A Note on Method in the History of Ideas

Author(s): Roy Harvey Pearce

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jun., 1948), pp. 372-379
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 A NOTE ON METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS*
RoY HARVEY PEARCE
Studies in the historyof ideas, it seems to me, have largely
tendedtowardsthe analytic. That is to say, historiansof ideas
havebeenprimarily concerned withextricatingideas fromcontexts
in whichtheyhave beenpresentas consciouslyformedconceptsor
as implicitassumptions, and withdescribingtheorigin,growth, mu-
tation,collocation,and interactionof thoseideas. Contextshave
beenconsideredimportant primarilyas theyhave modified or have
allowedforcollocations(perhapsfundamentally illogical,as in the
case of primitivism and the idea of progress) of ideas. This, of
course,is onlypropermethodologically.For it has been thepio-
neeringtaskofhistoriansof ideas to analyze,to breakdown,what
had heretofore beentakento be unifiedand organic. But now,so
I shouldliketo suggest,we are in a positionto proceedto studies
whichare synthetic in emphasis. We can studyin detailcontexts
in whichgivenideas appear to be generallyaccepted,can tryto see
howsuchideas have comeintoand howtheyaffectthosecontexts.
In short,we can tryto answerthis question:How do such ideas
functionas theybecomepart of specificculturalprocesses?
This is not to say thatthe sort of syntheseswhichI here en-
visagehave notbeenattempted-andcarriedoutwithsomedegree
of success. For, in the firstplace, my use of the term"tend"
shouldbe sufficient indicationthatthefactthattheintellectual his-
torianmustextricateideas fromspecificcontextsmakesit impos-
sibleforhimto neglectthosecontextsand thusforanystudyin the
historyofideas tobe "purely" analytic;whatI wishto pointoutis
thatemphasishas beenplacedmainlyon theidea and its relation-
shipto otherideas,noton thecontext(i.e., idea-informed context)
anditsrelationship to othercontexts. And, in the second place, we
havehad notablestudiesof individualswhohave beenparticularly
receptiveto an idea or a groupofideas and whoseworkhas affected
and has been affected by suchideas. Further,we have had work
likethatofMissWhitney, Miss Bryson,Mr.Hofstadter, Mr.Willey,
Mr. Tillyard,Mr. Weinberg,and Mr. Ekirch,each of whompro-
* I am deeply gratefulto ProfessorA. 0. Lovejoy, who read the firstdraft of
this note and who made many suggestionswhich are embodied in its final form.
Responsibilityfor opinions expressedherein,however,is entirelymine.
372

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 A NOTE ON METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS 373

ceeds froman analysis of an idea or group of ideas to discussion of

its meaning for societies to which it has been particularly signifi-
cant. Yet studies such as these have been disappointingly few,
perhaps because we have not been sufficiently concernedwith con-
tent and methodologybeyond what I have termed the primarily
analytic stage of the historyof ideas. Hence, it would appear to
be profitableto discuss the nature of synthesis in the history of
ideas as it is related generally to intellectualhistory and particu-
larly to literaryhistoryand criticism.
This carryingout of the methodsof the historiographyof ideas
as Professor Lovejoy has outlined them is significantfor its em-
phasis on ideas as theycome into the intellectuallife of a relatively
homogeneoussociety,as theyaffectthat society's acting and think-
ing, and as they find expression in the various disciplines which
representthat society's attemptsto organize its knowledgeof itself
and of its milieu. Once made available by analysis, the idea is put
back into this social contextby a species of synthesis. Two things,
obviously enough, must be remarked here: the nature of that so-
ciety-relatively homogeneous; and the emphasis of the study-
synthesis,the idea taken primarilyin relation to the society and in
terms of social processes.
As for the first. I take it that at a given period, a given group
of people (the group would most likely be political or national)
would share certain problems of living, certain political aims and
drives, and certain "spiritual" problems-all forced on it, at the
very least, by the fact of contiguity. This would focus considera-
tion on those membersof the group who are aware. of the problems
and aims and drives,who thinkabout them,who tryto understand
them,and who tryto meet (or bring others to meet) them; that is,
this would place emphasis on the intellectuals,so-called-the edu-
cated, reading public which, after all, has always led, or has at-
temptedto lead, the rest. And so, when one of this group writes
an historical study (or scientific,economic,or politicalatreatise, or
a poem), he directs it at a certain audience-this relativelyhomo-
geneous society. He might-and properly-hope thathis workwill
hold for all times and all places and all conditions. But he will
directhis workat a body of readers withwhomhe shares problems,
aims, and drives. This society,once more,is generallylimitedpo--
liticallyor nationally and moreoveris limitedchronologicallyin so
far as its membersare aware (however dimly) that theyshare cer-

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374 ROY HARVEY PEARCE

tain ideas, goals, and traditionswhichhave come from a knowable

past and may (or may not) extend into a probable future. And
ideas, I should judge, would tend to have relativelyuniformsignifi-
cances in such a society because here the conditions of life-mate-
rial and intellectual-would be relatively homogeneous and uni-
form. Granted that the group is made up of individuals who may
be in conflict;still that very conflict-a conflictwhich so often in-
volves differencescenteringon the same object-makes for a kind
of homogeneityand uniformity. Indeed, when such individuals
overtlydebate, agree, or disagree on ideas, theymust do so largely
as theyand the membersof the societywhichformstheir audience
are consciouslyconcernedwith the validity and significanceof the
ideas. Hence, at the level of this sharing of certain inescapable
group problems,aims, and drives, the notion of "relatively homo-
geneous" is culturally"real."
As for the matter of synthesis. Here form and extent would
follow from the nature of the social group as I have outlined it
above. We should be concerned here with placing ideas in the
contextof the acting and thinkingof the group. Having isolated
an idea as it findsexpression in this group,having recognizedit as
a unit (and this,I take it, has heretoforebeen the primarytask of
historians of ideas), we proceed to put the idea back in its proper
context(the social body) and attemptto see how both idea and con-
texthave been modifiedand how the idea has interactedwith other
ideas withinthe same context. Here the pattern,the form,of the
synthesisbecomes all-important;forthis patterndefines,as it were,
the limits of the study. This pattern makes for the purpose and
meaning of the study.
Three types of data go to make up the pattern and should thus
be distinguishedand carefullyindividuated:
1. The historical,political, economic record and the record of
the society's day-to-dayliving, so far as it is available. Here we
should attemptto determinewhat alogical factorsmade the society
receptiveto the idea. There is, of course, an immediatedanger-
that of overemphasisof this very alogicity. We must avoid estab-
lishing cause-and-effectrelationships between such data and the
fact that the society has been receptive to the idea, unless we find
specificevidence to the contrary-specific statementsby members
of the society bringing together such factors and notions of the
"rightness" of the idea. Without such evidence, we must estab-

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 A NOTE ON METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS 375

lish the political,historical,and economicrecord strictlyas setting

or background.
2. Specificgenres and formsin whichindividuals (and groups,
perhaps) who participate in that societychoose to, or have come to,
communicatethemselves. Generally this amounts to studyingthe
idea as it findsexpression in specificallydifferentiateddisciplines-
scientific,philosophic, sociological, and the like. Emphasis here
mustbe placed on theformof the discipline (on the treatmentof its
content) in so far as the idea (with or withoutother ideas) has af-
fectedit. And these disciplines must be, as I have indicated,care-
fullydifferentiated;for each has come into being to treat of a dif-
ferentsort of content,and each thus has a differentfunctionwithin
the society in which it has taken shape. Hence if it is found that
these disciplines tend to cut across each other, the fact will be
noted as significantjust because the disciplines are in essence func-
tionally differentiated.
3. Social action and social process as they have been affected
(or partly affected)by the idea. This is perhaps the obverse of 1.
Here we would trace the historical, political, and economic record
of the societyand tryto see if the idea had in any way affectedac-
tionand process as theyare to be knownfromthe record. Does the
idea give rise to action or serve only to rationalize action?
The three types of data as I have described them,it seems to
me,subsume all-with the possible exceptionof literature,of which
I shall speak later-the areas in which the idea would have mean-
ing for such a societyas I have defined,taken at the level of its edu-
cated,reading,and policy-makingleaders. Neglect of any one type
means neglect of themall; for such a study must be synoptic. At
the social level which I have indicated all expressions of an idea
and all its effectson social action and social process are interre-
lated; all have meaning in referenceto that social body. None can
be fullyknown,fullyunderstood,unless the others have been stud-
ied too. Each of the sets of data which form the pattern of such
a studyin the historyof ideas takes on full significanceonly as the
others are known. Thus the studymust be total. And, of course,
awareness of chronologywill be part of this totality.
A sine qua non of this totality,moreover,is a completestudyof
all possible sources of information. Generally one will be limited
to the writtenrecord; and the record, as I have suggested above,
will be that of the "leaders." Yet these leaders are individuals;

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376 ROY HARVEY PEARCE

and in endeavoring to establish any group patterns, we must be

aware of thatindividuality. A studyof theirwritingswill necessi-
tate takinginto account so far as possible purely idiosyncraticmat-
ters (background, bias, immediate purpose, prejudice, possible
private meanings of words and concepts, etc.) and, beyond this,
making a comparative survey of as many such writings as are
available. Hence, keeping in mind this basic individuality and
separateness of source materials, one must examine all the docu-
mentswhich could conceivablybear on the problem. Provenience
and spread of documents,numbersof editions,educational facilities,
and the like must be determined. The study, thus, is in a sense
statistical. And negative evidence-silences-will oftenbe as im-
portant as positive.
What would be the practical results of such a study? So far as
I know,we have had none of the completenesswhichI am tryingto
indicate; but we can see the problem involved in, say, an essay on
the impact of the idea of the Great Chain of Being in Augustan
England. Professor Lovejoy's work,of course,furnishesthe basic
historyof the idea. The studentwould tryto answer questions like
these: What were the political and economic conditionsthat made
some Englishmenso ready and willingto appeal to the Great Chain
as a divine pattern? How much can we say about the relationship
between those conditions and acceptance of the idea? Is it pos-
sible to say whetheror not one determinesthe other? How far is
the idea explicit and how implicit in eighteenth-century political
theorizing? (Here Professor Lovejoy has given us the beginning
of the answer,and Mr. Willey has carried on withhis discussion of
"Cosmic Toryism" in The Eighteenth-CenturyBackground; but a
full answer could be made only after an examinationof all political
writingswhichmightbe available.) How much is the idea a part
of Augustan historicalwriting? What is the relationshipbetween
the idea and Anglo-Scottishwritingson the "conjectural history"
of society? How muchdoes the idea enterinto scientificthinking?
(Here, again, Professor Lovejoy has already furnishedthe answer
in his essays on the early evolutionistsand in The Great Chain of
Being.) What of religiousexpressionwhichis not expresslyphilo-
sophical? Do sermonizers,for instance, concern themselves with
the idea? In what disciplines,what cultural forms,does the idea
find no expression? Is it possible to determine any significant
chronology as the idea finds (and does not find) expression in

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 A NOTE ON METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS 377

Augustan England? And, finally,how are social action and social

process and expression of the idea related?
The problemof interrelationshipsand theirnature points to the
essential unity of this study in synthesis in the history of ideas.
The three sets of idea-informedand idea-embodyingdata as I have
outlined them above would have organic unity in one strict sense.
This would not be, as with material culture traits in a society, a
necessarily organic relationship,one irnwhich such traits were in
the nature of thingsinseparable. But theywould be seen to func-
tion organically withinthe limits of the given society for a given
period. Somehow ideas come into a social body and take on mean-
ing in that body; somehowthe body is affectedby the idea; all this
we can describe. We should direct our attentionto the idea as it
exists in the social organism. And this is synthesis.
The work of literature is of special importance for this syn-
thesis. Perhaps one should classify works of literature,taken as
evidence in the historyof ideas, in the second category of data as
it is outlined above. But the intent of the artist is uniquely dif-
ferentiatedfrom that of the scientist or historian or economist.
For him the end of his work is the work itself, or rather the ex-
perience in knowing it. Essentially his work is not intended to
have use, to referinstrumentallyto things outside of itself. It is
creative, not descriptive.
Yet even as the work of literature is unique and self-sufficient,
its materials are particular and contingent,part of the life which
the artistknows. It is indeed this latter characteristicwhichmakes
theworkof literaturesuch valuable evidencein the historyof ideas.
For the writerwill build his work in part out of ideas which have
taken on social meaning. We must assume that in so far as he ex-
pects successfullyto communicatesuch ideas and attitudestowards
them,he will make use of them (either as concepts or as implicit
assumptions) as theyare integrallypart of the milieu in which he
and his immediate readers-to-be find themselves. Further, we
must assume that such ideas will have taken on meaning and will
have impact (i.e., theywill have foundvarious formsof expression
withinthe society in which they are current) when they come into
literature. They will have been tied up with specific social atti-
tudes-emotional and intellectual; they will have become signifi-
cant in termsof day-to-dayliving.
It is at this level, a level at which literature is taken as some-
thing built out of what may be termed socially actualized ideas,

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378 ROY HARVEY PEARCE

that we must make use of literaturein our synthesesin the history

of ideas. At this level and in this way the work of literaturemay
be taken as perhaps the fullest form of the expression of ideas.
The very fact that the artist's intent is esthetic makes for this
fullness. And we must always be mindfulthat the artist's intent
is estheticand that he is not (or if he is, is here only incidentally)
historian or scientistor economist.
Yet all this is not to take the work of art for what it essentially
is, esthetic discourse. All such studies as I have outlined in the
firstsection of this note are strictlypreliminaryin theirrelation to
literarycriticismand literaryjudgment-a necessary preliminary,
I believe, but still only a preliminary. The use to which a writer
puts socially embodied ideas, the way in which he orders and thus
interpretssuch ideas, the very textureof his product-judgment of
all these is independent of purely historical considerations. Or
more specifically,estheticquality is to be realized (I use this word
in order to avoid the problem of perceptionvs. intuitionin esthetic
experience,a problem which is here not germane) and judged on
permanent, non-historical,and so far as possible, non-cultural
bases. But, as I have indicated above, if esthetic quality is not
historical, the objects-in the present case, ideas as concepts or
implicitassumptions-which the artist orders are historical; such
historicityis part of theirvery concreteness. And estheticquality
is realized precisely as an attributeof that concreteness.
What does this mean for literary criticism? It means that in
thehistoryof ideas, especially in studies in synthesesin the history
of ideas, we are able to approach a work of literature with data
whichwill lead to greater understandingand thus to a qualitatively
and quantitativelyricherestheticexperience.
Thus, for example, three years ago Professor Hughes supplied
us with a study of the Circe of the Renaissance (JHI, IV [1943],
381-399) and enabled us to proceed to full appreciation of the
Bower of Bliss episode in the Faerie Queene. Critics had again
and again objected that Spenser had failed imaginativelywhen he
made his Sir Guyon coldly reject an Acrasia-Circe whom the poet
had with such enthusiasmmade beautiful and inviting. Professor
Hughes traced the Circe story through the Renaissance, demon-
strated that it had deep philosophical ramifications,especially in
relationto the notionof the " rift" betweenthe animal and rational
in man's nature, and showed how Circe had come to symbolizethe
"disease of the whole sensual natureI so feared by men at the end

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 A NOTE ON METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS 379

of the sixteenthcentury. Hence we are able to recover the set of

concepts here related to Circe in the Renaissance, concepts which
Spenser found to be part of the intellectual and emotional life of
his society. Hence we are able to directourselves towards the sort
of responses, concrete responses, which Spenser assumed would
carry with these concepts. Hence we are able to recover the very
emotionaland intellectualtextureof part of the Faerie Queene.
Such studies as Professor Hughes 's are rewardingin proportion
as they tend towards the synthesisfor which I have been calling.
For we can establish the historicityand concreteness of an idea
onlyas we discover and trace its life in a society. And as it has life,
it enters into and gives significanceto literature.
The synthesis which I have here described is not to be taken
as somethingdifferentin kind from the history of ideas as it has
been heretoforeconceived. Many of the problemsI have discussed
have been expatiated on by historians of ideas, particularlyby Pro-
fessor Lovejoy. But what we have lacked is a systematic con-
sideration of the total problem of studyingideas in the contextsof
social bodies in whichtheyfindformand expression. And we have
lacked a carefullydefinedmethod for such studies taken in them-
selves and in relation to literature,which is at once data for them
and material to be understood partly in terms of them. It is
towards such considerations that I have directed this note. I
offerit not as a solution of our methodologicalproblems,but as a
suggestiontowards a possible solution.
In the end, the problems of the historian of ideas remain the
same. He must study his materials, make his hypotheses,isolate
his ideas, test his hypotheses,follow the growthand mutations of
his ideas, and then tryto see what the ideas have come to mean in
and forthe life of such societies as have been particularlyreceptive
to them. This last step,I hold,can be made only if one is willingto
go all the way, and pattern his study according to what we might
termthe total intellectualconfigurationsof the society. The task is
formidable; for it means patient,dogged work,trailing many false
leads, and (sad professional problem!) having to work in fields in
which one is not formally trained. Rightly carried out, such
studies in the historyof ideas will enable us to see how ideas grow,
as they enter into the way men live and express themselves.
Logically enough then,this is such a synthesisas must inevitably
follow hard upon Analysis.
Universityof California.

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