As you are well aware, there are friends of Ranade
who do not hesitate to describe him as a great man and there are others who
with equal insistence deny
him that place. Where does the truth lie? But this question must, I think, wait
upon another, namely, is history the biography of great men ? The question is both relevant as
well as important. For, if great men were not the makers of history, there is
no reason why we should take more notice
of them than we do of cinema stars. Views differ. There are those who assert
that however great a man may be, he is a creature of Time—Time called him
forth, Time did everything, he did nothing. Those who hold this View, in my
judgement, wrongly interpret history. There have been three different views on
the causes of historical changes. We have had the Augustinian
theory of history, according to which
history is only an unfolding of a divine plan in which mankind is to continue
through war and suffering until that divine plan is completed at the day of
judgement. There is the view of Buckle who held that history was made by
Geography and Physics. Karl
Marx propounded a third view. According
to him history was the result of economic forces. None of these three would
admit that history is the biography of great men. Indeed they deny man any
place in the leaking of history. No one except
theologians accepts the Augustinian theory of history. As to Buckle and
Marx, while there is truth in what they say, their views do not represent
the whole truth. They are quite wrong in holding that impersonal forces are
everything and that man is no factor in the making of history. That impersonal forces are
a determining factor cannot be denied. But that the effect of I impersonal
forces depends on man must also be admitted. Flint may not exist everywhere.
But where it does exist, it needs man to strike flint against flint to make
fire. Seeds may not be found everywhere. But where they do exist, it needs man
to ground it to powder and make it a delectable and nutritious paste and
thereby lay the foundation of agriculture. There are many areas devoid of
metals. But where they do exist, it needs a man to make instruments and
machines which are the basis of civilization and culture.
Take the case of social forces. Various tragic
situations arise. One such situation is of the type described by Thayer
in his biography of Theodore. Roosevelt when he says :
" There
comes a time in every sect, party or institution when it stops growing, its
arteries harden, its young men see no visions, its old men dream no dreams ; it lives on the past and desperately tries to perpetuate the
past. In politics when this process of petrifaction is reached we call it Bourbonism
and the sure sign of the Bourbon is that, being unconscious that he is the
victim of sclerosis, he sees no reason for seeking
a cure. Unable to adjust himself to changed and new conditions he falls back
into the past as an old man drops into his worn-out arm-chair."
The other kind of situation is not one of decay but of
destruction. The possibilities of it are always present
whenever there is a crisis. The old ways, old habits and old thoughts fail to
lift society and lead it on. Unless new ones are found there is no possibility
of survival. No society has a smooth sailing. There are periods of decay and
possibilities of destruction through which every society has to pass. Some
survive, some are destroyed, and some undergo stagnation and decay. Why does
this happen ? What is the reason that some
survive ? Carlyle
has furnished an answer. He
puts in his characteristic way:
" No time need
have gone to ruin, could it have found a great enough, a man wise and good
enough; Wisdom to discern truly what the
Time wanted, valour to lead it on to the right road thither, these are the
salvation of any Time."
This seems to me to be quite a conclusive answer tothose who deny man any place in the making of history. The crisis can be met bythe discovery of a new way. Where there is no new way found, society goesunder. Time may suggest possible new ways.But to step on the rightone is not the work of Time. It is the work of man. Man therefore is a factorin the making of history and that environmental forces whether impersonal or social if theyare the first are not the last things.
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