一旦我们放弃对历史普遍规律的寻求,并承认对历史的解释必然带有主观性,那么就可能重新估价人性在历史中的作用。按照非决定论的原则,历史从来没有完全重复过,这不仅因为生活中无穷尽地出现千变万化的事件,而且因为人对外界的反应总是独特的,有个性的,因而是不可预测的。正如人口历史学家和其他应用统计方法的学者成功地证明了的那样,大部分人的行为往 Once we have renounced the search for the universal law of history and admitted that the interpretation of history must be subjective, we may reevaluate the role of humanity in history. According to the principle of nondeterminism, history has never been completely repeated, not only because of the endless variety of events in life, but also because human responses to the outside world are always unique and individualistic and unpredictable. As population historians and other scholars applying statistical methods have successfully demonstrated, most people’s behaviors go toward