CHAPTER 1

MEANING AND RELEVANCE OF HISTORY

(Week 1-2)

Prologue

Why study history? A student of Philippine History may ask this fundamental question for
two reasons. First is to determine a sense of direction or purpose and second is to justify
the need to learn the subject because any course of study needs justification.

The past aids an individual in undertanding who he is. Collectively, the past helps a nation
understand its realities. In the 21st century, individuals are so much concerned about
defining themselves on where they are going instead of where they come from. They
perceive the past to be irrelevant and outdated. They are indifferent of the past as they are
blinded with the rapid changes experienced in the modem society. They put less value to
the lessons of history and they underestimate its power in changing individual and
collective lives. In other words, they fail listening to what history has to say, thus, impeding
their sound understanding of the past which supposedly tells much about the problems in
their present and future society.

In this· context, knowing the meaning and relevance of history is essential and compelling
in this generation. The millenials need to believe that history matters. They need to
understand that history has its value and significance. Fundamentally, however, they must
show interest and willingness to learn history as this is an essential requirement in the
course. As David Crabtree remarked, "The past· speaks in· a voice audible to those who
want to hear and to listen attentively."

Topics covered in this chapter:

Meaning and relevance of history; distinction of primary and secondary sources; external
and internal criticism; repositories of primary sources, and different kinds of primary
sources.

Learning outcome:

• Analyze the meaningand relevance of history in national development;

• Appraise the process of historical inquiry as well as sources and discourses in the
Philippines;
• Evaluate primary sources for their credibility, authenticity, and provenance.

Readings and Sources:

Louis Gottschalk (1969), What are "History" and "Historical Sources"? in Understanding
history: A primer of historical method. New York: A.A. Knopf.

Louis Gottschalk (1969), Excerpts from "The problem of authenticity (external criticism)
and the problem of credibility (internal criticism) in Understanding history: A primer of
historical method. New York: A.A. Knopf.

John N. Schumacher, (1991), Excerpts from "The Historian's Task in the Philippines" in
The: Making of a Nation: Essays on Nineteenth-century Filipino Nationalism, Ateneo
University Press, 7-15
By its most common definition, the word history now means "the past of
mankind." Compare the German word for history - Geschichte, which is derived from
geschehen, meaning to happen, Geschichte is that which has happened. This meaning
of the word history is often encountered in such overworked phrases as "all history
teaches" or "the lessons of history."

It requires only a moment's reflection to recognize that in this sense history cannot be
reconstructed. The past of mankind for the most part is beyond recall. Even those who are
blessed with the best memories cannot re-create their own past, since in the life of all men
there must be events, persons, words, thoughts, places, fancies that made no impression at
all at the time they occurred, or have since been forgotten. A fortiori, the experience of a
generation long dead, most of whom left no records or whose records, if they exist, have
never been disturbed by the historian's touch, is beyond the possibility of total recollection.
The reconstruction of the total past of mankind, although it is the goal of historians, thus
becomes a goal they know full well is unattainable.

"Objectivity" and "Subjectivity"

Sometimes objects like ruins, parchments, and coins survive from the past. Otherwise, the
facts of history are derived from testimony and therefore are facts of meaning. They cannot
be seen, felt, tasted, heard, or smelled. They may be said to be symbolic or representative
of something that once was real, but they have no objective reality of their own. In other
words, they exist only in the observer's or historian's mind (and thus may be called
"subjective"). To be studied objectively (that is, with the intention of acquiring detached
and truthful knowledge independent of one's personal reactions), a thing must be first be
an object; it must have an independent existence outside the human mind. Recollections,
however, do not have existence outside the human mind; and most of history is based upon
recollections - that is, written or spoken testimony.

A vulgar prejudice exists against "subjective" knowledge as inferior to "objective"

knowledge, largely because the word "subjective" has also come to mean "illusory" or
"based upon personal considerations," and hence either "untrue" or "biased." Knowledge
maybe acquired, however, by an impartial and judicially detached investigation of mental
images, processes, concepts, and precepts that are one or more steps removed from
objective reality. Impartiality and "objectivity," to be sure, may be more difficult to obtain
from such data, and hence conclusions based upon them may be more debatable; but such
data and conclusions, if true, are not necessarily inferior to other kinds of knowledge per
se. The word subjective is not used here to imply disparagement of any sort, but it does
imply the necessity for the application of special kinds of safeguards against error.

Artifacts as Sources of History

Only where relics of human happenings can be found - a potsherd, a coin, a ruin, a
manuscript, a book, a portrait, a stamp, a piece of wreckage, a strand of hair, or other
archeological or anthropological remains - do we have objects other than words that the
historian can study. These objects, however, are never the happenings or the events
themselves. If artifacts, they are the results of events; if written documents, they may be
the results of the records of events. Whether artifacts or documents, they are raw materials
out of which history may be written.

To be sure, certain historical truths can be derived immediately from such materials. The
historian can discover that a piece of pottery was handwrought, that a building was made
of martared brick, that a manuscript was written in a cursive hand, that a painting was done
in oils, that sanitary plumbing was known in an old city, and many other such data from
direct observation of artifacts surviving from the past. But such facts, important though
thP.v ~rP. are not the essence of the studv of historv. The historian deals with the dynamic
contemporary records and relics, are likely to be even more abstract. Thus the utmost the
historian can grasp of history-as-actuality, no matter how real it may have seemed while it
was happening, can be nothing more than a mental image or a series of mental images
based upon an application of his own experience, real and vicarious, to part of a part of a
part of a part/of a part of a part of a vanished whole.

In short, the historian's aim is veris:imilitude with regard to a perished past - a subjective
process - rather than experimental certainty with regard to an objective reality. He tries to
get as close an approximation to the truth about the past as constant correction of his mental
images will allow, at the same time recognizing that the truth has in fact eluded him forever.
Here is the essential difference between the study of man's past and of man's physical
environment. Physics, for example, has an extrinsic and whole object to study +-.the
physical universe - that does not change because the physicist is studying it, no matter how
much his understanding of it may change; history has only detached and scattered objects
to study (documents and relics) that do not together make up the total object that the
historian is studying - the past of ~ankind - and that object, having largely disappeared,
exists only in as far as his always incomplete and frequently changing understanding of it
can re-create it. Some of the natural scientists, such as geologists and paleozoologists, in
so fas as the objects they study are traces from a perished past, greatly resemble historians
in this regard, but differ from them, on the other hand, in so far as historians have to deal
with human testimony as well as physical traces.

Once the historian understands his predicament, his task is simplified. His responsibility
shifts from the obligation to acquire a complete knowledge of the irrecoverable past by
means of the surviving evidence to that of re-creating a verisimilar image of as much of
the past as the evidence makes recoverable. The latter task is the easier one. For the
historian history becomes only that part of the human past which can be meaningfully
reconstructed from the available records andfrom inferencesregarding their setting.

Historical Method and Historiography Defined

The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past is
here called historical method. The imaginative reconstruction of the past from the
data derived by that process is called historiography (the writing of history). By
means of historical method and historiography (both of which are frequently grouped
together simply as historical method) the historian endeavors to reconstruct as much of the
past of mankind as he can. Even in this limited effort, however, the historian is
handicapped. He rarely can tell the story even of a part of the past "as it actually
occurred," although the great German historian Leopold von Ranke enjoined him to do
so, because in addition to the probable incompleteness of the records, he is faced with the
inadequacy of the human imagination and of human speech for such an 'actual" re-creation.
But he can endeavor, to use a geometrician's phrase, to approach the actual past "as a limit"
For the past conceived of as something that "actually occurred" places obvious limits upon
the kinds of record and of imagination that he may use. He must be sure that his records
really come from the past and are in fact what they seem to be and that his imagination is
directed toward re-creation and not creation. These limits distinguish history from fiction,
poetry, drama, and fantasy.

Imagination in Historiography

The historian is not permitted to imagine things that could not reasonably have
happened. For certain purposes that we shall later examine he may imagine things that have
happened. But he is frequently required to imagine things that must have happened. For
the exercise of the imagination in history it is impossible to lay down rules except very
general ones. It is a platitude that the historian who knows contemporary life best will
understand past life best. Since the human mentality has not changed noticeably in
historic times, present generations can understand past generations Jn terms of thPlT
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more or less definite delimitation of the persons, areas, times, and functions (i.e., the
economic, political, intellectual, diplomatic or other occupational aspects) involved, he
looks for materials that may have some bearing upon those persons in that area at that time
functioning in that fashion. These materials are his sources. The more precise his
delimitations of persons, area, time, and function, the more relevant his sources are likely
to be (see Chapter X).

The Distinction between Primary and Other Original Sources

Written and oral sources are divided into twokinds: primary and secondary. A primary
source is the testimony of eyewitness, or of a witness by any other of the senses, or of a
mechanical device like· the dictaphone - that is, of one who or that which was present at
the events of which he or it tells (hereafter called simply eyewitness). A secondary source
is the testimony of anyone who is not an eyewitness --'- that is, of one who was not present
at the events of which he tells. A primary source must thus have been produced by a
contemporary of the events it narrates. It does not, however, need to be original in the
legal sense of the word original-that is, the very document (usually the first written draft)
whose contents are the subject of discussion - for quite often a later copy or a printed
edition will do just as well; and in the case of the Greek and Roman classics seldom are
any but later copies available.

"Original" is a word of so many different meanings that it would have been better to
avoid it in precise historical discourse. It can be, and frequently is, used to denote five
different conditions of a document, all of which are important to the historian. A
document may be called "original" (1) because it contains fresh and creative ideas, (2)
because it is not translated from the language in which it was first written, (3) because it is in
earliest, unpolished stage, (4) because its text is the approved text, unmodified and
untampered with, and (5) because it is the earliest available source of the information it
provides. These five meanings of the word may overlap, but they are not synonymous.

Unfortunately, the phrase "original sources" has become common among historians, and it
is desirable to define its usage accurately. It is best used by the historian in only two
senses
- (1) to describe a source, unpolished, uncopied, untranslated, as it issued from the
hands of the authors (e.g., the original draft of the Magna Carta) or (2) a source
that gives the earliest available information (i.e. the origin) regarding the question
under investigation because earlier sources have been lost (in the sense that Livy is
an "original source" for some of our knowledge of the kings of Rome). In using the
phrase historians are frequently guilty of looseness. An effort will be made to use it here
only in the two senses just defined.

Primary sources need not be original in either of these two ways. They need be "original"
only in the sense of underived or first-hand as to their testimony. This point ought to
be emphasized in order to avoid confusion between original sources and primary sources.
The confusion arises from a particularly careless use of the word original. It is often
used by historians as a synonym for manuscript or archival. Yet a moment's reflexion
will suffice to indicate that a manuscript source is no more likely to be primary than a
printed source, and that it may be a copy rather than the "original". Even where it is a
primary source, it may deal with a subject upon which earlier information is already
available. Hence a manuscript source is not necessarily "original" in either of the two
relevant senses of that word. It should-be remembered that the historian when
analyzing sources is interested chiefly in particulars and that he asks of each particular
whether it is based on first-hand or second-hand testimony. Hence it makes small
difference to him whether a document is "original" in the sense of"as written by its actual
author" or a copy, except in so far as such originality may aid him to determine its author
 and therefore whether it is primary or, if secondary, from what more independent
testimony it is derived. Students of history readily
rlananrl nnnn ('nPl'l~fo'!t~ lTI Plfonn~l skills ~TIO archival technioues tO nublish collections
Education of Henry Adams). (2) Genuinely third-person documents in so far as they are
"historicable" must ultimately rest on first-hand observation (whether by the author or by someone
consulted by the author). (3) Every document, no matter how thoroughly the author strove to be
impartial and detached, must exhibit to a greater or lesser extent the author's philosophies and
emphases, likes and dislikes, and hence betrays ·the author's inner personality. Edward Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Johann Gustav Droysen's Geschichte Alexanders des
Grossen or Hippolyte Taine's French Revolution may be regarded as secondary, third-person
accounts of remote history, or they may be (and indeed have been) regarded as autobiographical
writings of Gibbon, Droysen, and Taine. Scholarly reviews of scholarly books ought to be among
the least likely places to hunt for personal reactions (except, as sometimes happens with the best
reviews, the reviewer deliberately sets out to present his own point of view); and yet how often
private philosophies, attitudes, likes, and dislikes are· unintentionally betrayed by the most sober
reviewers! Whether a documents is to be examined for what it reveals about its subject or for what
it reveals about its author - whether, in other words, it is a third-person or a first• person
document- thus depends upon the examiner's rather than the author's intention.

For the same reason the term personal document is to the historian synonymous with
the term human document. These terms were invented by social scientists. The historian
is not likely to employ them. To him they appear tautalogous. All documents are both
human and personal, since they are the work of human beings and shed light upon their
authors as well as upon the subjects the authors were trying to expound. Sometimes,
indeed, they betrray the author's personality, private thoughts, and social life more
revealingly than they describe the things he has under observation. Here, too, a
document's significant may have a greater relationship to the intention of the historian
than to that of the author. Sometimes the historian may learn more about the author than
the author intended that he should.

Highlights of the Reading

1. There are numerous definitions of history. However, by its most common definition,
the word history now means "the past of mankind" which is derived from two
German words geschehen, meaning to happen and geschichte is that which has
happened. This meaning of the word history means that the reconstruction of
the total past is unattainable.
2. The facts of history do not have objective 'reality of their own. They exist only in
the observer's or historian's mind (and thus may be called "subjective"). To be
studied objectively (that is, with the intention of acquiring detached and truthful
knowledge independent of one's personal reactions), a thing must be first be an object; it
must have an independent existence outside the human mind.
3. Artifacts or documents are the sources or the raw materials out of which history
maybe written. Though they are important, they are not the essence of the study of
history. The historian interprets these sources (explaining why and how things happened
and were interrelated) as well describe them (telling what happened, when and where,
and who took part). Besides, surviving artifacts are only a small part of the periods to
which they belong. A historical context can be given to them only if they can be placed
in a human setting. Without further evidence the human context of these articles can
never be recaptured with any degree of certainty.
4. Historical knowledge is limited by the incompleteness of the records. Only a small
part
of what happened in the past was ever observed. The whole history of the past (what
has been called history-as-actuality) can be known to a historian only through the
surviving record of it (history-as-record), and most of history-as-record is only the
surviving part of the recorded part of the remembered part of the observed past of that
whole. In other words, the "object" that the historian studies is not only
incomplete; it is markedly variable as records are lost or rediscovered.
5. History is a subiective process of re-creation of the historian. The historian restores
the
 Guide Questions for Better Understanding

1. What are the various meanings of history?

2. Why is the reconstruction of the total past unattainable?
3. How do objectivity and subjectivity occur in historical writing?
4. What is the value of placing human setting or historical context in describing and
interpreting artifacts?
5. What are the implications of historical knowledge being limited by the incompleteness
of the records or markedly variable as records are lost or rediscovered?
6. Why is history considered a subjective process of re-creation of the historian? Why is
history not considered a fiction, poetry, drama, and fantasy?
7. What distinguishes historiography from historical method? Why is it that a historian
who knows contemporary life best understands past life best?
8. When did historical method start? What are the processes involved in performing
historical analysis?
9. What is the difference between primary and secondary sources? When is a document
considered "original"?·
10. What is the meaning of a document? Is there difference between personal document
from human document?

Issues for Discourse

1. Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "The word for "history" in Tagalog does
not refer to knowledge.jo the searchfor information or to what happened in the past.
The Kasaysayan comes from saysay which means both "to relate in detail, to explain,"
and "value, worth, significance. In one sense, therefore, kasaysayan is "story" (like
German Geschichte or another Tagalog term, salaysay, which is probably simply an
extended form of saysay). But kasaysayan is also "explanation," "significance," or
"relevance" (may saysay "significant, relevant;" walang saysay or walang
kasaysayan, meaning "irrelevant; senseless"). What was then important to us was the
story and its significance" - Zeus A. Salazar.
2. Explain the following statements:
a. "A version of the past that cannot be supported by evidence is worthless" -
Conal Furay
b. "There can be history only when there is change"
3. Prove this statement: "History is not the lifeless study of a dead past; it is not about the
memorization of dates, names, and places. History is a living and evolving dialogue
about the most important subject of all - the human experience. And all of us are
capable in taking part in that dialogue." - Conal Furay
4. George Santayana once said, "A country without a memory is a country of madmen."
Is this statement synonymous with the statement, what we are is the product of what
we have been? Is this what Dr. Jose Rizal also mean with his popular Tagalog proverb,
"Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa
panonooran?"
 Check up Quiz

Identify what is called for in each of the following statements and write your answer on
the space provided before each item.
1. It is derived from the German words geschehen, meaning to happen and
Geschichte which has happened.( history)
2. It means that facts of history exist only in the observer's or historian's
mind because they have no objective reality of their own.(subjectivity)
3. These are the remnants of material culture developed by human beings
which
include a coin, a ruin, clothing, farm implements, jewelry, pottery, stone
tools and the like from which history may be written.(artifacts )
4. It is the process of critically examining and analyzing the records and
---- survivals of the past.(historical method)
'5. It is sometimes called the writing of history or the imaginative
reconstruction
of the past based on the data derived from historical method.
(historiography)
6. It is a source taken from the testimony of eyewitness of an event.(primary
sources)
7. It is a source obtained from the testimony of anyone who is not an
eyewitness
- that is, of one who was not present at the events of which he tells.
(secondary sources)
8. It is a document which contains fresh and creative ideas. (original)
---- 9. These are sources which are unpolished, uncopied, untranslated, as it is
issued from the hands of the authors. (original sources)
10. It is synonymous with a source whether written or not, official or not,
primary or not.(manuscript source)