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Imagination
is, very likely, only human gift. To imagine means to acquire images and
to handle them inside our heads. And our most important images are simply
words, which are abstract symbols. So, careful there - symbols have life
cycle and life expectancy.
the
meaning of ‘history’
from
Understanding History by Louis Gottschalk (1950).
The
English word history is derived from the Greek noun istoia,
meaning learning. As used in the Greek philoso- pher
Aristotle, history meant a systematic account of a set of natural
phenomena, whether or not chronological ordering was a factor in the
account; and the usage, though rare, still prevails in English in
the phrase natural history. In the course of time, however,
the equivalent Latin word scientia (English, science)
came to be used more regularly to designate non-chronological
systematic accounts of natural phenomena; and the word history
was reserved usually for accounts of phenomena (especially human
affairs) in chronological order.
By
its most common definition, the word history now means ‘the
past of mankind’. Compare the German word for history - Geschichte,
which is derived from geschehen, meaning to happen. Geschichte
is that which has happened. This meaning of word history
is often encoun- tered in such overworked phrases as ‘all history
teaches’ or ‘the lessons of history’.
It
requires only a moment’s reflection to recognize that in this
sense history cannot be reconstructed. The past of mankind for the
most part is beyond recall. Even those who are blessed with the best
memories cannot re-create their own past, since in the life of all
men there must be events, persons, words, thoughts, places, and
fancies that made no impression at all at the time they occurred, or
have been forgotten. A fortiori, the experience of a generation long
dead, most of whom left no records or whose records, if they exist,
have never been disturbed by the historian touch, is beyond the
possibility of total recollection. The reconstruction of the total
past of mankind, although is the goal of historians, thus becomes a
goal they know full well is unattainable.
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