t not
the history of the life of the peoples.

CHAPTER V

The life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for
the connection between those men and the nations has not been found.
The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the
collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an
hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.

The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to
historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence
and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as
soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur--that is, as soon as
history begins--that theory explains nothing.

The theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of the
people's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred.

Whatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the
theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because
the collective will was transferred to him.

The replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the
replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and
paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different
parts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute
the direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head.

"The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads
it and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that
leader." This is what historians of the first class say--those who
assume the unconditional transference of the people's will.

"If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the
collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to
another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in
the direction selected by the whole herd." Such is the reply historians
who assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to
rulers under conditions which they regard as known. (With this method
of observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the
direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the
people's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side,
or even in the rear.)

"If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of
the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to