Introduction: the social scientific perspective

This chapter and the following one investigate the role of national character within the framework of the ‘social sciences’. Granted that it would be unrealistic to assume that those who with growing assurance styled themselves social scientists completely broke with previous approaches and ideas, it is equally undeniable that a new intellectual framework gradually took centre stage, and that, together with the fragmentation and professionalization of social knowledge, it had momentous consequences. An evolutionist perspective, which informed most of the ‘social sciences’ at this early juncture, was instrumental in bringing about new viewpoints. Fundamental among these was a fresh relevance of the collective dimension of life: after Darwin, individual self-interest pure and simple could hardly be considered rational behaviour in view of the needs of the social organism as a whole. Largely as a result of this viewpoint, which accorded with the coming into being of more intricate and sophisticated patterns of social interdependence, the grounds on which both national character and public spirit were assessed shifted.

A distinction between old and new perspectives is thus crucial to my argument in this second part of the book. A clear-cut differentiation between the ‘scientists’ and the ‘humanists’ proves out of place in view of figures like Bagehot or Taine, who seemingly belonged to both groups. There has been considerable confusion and disagreement in the historians' attempts to achieve a non-teleological definition of social science that could comprehend the breakthrough of 1870–1900 or thereabouts.