Progress in History

18 Historically Speaking May/June 2006 Progress in History? A Forum* NOTIONS OF PROGRESS AND TELEOLOGYHAVE BEEN all but banishedfrom contemporary historical interpretation. But those historians who examine the past in large chunL· seemingly cannot avoid the obvious: thepast reveals a general trajectory ofincreasing social and economic complexity. Discussions of evolutionary biology encounter the same tensions between contingency and directionality. Can historians legitimately incorporate notions ofcomplexity and directionality without taking on the unwanted baggage of progress? We asked Historically Speaking contributing editor Bruce Mazlish, who with Leo Marx edited a volume a decade ago on Progress: Fact or Illusion? to explore these issues. A panel ofdistinguished scholars—David Christian, Jonathan Clark, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Aviezer Tucker—responds, followed by Mazlish s rejoinder. Progress in History Bruce Mazlish The subject of"Progress in History" is one that branches out in many directions. To start with it, is helpful to divide the topic into two parts. On one side, we need to talk about progress in history, in the sense of disciplinary advancement. On another side, the main part ofthe discussion to follow, we need to talk about progress in human history, i.e., results, contested though they are, of this advance as shown according to the progress of the discipline itself. In other words, we can talk about progress, that is, advance in the conditions of humanity, only in the light of the discipline of history 's achievement of greater mastery of both the empirical and theoretical aspects ofthe subject. History as a discipline has become highly sophisticated in regard to the use of archival materials and their interpretation in the light of theories from other fields, especially the social and natural sciences. All sorts of subfields, ranging from micro to big history, from cultural to multicultural history, from environmental to global history, are flourishing. They enable us to pose the question ofprogress in history, in the second sense that I have posited, in a more sophisticated and complex manner than hitherto.1 This forum is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Louis XIV visiting the Academy of Sciences, from Claude Perrault, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des animaux , 1671. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Before going further, however, I want to look more closely at the idea of progress. Needless to say, I will be giving a brief and highly selective account, but it can help set the stage for my argument. "Progress" is a key word in modern history. Here it has taken on the quality ofmyth. Its history emphasizes the confluence of factors that entered into its becoming a/the dominant idea of the past held in the West. The 17th century is the seedbed. Then, especially in England and its American colonies, religion in the form of millenarianism foresaw progress on earth in a thousand-year utopia, before the return of Christ and the day of final judgment.2 In conjunction with the Baconians and their belief in the advancement ofknowledge, with science as cumulative and pursued by many hands and minds (eventually, for example, in the Royal Society), these two movements underlay the battle of the ancients and the moderns, and the triumph of the latter around 1698. Add to this the political revolutions , first of 1640 and then of 1688 in England, and the idea ofprogress came to reign supreme for the next few centuries. One of the achievements of modern historiography is a more acute knowledge of how religion and science interacted in early modern history. Until the 1 8th century , even in the light of the Galilean episode, they can be seen as cooperating in a joint task: pursuing the track of God in the natural world. That pursuit showed "progress" occurring in regard to scientific knowledge. In the 18th century the secular aspect of advancement became more prominent , and in the 19th century this took the form of evolutionary biology, i.e., Darwinism. It is at this time that the division of religion and May/June 2006 Historically Speaking 19 science emerged in its most pronounced form. It was in this form that it survived until the 20th century. Then faith in progress...