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European Civilization (London 1935),vol i,p.259.Quotation from RG Colllingwood's 'IDEA OF HISTORY' Introduction..1.The Philosophy of History (The Problem of Parts I-IV.The Following: ' Historiography is represented by official inscriptions commemorating the building of palaces and of temples. The theocratic style of the scribes attributes everything to the action of the divinity, as can be seen from the following passage, one of many examples. '“A dispute arises between the kings of Lagash and of Umma about the boundaries of their respective territories. The dispute is submitted to the arbitration of Mesilim, king of Kish, and is settled by the gods, of whom the kings of Kish, Lagash, and Umma are merely the agents or ministers: Upon the truthful word of the god Enlil, king of the territories, the god Ningirsu and the god Shara deliberated. Mesilim, king of Kish, at the behest of his god, Gu-Silim,. . . erected in [this] place a stela. Ush, isag of Umma, acted in accordance with his ambitious designs. He removed Mesilim's stela and came to the plain of Lagash. At the righteous word of the god Ningirsu, warrior of the god Enlil, a combat with Umma took place. At the word of the god Enlil, the great divine net laid low the enemies, and funerary tells were placed in their stead in the plain." ' Monsieur Jean, it will be noticed, says not that Sumerian historiography was this kind of thing, but that in Sumerian literature historiography is represented by this kind of thing. I take him to mean that this kind of thing is not really history, but is something in certain ways resembling history. My comment on this would be as follows. An inscription like this expresses a form of thought which no modern historian would call history, because, in the first place, it lacks the character of science: it is not an attempt to answer a question of whose answer the writer begins by being ignorant ; it is merely a record of something the writer knows for a fact ; and in the second place the fact recorded is not certain actions on the part of human beings, it is certain actions on the part of gods. No doubt these divine actions resulted in actions done by human beings; but they are conceived in the first instance not as


 * Monsieur Charles F. Jean, in Edward Eyre, European Civilzation (London, 1935). vol. 1, p. 259.(footnote to page 11.)

human actions but as divine actions; and to that extent the thought expressed is not historical in respect of its object, and consequently is not historical in respect of its method, for there is no interpretation of evidence, nor in respect of its value, for there is no suggestion that its aim is to further human self- knowledge. The knowledge furthered by such a record is not, or at any rate is not primarily, man's knowledge of man, but man's knowledge of the gods. From the writer's point of view, therefore, this is not what we call an historical text. The writer was not writing history, he was writing religion. From our point of view it can be used as historical evidence, since a modern historian with his eye fixed on human res gestae can interpret it as evidence concerning actions done by Mesilim and Ush and their subjects. But it only acquires its character as historical evidence posthumously, as it were, in virtue of our own historical attitude towards it ; in the same way in which prehistoric flints or Roman pottery acquire the posthumous character of historical evidence, not because the men who made them thought of them as historical evidence, but because we think of them as historical evidence. The ancient Sumerians left behind them nothing at all that we should call history. If they had any such thing as an historical consciousness, they have left no record of it. We may say that they must have had such a thing ; to us, the historical consciousness is so real and so all-pervasive a feature of life that we cannot see how anyone can have lacked it; but whether we are right so to argue is very doubtful. If we stick to facts as revealed to us by the documents, I think we must say that the historical consciousness of the ancient Sumerians is what scientists call an occult entity, something which the rules of scientific method forbid us to assert on the principle of Occam's Razor that eniia non sunt muliplicanda praeter necessitatem. Four thousand years ago, then, our forerunners in civilization did not possess what we call the idea of history. This, so far as we can see, was not because they had the thing itself but had not reflected upon it. It was because they did not possess the thing itself. History did not exist. (End Text to quotation RG )' (44 of 377) I add that firstly contrary C.E JEAN it cannot be said this transcript albeit is not Sumerian historiographical Literature.That otherwise a novel transcription or such the same some tall tale.Notwithstanding all that we call history on that point irrespectively so of RG's Science this being the very controversy.The writer has no need of ignorance ;it is written as ascribed commanded by the Gods.It is to interpret everything as the divine purpose of the Gods and the object on reflexion so ascribed .It's method is in the description of 'human events the enactment of the divine.It is to reflected that much of our own history is of the form 'tall tale'.The distinction between man's knowledge of ma and that of the God's must fall moot as a matter of interpretation otherwise we shall determine all ends to divine error. Hitler asks in Mein Kampf of what meaning and what end a fluctuating majority as that were different than a travelling troupe whose names I shall not recount as so they change through time and place. I have written this article because only of the obvious inconstruous many conjugations so now present in the names of the God's there given then now in 'gu-selim that retrusive in the current controversy over who shall possess the Holy Land.