Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences

Abstract

"The study of history has not so far helped to improve the conduct of politics, but on the contrary, has affected it adversely." This quotation is taken from Ranke's inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Berlin in 1836. His lecture dealt with the question of whether the superior in&ight which the historian may be presumed to acquire from his study of the past made him competent to judge the political debate between the champions of the French Revolution and the defenders of the ·Restoration. Ranke's answer was in the affirmative. He argued that the historian's special concern was to detect the hidden forces of the past out of which the politician's success or failure grew, and that none of his studies could be "effective" unless they fit into the pattern according to which the State had developed. He concluded that the historian and the politician were interdependent; the historian's insight would be incomplete without the capacity to link up his knowledge of the past with present problems; the politician needed historical understanding of the nature of the State which he directed. 1