PARTISAN REVIEW
scrutiny, and in any case provide no clarified principle of interpreta–
tion. Does modern science really maintain that the energy present in a
cause is substantially identical with the energy in its effect? Cohen's
discussion of historical causation, alas, contributes only another mystery
to the mysteries of existence.
Cohen rightly holds that assumptions as to what would have hap–
pened
if
some things had been different, cannot be avoided by the
historian who makes causal imputations; and he calls needed attention
to the role of the logic of evidence in evaluating the adequacy of such
assumptions. However, without an explicit formulation of the principles
of that logic-the need for which is one of the most pressing in the
social sciences--disagreements between equally competent historians con–
cerning contrary-to-fact hypotheses cannot be reasonably resolved. Yet in
this matter Cohen has little definite to offer, except to cite the bare fact
that historians do make causal and counter-factual assertions-as if that
fact were sufficient to establish the objective valjdity of the historian's
procedure or to enlighten the reader concerned with the rationale of
historical method.
Nevertheless, such shortcomings do not impair the suggestiveness
and sane wisdom of the present book. Cohen undoubtedly did not
}>ossess the path-breaking if erratic originality of a mind like Russell's;
he did have the courage to declare what he believed to be the truth, even
if because of its obvious and prosaic character that truth obtains no
fashionable following.
The Meaning of Human History
deserves a wide
circle of readers, not least for its sober and pertinent reminders of what
every disciplined intelligence should know but what current intellectual
trends and social practice conveniently ignore.
Ernest Nagel
POSSIBILITIES FOR POLITICS
THE NEW MEN OF POWER. By C. Wright Mills. Hercourt, Brace. $3.50.
Has there ever before been a time when American intellecuals
felt so dispirited and helpless about politics, so ready to allow their moods
to dominate their minds? Not only one or another variety of politics, but
the very idea that intellectuals should seek a close and impassioned re–
lationship to politics now seems suspect. Many who once succumbed to
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