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death divine providence, and then God himself, as the source of the
meaning of the world, as a tribunal to which one could entrust matters
of good and evil, it soon killed Nature as well - God's ersatz that sup–
plied us with both moral rules and principles of rationality. History be–
came a substitute for the substitute - a newly-discovered, reliable foun–
dation on which meaning could be rebuilt; a glue that might again
construct the meaningful whole from disconnected pieces and define our
place in it.
The
homo historicus
does not need to have historical knowledge or
be interested in real history. He knows it as a trustworthy legislator on
which one may safely rely, and he believes that it is not simply the mass
of "has-been" but a living, immortal entity; "history advances" - like an
army; " history will show how right we were" - like a judge; "history
will evaluate this event" - like a scholar, and so on.
This was, then, an attempt to devolve on history the obligation to
act as the carrier and warden of all human values, to issue verdicts about
good and evil, to assume the divine authority, to open to us access to
the sources of Higher Reason and of meaning. But further development
was to reveal that this attempt was from the outset infected with a fatal
ambiguity, as a result of which the new authority not only broke asunder
into two irreconcilable tendencies but also had to lead itself to self-defeat
and make void the hope for the restitution of meaning.
Both God and Nature were immutable; their judgments on human
duties and human dignity, on the meaning of life, on the just and unjust,
on the true and false, were supposed to remain immutably valid. History
is by definition incapable of issuing such judgments, as it is simply nothing
else but change. How then could we trust it and make use of its wis–
dom?
One of the Hegelian answers is: Only the actual historical process
produces the rational and true; nothing else can validate anything. Ab–
stract moral judgments that one applies to this process are empty and
powerless. From this some Hegelians drew the conclusion that we ought
to accept the actual process
in toto,
as rational and
therefore
praiseworthy,
including all its monstrosities. But history, so conceived, provided us with
no wisdom and no rules. One cannot use it as a teacher; it requires
worship as it is, simply because it is there, like a tyrant. In the best case,
we may say: What is today good and rational was yesterday and will
perhaps be tomorrow nonsensical and condemnable. This relativistic and
ultimately nihilist reading was certainly very simplified, yet not outright
false. "Historicism" in this sense could find some good supporting points
in the Hegelian construction. Thus elaborated, historical relativism was,
of course, much older; it has been prominently present in European cul–
tural history since Montaigne: "Today devilish, yesterday holy"; "Just on
