
teenth-century Dutch play "Lancelot of Denmark," and,
holding
close to his heart, read aloud, in a soft English:
it
"Now
'Tis
we
hear what
all
Who
intend to play.
about a valiant knight,
loved a lady day and night.
Noble of heart she was and pure,

But of lowly birth
"How I've loved

down under what Geyl told me was his
Returning the book to the
We
history!"
sat
for very sure."
favorite print of his
shelf,
he
said,
mentor, Erasmus, and near the
window, which looked out on the
Biltse Straatweg
road along which, in the Second World War, the Dutch
Army had retreated and

Army had advanced.
am by
"I
somebody
baits
me, making
my
"I rather
my ignorance about the philostake my first step toward

my ignorance. My fame as a
made me
regretting
philosopher of history
not only accidental but gra-
is
Toynbee has done
what Margot Fonteyn did

to a picture
me in the historical world

me at Oxford." He pointed
for
for
on the opposite
serious in an
striking
said,
prided myself on
wisdom by
and
angry, I tend to go on
chance encounter with Toynbee," Geyl
of history; he
tuitous.
me
no indeed.
said
"Until
ophy
nature a talker," Geyl began, "and unless
Do you mind?"
talking.
I
then the liberating Canadian
wall,
which showed him,
tall
academic gown, beside the graceful and
Margot Fonteyn,
also in
an academic gown. "She
and
"When we walked through
academic procession, no one had eyes
her.
who was
of 'A Study of History.'
he sent
ness,
me
was struck by the

ond
half I
time, Jan
first
in 1946 asked
me
of
it
half of
as
journal-
if I'd
Out
I said I hadn't.
much
as
was
of that I
Toynbee when an English
me here
visiting
the streets
anybody but
for
was her neighbor, and because
noticed. I encountered
ist
155
received honorary degrees at Oxford the same
year," Geyl said.

in
heard
of polite-
had been published.
what
read, but
by the
sec-
was completely disenchanted. In the mean-
Romein he
is
a historical materialist, and
thinks that all unphilosophical historians are helpless
on the sea of
sailors
like himself
history, while historical philosophers
as part of his seminar in a rival
it
was
and Toynbee are the captains
decided to bait him a
little,
and did
Dutch
so
using
university.
by making Toyn-
bee's determinism the subject of an attack in a paper

I
delivered before our national Historical Association.
The B.B.C. must have got wind

Romein, for
it
invited
Third Programme.
me
to
of
my
argument with
debate with Toynbee on the
faced Toynbee on the wireless, and
accused him of dipping into the caldron of facts and taking only those which fitted his theories.
torians
approached
facts
He
with theories, and
if
said all his-
they denied
this,
they were simply ignorant of the workings of their
own
minds.
pointment.
He
said all systems

said people
who
view that history was nonsense.

So
it
went.
When
were doomed
to disap-
believed that took the

I said
no, they didn't.
the remainder of his 'Study'
came
156
him
out, I flayed
panacea for our troubles
for finding a
in a universal religion.
In 'Reconsiderations' he
me 'the spokesman of the jury.' He

asking
tively
answers.'
for
said I
made
had been
'plain-
not
quite
'Plaintively'
is
the word." Geyl smiled his narrow smile. "I demolished

his 'Reconsiderations'
with a pamphlet," he continued.
"The trouble with Toynbee

ligion,
man
he
ignorance. Like Faust, he tries to

I
wandered
six o'clock
priest.
When I was
into a cathedral
middle of Vespers.
a priest
re-
mostly
came up
said, 'Little
know more than
was saved from Toynbee's
Toynbee's fate by a
and
because of his
will not acquiesce, like us secularists, in hu-
can be known.
that,
is
to
I started
religion
eleven or twelve,
and found myself
boy
'
in the
going there every day about
for the music, I suppose.
me and
and
put his hand on
my
One
day,
shoulder
I raced out of the cathedral
and
copy of what he told
He brought out of his pocket a

me was the only sonnet he had ever
written in English.
"This sonnet," he said, tapping the
have never returned."
piece of paper, "composed in a concentration camp, contains
my
philosophy, and colors
my
historical thinking."
Without a pause, he rushed through the sonnet:

"The
stars are fright'ning.
Boundless and
silent,
The cold
universe,
goes revolving on,
Worlds without end. The grace of God
is
gone.
vast indifference, deadlier than a curse,
poor globe, which Heaven seemed to nurse
Chills our
So fondly.
Until
we
Gusts of
'Twas God's rainbow when
searched.
infinity,
Now,
as
we
it
shone,
count and con
our hopes disperse.

Well,
if
From
Heav'n.
Of
Look
and beauty.
life
But so are you.
at the earth, in
Transitory?
some
sighed.
subject,
"How
wish
he asked, "Have you read Carr's 'What
this
said
year's
and
They
will
one of the most beautiful
Good
theoretical
my
heavens,
am
giving the Trevelyan
probably be on Dutch
his-
called
historical operations in our
if I
had accepted some of the
pronouncements of
my
Trevelyan predeces-
operation probably couldn't have been perat
all.
And
thanks to me, not
if
anyone had taken seriously
many people
did historians
Toynbee,
who go
the result
would have been much the same."
His-
had.
my historical revolution, which Taylor has
lifetime.'
formed
Is
Trevelyan lectures?"
lectures next year.
sor,
enjoy your day,

quietly obey."
could argue Toynbee out of
"Well," he announced, "I
tory
array
of his ideas!" he said. Then, abruptly changing the
tory?'
I
its
Maybe,
Let stark eternity
Heed its own self, and you,

And when death calls, then
He
157
then turn your eyes away
so,
it's
like
in for simple explanations of things,
asked him to say more about
this.
"Carr, in his lectures, gives no role to fortuitous events,"
he
said.
"But, good heavens, the division of the
six-
teenth-century Netherlands into Holland, in the north,
and Belgium,
in the south
You know, before the
what was
it if
not fortuitous?
sixteenth century all this area
was
one Netherlands. But the Spaniards succeeded in hold-
158
ing on to only the southern half. Before

it
was thought
that the Spaniards
my
revolution,
were unable
to
subdue
the rebellious northern provinces because of the differ-
ence between the Flemish and Dutch temperaments. The

southerners, the Flemings, were flighty, frivolous, light-
hearted
were
an
serious,
Calvinist
My
The northerners
easy prey to Catholicism.
commercial-minded,
hard-working,
therefore
and
not an easy prey to Catholicism.
revolution consisted in advancing a simple military
explanation in place of
abstract theory. I said the
all this
reason the Spaniards didn't subjugate the north was that

they were stopped by the great rivers
My
the Meuse.
Montgomery,
was stopped,
rivers.
You
Rhine and
discovery was borne out by General
eight, nine
European phase
the
of the
months before the end
of the
Second World War, when he,
at the Battle of
too,
Arnhem, by the fortuitous
see the dangers of imposing theories on
facts?"
Geyl paused, and
nodded.
"The infuriating thing about Toynbee, a

terialist like
Romein, a determinist
like
believe in laws," Geyl continued. "But
my
in
is
an argument without end."
about simple
1939
but
the rest
facts the
We
ma-
that they
you'll find
that history
could agree, he said,
Second World
War began
in
such facts were a very small part of history;
was made up
of judgments of events, situations,
and characters, and they would be debated

day. "In
is
say
book 'Napoleon: For and Against'
it
historical
Carr
my
'Napoleon,' " Geyl
went
till
dooms-
on, "I surveyed
alj
159
the century-and-a-half-old arguments about Napoleon.
What
historians
from generation
about him
whether
depended,
it
was
in or out
turned out, upon the politics of the time.
Have you read

I said I
to generation thought
in their eyes he
the book?"
had, and remembered well the famous "Argu-
ment" passage:
"To expect from history those
may perhaps be
opinion, to misunderstand
method
But
method
we
as soon as there
of interpretation,
and by
God
it
is
it
The
scientific
of
is
can reach agreement by
a
its
a question of explanation,
is
appreciation, though the
special
of the historian remains valuable, the personal
element can no longer be ruled out
which
my
in
is,
serves above all to establish facts; there
great deal about which

use.
nature.
its
which
final conclusions,
obtained in other disciplines,
is
that
point of view
determined by the circumstances of
his
own
preconceptions.
his time
Truth, though for
may be One, assumes many shapes to men. Thus

many conflicting opinions
that the analysis of so
concerning one historical phenomenon
means
of whiling
away
is
the time, nor need
not just
it
lead to
discouraging conclusions concerning the untrustworthiness of historical study.
The study even
conceptions can be fruitful.
of contradictory
History
is
indeed an
argument without end."
With
a smile, he
were such a thing
now
added, "Good heavens,
as objective history, people
if
there
would
have made, up their minds about Napoleon long ago."
i6o
my
Like a good lecturer, Geyl read the questions in
mind and,
my
instead of
putting them to him, put
them
me. "Have you read Taylor's 'Origins of the Second
to
World War?" he
had.
I said I
"I
asked.
pasted that book in a review," he said proudly, "and,
through correspondence, have been arguing with him

about his thesis ever
since.
In his letters to
that, contrary to all the allegations,
of his
way
book with truth and
if
He
con-
says he wrote the
objectivity as his only touchstones.
says he objectively discovered Hitler to
other statesman.
says
he has not gone out
to provoke, to create a sensation, to
found everybody with paradoxes.
He
me he
He
be
just an-
was a godsend,
insists Hitler
for
anybody more shrewd than Hitler had come along, he
might have dominated Europe without a war.

his
book
is
He
says
not an apology for Chamberlain, not an apol-
ogy for the policy of appeasement, but simply an explanation of them.
apology?
just another
I say,
what
is
an explanation
if
not an
wrote to him insisting that Hitler was not

statesman but a unique phenomenon.
said that he, Taylor,
had been too
faithful to his printed
documents, that he had overlooked the temper of Ger-
many
in the thirties
the
street gangs, the S.S., the S.A.,
the whole Nazi phenomenon.

Hitier
and the war
as
though
quence of the Treaty of
I
it
said that to write about
were
Versailles,
all
and leave out
calculation Hitler the freak of nature,
mad, and the reasons
a natural conse-
for his success
of the
dynamism gone
the
acute depres-

sion
and the complete collapse of the economy
early thirties
torian
was
history.
was inevitably limited by
history.
To make my
respondence with
my
in the
insisted that a his-
his time, his period, his
and that there was no such thing
situation,
am
bad
161
as objective
him copies
point, I sent
of
my
cor-
intimate friend Carel Gerretson
going to include them in a small volume of
my
I
let-
ters."
Geyl was by
of
now
as excited as a lecturer at the climax
an oration. Getting up, he feverishly rummaged
desk for the Gerretson

the flow of his words.
Dutch
poet, historian,
letters,
He
and
in his
without, however, stopping
told
me
that Gerretson
politician,
context of one particular letter.
It
was a
and he explained the
was written
in 1939
and concerned one Dr. Hendrik Krekel, who was a

nalist.
jour-
"You see," Geyl said, "when a Hague daily stopped
publishing Krekel's weekly reviews of the international

situation,
Krekel collected some of them and brought
them out
in
pamphlet form.
Gerretson forwarded the
pamphlet
to
me, challenging
me
to
deny that the
re-
views were models of objectivity, fair-mindedness, and
good journalism. What

to exclaim
"Here
it is!,"
wrote"
drawer the relevant
letter to
then applies just as
much
writes."
tions
He read, in
no doubt have
tractive
in
this
interrupting
himself
he triumphantly fished out of a

Gerretson
"about
Krekel
to the sort of history Taylor
a loud, clear voice, " 'Krekel's expositheir interest.
method
of
There
is
something
systematically
at-
connecting
events with earlier phases; the writer has a keen mind.
162
When
But objective?
man writes
in a quiet
and matter-
way, avoids the use of big words, does not be-
of-fact
any emotion or express any sympathy,
tray
letting his
conclusions or opinions appear only in the most moderate
terms or even obliquely

jective.
me
or, let
that
does not
make him
ob-
Krekel does not waste words on the moral worth,
on the anti-moral, anti-human tendencies
say,
German regime; at most, he mentions them once in

a while when he notices that the horror evoked by them
elsewhere constitutes a factor. The feverishness inherof the
ent in every dictatorship, the need to register successes,
the absence of
counterweight of criticism
all
all
such
factors Krekel leaves out of account in his estimates, or at

least
does not give them their due weight. In
symptoms of a
the
this I see
German
feeling of affinity with the
system, or of moral blindness; at any rate, no objectivity.
Those elements must be taken into account
To keep
higher synthesis.
power
be
politics,
in
talking all the time in terms of
let
it
please,
it
imperialism versus imperialism
in itself as able
every
and well-informed
as
you
denotes a one-sidedness which must lead to formidable

miscalculations.'"
Putting the letter down, Geyl said,
"How
is
true all this
of Taylor!
Krekel and Taylor not
only are trying to do the impossible but are gravely erring.
Taylor
from which
is still
it
writing old-fashioned political history,
appears that the great issues of the world
are settled in Foreign Offices rather than in society at

large."
an
all
Some
aspects of Taylor's history, Geyl said,
had
too imposing ancestry in Sir Lewis Namier's work.
Namier
no
and Taylor much of the time had
of the time
all
real respect for statesmen
which
ideologies,
163
and
for them, as for Freud,
and
ideas
policies,
were simply
re-
flexes
responses
of
purely factual approach, Namier-Taylor history had
its
Because
subconscious influences.
to
a kind of pointedness, a kind of dramatic quality, a kind

of brilliance; in their hands history took wings as only
good
stories did,
more than a
For the
but their picture of the society was no
bird's-eye
first
view of
it.
time, Geyl's voice
became
freighted with
emotion. Until then, he had been talking like a European

professor,
tutorials
who
is
more used
or seminars.
to lecturing than to holding
His arguments were clear and
limpid, but one felt that they
rather than
were
as
still
as
in a
in the future.
though he were
"
good
still
had already taken place,
tutorial or
Now
seminar
he seemed a
little
debating something
Geyl
said.
I said I
is
my
mind.
dreadful
"But Taylor has eulogized
you've seen his article on
they
confused,
in his
'The Origins of the Second World War'
history,"
that
me
seventieth birthday?"
had.
"Well, then," he said,
"it
would be only reasonable
that I should have agreed to contribute to a Festschrift
man at Oxford is organizing for him. But I re"

fused. Do you think I was right? Or
Just then we were interrupted by a red-cheeked woman, only a little shorter than Geyl, who came in carrying
that a
a couple of cups of tea.

wife,
and
said as she
She introduced herself as
handed us the
tea, "I
hope
my
his
hus-
164
band found
me." With
"I don't
is
know what he would do without
that, she left us.
know what
"We
echoed.
would do without
used to bicycle a
Now we
got so heavy.
traffic
He
the books and papers he needed.
all
so untidy that I don't
lot
Geyl
her,"
before the Utrecht
pass the time playing
draughts."
me
asked Geyl a question that had been troubling
for
some time
how
controversy could be a
In return, he told
truth.
World War," he
me
that, to
to the
a story. "During the Second
said, "the great
Febvre proposed
way
French historian Lucien
keep the
spirits of
the French
youth high, they should be encouraged to read Jules

Michelet,
Romantic
the
tensely nationalistic.
French
creme
He
nation;' for him,
of nations. In
for his Micheletism.
friend invited
me
historian.
my
When
wish
is
if
it.'
Febvre came
fight
to Utrecht, a
I
went, pre-
said,
'I
is
there to his-
as I've said, history
an argument without end, and temperamentally
but
do not
his narrow, aristo-
"Good heavens, what future
you take that attitude? For me,
born polemicist
la
about Michelet. But
Geyl produced
"
in-
attacked Febvre
broached the subject, he simply
to discuss
cratic smile.
tory
essays, I
lunch with him, and
to
was
'the great
France was the creme de
one of
pared for a good intellectual
when
Michelet
always talked about
not, of course,
on the
am
scale of
Trevor-Roper."
Geyl's
mind,
thought, but as a
perhaps,
man he
was
like
Trevor-Roper's,
streamed with a charm no
less
and
engulfing than Toynbee's; even his vanity

tiness
were engaging.
It
ment he could get the
was easy
to see
better of Toynbee.
Taylor were different matters. There was
his
how
165
haugh-
in argu-
But Carr and
much more
to
Carr than his theory about fortuitous events, and from

the
little
history
knew,
it
seemed
to
me, judging Geyl
dictum "A historian is inevitably

period, situation" that some of his
in accordance with his
limited
by
his time,
strong feelings against Taylor and "The Origins of the
Second World War" could be explained by
his political
war
conservatism, Holland's proximity to Germany, his
memories of
Hitler, his suffering at the
mans ( he was
in
Buchenwald
hands of the Ger-
for a year ) , and,
above
all,
perhaps, the different visions that Geyl and Taylor had
had pinpointed
of the future. Taylor
in the conclusion of his
this
very difference
Geyl panegyric. "Geyl speaks for
the Europe of the past as well as for the Europe of the

present," he
had
written.
"He
them both; and he
loves
believes, as I do, that they present the highest point
which humanity has achieved.

passions mislead him,
it
is,
to the future than to the past.
he cannot believe that
it
will
his
If
think,
principles
more
and
in relation
Loving the past so much,
come
to
an end.
He
can-
not believe that Europeans will cease to care for individual liberty and national diversity.
It
seems to
live
me
possible that
am
not so sure.
men may come
soon to
only in the present; and that they will forget their
historical inheritance
washing machines.
in
favour of television sets and
There
will
be no
classes,
no na-
i66
no
tions,
religions; only a single
humanity freed from
labour by the electric current of atomic-power stations.
European history
will then
be
dead
as
as the history of
ancient Egypt; interesting as a field of study but with
nothing to say to us.
Our
end of the Suez
after the
last
affair.
conversation
was
was
just
Na-
jubilant.
independence (of Egypt) had been vindicated;
tional
Anglo-French aggression had been defeated. Geyl was

gloomy: he saw only the passing of European predominance.
first
was wrong. The Geyl
think he
century
may be an
haps an Egyptian.
What
matter?
It
Indian or a Chinese
But maybe our
To most Englishmen, whether
name appears
light is
even
per-
going out.
has burnt with a noble flame."
Hellenist-Hebraics, Taylor
his
of the twenty-
philistine-barbarians or
not an unfamiliar figure, for
is
with the regularity of the Sab-
in print
bath or the scheduled television programs, and whether

one's
approach
to culture
is
through newspapers (he ap-
pears in intellectual papers, like the Observer, the Guardian, the
New
Statesman, and in popular ones, like the
Beaverbrook press), broadcasts (he often appears on

television
programs
like
Speech"),
textbooks
("The
"Brains
Trust"
Struggle
Europe: 1848-1918"), a university (he
for
is
and
Mastery in
one of the three
or four best lecturers at Oxford), or politics (he

calcitrant
bow
in the hair of the
"Free
is
a re-
Labour Party, and a
luminary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament),

Taylor inevitably turns out to be one of the main gate-

ways.
At Magdalen,
his
Oxford
where
college,
167
had
dined two or three times, Taylor was often to be found

in the Senior
Common Room
mealtimes on weekdays,
at
on
his glasses resting rather forbiddingly
he talked in a clipped, acid voice

nately solemn and
way with
his lips,
amused
They tended
one meaty with the
way
was about
portant story. As an undergraduate,
halves,
He had
anecdotes, including a special
of his lectures.
had
be
to
dozen
to half a
colleagues.
often as a signal that he
his big nose as

alter-
a special
of smacking
to tell
an im-
on some
sat in
equal
sliced into
solid specificity of history
the other juicy with histrionics, but

uates, always pressed for time,
day that was most marvelled
it
at.
among
was
It
and
the undergrad-
Taylor's use of his
was
he often
said that
read and reviewed a book before breakfast, which he

took at eight o'clock.
original
Then he worked
documents (in
five
lunch, until late in the afternoon,
(He was
patient
his
patient
when he met
and meticulous with clever
listening to
his tutees.
pupils, im-
He might
and hasty with the plodders. )
day by
steadily through
languages), with a break for
finish off
music (for which he had a real
passion ) by distributing his wit, like Dr. Johnson,

,
his
Oxford colleagues at the dinner
like his
by
table, or
among
talking,
hero John Bright, in a lecture hall in London.
Indeed, sometimes he spent half the
where he worked out

relaxed pace,
it
week
of several libraries
was hoped
and
prima donna.
Even among
leagues of his
who
at
London,
in
little
led the public
those
more
life
of a
discriminating
col-
deplored certain of his
activities,
i68
Taylor remained the subject of a sneaking admiration.
One
man
distinguished
came
cations,
us,
as easily as
daydreams come
had once summed Taylor up
time
um,
whom
of letters at Oxford, to
comparisons and analogies, though hedged with

to
qualifi-
most of
as "the Tolstoy of our
with a difference," going on to explain, "Like
Tolstoy, Taylor thinks the historical field of force
microscopic
facts, those millions of
patches, but while Tolstoy didn't think one could
sense of
The
he
it
was humble
is
the
telegrams and dis-
Taylor
make
thinks one can."
which
perversity of his responses to situations,
in un-
dergraduate conversation was never far behind the mention of his
One don
name, was scarcely
recalled
how
less a subject for
wonder.
he had found himself at a meeting
of a Peace Congress behind the Iron Curtain and, glanc-
ing at the roster of speakers,
name
relish, "it
all
"In the
there.
it
was astonishing
was
had discovered
Taylor's
he told me, with much
place,"
first
that Taylor should
a very Party-line conference.
be there
at
Then, that he
should be speaking! But the miracle was the speech he

gave, to a
dumb, stony house
conservative.
me and
And
whisper in
was dyed-in-the-wool
then he had the gall to
my
ear, T've
a speech like that since

at a
it
come over
to
been dreaming of giving
God knows
when!'
In Oxford,
meeting of blue-blooded Conservatives, he would
have delivered a stinging Left Wing harangue."
When
his
wrote to Taylor asking
view of
made
history,
he
unlike
if
he would
talk
about
most other historians
a perverse response. "I have no theories of history
know nothing about them/' he
On
169
and
this
seemed more than contrary. He had written reviews
dealing with practically
said.
reflection,
historical theoreticians, in-
all
cluding Toynbee, Geyl, and Carr; he had been taken to

task for his
own
his lectures
indeed,
by Trevor-Roper; and
theories of history
many
his writings
times turned
out to be illustrations of his view that history
and
of accidents, with statesmen
politicians
is
made up
more often
than not unable to control the events around them. But

ultimately he agreed to talk to
don house.
found Taylor
ing at eleven o'clock.
corduroy
He was
suit; his hair,
abundant and only

his glasses
me
at his
in his living
suburban Lon-
room one morn-
wearing a mushroom-gray
which, though he
slightly gray,
were forbidding
is
fifty-six, is
was neatly combed; and
as ever
(he seemed to be
peering at the world through a microscope ) but the most

,
noticeable thing about
him was a permanent frown
sort of exclamation point
of his eyes.
between
line
the fierce circles
Unlike Geyl's, the room was not inundated
with historical works, though, as with Geyl, there was an

impressive exhibit of books
they
were displayed
in a
cabinet near a piano.

I
said
understood he was "the real successor to
Namier."
"I'm not sure I'd
one would deny
want
"He took the mind out

survive."
to
be
he
said,
though no
then added,
of politics, so I don't think he'll
The implication was
to survive.
his successor,
his super gifts,"
that he himself did wish
"Nobody would deny
that
Namier understood
170
Freud, but so do most professional journalists. Further-
more, his attitude to psychoanalysis was more that of a

patient than that of a psychoanalyst. It
was Namier's
thought that
is
he was
my
pupil."
"What do you mean?"
I said,
my
"During
I
Strictly speaking,
pupil.
eight-year spell at Manchester University,
him
instructed
in
marking examination papers,
in the
hours of his lectures, and even in the subject matter of
Taylor said. "For example,
his classes,"
him
little
notes saying, 'You're meeting your class at such-
and-such an hour, and

class, so
is
it
a general, not an honors,
include dates in your lecture.' So you see, strictly
was
speaking, he
ly
used to send
my pupil
in
many
tilings,
though actual-
he was a professor at the university and
was an
as-
sistant lecturer."
I
had been
time, Taylor
shadow.
had
felt
tion
come
in fact, Taylor
into his
was tough and
mouth had a way
He
himself to be a
There was not a trace of
room now, however;

of having
Oxford that during Namier's
told at
own
little
theatrical,
and
in the
gave the impression

His conversa-
quite early.
of snapping
bit in his
shadow
his
life-
his small, pointed
on words,
like a rat trap.
talked as though he were seated at dinner in the
Senior
Common Room,
with the assembled dons paying
close attention to his words.
Treading gently,
approached
his territory
him what Namier would have thought

of the Second
his review,
of
by asking
"The Origins
World War." (Although Trevor-Roper,
had confidently asserted that the great
in
his-

torian
would have squashed
equal assurance, that
it,
"He would probably have both

it,"
"Take
Taylor said wryly.
It is distinctly
had
liked
it
with
said,
it.
and not
liked
his 'Diplomatic Prelude.'
On the one hand, it reeverybody. On the other hand, it
a two-sided work.
counts the mistakes of

reasserts
others
Namier would have saluted
171
My
Namier's lifelong anti-Germanism.
can be read in two ways. In one way,
it
may
book
sort of ex-
onerate Hitler by saying the war was a mistake; in another,
by
letting Hitler off,
sponsible for the war.
it
may make
all
Germans
Namier wouldn't have
re-
liked the
implications about Hitler, but he might have been pleased
by the anti-German
implications."
Taylor was a beguiling
man
to talk with, partly be-
cause of his ability to turn everything one expected him

to say topsy-turvy.
"American
critics
were
far cleverer
"They de-
than the English reviewers," he said now.

clared the book to be
implications:
if all
bad because
Germans
have written that the
and
its
present-day
are culpable for the war, then
the present Western policy toward

I
of
First
Germany
is
wrong.
World War was a mistake,
have written that the Second World
War was
mistake."
He
snapped
his lips shut, and, for the first time, I felt
the full political impact
as
Trevor-Roper must have ) of
one sentence in the "Origins": "The war of 1939, far from

being premeditated, was a mistake, the result on both
sides
of
diplomatic blunders"
sentence accurately
described by the publisher on the book jacket as "shat-
172
was made up
tering." If history
much hope
wasn't
of "accidents," then there
for the future, for avoiding the Third
World War. "Liking the book," Taylor

matter of
politics. If you're
bomb and
the
and
spikes,
in nato,
you may not be." Super-
seemed reasonable and
but on closer inspection
ferent; history
free of paradoxical
became something
it
seemed not only
to
be
down
into the abyss of political bias.
dif-
from the
falling
grace of objectivity to personal prejudices but to be
ping
in
thesis; if you're a conservative, a mili-
Germany
for
ficially, this
are against
may be
the arming of Germany, you
sympathy with the

tarist,
"becomes a
said,
Winger and
a Left
Even
slip-
if
this
could be explained on the ground of recent memories of

the events under review,
what followed couldn't
viously, historians like
Sir
"Ob-
be.
John Wheeler-Bennett and
Alan Bullock and the younger American practitioners
my book
are hostile to
know
because, whether they
they have vested interests," Taylor was
not,
"They have written textbooks, and they have

books and legends to
sell."
It
was
or
saying.
their
difficult to tell
it
own
whether
was serious.
Now, however, he switched from the treacherous
ground of ad-hominem argument to the safer one of evior not Taylor
dence. "Until
of
my
war
it's
I started
reviewers,
history,"
written in
he
all
studying the records,
"I
the books
had accepted,
that
But when
that
was the other way around
it
like
many
had swallowed the legends about presaid.
nigg.
see Hitler."
I,
for
to
Hitler sent for Schusch-
looked into the records
He seemed
example
discovered
Schuschnigg
asked to
be saying that small
facts
173
could change our picture of the past. "I was talking to

Ian Gilmour, past editor of the Spectator, the other day,"
Taylor went on, smacking his
with
my
thesis. I told
surprised him.
told
the Jews in Poland
Jews
in
him two
him
was
Germany, and
lips,
"who
facts that, to say the least,
that in the thirties the fate of
far
worse than the fate of the
Ian, believe the reverse;
The
Most people,
wrote
my
and others project the
if
prewar history
is
shrouded in
history
later
from the records. Ian
madness of Hitler back
Without the carnage of the war,
thirties.
like
records, however, just don't corroborate
the legends.
the
were no
that in the thirties there
extermination camps in Germany.
legend.
doesn't agree
into
wonder
he would have stumbled onto the idea of the gas

In actual fact, even according to Bullock's
chambers.
'Hitler,'
which represents the orthodoxy,
Hitler, avoiding
the use of force, which would have been suicidal, be-
came Chancellor and

legal, rational
means, and conducted
shrewdly no more
by
carried out the Nazi revolution
his foreign policy
madly, insanely, than any other
statesman. According to the records, Hitler did his feeble

best.
is
Yes, he
a record of
the time.
first
had
it
his lunatic vision
but
think
all
and
he didn't behave
'Mein
statesmen ought to be considered
on the basis of what they were trying
what they
be taken
did, according to the records.
'He was
to do,
we
to
resort
escapist,
and easy explanations,
like
He
again snapped shut his
lips.
just insane.'"
Some had
and
They ought
as statesmen, as rational beings, before
to extraordinary,
Kampf
like a lunatic all
traced the furor against the Hitier book to
174
Taylor's nihilist view of history
sound and
full of
"a tale told
by an
fury, signifying nothing").
were overtones of the
view in
"idiot"
idiot,
there
If
his notion of acci-
dent, his attempt to find a rationale for Germany's be-
havior muffled them.
Now,
like
Namier, Taylor under-
rated the role of plans and ideas; now, unlike Namier, he
man who had
found a "statesman," a
ideas and policies,
even in Hitler. Moreover, while Namier might
Holles,
tician,
the
list
who owed their jobs to, say, Thomas PelhamDuke of Newcastle, the eighteenth-century poli-
people
and note
group
their tendencies to vote as a
favor of Newcastle's policies
he stopped short of saying,
"They voted with Newcastle because they owed

jobs to him." If there
was even a hint
professes that he voted
Whig
he had no choice but to
fall in line
was contained
in
their
of diagnosis
principles,
when
"X
actually
with his patron"
it
in bringing the true facts to the surface
Taylor, at least in the "Origins," subordinated his facts

(
how
Hitler
and Schuschnigg met, what the
Germany was)
in
motives
of
his
and
now
own
state of
my Namier
and
example,
book.
turned to his
critics,
and impaled them on
quick wit. Beginning in a low key, he
first
dismissed
Geyl in the terms one might have expected. "Geyl
much
Jews
to professed ideas
the dependent, say, in
or of Hitler in his
Taylor
to a thesis
of a moral historian," he said.
Napoleon, he roundly condemns him;
"In his
I
am
is
too
book on
not sure
we
should condemn him. Napoleon, like Hitler, went from

stage to stage. Geyl thinks I ought to keep saying, again
and again,
once
ness
many
was a wicked man.'
have dealt with the
175
tend to think that
have written a sentence about
I
I
'Hitler
wicked-
Hitler's
Geyl has too
subject. Besides,
He
personal memories of Nazism."
stopped, as
though he feared that he was saying something ordinary.
He
turned to Trevor-Roper, and up came the surprise-
package
of
side
Taylor's
shouldn't have attacked
he
character
me, because
"Not only did
agree with
his,"
when he
attacked Toynbee
said.
"Hughie
again.
my
views really
agree with him
he
and Carr
wrote
at
length what most of us really thought, though he did go
on a
little
too long,
and
also his 'Carr'
came much
too late
but we look at history in the same way. Unlike Hughie,

I may be a determinist I believe in large trends, like
the continuous growth of
World War but
First
which
studies, in
out and
turn
make up
out to
be
it is
German power
always write very detailed
seem
the accidents that
history.
before the
My
illustrations
to stick
books, therefore, really
of
free
will
to
which
Hughie attaches so much importance."

This was not only paradoxical but a
hensible; the belief in "accidents"
about
way
to clear
little
seemed
to
be a round-
to determinism, not to voluntarism.
up
this theoretical confusion,
incompre-
wanted
but Taylor went
straight on.
"The difference between Hughie and
more than
that of definition," he said.
me may be
"If
no
you regard a
plan as a great vision, then, of course, Hitler did have

a plan
a lunatic vision.
But
if
you define
'plan' as I do,
"
176
a plan of day-to-day moves, then Hitler didn't have one.
my book that meant a

me was written by a Cambridge historian,
Hinsley. He defined 'plan' in yet another way. He
In this connection, a review of

great deal to
F. H.
said that while Hitler
may
not have had a pattern, the
more he succeeded the more

cess
became
of a pattern he got; suc-
This, I think,
his pattern.
a fruitful ap-
is
Taylor sighed, then stood up and

room "Hughie's attack on me was
proach. But"
started
pacing the
full of
misquotations and misreadings. Robert Kee, the modera-
me
tor of our television debate, told
takes,
and
carefully
it
was due
to
my
and wrote
him
that
about Hughie's mis-
looked into his article
'Exercises for Beginners.'"
Pausing in front of a shelf of his work, he took out of

his collection
before
years
brought
to
it
"Englishmen and Others" (published

the
over to his chair.
show how much
through the book.
five
Encounter attack), and
Professor's
"I will
read you something
admire Hughie," he
said, looking
"After I'd heard that
Hughie was
preparing an attack on the 'Origins,' the newspapers, by

leaving out a
misquoted
'not,'
me
looking for his passage.
"What
should be very amusing.
He knows
tieth-century history as
history
which
which
He
is
as
said
still
was not
'It
much about twen-
do about seventeenth -century
He knows
be very amusing.
century history as
I really
to say nothing at
is
He was
on him."
as
all'
but
much about
'It
should
twentieth-
do about seventeenth-century history
not to say nothing at
all.'
laughed dryly, as though to say that journalism

wasn't what
generous than his appraisal of Geyl, and
less
me
that,
177
should be, and then, in an unexpectedly
it
tender voice, read his accolade to Trevor-Roper.
no
however he belied
it (
to
many
it
It
was
struck
it
could come as
a surprise), Taylor was a historian with great warmth:
"No one
now
cares
Few
Europe.
about Germany's bid to
conquer
care about the fate of Adolf Hitler.
In the
present situation of international politics both are better forgotten. Mr. Trevor-Roper's book ["The Last Days of Hitler"]
would be forgotten along with them if it merely solved the
riddle to which he was originally set. But it transcended its
Though
subject.
it
vindicated
treated of evil
it
human
men and degraded
themes,
In a world where emotion has
reason.
taken the place of judgment and where hysteria has become
Mr. Trevor-Roper has remained as cool and
meritorious,
detached as any philosopher of the Enlightenment.
and
lunatics
future
Days
sort
century,
of Hitler'
still
a rational
man
rediscover
will
and
realize that there
He
will wish,
alive.
Fools
overrun the world; but later on, in some
The
were men of
as every rational
Last
his
man
own
must,
had written Mr. Trevor-Roper's book. There are

in our age of which that could be said."
that he
not
may
many books
Resuming the subject of the controversy about the

"Origins," he said,
that in a
weak.
number
of places I left
tend to think that
sentences about a theme,

that's
enough. In the
second place,
didn't write
my
my book may be
my own side very
"The trouble with
first
know
book
if I
have written one or two
repeat, that's the
place, I
know
end of
know. In the
other people know; after

to
the origins of the Second
it,
all,
be read as the only book on
World War.
Now
am
think-
178
when
ing of writing a long preface,
down,
some
which
in
German armament:
why
answer
I will
my
of the arguments for
If Hitler
my
the storm has died
critics
and point up
Like the one about
case.
had planned war
in 1939,
weren't there more armament preparations in Ger-
many?" Then he made the point

add an element
by
finished
understanding of the past, and
to the
saying, "I
am
a revisionist about the causes
World War, but what would
of the Second
me would be
barrass
that the future could
someone
if
like
really
em-
Harry Elmer
Barnes, one of those raving American revisionists of the
World War, should
First
like
my
book."
(Within two
months, Barnes was in print with a three-column

the
to
New
attacking
boy
its
reviewer in that paper.)
of eleven or twelve, Taylor's son, sauntered in
and, sitting
Over
down
at the piano, ran
his shoulder,
was taking part
He
afternoon.
We
letter
York Times extolling Taylor's book and
he informed
in a
as
went outside
through some
me
intensely that he
neighborhood music
much
scales.
festival that
as turned us out of the room.
into a small yard, at the
edge of a
quiet street, and, leaning over the hedge, Taylor talked
a bit about himself. "I suppose" he smacked his lips

"I
am
a sort of conventional radical from the north.
was educated
Oriel,
Oxford
Labour Club
Balliol
if
in
Quaker school and then went
where
in
was the only member
the college.
hadn't messed
to
of the
would have gone
to
up my examination."
In Oxford, there was a legend that Taylor, in applying

entrance to
for
Balliol,
179
had done very well on
his
when he was
written papers but that at the interview,
asked what he planned to do after going down, he had
"Blow
characteristically replied,
of his interviewers at the serious college
had
smile; they
asked Taylor
just
many
and
I
histrionic
said,
am
were
dons
sighed
[Sometime
gravy
same
ford.
to
am
as
happy
to leave
at
Oxford
Oxford as
The ordinary
reverse.
his
if
life.
was
in
attitude, of
He went on
was young and had young
go out of the
lot
of fun.
city three or four
in
is
northernness.
You
friends,
my
my
writing of history
see, in the north
more
and
days a week
The other thing besides
tougher; in the south they are
- soft."
Taylor created a flurry
pleasant than the countryside around Ox-
and have a
tive
Oxford and
interest in
the surroundings, the
I like
radicalism that shows through
my
of his
"The countryside around Manchester
vein.
Besides,
we used
was one
from the university for sen-
would have been the
much more
He
fact.
terminated, as the regulations required.]
in Oxford.
But by no means
the
sighing
later,
noisy, industrial Manchester."
course,
in
ought to be blown up quite yet not
it
retired.
I like living
basis
does, I said, 'Oxford should
have a vested
special lectureship
ior
it
newspapers by threatening
in the
had cracked a
mannerisms, as dramatic as his phrasing )
"Now
don't think
till I
He
up.' "
had a
story
chuckled, and replied, "If
be blown
any,
if
kept the would-be petroleur out.
the
if
Few,
up."
it
people are
is
much
traditional, conserva-
i8o
I
mentioned
and got an un-
his journalistic activities,
expected response.
know whether
don't
"I
he
journalist or a historian,"
my
from
for
expression that
am more
you
will find I get
do out of
you look
more money out
make, he
to
at
my
income,
of journalism than
history."
him what he meant by
asked
remark
this a strange
one of the leading English historians
said something even stranger. "If
perhaps realizing
said, and,
thought
a professional
professional
"a
journalist."
"A
professional journalist
Taylor
He seemed
said.
consider
a rag]
it
a contract with
headed.
he
who
pleases his editor,"
to delight in
my
it
much
is
than
better paper
the Times.
you
coming out on the
cession to
can't help
my
growing bewilderment.
he added, pinching
in the
side of
made
"It is
his nose, "that I
Manchester Guardian
take to the Times at
He
have
is soft-
see the causes they have sponsored
the Sunday Express." All of a sudden, he
up
The Times
When you
in the past,
to say,"
puzzlement.
Sunday Express [most educated English-
"I think the
men
is
a con-
only fair
was brought
tradition.
We
didn't
all."
turned to a discussion of his methods of writ-
ing.
"I try
day.
This
not to write more than a thousand words a

is
a negative principle, as
write a thousand words a day;

write anything
the papers
all
more than
the
that.
time besides
it's
Since
do not positively
just that
I
am
won't
writing for
teaching, though never
more than ten hours a week
my
of
past
work thus
intellectual capital, stored
but the book

matter."
was a major work
It
my
up from
in a week.
have written from
far I
earlier researches,
am working on now
18
never get more than
two or three thousand words done on a book
Much
quite another
is
for the fifteen-volume
"The Oxford History of England" from Roman Britain

he told me, and was to cover English
to the present,
went
history from 1914 to 1945. "Also," he
my
I
time
need.
is
libraries,
taken up with just getting hold of the books
am
not a book hoarder;
and although
at
Oxford
am
car started
fast
he had been
to
of the
can get to books
is
about
five miles
on the typewriter."
somewhere down the
stopped talking until
work out
quite easily, the closest library here
away. But
on, "some of
it
had passed.
street,
and Taylor
asked him whether
America.
"Yes and no," he answered. "I went across to Canada
to New
Brunswick, to get an honorary degree
did look America
and
then
he
bent forward "and had a good look at the
of Maine.
I
So in a way
asked him
if
I
is
buildings,
mean
the face.
he
leaned over"
hills
have been and not been."
he had a wish to
"I don't think so,"

is
full in
said.
"I
visit
America.
have two
interests.
One
and America doesn't have any buildings
old buildings, like cathedrals.
food and wine. From
my
little
The
other interest
experience of Canada,
the Americans have neither good food nor good drink.
In this interest
am an
unconventional radical.
You
182
have been corrupted by the good
see, I
even living in industrial

as societies,
"What do you
"I think
cities
depressing.
America and Russia have a
Communism,
think of Russia?"
Catholicism,
like
As a parting
shot, I
itching at the back of
said,
"though
by now top-heavy."
is
mind.
common."
asked.
risked a question that
my
find
imagine,
lot in
heading toward good," he
it's
now
life; I
had been
asked Taylor
if
his
use of paradoxes in speech and in writing had any pur-
pose behind
"I
all
am
it.
not at
paradoxical," he said, brushing aside
all
the paradoxes of our conversation, not to mention
the
innumerable paradoxical sentences in his works.
"The reason people think

think that,
I can't
is
am
paradoxical,
and sharp
that I have a clear
see that there
is
any harm
in
if
they do
style.
And
having a clear and
sharp style."
We
went
for a taxi
into the house, so that Taylor could ring
his
son was playing a vigorous waltz, but
Taylor managed to
and
make
himself heard over the music
then returned to the yard. As
the taxi, Taylor said, "After

as long as I have,
That seemed
to
you
you have
start preferring
be a parting jab
at
was
getting into
lived with books
them
to people."
me. Before the
taxi
pulled away, he was laughing.
As
I sat in
my
room, the opening of the "profile" of
Taylor that had appeared in the Observer following the

publication of the "Origins" perhaps the best single
short piece ever written
on the mercurial man
came

back to me. The
the look of
J.
lines
183
were unattributed, but they had
Douglas Pringle, an excellent leader writer
and a close friend of both Namier and Taylor. "In the

eighteenth century ," the phrases rang out, "dons were
men who drank
indolent, obscure
each night with port and
were
they
century,
hurly-burly of
life
In
the
dedicated
austere,
celibate, often eccentric,
themselves to sleep
claret.
nineteenth
scholars,
whose only concession
outside their college walls
still
to the
was an
occasional review, vitriolic but anonymous, in the Edin-
burgh Quarterly. In the twentieth century, they advise

governments,
and
marry
enjoyed
.
on Royal Commissions,
remarry
produce
and entertain us on the
stories,
lor.
sit
this
."
many
serious historian, the
of
detective
of
them has
J.
P.
Tay-
Yet from under the deft ink Taylor emerged,
together, but, like
all
write
None
telly.
minor revolution more than A.
as always, a jack-in-the-box.
journalist,
plays,
fight elections,
now
before me,
Manchester
tried to
I
put him
simply saw the
radical, the tutor, the
the bon vivant, and the lover of music
them equally
real.
What
Taylor undoubtedly
achieved, often with unsurpassed brilliance, he seemed

to
mar with
his antics,
and
for
me
the proportion of
mischief to intelligence in his last and most controversial
book remained a puzzle. There was,
for example,
an ambiguous passage in the "Origins" in which Taylor

both defended his case and almost willfully delivered
himself into the hands of his
Hitler
critics:
was an extraordinary man.
But
his policy
is
184
and it is on these that

The escape into irrationality is no doubt
The blame for war can be put on Hitler's Nihilism
of on the faults and failures of European statesmen
capable of rational explanation;

history
is
easier.
instead
faults
built.
and
which
failures
their
human
is
public
more
blunders, however, usually do
wickedness. At any rate, this
worth developing,
to
a rival
is
Human
shared.
shape history than
dogma which
[my
only as an academic exercise
if
italics].
Once, during a lecture,

can often be
and
it
fertile,
seemed
had heard Taylor
but perfection
is
say, "Error
always
sterile,"
me, upon a second reading of the
to
"Origins," that this remark,
if
anything, might be the
key to Taylor's book.
Both Taylor and Geyl,
an argument or an academic
what
discover
and Geyl could

seemed
But
if
history
exercise, could
we
was
ever
What was the truth

we tell? If both Taylor
be wrong, who could be right? Carr
really
about the past?
ways, had
in their different
argued that history was a debate.
happened?
How
could
to think that in his
book "What
Is
History?" he
had dealt with these and countless other historiographical

questions. "In
some
respects," the reviewer in the
Literary Supplement had said of the book,

best statement of
historian."
its
"it
Times
is
the
kind ever produced by a British
The reviewer noted, "Much though Mr. Can-
has absorbed from the Marxist conception of history, he
does
not
identify
himself
certain reserve towards
it;
with
and in
it
and maintains a
spite of his explicit

criticisms of the British tradition, especially of its
piricist strand,
he
is
of
it,
even
if
not quite in
185
em-
Indeed,
it.
he picks up the threads of British philosophy of history
where R. G. Collingwood
a century ago.
...
them about a quarter of
left
he does not bring to
If
his job
Collingwood's philosophical sense and subtlety, he

greatly superior to his predecessor as both historian
is
and
political theorist."
I
his
found Carr, who
seventy, in the living
is
of
Cambridge house. The room was lined with book-
shelves, but they
bulged with manila
wasn't a book in the room.

torian
I
room
who,
like Taylor,
entered, Carr
sofa.
folders,
and there
Carr appeared to be a
worked out
his-
When
of libraries.
was reposing on an enormous brown
His feet were bare, and there was a pair of rope-
soled sandals on the floor beside him, suggesting that
sandals were his regular footwear.

greet me.
face
was
He was
He
up
stood
to
a hulking man, with white hair. His
rather hawklike,
and tapered from a prominent
forehead to a pointed but also prominent chin.
He was
dressed in baggy, donnish trousers, an old gray-and-
Having
white tweed jacket, and a well-worn necktie.
drawn up a
chair for
me
next to his sofa, he lay back as
before, the picture of a don,
who
has as
little
use for
appearances and possessions and the other accoutre-
ments of living as a high
priest.
"To study the historian before
his history,
what
your background, would you say, explains your

ideas?" I asked, borrowing a leaf from his book.
in
set of
i86
"Well,
as eider
now" his voice was

down "I grew up in
as
warm and
comforting
a rather suburban atmos-
phere in North London, in a closed society of forty or

fifty relatives.
went
Cambridge, which
to
day school and then
chose because
and the best college
it
the university."
in
to Trinity,
was the
largest
Cam-
After
had spent twenty years with
bridge, he continued, he
the Foreign Office: in Riga, where he taught himself

Russian; in Paris, where he improved his French; and in
London, where he learned the proper use and importance

of diplomatic
documents and wrote a book on Dostoevski
and one on Herzen and
his
Then he
circle.
left
the
Foreign Office to write history, and to take a chair at
On
the University College of Wales, in Aberystwyth.

the
way
college
for the
to
being appointed a research fellow at his old
his
present position
he'd
London Times and taught
was younger," he
it
at Balliol.
"When
found stimulation in teaching
said, "I
young minds, but now
also written leaders
would simply bore me.
have
always been rather restless and on the move. Intellectually, like
Toynbee
and
perhaps Isaiah Berlin, too
belonged to the pre- 19 14 liberal tradition, which had

as
its
credo a belief in rational progress, a progress
through compromise, and in History with a capital

letter.
Since 1914,
all
of us, in one
have been reacting against our

have spent much of
my
time
liberal
way
or another,
environment
studying
the
Russian
Revolution, which hardly represents a progress through
compromise
but
the faith in some sort of progress

still
me, and
clings to
is
and me, on the
side,
really the
and Trevor-Roper and
Berlin
looming ahead of
in the nineteenth century;
searching
for
see
it
Trevor-Roper
may
the
in
written enough to give himself

I
not very
difficult to
feel insulted
was
thought
Taylor.
Why
it
me
be
still
hasn't
that."
their self-
"Actu-
said.
so
off
lightly.
Toynbee or
at least as great a villain as
do you suppose Trevor-Roper
If
us,
critics.
answer them, or
that he let
me for what I really am?"

He exuded good cheer.
behind
away even on
appointed spokesman, Trevor-Roper," he

ally,
on one
he
past
asked him what he thought of his
"It's
between
Golden Age
the
probably sees
somewhere
it
issue
their followers,
other.
us; Berlin
main
187
didn't see
he seemed invulnerable,
was not because he was spiky
or
wore
battle dress or
talked against a thunderous background of battalions
but because he came across as a sort of Greek god
one
who might have many human
theless
"My
little
failings
but never-
was a god.
critics,
on
on the whole," he
and wiggling
his sofa
said, raising himself
his toes, "simply repeat
the old charges that have been ringing in
many
my
ears for
said that for Carr history
was
a power and success story, and was not objective.
He
years."
They had
was a complete
those failed
relativist.
men
in
They carped. What about
history?
What about
to know
Western tradition of trying always
What about
the
great
the facts?
conservative and radical historians flower-
i88
ing in the same cultural milieu? "I've always said,"
Can
continued, answering them now, "that nobody can write
about the winners without writing about the
losers,
without going over, step by step, the whole conflict

the entire game.
About those
facts for me
history
is
a river, and you cannot step in the same river twice.
By
mean
history as a river, I
that
a twentieth-century Mozart; you
comparable
you can never have
may have
a genius
but the musical idiom and
to Mozart,
style
today are so different from those of the eighteenth

century that a
new Mozart would have

And,
a radically different way.
finally,
compose
to
in
different types
of historians, people with different shades of opinion,
can emerge from the same society because of personal
their home
factors
and
I
environment, school and college,
so on."
put myself in the place of his
him on a couple
tractors.
had a
if,
according to his theory, the losers
was equivalent
role in history that
why
and pressed
of points of this debate with his de-
said that
the winners,
critics,
hadn't he given them
to the role of
more than a few
pages in his six-volume "A History of Soviet Russia"?

"That
is
my
the fault of
of history," he replied.
had
he
theory
shared Carr's theory of
given space to the programs and aspira-
tions of practically every splinter

his
my
Isaac Deutscher, a distinguished
biographer of our times

conflict
'History,' not of
group when writing
book on Trotsky, "The Prophet Unarmed.")

took
up another
point.
"When people complain
that
189
your theory would lead the historian to be cavalier with

they saying more than you suppose?"
aren't
facts,
asked. "Aren't they saying that the function of a historian

to reconstruct, in all
is
its
complexity, what really hap-
pened? Aren't they saying that a historian should study

fifth-century Athens for
own
its
sake, rather than as
You would
another link in the chain of history?
just
have them study fifth-century Greece in relation

importance
or,
it
had
to the
for the fourth or third century B.C.,
indeed, the twentieth century A.D.
value in objectivity
in
Isn't
more
there
trying to put ourselves, as far
as possible, in the sandals of, say, a fifth-century
Greek
statesman and to view the landscape of problems as
he did, considering the alternatives he had before

eyes
when he made
"Yes,"
in
my
it's
is
is
from what happened before and
it
on
its
own.
theory
is
that the
and what these minds make of them depends
on the minds' place
in the
movement."
one accepted Carr's contention that history was
movement, a process, a
in the future of society
I
My
what human minds make
facts of the past are simply
//
its
after
a process, and you cannot isolate a bit of
process and study
of them,
But
the heart of the attack.
not possible to study a period on
isolation
History
a particular decision?"
"This
said.
view
own, in
it.
he
his
river, if
and
one accepted
in the future of history,"
thought, then his conclusions did seem
irresistible.
"But
isn't
of logical proof?"
his "faith
more
or less
your faith perhaps naive, incapable
asked.
igo
"Yes,
Faith
is
"But then every faith
said.
something you cannot prove. You
Actually,
it.
he
it is,"
just believe
those theoretical differences are really
all
smoke screen
and me. As
naive.
is
for the real difference
I said before, basically
between
we
my
critics
are just at odds
about the position of the Golden Age."

"I got the
impression from the rejoinder in the Listener
your attack on Berlin
to
your
most persuasive
critic
was determinism,"
that the crux of your disagreement

I said.
determinism to think that
"If it is
men
are a product
of their society, that their actions are conditioned
the society, then, as opposed to Berlin,

ist,"
Carr
things as
said.
"You
bad people.
am
a determin-
such
see, I don't think there are
To
us, Hitler,
moment,
at the
man
seems a bad man, but will they think Hitler a bad

in a
hundred
by
years' time or will they think the
German
society of die thirties bad?"
"But the very fact that you aren't prepared to

people bad but are prepared to
call things
bad,"
"shows that you are prejudiced against free
you have a bias

on
in favor of putting the
"Yes, that's perfectly true," he said.
are the result of their environment.

I
I said,
will, that
blame on
things,
"I think
people
on environment."
society,
because
call
Berlin thinks that
don't believe each individual can modify the
course of history, in some bad sense of the

determinist.
But
if
word
am
say that without peasants there
wouldn't have been any revolution,
am
not saying some-
"

thing
about
peasants
if
the
peasant
individual
for
not a collection of individuals?
the individual a role,
that of the individual.
terminism in Berlin's
191
what
don't
are
deny
only give society a role equal to
The reason
all this
ears, I insist, is that
rings as de-
he tends
to
regard history as a succession of accidents; otherwise,
why would he
begin his 'Historical Inevitability' with a
Bernard Berenson quotation?"

Berlin
had opened
with the following
lecture
his
passage: "Writing some ten years ago in his place of
German occupation of Northern Italy,

Mr. Bernard Berenson set down his thoughts on what
refuge during the
he called the 'accidental view of

he declared,
'far
History':
'It
led me,'
from the doctrine lapped up
in
my
youth about the inevitability of events and the Moloch

still
devouring us
believe less
and
today,
"historical
less in these
certainly dangerous
inevitability."
more than doubtful and
dogmas, which tend
accept whatever happens as
irresistible
to
make
us
and foolhardy
to
oppose.'
"I
have read Berenson's 'The Accidental View of
History/ " Carr continued, lying back on his sofa, "and

I
is
think the natural consequence of his accidental view

that events are causeless
you
can't say, for instance,
that the depression caused Hitler."
That Berlin had begun "Historical
a Berenson remark was not
Inevitability" with
sufficient
evidence for
me
that he accepted Berenson's views on accidents. Indeed,
in his rebuttal to Carr, Berlin had proved
to
me,
at
192
least
that
he believed events did have causes.
"I
think that in your book you misinterpret Berlin and
Popper,"
causes,
what you
"When you
said.
don't think that's
quite
fair.
For example,
Popper, in his books,
call causes
of situation,'
say they don't believe in
and he and Berlin
calls
logic
certainly believe in
it.
they didn't believe that historians should study causes,
If
they would have to believe in abolishing the study of

history. It
seems to
me
that the basic difference
you and your opponents
much more
sociological
that
is
view of
you tend
between
take a
to
history; they don't see
everything as a manifestation of an omnipotent society."
my sociological
me that everything
"I can't see a possible alternative to
view of
history,"
he
said. "It
seems
completely interconnected.
is
these people a
little,
writing a treatise
added,
That's
did misread some of
you must remember that
I was
"I love writing
polemics.
If I
to
why
Roper's 'Success Story'
writing lectures.
wasn't
Also,"
he
polemics and love reading good

I
was disappointed
because
it
in
Trevor-
was a bad polemic."
Carr got up from the sofa and slipped his feet into
the rope-soled sandals.
he
said,
"I'll
ask
my
wife for some tea,"
and walked toward the door.
HAPTER FOU
The Flight
of Crook-Taloned Birds
Metaphysically
ler,
had a
inclined thinkers, like Marx, Speng-
and Toynbee (plum-cake
happen
things
with a nod
they do
as
now and
which
and
Sir
why
they demonstrate
again to examples.
academics (dry-biscuit historians),
have
historians),
large, all-embracing explanation of history
The
like R.
professional
H. Tawney
Lewis Namier, respectively, detect causal con-
nections between religion and capitalism, or between
Parliament and the self-interest of the M.P.s,
or,
like
Taylor, notice a discrepancy between an intention and
an
action,
and then
particular things
they
arrive
happen
substantiate
with
small
at
analysis,
why
which
theories
at a particular time
illustrate
with
ex-
haustive examples, or prove, however obliquely or indirectly,
by a sustained narrative
Wedgwood
of events.
Miss C. V.
belongs to neither of these schools.
a shortbread historian. She

tertainingly, in the
manner
tells stories
of Somerset
She
is
simply and en-
Maugham
(that
193
194
is,
without the deep psychological perceptions of Proust,
the sensitive nerve ends of James, or the linguistic virtuosity of Joyce; the historian counterparts of these literary
come out
figures almost always
of one or the other of
the two schools), or as the Victorian Carlyle or Ed-
wardian G. M. Trevelyan did
straight,
Wedgwood
velyan, Miss
and with an
Like Carlyle and Tre-
unerring eye for the dramatic.
seldom,
if
ever, fishes in the
treacherous waters of philosophy or psychology. Because
she has no theories to prove, her histories generously

give the available facts a hearing, without rigorously
applying the aristocratic principles

selection,
and
if
exclusion
of
and
her democratic approach toward facts
crowds her narrative as densely
as
the mainland of
China, the terrain of her history, unlike the mainland

of China,
style
is
seldom overrun by a mob; her
and mastery of the language
keep the
mob
forward
like a
theoretical
to
mountain stream. Miss Wedgwood, howneed
history
to justify her nineteenth-century
by once
pronouncement.
essays called "Truth
My
the
in a while delivering a
She wrote, in a book of
and Opinion":
writing experience has led
value on investigating what
pened.
most part
for the
and carry the brimming narrative
at bay,
ever, has felt the
approach
felicity of
Pieces like
Highwayman"
men
me
to
did and
set
how
a very high
things hap-
"The Last Masque" and "Captain Hind

[the
first
about Charles
I,
the
second
about one of his supporters] were written partly to provide

entertainment; they are small literary diversions.
But they
The
were
195
because limited and relatively simple subwhere passion and prejudices play little part,
also written
jects like these,
give the historian an opportunity for the purest kind of en-
The apparent
quiry.
and
may seem
objectives
and even
light
but the experiment in reconstructing as accurately
frivolous,
as possible
fully
a detached incident or a character
without attempting to prove any general point or demon-
any theory whatsoever
strate
a useful exercise.
is
have
found by experience that in the course of such neutral enunexpected clues are found to far more important
quiries
indications
Court and administration of
for lines of enquiry into the
Charles
me numerous
"The Last Masque" gave
matters.
and "Captain Hind" has left me with a handful

and sources for the social consequences of
of hints, ideas,
the Civil War.
The
But now,
of history.
more on
older historians concentrated
narrative than on analysis,
on the
How
rather than the
for several generations,
Why
regarded as a more important question than How.

course, a
more important
until
How
rate
answer
a long
question. But
established.
is
The
to the question
it
How
It is,
of
cannot be answered
careful, thorough,
way towards answering
Why
has been
and accu-
should take the historian
the question
Why; but
for
this
purpose narrative history must be written with depth
and
reflection.
Miss Wedgwood's detractors in both the plum-cake
and the dry-biscuit schools might

often do
that
narrative history
aspect of history; that the
How
retort
is
is
indeed,
they
the least neglected
much more
apprehended than the Why; that the
How
advance knowledge, does not develop new
easily
does not
variations
on old explanations, does not introduce new ways of

thinking about old facts; and that the
life
of a
How
ig6
history
is
scarcely as long as that of a fashion in ladies'
hats, since
new
ful of
one has
no sooner has a researcher turned up a handfacts than the narrative
is
dated and a
new
be constructed. But Miss Wedgwood's de-
to
tractors realize that she
aware of
is
all
and they
this,
and her defense are
also realize that their objections
beside the point, for her natural gifts are unanalytical
and
and she can no more
literary,
history
academic
history.
some years
much
resist writing narrative
than they can help writing metaphysical or
Ever since
before, I'd
wanted
had
meet
to
her, perhaps as
as anything because of her fine prose
had written
twelve," she
in
was
one of her essays collected
in "Velvet Studies," published
some
had grown dangerously
writing
and her
"By the time
uncontainable interest in history.
"my
read her books
first
fifteen years
swift.
ago,
There was
a special kind of writing pad called 'The Mammoth,'
two hundred pages, quarto, ruled
Mammoths
practiced pen
historian.'
To
at
my now
father said, hoping to
was damping, but
It
learn
history, I
my
'Even a bad writer
after all, unlikely that I
under
disappeared in a twinkling.
'You should write history,'
put on a brake.
faint;
it
may be
was
sense.
a useful
It
more about Miss Wedgwood and her
now
Plato's,
invited her to lunch with
me
in
How
London
a quiet Greek restaurant whose glass front
looks out on
Wigmore
Street.
waited for her at a
small table near the glass wall. She arrived a
and grasped
was,
would ever be Shakespeare."
my
hand warmly.
little late,
Without any further
The
formalities,
she
seated
herself
started talking ebulliently,
197
from me and
we had known
across
though
as
each other for years.

"I
am
be prompt, but right across the
sorry not to
Wedgwood
street I discovered a
"For the family's sake,

the
had
Wedgwoods have been
teenth-century historian,
Wedgwood
fifty-two,
gray-haired,
tively
and
although,
Miss Wedgwood,
and brown-eyed, was conservaan English-cut
tastefully dressed in
"My
here
Achilles'
heel instead
business,
went
did a
lot of
go
suit.
She
interest in history
"My
a very long one," she continued.
being the eldest son
being a seven-
know much about the

who is
don't
china."
spoke in an effervescent voice.

is
window
in the china business ever
since the eighteenth century
history of
china shop," she said.
to look in the
off
father, not
on a tangent,
my
of going into the family china
when
into railways, so
was a
girl
we
hard and bouncy travelling in Europe. In
railways, as in the china business, there
we had
freemasonry of the trade, and
we wanted."
Wedgwood paused
a sort of
is
many
as
free
passages as
Miss
her
if
she would like a drink.
mouth on
here
for the
ice,
go
and went on
off
first
"When
again I
went
school in Kensington, from which everybody
high-powered school,
to a proper,
School, but
liked
it
so
asked
She ordered a dry ver-
talking.
on a tangent
and
time,
much
girl
to a
day
moved on
like St. Paul's Girls'
there that
So few of us stayed back that
was a
we were
stayed on.
given what
ig8
amounted
many
back
private
to
to live with a family
England
to
When
tuition.
was
and thereupon immediately rushed
finished,
Lady Margaret
fifteen,
off to
and learn German.
Ger-
rushed
to take the Scholarship examination for
Hall, Oxford,
and rushed
off again, this
time to a family in France, to learn French." She stirred
her vermouth.
"Would you
"Oh,
like to order?" I asked.
She studied the
almost forgot," she said.
menu and
ordered egg-and-lemon soup, moussaka, and
a glass of red wine, and went on talking.
came down from Oxford," she
Had
century subject.
Why
become a
in
Why
writing,
but
historian,
and
wanted
How
arranged for
to
historian
me
of Trevelyan,
to
is
been
at
Strafford,
do
it,
would have
discovered that
important than
I didn't.
do both.
when, a
decided to
I really
little later,
my
father
go and spend a weekend at the house
who was
then
my
fifty-five;
father, Tre-
Vaughan Williams had
Cambridge together and knew each other
very well. Trevelyan was a great
encouraged
I'd
much more
velyan, G. E. Moore, and Ralph

all
decided
forbidding seventeenth-
gone on with
history research
become a
said, "I
Tawney on some
a thesis with
"When
me
which
to
How
historian,
and he
write a biography of the Earl of
I did,
instead of doing
my
thesis
Tawney. The biography was very feminine and

mental. Sir John Neale,
the
literary
helped
me
who
it
senti-
writes two kinds of history
and the analytic
to revise
with
and place
it
with
equal success,
with a publisher. Ever
The
Flight of Crook-Tatoned Birds
since then, I have
uously.
am
How
been writing
men
were taken on the
write about
how the
have much
in action,
spot.
don't
with secondary sources, which stud the
199
history contin-
not embarrassed to say that
the surface things
Why
decisions
patience
historians'
pages in the form of bulky footnotes."

I
recalled that she
Whether
it
is
that
had once
written:
have never quite outgrown the
first
excitement of that discovery [reading Pepys, Clarendon, and
Verney when she was
day an unwillingness
which I have difficulty
just a girl],
to
read
the
find in myself to this
secondary
in overcoming.
authorities
Indeed
it
rather
is
some learned reviewer's "the author appears to

be ignorant of the important conclusions drawn by Dr.
the fear of
Stumpfnadel" than a desire to know those conclusions for

their
own
drives
me
Miss
sake which, at the latter end of
Wedgwood was by now
egg-and-lemon soup.
"start
my own
researches,
to consult the later authorities.
"The
Why
in the
middle of her
historians,"
she said,
with the assumption that there are deep-seated
motives and reasons for most decisions, and they concentrate on that rather than on the action.
Sometimes,
happily for me, the historical characters surprise their
Why
historians by, say, not voting in a Parliament in
accordance with their party and economic

they should have voted.
seem
to
But
have daunted the
interests, as
this sort of thing doesn't
Why
historians very
for the general preoccupation in this country
tury remains
Why
history has mostly
much,
and cen-
history; in our universities the
gone by the board." Countless
How
his-
2oo
had investigated the causes of the English
torians
War, she went
on, but they
Why
Civil
the
of the
would never know
War
that
Civil
had been so mesmerized by

reading them, one
that,
England
in that time
had a
day-to-day foreign policy. Indeed, in Miss Wedgwood's

opinion, they themselves often forgot
their
in
into
all
many good
historians are intolerant of
Wedgwood
"They say
"No,"
by delving
I said.
I
(I
had read
for
by not
"I
her soupspoon
popular and short-lived.
it's
had no theory
had many, even
it
know that
my way of doing
said, putting
agree with them.
twelve
history
froth into their pages.
its
Miss
history,"
sense,
and were misled
undercurrents, but they impoverished
its
gathering
down.
They enriched
analyses.
it,
Does
in her "Velvet Studies": "At
Since then
of history.
some years the theory
interests of scholarship
it is
In a
that surprise you?"
wrong
have
that in the
to write history com-
prehensible to the ordinary reader, since
all
history so
written must necessarily be modified and therefore incorrect.
This was
nature to have held
"Women
what
is
against
my
long.")
said about them," she
mean many
and by
me
much
are very sensitive and self-conscious about
sion of history has

us.
think always too
went
enough rooms
sorts of history
'illuminating' I
on. "I think the
to
accommodate
manall
can be illuminating
mean you can show
things
of
by the
way you relate them. When I was young, I was Left

Wing and intolerant, prepared to damn many books
and many ways of doing things. Now that I am a little
The
older, I
can tolerate
many
201
and many
points of view
types of books."
Over her moussaka, Miss Wedgwood

she had lived in
Oxford, and had

history books,
London ever
since she
made ends meet by
told
me
that
came down from
writing successful
by reviewing, by "being on every prize
committee," and by doing a lot of work for the B.B.C.

I
sity
"I
asked her
if
she had ever
felt
the lack of a univer-
connection and a secure income.

haven't, because
"Once,
pupils
I
I
did teach for a
really
bit,
she said.
teach,"
can't
and found that most
of the
thought were brilliant failed their examinations."
She laughed.
The waiter brought her a cup
and
of coffee,
also a
Turkish delight, which she unwrapped slowly and carefully, as
though she were peeling an orange. "By tem-
perament,
am an
optimist," she said.
gloomy about the uses and

study at times seems to
"But
lessons of history.
me
useless
and
am
The whole
futile.
now and again about the uses of

always come home with a sinking feeling
very
give
but
lectures
history,
of whistling
in the dark."
If history
art
were simply a
rough guesses, more
than science, as narrative historians from Thomas
Babington Macaulay
to
Trevelyan, Miss
mentor, have thought, Miss
more claim
is
series of
to
an age of
Wedgwood's
Wedgwood would have even

now has. But ours
our attention than she

analysis, of science,
and
at least for the
202
moment
fireside historians are flickering
Many
gust of the "why"s.
Miss
Wedgwood
historians
that history
under the cold
may
disagree with
whistling in the dark,
is
but few have the resources to light up the shadowy
mansion of
Two
history.
them
of
in
who
our time
appear to have had batteries and torches strong enough

for the illumination are R.
Sir
Lewis Namier,
To
their
18S8-1960
Why
thought
histories, I
college
both
of
my
tutors,
of
with
(the
nontheoretical
when
went up
had survived
six
it
them,
historians.
would be pleasant
up residence
history
talk
had studied the subject
variety)
three
for
found that
But
years.
Balliol,
which
hundred and ninety-nine years
(preparations were then under
way
celebrate the
to
my
seven-hundredth anniversary), had altered beyond

expectations, even though, as these things went,
a recent graduate.
me from
around me. In the few years since

of undergraduates
the college. In the desert of

there
was one
was
Walking through the quadrangles,
sensed that a great gulf divided
new body
as
at Balliol, the old
and perhaps
whom
to Oxford, I
for
both Why
Tawney and Namier and
learn something about
well as useful to take
with
H. Tawney, 1880-1962, and
Balliol faces,
familiar landmark, the
close friend Jasper Griffin.
the people
had gone down, a
had entered the
new
He and
tall
shell of
however,
figure of
had come up
my
to
the college in the same year, and had found ourselves

living next
door to each other; indeed,
in the affluent
days of the college, our two rooms had formed a
and among
its
occupants
suite,
had been Gerard Manley
The Flight
Hopkins.
It
of
Crook-Taloned Birds
203
was discovering that Hopkins was a favorite

had drawn us together and begun
of both of us that
our long friendship. As
him
elected
my
given
happened, when the college
it
to a Junior Fellowship in Classics,
room
old
as his office.
Since he
he was
now
lived
out of college and worked mostly in the libraries, he

let
me
my
have
room back
old
The room was
stay at Oxford.
the student body, the
staff
of
intact,
but again,
like
Balliol
historians
had
who had brought me
A. B. Rodger,
changed.
my
for the duration of
to love
the manicured English countryside of the eighteenth

century,
had
W.
R.
died.
Southern, one of the greatest
English medievalists,
riving
who had
led
me
like a soldier leading a recalcitrant horse to water,
since
been raised
Even
college.
me
conducted
to
my
Harvard
external tutor, James Joll
tended
on
me
of the
and
tutors
Hill,
still
at the college.
was
who had
an authority
seventeenth-century history,
two or three
had
politics
World Wars
few months. Of the
term after term, Christopher
sixteenth-
he
through the tortuous European
for a
had
a chair connected with another
terminating in the First and Second

at
the
to
and medieval history very much
springs of Anglo-Saxon
was one
Like Southern,
he was in high feather; he was holding the post of Ford's

Lecturer, a distinguished university appointment, for the
year. In several quarters
heir of
Tawney, who
traditions of Balliol,
in
he was regarded as the
spiritual
some ways had personified the
which
to its adulators is "the best
the world"
Oxford
tutorial
teaching
college
system
thought to have originated there) and to
is
in
(the
its
204
detractors
a mere "teaching shop." Like Tawney, Hill
is
had spent much of
history of the Puritans
ideas and
fifty
and of the birth of revolutionary
ideals in seventeenth-century England.
no surprise
is
and teaching the
his life studying
to
his
me, therefore, that when
saw
college
who
three hallmarks are a legendary shyness,
pithy sentences, and high, bouncy black hair
room we conversed about
about the
ing,
was
It
Hill,
English
Balliol,
his
about teach-
and
scene,
historical
in
about
Tawney.
As
Hill talked, I couldn't help feeling that
of
Tawney were applicable to himsaid, "Tawney thought, and I
observations on
his
some
At one point, he
self.
agree, that anyone can write narrative histories, but

that
Of
it is
the analytic histories that advance knowledge.
course, both
historians,
it is
of
Namier and Tawney were
analytical
but they had very different spiritual fathers;
impossible to conceive of Namier without Freud or
Tawney without Marx Marx because the main feaTawney 's work is a never-failing concern for the
ture of
underdog
Namier's contribution was to go
in history.
below the surface of public records
and
diaries,
and Tawney 's great contribution was asking
the right questions.
Surely part of good history
ask the right questions.

that
to private papers
produce
By
fruitful
supposed to have
right questions, I
Indeed,
once
historians
need
answers.
said,
'What
more documents but stronger
boots.'
only recorded facts and
you
left
mean
to
is
to
those
he
is
is
not
Whereas Namier
draw your own
The Flight
of
Crook-T atoned Birds
Tawney put forward tremendously
conclusions,
which were not considered
esting hypotheses,
old, established histories,
accurate and learned
going through with
me
inter-
in
until
the
Tawney 's. You remember
those dozens of volumes on the

S.
R. Gardiner and C. H. Firth?
Well, those incomparably learned Victorians took

granted,
205
though these were often more
than
Puritan Revolution by
Tawney,
that
the
it
for
seventeenth-century
Nor did
English Parliament represented the people.
they distinguish between different social classes; they
wrote as though the Puritan Revolution were a struggle

for liberty
by
all
the people and
all
the classes.
No
historian thinks of the Puritan Revolution in those terms
now, and
it's
some ways,
all
due
Tawney and his questions. In

Tawney was traditional and Vic-
to
of course,
For him, as for
torian.
his
counterparts,
Victorian
knowledge and virtue were one.
Indeed, he used his
researches to carry through reforms in society.
Unlike
the Victorians, however, he studied social and economic
He
history.
the
directed the gaze of historians
narrow stage of
finitely
But perhaps
covering and
between
that
and action
wider one of society and
territories of interest
reap.
politics
his
for
religion
rise of capitalism.
great in
my
eyes
was
a deeply committed Christian
Christianity
was very much akin
to
in-
to tend
and
was
dis-
greatest achievement
and the
the
opening up vast
them
England,
developing the connections, in
made Tawney
He was
life,
and evidence
away from
to
One
his
thing
politics.
Socialist.
His
Sandy Lindsay's
2o6
[former master of Balliol, A. D. Lindsay] and to Oliver
God and keep your powder dry.'

Heavenly intervention went hand in hand with human
Cromwell's Trust in
action.
state
Tawney's Socialism wasn't the
variety
state
on but
ownership of industries, and so
a very
Here again he was kin
individual sort of Socialism.
Sandy Lindsay. Where he got
to
his Christian Socialism I
know probably not at Rugby, his public school.

Perhaps at Balliol. The Balliol of the early nineteenhundreds, his time, was far more Left Wing and radical
don't
Another thing that
than that of the nineteen-sixties.
perhaps
made him
great
was
work
his lifelong
He
Workers' Educational Association, or W.E.A.
up a
for the
gave
Balliol fellowship to continue in adult education,
and accepted
London School
his professorship at the
Economics quite
late
made him
was
great
in
life.
his
another thing that
Still
combination of shrewdness
and gentleness. He was a very shrewd man

see through people
but
of
he
could
he never took issue with any-
one on personal matters, always on principles."

After talking to Hill,
college library, reading books
about Tawney, whose name

period.
first
essay,
is
and
articles
both by and
byword
for the
shelf
Tudor
made me
which had been written with
the aid of Tawney's books,
My
time in our
Going through the Tawney
remember my
old.
little
spent a
some
assignment was "What,
of
If
them
forty years
Anything,
Can Be
Salvaged, About the Gentry and the Causes of the
English Civil War, from the 'Gentry Controversy'?"
It
The
called for reading
famous
had
risen
and seventeenth
on "the crushed bodies of the
peasants" and on the debts
and dissipated hereditary
By
moneyed
that the
classes, or the gentry, of the sixteenth
centuries
207
and evaluating one of Tawney's most
Tawney maintained
theses.
owed them by
class,
the wasteful
causing the Civil War.
the use of better agricultural techniques and eco-
nomic
ruthlessness, the gentry
the symbol of status)
had acquired land
was
( it
and money, but they had not
acquired power, which, instead of accompanying the

gentry's acquisition of land,
of
the
Crown and
the
had remained
nobility,
in the grasp
opening a
political
chasm. As soon as the gentry discovered that war was

a cheaper means than litigation of wresting land and
power from the wellborn bankrupt, they

England
in
adrift
the waters
struck, setting
of revolution.
Trevor-
Roper, in a thunderous charge, had long since cut
through
this
view, yet in Tawney's history there re-
mained such a
new
start
store of research
and wisdom that every
on the causes of the Civil
War began
with
him.
Perhaps the reason was that while, with each
wave
of
new
evidence, the narrative historians were
superseded (since the great excavations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even the narrative hunks
in
the third volume of Gibbon's "Decline
and
Fall"
retained only a literary interest), the analytic, the interpretive historians
had a touch
(About evidence, the

once written, "The
stuff of
first
of immortality about them.
How
history,
Tawney had
feeling of a person
who
sees a
208
manuscript collection such as that at Holkham must
be
'If
fifty
maids with
Even though
many
we
jettisoned,
own
During
wields
his
theses
works of understanding.
which spanned more than
his long career,
His
a very
undergraduates yet turned to his histories
he wrote two kinds of works
Socialist.
is
and (sometimes under the
ideas and researches)
for their functional value as
years,
and a sad con-
,'
examples were dated,
his
of his statistics revised,
impetus of his
mop which he
sciousness that the
feeble one.")
mops
fifty
fifty
and
such as "The Agrarian Problem
histories,
in the Sixteenth
historical
Century" (marked by social morality:
faith in the potentiality of ordinary
men and
the arrogance of the rich and the
powerful equalled
distrust of
only by his distaste for the specialist), created a minor

revolution,
new
actors.
making possible a new kind
of history, with
In his histories, he presented, in powerful
Elizabethan prose, the state of Tudor society, letting

the yeoman, the peasant, the displaced farmer speak
in
many
cases for the
time; in his Socialist books,
first
such as "The Acquisitive Society" and "Equality," he
drew
aside the veil of hypocrisy, exposing the discrepancy
between the Christian
modern
society.
works, "[They]
generation.
pressed,
The
ethic
late
made
...
If
think
it
false or
Gaitskell said of these
a tremendous impact upon
you ask
was
combined passion and
and the actual condition of
Hugh
me why we were
really
that these books
There was nothing
learning.
exaggerated in them.
my
so im-
He was
not invent-
The Flight
ing
but simply showing them to us
things
we had
failed to appreciate before
immediately
ognized
political thinker,
we
about
rec-
As a
them."
the social conscience
Webb
thought
was destined to be a Labour Prime Minister of
England
that
he wrote
Tawney became
209
things
but which
Indeed, Sidney and Beatrice
of his age.
that he
an
ambition that
many nursed
was made impossible by poor health
wounds he received
self didn't set
much
in the First
store
for
him but
from
resulting
World War. (He him-
by honors; when Sidney
Webb
and he were offered peerages by the Ramsay MacDonald

government,
Webb
With
accepted and he declined.)
the improvement in the condition of the working classes
and the beginning

Socialist
books
lost
of the welfare era in England, his
much
of their bite, yet his vision of
a healthy, cooperative society, of politics not of power
but of principle, continues to inspire socially concerned

undergraduates. Nor are the dons
left
untouched by
who
example, for he succeeded in being a scholar

practiced his learning, whose domain
to the tutorial professorial
his
was not limited

on
chair but stretched
to
include the republic of laborers and politicians.

I
had met Tawney only once, over after-dinner
at Oxford.
his
most
coffee
As a person, he reminded one of Socrates
ironical.
exasperating;
(His humility was overpowering and
when an undergraduate asked him
tion about enclosures, a subject
do") And,
a ques-
on which he was an
authority, he said, "No, no, I'm sure
better than I
at
you know the
like Socrates,
field
he would either
2io
be absolutely
silent
or deliver an endless monologue.
Indeed, he gave the impression of being a Platonic Idea

of the absent-minded scholar; he
on
his glasses
forehead and then be unable to find them, his
his
brown tweed
in,
would put
and
suit
always looked as
his untidiness
was
had been
slept
so thoroughgoing that
expected matches to explode

to light his pipe.
if it
when he reached
But whether or not he had
for
one
them
fire in his
pockets, there was nothing about him to suggest the
revolutionary which he actually was.
Tawney, the recent graduate
of
Oxford setting out on
his revolutionary, almost evangelical mission of education, is
glimpsed in a commemorative portrait that H. P.
Smith, the tutorial secretary for the Delegacy for Extra-
Mural Studies, Oxford, wrote

It tells
how Tawney threw
for the Delegacy's journal.
himself into the development
of the Oxford Tutorial Classes
Committee, an extra-
mural body for adult education, whose work

still
which
continues has influenced the course that English
society has taken.
people at large
He
first
by
brought the
talking
fruits of learning to
and teaching
men's clubs in East London, and in the

of the north,
where he
Lancashire workers.
back,
country
One
of his old students, looking

of scenes:
[Smith quoted], in the classroom at the Sutherland
Institute:
place.
textile
also organized classes for the
remembered a number
First
at working-
a heated discussion on surplus value
is
taking
pertinacious Marxian, arguing with the tutor, chal-
lenges point after point of his exposition, until at length,
The
211
baffled but not defeated, the student retires from the tussle,
saying to the tutor:
no use; when
"It's
point
you, you hop from twig to twig like a
laughter comes to ease the strain.
the same room: the class meeting
and
ease, taking tea
politics,
problems
Then
literature.
moves
sociable scene in
over,
and we
sit
at
of philosophy, evolu-
Walt
R. H. T. reads to us
Whitman's "When Lilacs Last

this
more
is
my gun at
and
bird"
provided by members' wives.
biscuits
Talk ranges free and wide

tion,
little
in the
Dooryard Bloom'd;"
a student to give us his favourite passage from
the same source: "Pioneers!
quoting from a
poem
of
Pioneers!"
Matthew Arnold
Another follows,
that evidently has
magic line, "the unplumb'd,

some of us as we sit listening,
bitten him, one ending with the

salt,
estranging sea."
new door
And
for
opens.
Tawney's students soon became the center of a

educational movement.
classes of their
Tawney's
They
the
and
started giving talks
own, modelled on
direction,
lively
North
their master's.
Staffordshire
Under
Miners'
Higher Education Movement was launched, and the

miners were
now
enrolled in the
learning and teaching.
minated a few decades
movement
The scheme,
crusade,
land.
cul-
later in the foundation of the
University of Keele, in Staffordshire, which
one of eighteen
of voluntary
is still
only
institutions of higher learning in all
Eng-
Tawney's genius for teaching
pupils' essays bearing his corrections
(copies
still
of
his
serve as ex-
amples to young tutors), his relationship with
his stu-
dents (while impatient of sham, he was pastoral in his
treatment of his classes), his ability to impart something
more than knowledge ("He made manifest a new power
212
he taught: the power
in those
and
own
men and women with
tional activities as adult

interests
shape their
to
work a
his
own
their
involvement in the
responsibilities"), his
helped to
social ideals that the classes represented, all
make
educa-
narrow horizons of
success, to extend the
English aristocratic learning, and to hold out a promise

of
mass education for a day when there might be greater
and greater participation
of the people in the government.
The Tawney of the early days [Smith concluded] has

become a legend among working-class students in this
He
country.
joined the ranks at the outbreak of hostilities
1914 and stayed there:

equality that he talked.
in
was
it
.
Somme, Tawney was brought
his
way
of practicing the
wounded on
Severely
Examination Schools he used to
at the
with piles of
lie
books around him, and hot ash dropping from
The
his bed.
his
is
that one of his students
Summer
decided to honour
the occasion of an Oxford college opening
working
[a
classes
After
coat.
member
that
of Marx.
all,
of the Social Democratic Federation] he
And
so the midnight club
Tawney was emptying

table beside him.
knew
all
was
his
it
pipe into the
out his thoughts [in an
what he stood
in full swing, the
participants, the air
was too
silk
was
thick
late, that
top-hat on the
which he was engaged.

of
doors to the
such a garb was indispensable to his preaching
with smoke, and nobody noticed, until
set
its
by coming to Balliol in top-hat and frockit was his Sunday best, and as an S.D.F.-er
argument was fascinating
He
pipe to
nurses were scared at his burnt sheets. Another
well-authenticated story, this time of the W.E.A.

School,
the
There
to hospital in Oxford.
It is
article]
on the work
the clearest statement
in
know
for in his early days as a tutorial class
The Flight
tutor:
"One may suggest
Crook-Taloned Birds
of
that
when
213
the wheels have ceased
rumbling and the dust has settled down, when the
first
generation of historians has exhausted the memoirs and the
second has refuted the memoirs by the documents, and the

time has come for the remorseless eye of imagination to be
two turbulent decades
turned on the
first
century,
perhaps
economic
men
is
it
effort
less
than in the revival
of an Idea that their
The minds
among
dominant motif
of an ever-growing
of the twentieth
the world of political
in
number
be found.
will
of
and
large masses of
.
men and women
are passing through one of these mysterious bursts of activity
which make some years
in the
sequence rather than the cause.

not be premature!
and of
as decisive as generations,
which measurable changes

It is as
world of fact are the con-
May
that wonderful spring
man
though a
labouring with a
pick in a dark tunnel had caught a gleam of light and had
redoubled his
attack on the
as
break
efforts to
down
the last screen.
mere misery of poverty
is
one part of a determination that there
reconstruction of
human
relationships.
The
falling into its place

shall
...
be a radical
It
is
surely a
very barren kind of pedantry which would treat education

as
though
it
were a closed compartment within which
ples are developed
and experiments
tried undisturbed
changing social currents of the world around.
The
princi-
by the
truth
is
that educational problems cannot be considered in isolation
men and women
from the aspirations of the great bodies of

for
whose sake alone
worth considering at
may hope an
it
all.
that educational problems
is
.
The
increasing majority
majority of
must
live
are
men one
by working.
Their work must be of different kinds, and to do different

kinds of work they need specialized kinds of professional
preparation.
masons
kinds.
Doctors,
must,
...
If
in
lawyers,
fact,
have
engineers,
trade
persons whose work
is
plumbers,
schools
of
and
different
different require,
as
214
they do, different kinds of professional instruction, that
is
no reason why one should be excluded from the common

heritage of civilization of which the other
is
made
by
free
a university education, and from which, ceteris paribus, both,

irrespective
human
of
occupations,
their
equally
are
capable,
as
Those who
beings, of deriving spiritual sustenance.
have seen the inside both of lawyers' chambers and of coal

mines
will
not suppose that of the inhabitants
places of gloom the former are
the humanities than are the
If
Tawney
made
old facts give
"why" was only a

light.
."
latter.
new answers, Namier (a little like

new method to abolish debate and
the answers once and for
all
these
the historian, by questions and hypotheses,
Austin) invented a
get
of
more constantly inspired by
For the
all.
searchlight, for the second a flood-
Time and again during my encounters with
torians,
had come across remarks such
the
first,
his-
as "Namier,
perhaps, has found the ultimate
way
of doing history,"
"Namier believed that
you
can't
matics, so
you
teenth-century
grasped,
dated,"
all
and
become a
versies
send up a
with outmoded nine-
can't write history
psychology;
as
soon
as
truth
this
the histories written thus far will

"If
Namier had
his
cease,
historical truth as is
art.
All contro-
and we would know
humanly
is
become
way, history would
perfect science and a perfect
would
constantly
as
just
space without twentieth-century mathe-
into
satellite
as
much
possible, without being
worn down with doubt and
uncertainty."
In
the minds of the professional academics, he seemed to
occupy the position of God, and
if
they criticized him,
The
it
was often more
215
than in
in the spirit of theologians
Everywhere one turned, whether
the spirit of atheists.
to literary, diplomatic, philosophical,
or psychological
historians, whether to Marxist or Conservative, Namier's
name was
magic.
was alarming and
It
Namier was "the
Carr,
greatest
unsettling.
historian
British
emerge on the academic scene since the

War;"
to
World
First
who psychoanalyzed
to Berlin, "an historian
To
the
Wedgwood, "perhaps the best historical

our time." Toynbee, who had told me that he
past;" to Miss
writer in
had almost nothing
in
common with Namier, had
theless said of him, "I
man
worshipped him.
never-
He was
a big
with a big mind."
Namier has been

of history, a
are false,
called a
Darwin
Marx
of history.
Freud
of history, a
These, like
and yet contain a grain
all epithets,
Namier
of truth.
attributed the causes of men's actions, like Marx, to
something besides their professed motives;

to subterranean springs; and, like
beyond the mind and

very imposing, yet
its
Darwin, to something
ideas. His spiritual fathers
when Namier was
gifts
and genius on studying

to
study
were
not writing Euro-
pean or diplomatic history he concentrated
historians
Freud,
like
or recruiting
a period
with him
his
great
other great
of
English
Parliament, in exhaustive detail; the last ten years of his

life
were spent
help of a
staff
in doing research
and writing, with the
of four, three volumes in the series the
"History of Parliament," a sort of Who's

bers of Parliament
who
from the Middle Ages
sat in the
Who
House
of
to the present century.
of MemCommons
Namier's
2i6
own Who's Who was

hundred and
to contain a study of nineteen
sixty-four
Members
the Parliaments
in
between 1754 aQ d 1790.

Namier's pupil, Taylor, in composing a touching and
evaluative epitaph for the Observer, succeeded in both
and
justifying
Namier's narrow preoccupa-
criticizing
tions.
He
in the
world of
tipped his hat to the master's "unique place"

history,
and acknowledged that whatever
Namier touched
subject
nineteenth-century
Whig
had seen democratic

between
Britain as emerging out of the conflict
and despotism. According

George
ism
and
that
II liberty
early
idle,
had made such inroads on despot-
his
polarized
two kings serving
Tories, the
prompting of one of
were
politics
handsome, figureheads.
if
at the
liberty
to them, during the reigns of
Hanoverian
between Whigs and
The
genius transfigured.
his
historians
George
III,
as
however,
malign ministers, Lord
Bute, was supposed to have reverted to the personal
monarchy,
England
costing
the
American
Taylor noted that Namier went behind
He examined
this
colonies.
orthodoxy.
the contemporary correspondence, he ex-
posed the assumptions on which the backbenchers and
and he succeeded
their leaders acted,
these
men were
in
showing that
not working for the victory of any
principle, or party in the
modern sense
were seeking promotion and influence
of the word, but
ambitions
to
achieved, as at any time before, by serving the king,

the source of
portant
than
power
this
in public affairs.
new
interpretation
be
still
Even more im-
was Namier's
The Flight
method
for arriving at
it,
Crook-Taloned Birds
of
217
a method since become famous
Instead of forcing the ideals and
as "Namierization."
opinions of the present onto other times, Namier, by

relentlessly substituting accurate details for those
vague
generalizations that interlined the pages of earlier histories, tried to
conduct a gigantic opinion poll of his
Namierization had since been applied by other
period.
from the
scholars to other periods
the twentieth century. In Taylor's
Where
writers
had once
fifteenth century to
own
words:
dealt vaguely with changes in
public opinion or national sentiment, Namier went to the

grass-roots of politics.
He
asked such questions
determined the conduct of the individual
How
ment?
was representation
individual constituencies?
Why
What
it?
did they get out of
settled, or
did
.
European nationalism and

these
complexities
clarity.
changed, in the
men go
into
politics?
to
the eighteenth cen-
[He] knew in his blood the complexities of
What
of Parlia-
Namier did not confine himself

tury.
as:
Member
to
class-conflict;
English
and he interpreted
audiences
with
dazzling
But Taylor qualified

Though
his collected
his praise:
works make up a formal array on
them
the finished masterpiece which

was a strange thing about this
great man that, while he could use both the microscope and
the telescope to equal effect, he never managed the middle
the shelves, none of
he hoped
range of
to write.
and
just
as
is
It
He was tremendous when he dissome seemingly trivial transaction;

powerful when he brought the whole sweep
common
sected each
...
detail
day.
of
2i8
But he
of a century or a continent into a single lecture.
could
not provide
sustained
movement, which many

ponderous and immobile,
find the
like the
stuff
of
man
himself.
tend to peter out after the
all
With Namier,
it
was always
all
it
An
away.
great impulse.
first
Either he was
or nothing.
trying to absorb every detail of his subject;
throw
on a theme; and
All his books are really related essays
they
work lacked
history.
It was
His
narrative.
excess of patience at one
or he would
moment; and
of impatience afterwards.
I
was
his colleague at
Manchester for eight years; and
for twenty-six years his close friend.
him
man
as a
ences.
ideas
loved and admired
an historian.
We
had our
differ-
thought that he had an excessive contempt for
and
when one
principles in history; a
considers
from devotion
He was
how much he
contempt
all
the stranger
sacrificed in his
own
life
to the idea of Zionism.
an inspired lecturer; and a master of English
He
prose-style.
England
as well as
loved England, particularly the traditional
of the governing classes.
Most
of all he loved the
University of Oxford.
I
decided to look up Namier's star pupil, John Brooke
said
to
be the best source of information on Namier's
work and the aims

the Who's
ment
Who
to see
of his history
who
duties of his teacher. I
him one afternoon
in
had inherited
made an
London
appoint-
at the
annex
of the Institute of Historical Research library, a rather
Victorian house where Brooke and the "History of Par-
liament" had their
offices.
arrived a
little
early,
and
chatted for a while with a young lady of the Institute.
She told
me
urging,
had provided a grant of seventeen thousand
that in 1951 the British Treasury, at Namier's
The Flight
pounds a year
of
Crook-Tatoned Birds
for twenty years in order to
make
historians,
219
pos-
which
sible the writing of the "History of Parliament,"
had been apportioned among many
some of
the country's most distinguished scholars being engaged
project
was hoped
that the
whole
would be completed within the twenty
years.
for the work;
originally
it
The work had proceeded
however.
at a turtle's pace,
Namier's period alone had taken the great historian and

his staff twice as long as
many weeks
to track
had been planned; often
down
the bare essentials
it
an
parents, the place of his birth, his education,
took
M.P.'s
and the
date and place and circumstances of his death. Presently,

the young lady
of a flight of stairs,
is
me
to a small
room
and said
as she left
me, "Mr. Brooke
showed
a very eccentric man.
electric waistcoat
When
it
plugged into the
at the top
gets cold, he wears an

light socket,
and reads
aloud to himself."
The room was brimming with books and
papers. Peer-
ing over a deskful of big boxes of papers and index cards
was a
man
short, slight
was holding
with a white, pinched face,
in the corner of his
He was
an unlit cigarette in a cigarette holder.

fully dressed in sweater
to guess at his age.
next to Brooke,
and
He was
who
mouth, rather nervously,
slacks,
but
it
youth-
was impossible
Brooke. Drawing up a chair
asked him to
tell
me
little
bit
about
Namier's ideas.
"Sir
Lewis had no use
know," Brooke
for theories of history,
you
said, switching his unlit cigarette to the
other corner of his mouth.
"He has written only one
essay,
220
'History/ on the subject;
it's
collected in 'Avenues of His-
tory.'
He
whom
no one can write history without taking him into
said once that a great historian
account.
the whole
historian, to
way
be counted
cally doesn't believe that a historian
truth
in
our time, you know,
nonexistent
fifty
his
years from
does
after
Sir
Lewis
basi-
can ever know the
this sort of humility is
moment
influence at the
now
he
must change
great,
Because
of scholarship.
is
all history will
limited.
is
be done
as Sir
But
Lewis
Brooke had a high-pitched voice, and as he
it."
became aware
talked on
he rather
eerily switched
present, as though
doesn't believe,
that in speaking of
Namier
from the past tense
to the
Namier were
you know,
alive.
still
"Sir
Lewis
sunshine and rain,
that, like
ideas exist independently of men," Brooke said. "Rather,
he believes that behind every idea there

he
is
history, the idea a
tionary,
by
conviction, but
his
of people he
if,
as a historian,
is
a revolutionary
you delve
into his
place of birth, his childhood, the sort
was reared with
you may
really rebelling against his father
find out that
when he
thought he was rebelling against society.

Sir
a man, and
rationalization; a revolu-
you know, may think that he
background
he was
mere
is
Lewis believes that the way
men
Like Marx,
earn their living,
provide themselves with food and shelter, has a
do with the way they think and
act.
later
He
lot to
does, however,
think that the historian should try to get as close to the

if
he thinks he knows the truth
either
humbugging himself or hum-
truth as possible, though
about the past, he
is
bugging someone
else.
For the men, the
real stuff of
The
history, are elusive, as
we
221
never have enough material
we do, as in the eighteenth

centuries, we never have the all-important
on them, and even when
and nineteenth
psychological material."
Brooke paused and shifted
The more he
said,
his cigarette holder again.
the more the small room became
filled
with the absent presence. As he talked on into the afternoon,
I realized that
but a hagiographer.
grind,"
"The
you know; he
Brooke
said.
didn't
English
(Namier was a Polish Jew, born
who
he was nineteen years
until
Lewis was an
have any English axe to
Bernstein-Namierowski, in Galicia,
England
not only a historian
fact that Sir
made him an unprejudiced
Eastern European
observer,
me was
facing
old.
did not
"You
come
see,
to
most
people approach history with prejudices. Well, Sir Lewis
thought that
if
you confined yourself
to looking at the
lives of people, writing their biographies,
somehow
at least
tory with as
wanted
to get
people were
like,
If
all.
what they
what
did,
was constantly
still
always in the
he would give
it
at
the motives of
get every fact wrong.
Characteristically, Sir Lewis's interest
men but
an incident
for reporting
all
in-
the time, he might brilliantly reconstruct
a typical day of George III and
big
what vested
in not reporting
a historian failed to scrutinize

all
what
their motives were.
to ask
what opportunity he had
the people
write his-
prejudices and find out
man might have had
accurately,
to
You know, he
prejudice as possible.
away from
historian's job
terest a
all
little
you had the chance
you were able
me
little
was never
men behind
in the
the scenes;
the biographies of big politicians to
222
do,
and take
for himself the backbenchers, not in the
public eye and with
there
was
less
material.
little
men
the biographies of these
chance of a
ideas into the past
and
He was
for writing
because with biographies
own
historian's projecting his
justifying
them with
For
facts.
example, in writing about the constitutional struggle in

seventeenth-century England, a
Communist would
one way, a Tory in an entirely different way, but
were simply writing biographies
He
"Sir
see
more and went
Lewis thinks that the reason for the flood of

that
is
you
if
."
.
shifted his unlit cigarette once
udiced histories
it
most historians
nineteenth-century psychology,
as
to this
on,
prej-
day use
though Freud had
never lived. Because in history there are no
criteria of
true and false, as in the natural sciences, no one can

really disprove or dismiss these histories that
being written and read and accepted."
keep on
According to
Brooke, Namier believed that psychology was as important to history as mathematics was to astronomy, and
that without the psychological plane history
dimensional;
all
time sketching
flat
characters.
works within our
lifetime.
their
Take the great Charles
who composed
K. Webster, Brooke said,
was two-
had spent
the historians of the past
his celebrated
made no
His histories
con-
nection between, say, Castlereagh's foreign policy and

his insanity,
which ended
tween King George
tween the men

For Namier,
if
Ill's
as they
history
in his suicide,
policy
and
and none be-
his insanity
be-
were and the ideas they had.
had any value,
it
lay in trying to
The Flight
reconstruct the lives of
He
material.
wished
men from
as
223
practically nonexistent
far as the evidence allowed
to write history as current events, to
view
it
through the
eyes of the characters as they were acting history. Namier
wanted
to
put himself in the shoes of vanished Kennedys
and Khrushchevs, and, ignoring

ings, to see
them
as they
were
all
the later happen-
in the process of
making
decisions.
I
asked Brooke
about
men and
why
a historian couldn't write both
about ideas.
not that Sir Lewis was not interested in the
"It is
history of ideas,"
Brooke
replied.
"He was the
last per-
Communism influences the way

think, and that we should write about it. But
thought that anybody could sit down and turn
son to deny that, say,
people
he
just
out a history of ideas, anybody could produce a study
Marx and Lenin simply by reading them.
of
far
more imagination
It
needed
to get to the psychological springs
of these ideas. In this sense, he did discount plans, ideas,
and dreams
in favor of realities
and pressures. In
this
connection" here Brooke walked over to a bookshelf

that held the complete works of
Namier
"there
couple of very famous paragraphs, you know."
he read out in
his thin voice a
are a
And then
passage from Namier 's
"England in the Age of the American Revolution":
"Why was
not representation in the British Parliament
Union offered
to the Colonies? Or why, alternawas not an American Union attempted, such as had
been proposed at the Albany Congress in 1754? This might
a British
tively,
224
Fty and the Fly-Bottle
responsibilities, and
Dominion status. Both
ideas were discussed at great length and with copious repetition, but mechanical devices, though easily conceived on
paper, are difficult to carry into practice when things do
have freed Great Britain from burdens,
way
entanglements, and paved the
not, as
it
There
is
were, of their
'the
and
executing'
own
immense
'all
to
accord,
the difficulty
move
in that direction.
and
between planning
distance
with the
is
last.'
...
In
the end statesmen hardly ever act except under pressure

of 'circumstances,'
which means of mass movements and of

own circles. But about 1770,
the mental climate in their
the masses in Great Britain were not concerned with America,
and the mental and moral reactions of the

were running on
lines
which,
when
political circles
followed through, were
bound to lead to disaster.

"The basic elements of the Imperial Problem during the
American Revolution must be sought not so much in conscious opinions and professed views bearing directly on it,
as in the very structure and life of the Empire; and in doing
that the words of Danton should be remembered on ne fait
pas
le
proces aux revolutions.
tion guilt in history
Those who are out to appor-
have to keep to views and opinions,
judge the collisions of planets by the rules of road
make
dents,
history into something like a
and discuss
it
in the
But whatever theories of

phers
no
may
traffic,
column of motoring
acci-
atmosphere of a police court.
'free will' theologians
and
philoso-
develop with regard to the individual, there
free will in the thinking
is
and actions of the masses, any
more than in the revolutions of planets, in the migrations of

and in the plunging of hordes of lemmings into
birds,
the sea."
Brooke tenderly returned the book to the
resumed
his seat
shelf
and
behind the cluttered desk. "You know,"
The
he
said, "there has
been a
bitter
225
debate going on between
Taylor and Trevor-Roper about Taylor's latest book, 'The
World War.' Everyone has been
Origins of the Second
wishing that Sir Lewis were alive to
no doubt about
them
are:
Did
his sentence.
name when,
at Sir Lewis's hands.
it.
issues
have
between
Did the masses have
him? Trevor-Roper invokes
Sir
in his review of Taylor's 'Origins/
he says 'what devastating
might object
The main
Hitler have a plan?
free will not to follow
Lewis's
settle
think
would have
justice it
if
Lewis were
Sir
to Taylor's provocative style, the
received'
alive
he
lacunae
in his arguments, but nevertheless, as the paragraphs I
read to you suggest, he would come out firmly on the

side of Taylor, for his thesis.
When
had a long conversation about
for
me
Why,
this is
it.
Sir
bril-
Lewis and
I said to
him
that
Bullock didn't answer two essential questions:

Hitler
if
was
to get such a hold
him
Alan Bullock's
biography of Hitler was published,
liant
an
so mentally unstable,
was he able
on the German people, and why
allied question
did
the
German people
follow
as they did? Sir Lewis said that he agreed with
criticism,
and
that, unlike Bullock,
my
he didn't think that
the answers to these questions could be found in the
They were
character of Hitler.
to
be found
in the Ger-
man people as a whole in the pressure of circumstances.

He himself, in his 'Diplomatic Prelude,' had tried to do
precisely this
German
shift
nation. In
the emphasis from Hitler to the
any
case, Sir
Lewis thought extremely
highly of Taylor's scholarship, and such criticisms as
226
much weight
'Taylor didn't give
death of the
to the
six
million Jews' wouldn't have caused Sir Lewis to turn a

hair; after all, their
of the war.
death had
Indeed,
Sir
if
little
do with the
to
Lewis were now
origins
living, his
presence would be enough to prevent Trevor-Roper from

laying into Taylor.
His very existence deterred people
from writing bad reviews and bad books. But" Brooke

sighed
"his
first
was not diplomatic but parliamen-
love
tary history."
"Why was
that the
it
Freud of history took up the
stick-in-the-mud subject of Parliament?"

"Sir Lewis,
you know, was
essentially
asked.
an
existential
Brooke replied. "Here, he believed, were the
historian,"
people, here their relationships; they together

the circumstances of history.
catalogue of suppositions
of
historians it
most
facts.
people
historian
had
had
be
to
who
in Parliament
politically
really
solidly
in his
be a
hands
based on minute
about
eighteenth century
politicians.
For
and Parliament alone had people made
times of rebellion.
agree,
century Europe
The workers,
the peas-
had hardly ever mattered, except

But since
lived, a historian rarely

I
that in the
mattered were the
important decisions.
ants, collectively,
method,
to
to address himself to facts
who mattered and
the people
but
it became
made up
was not
If history
had
all
rebellions
to take notice of
was perhaps better
the
were
material for
it
in
short-
them. His
suited to nineteenth-
was more abundant
he settled on the eighteenth-century English Par-
liament because at heart he was an imperialist, and he
The
wanted
know how
to
227
the American empire had been
broken up."
"An
imperialist!" I exclaimed.
"Imperialist, yes.
Brooke
Imperialist,"
said.
"But the
reasons for his imperialism are too complicated for

to
go
me
into."
had plenty
I said I
"Don't you
of time.
know anything about
Sir
Lewis
as a
man?"
he asked.
I said,
"Not much."
through a conversation
had been
at Balliol
knew
"We
"Lewis was the freshest
my
time,"
Eastern Europe,
I in
all his life.
Even
totally original outlook
he had
as an undergraduate,
he suc-
ceeded in illuminating the world with

Once, he came up to
me
we were
he in his home,
the Orient. Perhaps his alien back-
ground partly explains the
told
Toynbee had
got on very well, perhaps because
both interested in queer, faraway places
on things
about Namier
had had with Toynbee, who
with him.
thing that happened to Balliol in

said.
little bit
me
flashes of insight.
in the college quadrangle
that in Poland there
was
little
relation
the Bible and the development of her language.
simple fact
in
made me
realize instantly
Poland must be from
life in
how
and
between
This
different life
England, for here the
Bible was the fountainhead of the literature, a great
armory of our language. Perhaps

such simple
facts,
more and more

the
but
I didn't.
After
known
Oxford, we became
should have
opposite; he started applying to history
same microscopic method
that the rabbis
had ap-
228
plied to the study of the Scriptures, while I addressed
myself to larger and larger questions.

once, Toynbee,
tree.
The
sent
study the individual leaves, you the
rest of the historians study the clusters of
branches, and
while,
we both
him
my
them up with notes
and
One
in our historical treatment
But years
the
day,
later,
me
"Of course
when
met him
me
next to her
possible
the differences
great,
he returned
in lower
comment.
Regent
Street,
was, Toynbee, about that

.'"
.
begin from the beginning," Brooke said now.

his wife,
person" Brooke
find Sir
was barely
when
became too
footnote in the Palestine chapter
"Let
it
Palestine chapters without a single
thing he said to
first
he never failed to mark
so copious that
to read the manuscript.
my
For a
think they are wrong.'
chapters, like those on Palestine
he was a great Zionist
one of
me
Yet he told
Lady Namier, knows him
was back
suppose
am
Lewis impossible
best as a
in the present tense

closest to him.
to get to
"but
Most people
know. For one thing,
he doesn't talk to anyone about his deep convictions,
lest
they be misunderstood, and, for another, not being a
very social person, he doesn't have

for talking.
doesn't
he
He
know
has no patience with small
people, he
talks endlessly,
which
bore.
is
much
why he
is silent,
and
if
opportunity
talk, so if
he
he knows them,
but never ranges far from his subject,

has a reputation for being a crashing
In fact, Sir Lewis talked himself out of a chair at
Oxford. The dons were afraid that he would not be good
company
in the
common room.
This belief was so uni-
The
versal that
even got into the obituaries. Also, the man-
it
He
ner of his speech was a deterrent.
pronounce the
either
cult
but
229
but
'th'
made
the thing that
was the shortening
stead of 'father.'
couldn't really
then some Englishmen can't
of the
And many
speech most
his
'a's;
he said
diffi-
'feather' in-
people were put
off
by
his
grim expression, which seldom broke into a smile
but
when
Lewis
is
did,
it
it
was wonderful.
a very engaging man.
office in
a soft hat, but
felt cap.
He
He works
you know,
if it's
six.
very hard.
raining he
He
He
alive,
never
listens to
fact,
is
considered a bit of a bore.
we used
Institute
sit
to
they
work
in the
wanted
not
to
When
basement of the
move
us to the
alive.
and he occupied the next room, which he
always kept very bare; there were
just the usual
books
around, and these boxes, and this armchair you're
sitting in
through
for
is
with another assistant and a secretary in a
large room,
all
he
music or goes to
annex then, but they didn't dare while he was

used to
hates the dilettante, and perhaps that's
another reason he
Historical
may wear
imagine him having an eve-
ning with a detective story or a novel. In

a very broad man.
he was
into the
He also does a lot of work at home.

He never reads very much outside
It is difficult to
the theatre.
Sir
comes
usually comes in at ten o'clock in the morn-
ing and leaves at
his subject.
Yet,
In winter, he
that
all
names
was
all.
The way we worked was
to
go
the manuscripts and printed sources looking
of
Members
of Parliament,
and
first
we would
do a factual survey on where the M.P. lived and when
230
that
he died
the second
was
set,
all
we
put on one set of cards. Then, on
we
put where
and then, with the help of these
up the biographies.
got
we
sets of cards,
wrote mine very
would go up
in
smoke. Even though
the next room, he asked
me
to stop smoking.
asked him why, he
I'm
afraid of
Lewis
is
to
come
to
much
said,
a strange man. But he
Not being able

very
He
so neu-
about his manuscripts that he was always fearful
that they
Sir
wrote
quickly.
He was
stewed and labored for days and days.

rotic
the material,
all
me
is
in the
morning and
I can't
not at
say,
write a
word
When
You know,
fire.'
moody.
all
He
to sleep is his greatest curse.
last night.
I sat in
used
didn't sleep
He
today.'
might have as many as four such days in a week. Of

course,
it
it
didn't affect the quality of his research, but
did slow him down.
my mind
physically tired, but

I
asked Brooke
things in
if
sleep at night, either. I'm
I can't
is
very active."
he and Namier had a
other
lot of
common.
"Of course,
am
of his historical persuasion,"
he
said,
"but a whole generation divides him and his politics
me and mine. He was seventy-two when he died,

and I am forty-one. While he grew up to be a natural
from
conservative in imperial Eastern Europe,
a Left Wing, Left Book Club, Spanish Civil

phere, and ended
up being a
Socialist.
Lewis when he was a professor

chose to do his special topic.
We
at
grew up
War
I first
in
atmos-
met
Sir
Manchester and
met
for
two hours
a time twice a week. After that, he adopted
me
at
as his
The
star pupil
me
and brought
231
when
with him to London
he came to do the 'History of Parliament,' and after that

I
How
saw him every day.
started attending his class at Manchester,

to arrive before
anyone
When
he hated change!
else,
and took the
happened
first
chair on
his left in the semicircle.
My
but he insisted that
the same chair, saying
like change.'
Here
same restaurant
I sit in
second time,
television.
He would
in his house,
never watch
and he refused
twenty-five years ago he
to
at the
Tea we always had
alone.
He would have
of his conservatism.
late,
don't
'I
the same table, at the
His routine was by no means the
together.
came
London, he always lunched
in
Bertorelli's at
same hour, and almost always
it
full extent
nothing to do with
he refused
it,
appear on
it.
to
have
I'm sure
was against the motorcar. His
personal conservatism perhaps explains his conservative
what about
politics.
But, you will ask,
Well,
think he
didn't
have a high opinion of the achievements of the
human
race,
humane.
and
just anti-liberal,
and he thought the
Unlike the
better.
his imperialism?
you know.
British
He
Empire was
he didn't believe in any
liberals,
he didn't think things were getting bet-
sort of progress;
ter
was
It
wasn't that he didn't want to reform
decrepit institutions
he
just
hated to see them go. For
example, he didn't want the House of Lords abolished,
even though he knew

past.
He
felt
we
it
was not what
ought to leave
it
it
had been
slowly adapt the institutions to the times.
same way about
religion.
He
in the
to the life force to
He
felt
the
never talked about that
232
to
anyone
except
Then he
well.
told
me, when
me that he believed in
or no, next to Freud he

stretched a
had more
"As
So
to say.
was most influenced by Marx."
had stood up a
down
sat
is
little
could
tell
by
too early; he
again.
look back on Sir Lewis's
"the thing that
an interdenom-
that, conservative
and stood up, but
little
Brooke's tone that
know him very
got to
God. The strange thing was
inational
life,"
perhaps strangest of
he was saying,
all is his
two-sided
output, which almost suggests Siamese twins at work.

First, there are these short
embarrassingly
his-
short
torical essays; they contain only Sir Lewis's brief con-
clusions, rather like the
answers at the back of the
And you know
metic book.
to small historical
sums but
arith-
that these are answers not

to long
very
long
sometimes covering a hundred-year stretch of
ones,
history.
Second, there are these other histories, big histories, on
which
Sir Lewis's reputation rests,
day-by-day
and detailed
hard put to
it
to find
historical
of
sums
so dense
that
one
is
any conclusions. And these great
books are really memorable for

course not
and they are
among
other things,
ever having been completed. These un-
finished histories put one in
mind
of Michelangelo's 'im-
prisoned' statues, in which the thought strains to be free

of the stone.
Sir
Lewis began chiselling
at these big
books in the twenties, by going to America to look at

Colonial history, to find out
up.
But one American
how
the empire had broken
historian, Charles
McLean An-
drews, sent him back to England, telling him that the

best contribution he could
make would be
to study
what
The
happened
in
to the
empire from the English
233
Here
side.
England, he stumbled on huge archives of two famous
nine
eighteenth-century politicians
ty-eight
hundred and twen-
volumes of Hardwicke papers, and
hun-
five
dred and twenty-three volumes of Newcastle papers.
Romney Sedgwick, who

had
became
later
his closest friend,
partly looked through the collections, but, being a
civil servant,
them.
had found no time
to
do anything with
Indeed, no one had thoroughly,
exhaustively
examined them from the point of view of parliamentary history.
Lewis started digging through
Sir
Room
material in the Manuscript
of the British
seum, and began writing his masterly

of Politics
at
the Accession of George
published in 1929.
alytical
The
The
'Structure'
this
Mu-
Structure
was
It
III.'
was mainly an an-
work, and he was going to follow
a narrative history of 'England in the
Age
it
up with
of the
Amer-
ican Revolution,' covering the years from 1760 to 1783,
but he published only one volume of the narrative,
which was
so detailed that
he had completed
two years
it
it
this project
stopped at 1762. Now,
given
if
a volume to every
would have taken a dozen more volumes,
but he never got around to them.
In the
thirties,
when
he might have done some more work on the Revolution,

he became obsessed with Zionism and gave most of
his
time to that. After the war, he started to write again,
and from the wave

he produced
his
of
contemporary memoirs and diaries
'Diplomatic Prelude, 1938-39.'
you know how things were
right after the war.
Well,
Even
before the study was reviewed, there rushed out from
234
the Foreign Offices and the politicians' pens a flood of
more memoirs and more diplomatic

started rewriting this
book
he never finished
altogether;
After that, he took
either.
it,
Then he
notes.
up another great work, a
biography of one Charles Townshend
you
know, the
grandson of the so-called Turnip Townshend, of the

eighteenth century
in
which, for the
first
time,
he was
going to use explicitly his Freudian principles. That, too,
was never
finished,
and
his great
dream, which took shape
about the same time, of writing an individual biography
Members
of nineteen
hundred and
ment
Namier period, and exploring the network of
in the
sixty -four
connections between them
well,
of Parlia-
death cut
it
short."
Brooke abruptly stopped.
"Why
didn't
he
"Well," he said,
finish things?" I asked.

"it's
a mystery."
"Do you have any theories about it?" I said.

"There are many things I can say about it," he
tinued.
"First
metaphor.
walker on the road of history.
Most
straight along the road; they begin at
out at the other, without looking

Sir
historians
we went
to
in Wiltshire.
he spent
walk
one end and come
left
or right.
Lewis never walked a step without looking
direction; in fact,
con-
Think of a historian as a
all his life in
Well,
in every
byways. Once,
Bowood, Lord Lansdowne's country house

There were boxes of documents, and
had only a day.
We
we
divided the boxes up and started
going through the documents.
got through mine three
times as fast as Sir Lewis got through
his;
would
The
235
look at a heading and more or less decide from that
whether there was anything in

the history of Parliament
vate letter or an
He would
official
whether it was
but not so
don't think I missed very
be
a pri-
Sir
Lewis.
read about half the document carefully be-
making up
to
just
paper
fore
nothing.
importance to
of
it
Many
his
mind. Perhaps
missed something
much but he missed
of the details he thus
dug up turned out
but unless he had explored
irrelevant,
all
the by-
ways, he might never have written his definitive works,

for before
he wrote
his big
books he took into account
every discoverable fact; no one could ever supersede
him by turning up new
ones.
The other way he insured
the production of a definitive work was by sheer crafts-
manship.
The pains he took and
his incredible judg-
ment about words made him the best

since
also
writer of history
Gibbon and Macaulay. But being a foreigner and

an impeccable
stylist
slowed him
have slowed down the gods.
down it would
Also, in his later years
arm became paralyzed, which meant that in

museums and libraries he couldn't copy down the
his right
the
material he needed.
He had
to resort to a very
bersome method of copying down only

numbers, and the
texts later
had
the typewriter, and since he didn't
tem, he would
fingers.
'Parliament,'
titles
and page
be transcribed by
What's more, he could compose only at
his secretary.
two
to
cum-
hammer
He
'k'
out his
know
first
draft with
used shorthand such as

for 'king,'
and
't'
the touch sys-
one or
'P-1-m-n-t' for
for 'the.'
The
draft
236
had
be recopied by
to
even
And
revise.
he could
his secretary before
had
this process
be repeated about
to
a dozen times, since ten or twelve drafts were not unusual for Sir Lewis.
Take the
Lewis, the master, and

of writing.
We
Sir
Lewis and
Burke, respectively
would go
terial,
both
from documents.
extracts
men
big
carefully through
my
in
our period.
important,
with the material.

his boxes
it
Lewis, on the other hand, would
typewriter without knowing what he
and
and
out very
sit
was going
He would go back and
folders
forth
his typewriter.
ma-
boxes, sort out the
make up my mind about what was

I sat down at the typewriter, type
Sir
in-
were writing on Grenville and
and, once
quickly.
that Sir
average historian, had
both had boxes of index cards and
numerable folders of typed

Suppose
ways
different
a sort of
I,
It
at his
to
do
between
would be
a constant process of writing and rewriting, shaping and

reshaping, agony and
more agony and the biography
was not more than a seven-thousand-word
job.
Nobody
could be more sensitive than he as a scale on which
words could be weighed, but

he was pedantic about
style.
think that
now and
again
For example, you could
never shake him in his belief that the noun ought to
come before
.
.'
Once
that read,
the pronoun: 'George

I
In
I,
when he was
pointed out to him a Times

his speech,
Chou
En-lai said
first
.
.'
to
king
leader
make
the point that sometimes in good writing the noun did
come
Times
after the pronoun.

is
deteriorating.'
His comment was simply 'The

This business about nouns and
The
pronouns also slowed his reading.

because
he would say
'
such phrase as
would
'In his
shout, 'who
was a slow
really
to
'I
am
a slow reader
me, and then read out some
view
.'
'How do
know/ he
that "his" refers to?'
it is
As
reader.
237
think he
poring over details, writ-
if
ing slowly, and reading slowly were not enough, Sir
Lewis went
to
enormous trouble over evidence; he never
took anything for granted. For example,
by
historians that the papers of
ister of
George
III,
were burned
in Luton, Bedfordshire;
down through
torical
this
it
was accepted
Lord Bute, a Prime Minin a fire
belief
on
his estate
had been handed
Even a
a long tree of history books.
a descendant of Bute's, had got this answer.
Lewis was not put
He
off.
and before the chap knew
it
at the family solicitor's office,
Of
But
Sir
sought out the descendant,
both he and
Sir
Lewis were
rummaging through
papers.
course, they found the Bute papers."
Outside,
London had become
ing for a long while.

stairs
bit
his-
commission, which had gone to the horse's mouth,
with me.
On
dark;
we had been
stood up. Brooke
the way,
talk-
came down-
asked him to
tell
me
about himself.
"I've just
completed and sent to press
all
the biogra-
phies of M.P.s in Sir Lewis's period," he said.
"Now
I'm writing a general survey of conclusions, which
hope
to finish within the next three or four months.
a hard worker.
morning
Ordinarily, I
until late at night.
work from
I start
work
I'm
early in the
at seven in the
morning, work until breakfast, at eight, and get to the
Fly and the Fly-Battle
office
at a quarter to ten.
238
brought to
me
at
my
have a sandwich lunch
home about
desk, go
and then do two or three hours

lot of
books at home. You
five-thirty,
I
have a
me
all his
after dinner.
Lewis
see, Sir
many
left
of
them home, because
this office wasn't built for a library
and they were afraid
books, and I have taken
would
the floor
"I'm married.
We
collapse."
have three children
twins of seven, a boy and a

I
asked Brooke a
final
turning in
my
might be indelicate
By
this time,
mind, but which
however,
door now.
at the
son of ten and
girl."
question,
ing that
it
were
which
had been
had kept waiting,
fear-
to ask of a hagiographer.
had become convinced that no
question could disturb Brooke's picture of Namier. "Did
he apply
to himself the
he applied
same methods
M.P.s and to Charles Townshend?"
Brooke took the question as

"Yes,
he did. In
analysis,
herself.
is
sixty-four
asked.
had expected
calmly.
he spent many years in psycho-
fact,
but Lady Namier would like to
She
of analysis that
hundred and
to all the nineteen
tell
you
all
ordinarily wives are not the best biographers, she
exception. She
fitted in
every
Namier,
that
writing a biography of him, and although
is
a most extraordinary
way
to
be the wife of
discovered,
Directory, and I rang
was
still
woman, and
an
well
Sir Lewis."
listed in the
Lady Namier
is
at
his
London
number.
Since she was just then going abroad for a short rest,
I
arranged to meet her on her return and, in the
The
meantime, looked to Namier's
As
critics.
it
happened,
Namier's demise did not serve as a deterrent to

Indeed, even in his lifetime
cism.
been
raised,
many
239
criti-
had
voices
though always respectfully,
against
his
fragmentary, hairsplitting method, and against his tend-
ency and that of his "disciples" to denigrate,
if
not to
discount, the force of ideas behind men's actions.
had argued
critics
while
that
his
His
method was ad-
mirably suited to eighteenth-century England, where

ideas were at a low temperature,
it
was
ill-suited to, for
instance, the Puritan Revolution,
whose
ideological heat
couldn't be explained
away
in terms of petty self-interest.
Herbert Butterfield, Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge,
had
a mostly analytic dry-biscuit historian, thought he
succeeded
in sifting the
wheat from the chaff in Na-
mier's thought. Namierites

to Butterfield the
second
fied
might
indeed,
as a balanced critic.
ideals
facts,
the
stitution of the
disquali-
the sacred
they asked. Not
not every individual motive, but large
concepts of
he was not so
which
(What was
stuff of Christianity, its propelling force,
mundane
object
winnower, claiming that he had a
role, that of a Christian thinker,
him
did
God and
the hereafter, the in-
Church, the bond of Communion.)

easily dismissed.
He
But
paid his respects to
the artistry, the ceaseless slavery that carried the results

of Namier's definitive,
if
tences that stood like so
tedious, researches
those
sen-
many gnomic guards around
ambition and his reputation
but
still
his
he assailed Na-
mier, at times successfully thumbing his nose at the spit
240
and
polish, the swagger, of the bright battle line. Indeed,
when Namier was
and
living
terrorizing the historical
scene from the Delphic pages of the Times Literary Sup-
plement, Butterfield had boldly issued a book, "George

in
which he attacked Namier
and termed
his school "the
most powerfully organized
squadron
our historical world at the present time."
III
and the Historians,"
in
With the throne
freshly vacated, Butterfield
He appeared on
audacious.
gramme and delivered, more

in that of Mark Antony, an
his work,
was no
less
the B.B.C.'s Third Pro-
in the style of Brutus than
estimation of Namier and
and while Namierites
he
felt certain that
little
understood their Caesar, non-Namierites sent up a cheer

for the speaker's perceptiveness
of those
who
listened to
boyish, intimate voice,

of a people's preacher.
now
it
and
clear thinking.
him found
it
hard to
which burned with the ardor

Always giving chapter and
sound
stands farthest of
from the scene,
all
who watches human
beings for a
reaches the sort of music that

parts of the
strive "with
we
Old Testament: Tor
comes a night when
acquires a solemn
it
an empty cavern.
in
But when he
like a pitying
moment
and
with men;" and
at peace'");
sight into people, events,
now
and
it
he
find in the thrilling
in the life of every
if
man
he has to
he prevails and
receives the blessing of the father-spirit, he

forth free
God
in love,
at the ford of the stream
God and
verse,
Namier uses
praised Namier's style ("Sometimes
a figure of speech so effectively that

ring, like a
Many
resist his
is
hence-
praised Namier's in-
situations
("The thing
The
him
that carried
above
far
all
241
routine historians, and
could not be transmitted to anybody
else,
was a pene-
trating kind of insight. It appears in swift impressions of
when Metternich
people: as
figure in porcelain, stylish
ance hollow and
brittle.'
It
is
described as 'that rococo
and nimble, and

shows
in appear-
com-
itself in drastic
ments on events: as when he says that 'The eighteenthcentury British claim to superiority over the Colonies was
largely the result of thinking in terms of personified
We
countries.'
see
it
in bold pieces of generalization:
'The Anglo-Saxon mind, like the Jewish,

legalism'; 'The social history of nations
by the forms and development
now
it
is
of their
is
inclined to
largely
armed
moulded
forces' " )
praised the constructive imagination that lay be-
hind one great work of Namier's, "The Structure of

Politics at the
it
was the
Accession of George III" ("Once again,
insight that mattered
duced a new landscape

and now
rise
it
insight
which
versy,
of
pro-
for the politics of the year 1760" )
praised his uncanny ability as a historian to
above the present and reach into the future
dream
all
historians
("Even
in the
the
midst of contro-
he could take a distant stand, pausing
for a
mo-
ment, and seeing recent events with the eye of a later

historian.
might
see,
He
caught a glimpse of what
later generations
and wrote for a moment once again
pitying God.
There
is
like a
a moving example of this in an
essay entitled 'Memoirs Born of Defeat' ... in the book
'Europe in Decay': 'There
is
a great deal to be said in
defense of the French statesmen and generals of the
242
inter-war period, but on a plane different from that on
which most of them choose

then,
spadefuls
like
"yets"s.
to
argue the case'
earth on
of
the grave,
")
fell
the
Yet the voice, with a thin rumble of thunder,
denounced Namier's
me
works remind
style
ture of styles
("Some
of broken
and glimpses of cherubs
the
of
large-scale
his
Gothic with
gargoyles
whole involving a mix-
which he was too impatient
to turn into
continuity or assimilate to an architectural design.
seems
But
me, moreover, that he did not care
to
to give
It
much
of himself to the construction of historical narrative");
and yet
it
people,
events,
method
of narration, convenient for technical historians
who
expressed reservations about the treatment of
and
situations
have their materials neat; but
like to
that even technical historians
about
dangers.
its
("Namier used a raw
What he
do not need
gives us
is
am
so on. But, in the
first
place,
companied by exposition
narrative that
of
human
is
when high
be warned
to
chiefly a
patchwork of quotations from contemporary
documents are telescoped
not sure
dense
letters,
and
spots from such
into a short space,
and not
not accompanied by
factual then the
more than
ac-
a type of
craziness
beings tends to be accentuated by reason of
what has been
left out.
We
are liable to lose sight of
man which is more normal huwonder if many people have not come
that nine-tenths of a
man
to
nature.
feel
that the world
world of most other
because
of
of
1760 was
periods and
the danger that
sillier
than the
full of sillier
lies
in
this
people
technique
The Flight
so long as the historian
part of his function.

I
would say
of
... To
that history
is
it
the technical historian
not to be produced by draw-
each must be referred back
happens
document and another,

to a
man and
things with
for
mind from
came. Particularly in the world of

to
243
withholding himself from
is
ing direct lines between one
which
Crook-Taloned Birds
politics
it
be the case that men say things and write
what
should
call a 'tactical' intent.
If
take these as a record of a man's opinions, you are

to get the contradictions
which made Namier
you
bound
feel that
here was the craziness of what he called ^historical
comedy"'); yet
denounced the unconstructive aspects
it
of Namier's
work
the country
who
("I
wonder
if I
am
the only person in
wishes that, after 1930, he had worked
rather on great statesmen not too near the present time,

or produced a narrative of higher politics
governmental policy
deed, sometimes
elections
reign
in
including
the reign of George
wish that
all
and Members of Parliament
had been exhaustively
in
George
treated, so that
return to political history again
III.
to
we
Ill's
could
the study of states-
manship and things that enlarge the mind"); and

finally, it
went too
denounced Namier's
In-
the constituencies and
yet,
viewpoint ("He
historical
far in his brilliant thesis that the actions of
men
acquire their rationality and purposefulness only in the

thinking that
is
done
after the event" )
In his funeral oration, Butterfield took
hand what he gave with the

the impression that he
other, until
away with one
he
left
one with
was indeed an honorable man.
244
Now
and again, by legerdemain, he slipped
own
his
views on
how
the historian should rule his
"the study of statesmanship
large the
mind" suggested a way
was peculiar
that
more
history
history can
And he was not at

opportunity to make his code
explicit. "I
be properly written unless one has a
document requires one

and needs
to
all
of
doubt," he declaimed, "whether
of sense for the evidence that
it,
and things that en-
of approaching history
to Butterfield.
reluctant to use the
with
ma-
Phrases like "technical historian," "higher poli-
terial.
tics,"
into the text
to
is
not there.
sort
Each
conduct a special transaction
be interpreted
in
the light of
everything else that can be gathered round
When
it.
eighteenth-century fathers write bitterly about the egotism of their sons,
we must
have evidence for the
Once everything
is
we
not imagine that here
selfishness of the
put together,
younger men.
we may need
actually
to invert the construction of the passage in question.

It
may
turn out to be only additional evidence of the
father's
own
egotism."
And "Behind
and contradictions of men there

level,
the
hesitations
generally, at
some
a certain stability of mind and purpose.
The
is
standing evidence for this element of stable purpose
needs to be weighed against the day-by-day evidence
which often shows only the cross-purposes and
vacilla-
tions."
These intimations of
my
me
his
own
theories of history,
wish to clear up the muddle about Namier,

decide to look Butterfield up in Cambridge.
vited
me
to
and
made
He
in-
have lunch with him at twelve-thirty on a
The
Saturday.
Cambridge
arrived in
half an
hour
245
early,
and spent the free time going through Peterhouse, which

is
the oldest college at Cambridge, and which in recent
years has
the
had connected with
it
some
brilliant historians
Reverend Dr. David Knowles, Professor Denis
Brogan, Professor of Economic History Michael Postan,
Denis Mack Smith, and Butterfield himself, author of
six-
teen books and a professor and former Vice-Chancellor

After a quick tour,
of the university.
walked across
the street to the Master's lodgings, a rather old-looking
house, symmetrical in
its
design. I
and shown up a carpeted
was
staircase to
study with a fireplace, a large desk, and

Butterfield,
who was born with
has round shoulders,
charm, shuffled
in,
informal dull-gray
sat
silvery
suit. I
off at
even
many
books.
the century, and
hair,
who
and overpowering
shook the Master's hand and
a sofa in front of the fireplace.
gracious and unassuming, and in appearance
he suggested a country parson.

ever,
by a maid,
an oak-panelled
wearing horn-rimmed glasses and an
down with him on
He was
let in
hung from
his
any moment.
less like St.
lower
He
lip,
Player's cigarette,
and threatened
how-
to fall
certainly didn't look like Brutus,
John the Baptist, yet as he talked on
into the afternoon, his voice once in a while
had an
uncomfortable ring of crying in the wilderness, and his

tone,
though never prophetic, was sometimes jarringly
out of tune with the temper of the times.

First, after
Namier:
little
"I don't
more rapturous
prompting from me, he talked about
suppose anyone has written Namier a
tribute than I have.
He was
a giant
246
perhaps the only giant in our time.

historian,
He
flawless, his artistry imposing.
of the eighteenth century,
and
and a master of the
teacher,
his
method.
method,
if
He was
a historian's
because his research was all-embracing and
If
we were
we were
have to deplore
college, I
to teach history
Namier
would cease
by Namier's
do research and
to train students to
try to write history as
of education
took a certain view
agree with him. But as a
did, then history as a part
to exist.
Already his influence
has been pernicious. In some colleges, people have bur-
rowed themselves
holes in
little
matic hole there

velop.
As
like
moles into smaller and smaller
biographical hole here, in a
and
far as I
am
their
little
minds have ceased
diploto de-
concerned, the point of teaching
history to undergraduates
is
to turn
them
into future
public servants and statesmen, in which case they had

better believe in ideals,
and
We
policies
and not shrink from having ideas
and from carrying
their policies through.
mustn't cut the ground from under them by teach-
ing that
all
we must
No doubt
ideas are rationalizations. In brief,
take a statesmanlike view of the subject.
Namier would smile
but I happen to
of statesmanship.
become
at this
I know
think history
If
is
sounds priggish
a school of
wisdom and
these undergraduates are going to
professional historians,
they feel at ease in
it
many
like
them best when
periods of history,
when
are in the classical tradition of scholarship, like
George
G.
N.
century Europe.
Clark,
they
Sir
the historian of seventeenth-
Have you met him?"
The
I
to
was a
said I had. G. N. Clark
He had
scholarly Establishment.
"The
History of England."
universities.
When
stalwart of the English
History" and, at a
"Oxford
the fifteen-volume
He had been
a professor at both
he was at Cambridge, scholars used
to consult "G. N." in the
same
To meet
sulted the oracle.
247
written an introduction
New Cambridge Modern
luncheon party, launched
spirit as the
"G. N.,"
who
Greeks con-
turned out to
be a very cautious, canny Yorkshire gentleman of seventytwo,
had gone
all
way
the
to King's Sutton, a typical
English village lying near the pastoral Cotswold Hills

north of Oxford, where at present he
stove, G. N.
scholarship.
had quietly delivered

"In
my
is
living
and writing
Huddling over a primitive gas
a history of medicine.
view,
without any thesis to prove.
his classical notions of
history
It
should be written
should be a collective, co-
operative effort to search out the evidence and write
it
up
in felicitous language.
off
books with incredible mistakes in them, and other
scholars wait to catch
But nowadays scholars dash
them out
in reviews,
when by
reading the manuscript in advance of publication they

could have corrected them, cleared them up.
past,
when
history
In times
was not done by everybody but by
a small band of devotees, there was no impetus to controversy.
But the growth by leaps and bounds
layman's knowledge of history has
donnas; they can't

audience.
resist
made
of
the
of scholars prima
playing up to their new-found
myself learned that controversy did not lead
anywhere quite early
on.
When
was an undergradu-
248
ate,
I
we had
don't
a very eminent speaker at a college society
want
to
mention
his
controversy, the very thing

finished
speaking, like a
scholars
today I
perhaps
but
disapprove
get embroiled in
of.
After he had
made a
pretty
little at-
concluded by quoting a
Sullivan's 'Patience':
my
amazement, the eminent speaker dissolved into

Since then
versies;
line
'Nonsense, yes,
what precious nonsense!' To
oh,
and
undergraduate
typical
stood up and
tack on his speech, which
from Gilbert and
name and
great
tears.
have found myself in only two minor contro-
one of
had a chance
my
opponents, poor chap, died before he
to reply."
G. N.'s noncontroversial, "com-
mittee" approach to history had a long and august line

of'
descent. In a sense,
history.
as
"The
some
it
was the
classical
But the rub was that committee
New Cambridge Modern
critics
had pointed
out, to
way
of doing
history, such
History," tended, as
be
static
and
dull (it
took on the quality of rows upon rows of evenly clipped
hedges in the land of the gentry), because our discovery

in this century of the subterranean impulses
behind men's
thought and action had shattered the simple, the har-
the classic
view of the world which that history mirrored, and had
monious, the proportioned, the finished
given the interpretive mind an all-important

in
"What
Is
History?,"
often, in a rather
deed,
if,
had registered
extreme form
when
he wrote,
standing Sir George Clark on his head,
to call history
by a pulp
'a
Carr,
role.
this objection
as
"In-
were
hard core of interpretation surrounded
of disputable facts,'
my
statement would, no
The
doubt, be one-sided and misleading, but no more
249
so, I
venture to think, than the original [Clark's] dictum."

Butterfield continued to talk about
Namier and Nawhich had
mierites. Puffing every so often at his Player's,
a permanent place on his lower
lip,
he casually
cized a couple of Namierites and just a
criti-
cas-
little less
ually saluted Taylor. "Namier's titular successor, Brooke,
and the Oxford
historian Betty
Kemp,
et cetera,
tend to
underestimate although perhaps Namier himself didn't

the part that ideas play in history," Butterfield said.
"For example, they say that George
have any
policies, didn't
had some
III
years,
is
ideas.
World War'?
colleagues.
It
seems to
that
am
his 'Origins of
have been saying
me
for eight
Do you know,
one of the few people who even admire
my
even George
But Taylor, Namier's pupil
a horse of another color.
the Second
have any
III didn't
ideas. Well, I think
this to all
we ought
to try to
look at technical history as objectively as possible, and

I
think the contemporary view of history
least satisfactory
often the
is
and the most biased. Sometimes the
future puts the past into perspective, adds an element

to
it
unknown
Reformation.
tion
to the contemporaries.
The people who
Take the English
carried out the Reforma-
and the contemporaries who wrote about
realized that the
enormous price revolution
teenth century
in many
been a factor
in the Reformation conflicts. It
cases, prices
quadrupled
later that historians discovered this piece of
Or simply
take the origins of the First
it
never
in the six-
had
was only
knowledge.
World War. The
250
who were
Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Russians

during the war
all
looked at
was only
points of view. It
it
living
own
purely from their
came
later that historians
along and started looking at the origins from
all sides,
and we found out that the war was not started by the
Germans
or the Austro-Hungarians but
by things
imperial naval rivalry and the Balkan issue
demic
in the
European
that
Germany and
the Second
least in intention, to
how
indeed,
is
it
the
World War was caused by

think Taylor
come along
the origins of the
Russian, and
ple
And
Hitler.
en-
situation. Similarly, until Taylor,
people took the contemporary view

orthodoxy
like
tilings
was
right, at
later
and ask himself
war looked from
English, French,
German documents. Of
course, other peo-
had written from a documentation that was multi-
national before Taylor, but his
stage in the development of
book represents a
later
historiography namely,
the very difficult point where one begins to go over

the story without always having in
what Taylor
the story ended. Also,
and Germany
Hitler
and that
it
in fact
it
saying
started,
came
The book may be full of flaws,

more interesting than has been made out. The
it's
ment
is
war when the war was
want the war when
at
all.
fact that Taylor fails to
me;
he
that
not that
is
quite a different thing from saying Hitler
want war
didn't
but
is
saying
didn't start the war;
that they didn't start the
that Hitler didn't
mind the way

is
condemn
sounds priggish, but
is
Hitler doesn't worry
don't think passing judg-
in the province of a technical historian.
think
The Flight
God's job,
that's
of
Crook-Taloned Birds
God's history
that's
though
251
don't
personally like the term."
And
went on
Butterfield
to define his strange, almost
my
medieval concept of God's history. "In

are
two kinds
tory,"
he
of history: God's history
"God's history
said.
is
view, there
and technical
evaluative;
you
his-
distribute
blame, you judge people, and so on. Technical history
what we
all
conclusions.
you look
write;
With
you
it
at the evidence,
is
you draw
through to the
can't really get
intimate part of history, to the ninety-nine per cent of

history;
you
can't find out, for example,
loved his wife, or whether

I
say certain things.
God can know
It
am
whether Caesar
sincere or honest
sounds priggish, but
all that.
am
when
think only
impelled to explain this
because these two kinds of history are often confused;
was taken
Augustine's 'City of God'
Middle Ages as technical

God's history, so
zealots,
Butterfield
of history
literally
when
in
the
it
was
in fact
nimble book, in the hands of the
literal text."
was not the
first
to divide
between God and man, one
and the other

history
this
became a
history,
St.
infinitesimal;
up the province
infinite in
scope
indeed, the idea of God's
had a long lineage, stretching from the Old Testa-
ment, through
St.
Arnold Toynbee.
Augustine, to Reinhold Niebuhr and
What was remarkable was
that,
what-
ever Butterfield's religious views, they never colored his

professional academic history, and, perhaps because he
never hitched his lay history to the ecclesiastical wagon,
he didn't
forfeit his professional colleagues' respect or
252
But sometime
confidence.
midstream of
he had
fields,
his historical career
forties, in
the
the technical variety )
the need to define and demarcate the two
felt
and had done
History." I asked
into the
middle
in the
so in his
book "Christianity and
him now why he had suddenly stepped
murky no man's land
and
of history
religion.
"Sometime during the war, the theologians of Cambridge invited a lay philosopher to lecture on philosophy
and
he replied. "The
Christianity,"
the trough of
war
depression,
undergraduates
coming
in
were such a great success
that
them
flocked to
lectures,
the theologians
decided to follow them up with lectures on history and
Again they wanted a lay
Christianity.
thinking that his pronouncements
historian, rightly
would carry more
weight with the unconverted, but no such historian was

forthcoming.
myself be coaxed into doing
I let
it.
Since
the lectures, I find myself regarded as an authority on

the subject,
Then
when
am
really
Butterfield reluctantly talked a
private, religious
view of the world.
formist, a Methodist, but
dence,
."
.
my belief in both
my
religious faith
life
about his
a Noncon-
my belief in Proviand free will withother and the other

come into my writing
need
don't
often
wonder whether
somewhere make a
ence even to the professional historian.

that a Christian
am
don't think
of technical history, though I
Christian views of
little
original sin
out the one you can't have the

tenets of
"I
would be
tied to
which would make a difference
differ-
rather think
an idea of personality,
in the realm of
hidden
The
253
assumptions, and would perhaps result in a history of
man who was
a different texture from that of a

respect a materialist. If
chose
in every
could write history
to, I
with an eye on Providence and on moral progress,

as
Marx and Carr have

But,
progress.
need come
haps
we
written with their eyes on social
I repeat, I don't
think the City of
into our story about the
Worldly
about the City of
can't write
don't have any historical evidence for
sounds very priggish;
just
it.
God
Per-
City.
God at all; we
I know all this
not fashionable to say this sort
it's
of thing nowadays."
thin
bell,
and
like the
light,
upper
register of a
church peal, tinkled somewhere, and Butterfield stood

up. "That
means lunch
ing downstairs, he told
me
in
on the best of terms
on the
is
table,"
that while he
he
said.
and Carr were
Oxford historians were
gathered, and in Cambridge they were friends

of
them had been carrying on a
lively
about matters they disagreed on.
which was oak-panelled,
Walk-
foes, I
the
two
correspondence
In the dining room,
like the study, Butterfield seated
himself at a corner of the big table and talked some more
about his disagreements with Carr. "Carr," he

ing
some melon,
"is
too
much
said, eat-
interested in society, to the
exclusion of individuals. For instance, he says that
if
you
cannot find out whether Richard III killed the princes in

the
Tower
the evidence
is
confusing
then
you must
find out
if
other kings killed princes in towers at that
period.
If
they did,
Richard
III
we
can take
did the same.
it
So what,
for granted
I
have
that
to ask, if
254
Our
other kings killed princes?
Richard
is
III.
It's
ought to be in
interest
not only that as a Christian
my
interest
."
in the the individual,
but
The maid, who was
as formal as Butterfield
was
in-
formal, served roast lamb, roast potatoes, and cauliflower,
but Butterfield's talk could not be arrested by food. As

I
soon found out, he had
with Carr, and not even

a moment, he had
left
set off
his
on a scholastic argument
maid could
less as if
it
Is History?,"
were a Bible than

"In 1931," he
of heretical writing.
him
in.
In
the table, rushed upstairs, and re-
turned with Carr's book "What
handled
rein
as
if it
which he
were a
said, leafing
script
through
the pages while his roast lamb, roast potatoes, and cauli-
my third book.
the Whig in-
flower got colder and colder, "I published
In
it I
took to task a historical orthodoxy
terpretation of history,
of English history for
Whig
historians
which had blighted the true study
more than a hundred
our
whole of English
years.
nineteenth-century fathers
history,
constitutional gains of the nineteenth century,
between the forces
of despotism.
Here
is
1930's
.'"
.
was simply
light
and the forces
of liberty
and the forces
Carr's gloss to the book."
Having taken some
mounted the
the
from the Magna Carta to the
one long battle between the forces of

of darkness,
For the
sips
of
ginger
altar of disputation.
" 'In
ale,
Butterfield
the iconoclastic
he began, reading aloud from
his text
with
boyish exuberance, and obviously relishing the contre-
temps of the lunch;
his voice
resounded with quiet con-
fidence, not the confidence of the righteous but that of
the
man who
has possession of his audience.
The
".
an
when
255
the Liberal Party had just been snuffed out as
effective force in British politics [he read on], Professor
Butterfield wrote a
History,'
book called 'The Whig Interpretation
of
which enjoyed a great and deserved success

because, though it denounced the Whig interpre.
not least
some 130 pages, it did not

name a single
who was no historian, or a single historian save Acton, who was no Whig.
The reader was
left in no doubt that the Whig interpretation was a bad thing,
."
and one of the charges brought against it was that it
tation over
Whig
except Fox,
As
Butterfield
came now
own words
to his
in the little
book, he quickened the tempo of his reading:

"
'.
studies the past with reference to the present' [the
constitutional
of
battle
the nineteenth
was
point, Professor Butterfield
study of the past with one eye, so to

is
On
century].
this
and severe. 'The

speak, upon the present,
categorical
all sins and sophistries in history. ...

what we mean by the word "unhistorical.".
the source of
the essence of
His voice returned to
its
It is
"
.
.'
normal pace:
"Twelve years elapsed. The fashion for iconoclasm went

out.
Professor Butterfield's country
said to
be fought
embodied
in the
in
was engaged
in
war often
defence of the constitutional
Whig
tradition,
liberties
under a great leader who
upon
constantly invoked the past 'with one eye, so to speak,
the present.'
In a small book called 'The Englishman and
His History,' published in

only decided that the
'English'
Whig
interpretation,
1944, Professor Butterfield not

interpretation of history
is
but spoke enthusiastically of
the
'the
Englishman's alliance with his history' and of the 'marriage
between the present and the

these reversals
It is
not
my
of
outlook
is
past.'
To draw
attention to
not an unfriendly criticism.
purpose to refute the proto-Butterfield with the
256
deutero-Butterfield, or to confront Professor Butterfield
with Professor Butterfield sober.
am
fully
aware
drunk
that,
if
some of the things I wrote

before, during, and after the war, he would have no difficulty
at all in convicting me of contradictions and inconsistencies
anyone took the trouble
any
at least as glaring as
I
am
not sure that
to peruse
have detected
should envy any
Indeed,
in others.
historian
who
could
honestly claim to have lived through the earth-shaking events
some
of the past fifty years without

his outlook.
My
purpose
is
radical modifications of
merely to show
work
of the historian mirrors the society in
It is
not merely the events that are in
himself
is
in flux.
When
you take up a
not enough to look for the author's
how
flux.
The
historical
name
closely the
which he works.
historian
work,
it is
in the title-page:
look also for the date of publication or writing
it
is
some-
times even more revealing."
my
"So, Carr's gloss to
text is that
he and
and
all
other historians are products of our times and our societies," Butterfield said.
plate
and picked up
"The interesting
"is
to
He dropped
his knife
thing,"
refers,
"It
his meat,
while published in 1944, was writ-
He paused
happens that
am
living
weren't? Indeed, even though
fuses to take
me
at
my
word.
the passage in question
am
When
sig-
and can contraBut what
dict a small part of Carr's sociological history.

if I
time.
Englishman and His History'
ten and delivered in a lecture, in 1938."

nificantly.
first
he continued, cutting
that the passage in 'The
which Carr
the book beside his
and fork for the
alive,
Carr
re-
wrote to him that
was composed
in 1938,
he im-
mediately wrote back that he would like to look at that

lecture. Don't
you
see, in his letter
he handed
me
an im-
The Flight
plied threat: that I must have changed
by a few
words the
book from the
happen
nately for me, I don't

original lecture, so
He
With the
am
perhaps
just
Unfortu-
lecture.
have a copy of the
to
even though
unable to budge Carr."
257
laughed
an alive
fact, I
am
heartily.
sweet, Butterfield lightly remarked that the
reason he liked Toynbee was that, unlike most great his-
he agreed
with
Toynbee's
known
empirically, from the

generalizations,
method
said that
"making
and higher order, of course
generalizations of a higher
bee's
He
he was not as a person "a heavy."
torians,
while
Carr's
like
he
facts"
Toyn-
felt that
theories,
outran the
facts.
Upstairs, over coffee, Butterfield talked a

himself.
shire
"At
school in
wanted
one can be a
to
do
the
he came
on
we
to
history.'
didn't
did.
about
of
York-
classics.
But
scientific stream,
One
at the school.
said, 'Butterfield, let's

I
bit
"I don't think
said.
go into the
have Greek
me and
he
humanist without
my headmaster wanted me to
because
West Riding
classics,"
first-rate
little
day,
compromise
read history there and at Peter-
house and have been working at
it
here one
other for the past thirty years. I think I
way
or an-
would have been
a better historian with classics."

I
didn't agree,
and argued with him.
but, like
most
English intellectuals, he had been bitten as a child by the

classical
bug they separate the universe automatically
into classics
and science
vigorously,
though
and
kindly
most of
and
my
points
charmingly,
were
brushed
258
Master went on to talk a
aside. Afterward, the
"I don't believe in
his intellectual preoccupations.
mittee history, a la
history,"
he
analytical gifts of
Wedgwood,
it
have been working
'History' will display
Namier and some
won't be superseded before
like
life
tory.
I
is
even closer to
my
shook
"Somebody
papers in his
had been
tory,'
mind
if
only hope
have finished writing
my
The
it
heart than the European his-
came about?"
head.
he had a lot of the Fox

possession that my schoolboy ambition
told Trevelyan
to write a
biography of Fox. Just around that
had published
my
'Whig Interpretation of His-
and Trevelyan, who was the
torians,
my
of the flow of Miss
James Fox, the eighteenth-century states-
You know how
time, I
of the
the works of inferior narrative historians.
of Charles
man,
inter-
History'
some
but, unlike the Namierites, I don't
superseded one day by future research;
it is
com-
believe in one-outlook
Cambridge Shorter Modern
my
hope
of Europe. I
it
Namier I
said. "Since 1939, I
mittently on "The
about
little
last of
was rather put out with me. He
book was a
surreptitious attack
the
Whig
his-
sure that
felt
on him personally.
This was not true. Despite his hurt feelings, in 1930 he

sent
me
the
whelmed.
Fox papers, with

had
actually
would write the biography;

feel that I
in
I've
any
been working
have been so intimidated by
was
over-
that Trevelyan himself

case, I didn't truly
had the mental equipment
on since 1930,
I
his blessing.
hoped
my
for Fox.
Off and
at the biography,
task that I have
but
been
The Flight
bringing out monographs and

pects of his
books
life
Someday, when
(his foreign policy,
and the
more than a year
studies, I shall
like)
of Fox's activities.
perhaps be able to realize
my
me
these
Fox
to
all
school-
many
that while everybody testifies to his charm, there
evidence for
you look
You
in the
way he conducted
listen to the talk of his
months
forgiven.
charm.
quite a rogue.
all his
deeds,
The papers
am
is
no
mean,
and vulgar.
of the period are
wrong deeds. But within
all his
And everybody
fat
is
contemporaries and you dis-
hurting people, his
full of his
himself. I
and he appears
at his portrait
cover he was
six
it
some-
overpowering charm. The strange thing
his
is
as-
have published enough of these piece-
boy ambition. What has held

years
books on certain
that, in the true tradition of the Namierites,
times covered no
meal
little
259
wickedness were always
says that
completely under his
what did
spell the
it
was
his
spell of his
charm."
During
my
rounds,
Lady Namier with
many
affection
historians
and awe, and had praised
her marriage with Namier. "For both,
and a
late marriage,"
rather
unhappy
one had
until they
had mentioned
was a second
"Both had been
said.
met each
it
other;
bad
experi-
ences in Eastern Europe, the homeland of both of them,
had dogged them much

riage turned out to
torians in
memory.
of their lives.
But
their
be one of the happiest among

I
marhis-
have never seen two people have
such an impact on each other."
260
I
now found Lady Namier, who
pians, a block of
study. It
flats
was a small room with white
ings, a blue carpet, and
furnishings
been
most
suffering.
Gram-
walls, blue hang-
prominent of
dark-orange chair, which,
his favorite chair at
dignified
lived in the
near Shepherd's Bush, in Namier's
woman, her
all
the
learned,
had
Lady Namier was a
home.
face etched with deep lines of
She was dressed in mourning, although more
than a year had gone by since her husband's death. She
showed me a
that her
there
sheltered balcony off the study, explaining
husband used
when
spend
to
Sunday afternoons
his
they didn't go out, and saying that she had
Grampians with a
lived at the
woman
friend for
years before her marriage to Namier, in 1947.

often thought of getting a
he had
settled there
more spacious
he didn't want
his
moved, so they had stayed on year
They had
place, but once
books and papers
We
after year.
me
turned to the study, and she asked
some
re-
to take the dark-
orange chair.
"Because of
my
back,
prefer to
plained, choosing a straight one.

firmities in Russia
in
knew
first
that she
during
was a Russian by
in this," she ex-
picked up
"I
a concentration
tary confinement in prison

I
sit
camp and
my
in-
in soli-
the Stalin regime."

birth,
and that her
husband had been Russian. Without any prompt-
ing from me, she went on, "At the beginning of the
purges,
career,
my
first
husband and
had a rather disturbed
you understand. For unknown reasons, we were
sent into a sort of prison-exile in Central Asia
which
The
meant Samarkand, and

hunger was so bad
later Tashkent.
this
was a loud
that sort of thing
that
served.
unless he must.
all
human meat
in
arrested on the charge
and wanted
by the way, he had never seen
knew
about his plot and the
all
he disappeared.
eat
and nowhere
my
back broke,
was put
Moscow, where
to kill Stalin
and
that I
men who were
impli-
know what happened
don't
my
ill.
There was
me
frostbitten, leaving
When
dition.
to lug myself
I left
name,
Russia."
Iulia
was too
and
little
muscles went weak,
hands and feet became
to
my
frostbitten,
and
my
face
recently I've discovered that even the inside of
was
to him;
into solitary confinement in
became very
to walk,
man
doesn't eat
whom,
cated with him.
there
the papers and
Now, man
a terrorist
that
at the first of these
patties with
we were
Later,
my husband was
in
affair
them were being

that
In these camps,
was around 1930
was cannibalism. When we arrived

places, there
261
with a permanent sinus con-
sick to walk, I
was pushed
out,
my sticks my few belongings about.
Lady Namier
said that
under her maiden
de Beausobre, she had written a book about
Woman Who
her experiences, "The
She explained
that,
Could Not Die."
perhaps because she was a writer,
or perhaps because she
had learned something from her
solitary confinement, she
had only two touchstones
for
her
life
truthfulness
ing
my
biography of Lewis with these touchstones," she
said.
"I
know
that he
Lady Namier's way
and complete candor.
would have
of talking
liked
it
"I
am
writ-
so."
was overwhelming; she
262
emphasized practically every word, and everything she

said,
no matter how matter-of-fact, had a deep emo-
tional content.
came
to realize that although her enun-
gave the impression of nervousness, she was
ciation
simply speaking English with the exaggerated clarity
While we
of a foreigner.
of Namier's
talked,
pressive than attractive; a
ing cheekbones
made
faced a photograph
bony forehead and protrud-
his face
the impression of strength.

Israel
we
head and shoulders. His face was more im-
seem narrow and
one spring," Lady Namier
for Lewis's
head
in
Physiologically, the
was the back
"I
said.
wood, which
have already written three
to his early days in Eastern Europe.
Warsaw in
many
and Austrian
country
English.
most
am
He was
house and
only up
born
he
just
later
parts of Poland, including the Russian
sections.
While growing up, he acquired,
as a matter of course, besides his
German and
waiting
which was round and pro-
chapters of Lewis's biography, but so far
lived in
am
coming any day.
is
most interesting thing about him
of his head,
tuberant, like a dome.
outside
gave
also
"This picture was taken in
own
Polish language,
Ukrainian, and, from his Polish governess,
But Polish was always the language he spoke
beautifully,
and because
it
was
so different
from
English, he never succeeded in speaking English well.
His written English, however, which he was always

scrubbing and polishing, was another matter. After
the century of his interest
lish prose."
was a century
of great
all,
Eng-
The
Lady Namier went
263
and brought out
into the kitchen
a tray full of bananas, grapes, apples, and oranges.
took an apple, and she picked up a bunch of grapes.
"Because of
political troubles," she said, "the
skis left
Poland and settled for a time
erland,
where Lewis
He
Pareto lecture.
in
Namierow-
Lausanne, Switz-
heard the sociologist Vilfredo
first
followed him to the London School
where he was introduced one day
of Economics,
Smith, then Senior Tutor at Balliol,
decided that Lewis belonged to
to A. L.
who immediately
Balliol.
So at the age
of twenty he found himself at the college."
Having eaten
two or three grapes, she
fruits.
said, "I live
on
Lewis
was not a very sentimental man, but he was a deeply
He
grateful one.
used to
tell
me
that
he always knew
he had a good brain, a good mechanical apparatus, but

that
he
really learned to use
He
A. L. Smith.
his life
was
to
said to
me
it
at Balliol, at the feet of
that the greatest honor of
be made an honorary Fellow of the
'31,
1941 or
we met. The reason I am

that while many people
'42,
of Lewis
is
tellectually,
And
no one understood
his ideas
had been able
college.
he was given a chair at Manchester. In
In 1930 or
would have been
his
writing a biography
understood him
in-
range of emotions.
better understood
to write the fruit of his
life's
if
he
study, that
survey of the English Parliament which John Brooke
is
writing now. But Lewis was a subtle, withdrawn man,
and he would laugh even

theories.
little
Once, he said to
hurt;
at his
summaries of
Sir Isaiah Berlin
his
Isaiah
he thought Lewis was being unkind
own
was
'You
264
must be a very clever man
About
his interests
had injured
understand what you
to
during
his Galician childhood
We
He was worse
did go and look
at pictures,
he thought only of
whenever Lewis looked
his period,
any, they threw on his history.
he preferred portraiture
lot of
than tone-
at a lot of pictures, in Flor-
ence, in Siena, in Amsterdam, but
if
he
hunting with an old gun, so
his ears while
music meant nothing to him.

deaf.
write.'
and what
Perhaps
that's
light,
why
any other form of painting.
to
people thought him a snob, because he was in
the
company
and
ladies mainly for their
and
of lords
ladies,
but he cultivated lords
muniment rooms, which were
He had
we weren't
repositories of a wealth of historical documents.
no hobbies; he worked
very
social.
slept.
the time. Naturally,
all
But the tragedy of
his life
was
that he never
Oh, he did have one good night every few months,
and then he worked
at his best the next day.
It
was by
comparison that the nights he didn't sleep seemed so
He had to take pills to go to sleep,

wake up. He was therefore irritable. As
bad.
other
pills to
was
saying,
the most interesting thing about him was the range of

his emotions.
like Jews.
Though he was a Jew, he
Lewis believed
men
in character,
didn't basically
which he thought
was
as fixed in all
like
what had become of the Jewish
as a stone in a ring;
he didn't
character.
He
made of the
creature; money had
thought that historical circumstances had
Jew
a petit bourgeois
taken the place of
and a
ties
leaving the Jews there,
and
rootless
roots.
But Lewis, instead of
became the most ardent
Zionist
The Flight
265
of his time, maintaining that the only
way
become normal was
and the only place
Palestine.
was
their original
home,
state."
broke into the
himself the same
How
her words to ask her the
fast flow of
question that had brought
others?
roots,
their roots
His Zionism consisted of trying to join the
land and the

I
have
to
down
they could put
the Jews could
method
me
to her:
"Did he apply
to
of analysis that he applied to
did he go about analyzing, for instance,
the source of his Zionism?"
"He did more than analyze

1923 and
'24,
and then
rest of his life.
right arm.
told
him
logical.
It
He had
off
First in
and on
this
"He
himself," she said.
was always being psychoanalyzed.
in
cramp
Vienna in
England
for the
paralysis in
his
wasn't just a writer's cramp, and doctors
that the cause
was not physiological but psycho-
That was the beginning of
his psychoanalysis.
In the twenties, his cramp wasn't so bad, but in the

thirties,
with the mounting mistreatment of Jews, his
arm became almost
useless.
fied of the idea of a
German occupation
he had one of
poison,
Indeed, Lewis was so
his doctor friends give
which he always carried
so he could
until the
kill
of
terri-
England that
him
a bottle of
in his waistcoat pocket,
Germans came. Not

make him throw the
himself in case the
war was over could
tablets away."
"What did psychoanalysis do

"It
things
for
him?"
asked.
brought to the surface of his mind many,
such
as the fact that his Zionism
was
many
really a
266
between
result of the conflict
mother and
his Polish
his
Galician father, and that his wish to unite the land and
state of Israel
was
hood memories
he
servatism
as a
his con-
result of his loneliness as a child
grownup. You
he was always an
how
And
of his bickering parents.
always insisted he was a radical Tory
he discovered was a
and
an attempt to paper over child-
really
see,
he never hunted in a pack,
outsider.
Because he never learned
to consort with people, he wanted to find out the
by which people consort with each
principles
And
this is
politics
why he
spent most of his
of Parliament,
and
so
on
studying the
life
because
where people best consorted with each
other.
was
that
other.
Not
for
nothing did he use an epigraph from Aeschylus' 'Pro-
metheus Vinctus' for
Namier went on
determine the
flight
which were of the

left,
that
by
their
how
'I
Lady
took pains to
birds,
marking
and which of the
nature,
ways
and the enmities and
them, and
"
crook-taloned
of
right
and what were
kind,
his 'Structure of Politics.'"
to recite the lines:
of living, each after his
affections that
were between
they consorted together.' Again, he found
he was an imperialist because he thought the
Romans had discovered
the principle and had worked
out a very good system of consorting together; they
had preserved peace

the English
had mastered the
ually, at least
teach
it
as a result of
were
Like the Romans,
principle,
and
individ-
humane enough,
to
and Lewis thought that
if
kind enough,
to their subjects,
their institutions
it.
were grafted onto other
societies the
The Flight
know how
other societies would
spent his
he
didn't,
Crook-Taloned Birds
of
studying group
life
life
he couldn't, have.
to
267
consort also.
He
the
very thing that
But he by no means
ac-
He
ac-
cepted Freud and psychoanalysis whole hog.
cepted the diagnostic half of Freud but not the thera-
he knew that
peutic;
his
cramp was caused by the per-
secution of the Jews, yet his
arm
and he knew why he was a
Zionist, yet
didn't get
plied to the past or to him,
was
that
it
was ap-
deepened
it
understanding without curing anything.

of
he remained a
His view of psychoanalysis, whether
Zionist.
any better,
Freud didn't engage him very much,
The
one's
sex side
either;
he was
really never interested in the sexual lives of the M.P.s.
much more of a
human impulse
In that way, he was
for he believed the basic
wish.
The death wish
and perhaps that

blissfully.
that he
When
had
so
two when he
me up
is
little
from the
to
be the death
Lewis himself was very strong,
why he
died so blissfully
very
think of Lewis, I'm most thankful
died.
in
later Freudian,
He was
pain at his death.
The day
office to
seventy-
of his fatal illness, he rang
say not to prepare dinner at
home, as usual; he would pick something up en route,

so
he could get
edition of that
first
He came home
at the door.
to
work
that evening with a
At that time,
of interference.
we were
minimum
new
preparing a
volume of the 'American Revolution.'
about
six-thirty,
knew immediately
and
heard fumbling
that
it
was Lewis, but
I also
sensed that there was something wrong.
to the
door and there he was, white as snow.
He
went
said
268
he'd been seized
come
he'd
by the most
in the
Tube
bed, and called our doctor.

jection, said it
was an
me
the pain
that
to sleep
when
able distress.
didn't
want
wore
off
The
said, 'and I don't
Lewis would be able
rushed
He was
in.
in consider-
at his bedside,
Finally, I decided to
and
thought
do
it,
but
doctor was here late last night,'
want him disturbed
at this terrible
hour/ Then he looked up, radiant, and

Yesterday was the
pity!
in-
and assured
At four o'clock, however, Lewis
The telephone was
he prevented me.
he
came, gave him an
to ring the doctor in front of him; I
would frighten him.
it
He
got him into
inexplicable cramp,
which he did.
knocked on the wall.
violent pain, but, as usual,
strap-hanging.
first
time
said,
saw
eye the survey of Parliament as a whole.'
in
'What a
my
He
mind's
died the
next morning."
At home, reading over the notes on
my
could, for one thing, hear the wits of
Cambridge heck-
ling Butterfield:
Namierites?
by
its
"How
various talks,
can you judge Namier by the
Shouldn't you judge a school of thought
best representative, Namier, rather than
by
its
worst representatives, moles 'burrowing themselves into

smaller and smaller holes'?"
education to
and
make
And
"Isn't
skeptics
others
rather than
us skeptics
skeptics about
the point of
about ourselves
to beat us into
receptacles for remote imaginary ideals and policies?"
And "How can you

City of
God?
If
in this
day and age believe
God's history shouldn't
in the
exist, aren't
you
The Flight
and Namier
really saying the
history in the last analysis
and
same thing
269
that human
unknowable?" And, and,
is
If there
were a rock of philosophy
Butterfield could hide behind
it
still
and avoid the tomatoes
and onions of controversy. As someone has

sleepy
nod
where
in
History
is
Greek predecessor,
to his
standing, a
with a
said,
have read some-
"I
Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
think
that
Even
Philosophy teaching by examples."
if
if philosophy should
history still, without philos-
the reverse should be the case
turn out to be incidental to
ophy there could be no one acceptable
way
of doing
But today,
it.
how
agreement, even on
to crack
nuts in the philosophical

thieves kleptomaniacs?
it
one of the oldest chest-
Were
all
the Genghis Khans and
Adolf Hitlers helpless victims of circumstance?
we
no one
seemed, there was no
determinism.
fire,
Were
history,
Should
therefore substitute the psychiatrist's couch for the
hangman's noose?
Unless a philosopher finds for us an acceptable faith
or synthesis
their
age,
as
and
Immanuel Kant
Plato
and
Aristotle
did together for
St.
Augustine,
Thomas Aquinas, and
for
theirs we
remain becalmed on a
painted ocean of controversy, and for better or worse,

insofar as the past
is
a compass to the future, there will
never be anyone to whistle thrice for us and say, once and

for
all,
"The game
is
done! I've won! I've won!"
Date
Due
Due
Jffiurne d
D>;e
R*"
This >6ok E&y Be kept 7'days

free', then 3 cen\^ a day is
charged. Renewals' &nd
reservations can not "be
accepted.
Date
Du<^
Returned
Due
Due
Returned
192
Fly
and the
fly-bottle:
main
192M498IC2
3 lSfe.2
03317 130b

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Digitized by the Internet Archive

2011 with funding from

LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

Books by Ved Mehta

WALKING THE INDIAN STREETS

Fly and the Fly-Bottle

Fly and the Fly-Bottle

Monthly Tress Book

BROWN AND COMPANY

THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK ORIGINATED, IN 1961 AND 1962, IN

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 63-12097

BROWN AND COMPANY

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS

Published simultaneously in Canada

Brown & Company (Canada) Limited

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For William Shawn

For one day

better than a thousand.

"What is your aim in philosophy?To show the fly

Battle Against the

Bewitchment of Our Intelligence

The Open Door

Argument Without End

Flight of Crook-Taloned Birds

Fly and the Fly-Bottle

Battle Against the

spent some happy years in Oxford, and to keep

read her newspapers.

the Guardian, but

look at the correspondence columns of the Times, where,

writers are identified

tradition of anonymity, the

by name and speak

and the Times page

each morning and see the people of

undergraduate years at Balliol College,

Oxford, and I've kept up the habit, whether

One autumn day

hands, spit at each other, and set

myself in Paris, Damascus,

met Bertrand Russell, under a signboard

Fly and the Fly-Bottle

recently published a book by Ernest Gellner called

'Words and Things/

he said as he hailed me.

was published and considered

philosophy, an opinion which

learn that Professor Ryle, the editor of Mind, has

written to Messrs. Gollancz refusing to have this book

reviewed in Mind, on the ground that

cannot therefore be treated as a contribution to an

Such a partisan view of the duties of

deeply shocking. The merit of a work of phi-

always a matter of opinion, and

prised that Professor Ryle disagrees with

am not surmy estimate

hitherto, ever since

for the discussion of all serious

and competent philosophical work. Mr. Gellner's book

not 'abusive' except in the sense of not agreeing with

the opinions which he discusses.