In short,
history is a science; a science of the search for food.
Now I desire, in passing only, to point out that this is not merely untrue,
but actually the reverse of the truth. It is putting it too feebly to
say that the history of man is not only economic. Man would not have any
history if he were only economic. The need for food is certainly
universal, so universal that it is not even human. Cows have an economic
motive, and apparently (I dare not say what ethereal delicacies may be in
a cow) only an economic motive. The cow eats grass anywhere and never
eats anything else. In short, the cow does fulfill the materialist theory
of history: that is why the cow has no history. "A History of Cows" would
be one of the simplest and briefest of standard works. But if some cows
thought it wicked to eat long grass and persecuted all who did so; if the
cow with the crumpled horn were worshipped by some cows and gored to death
by others; if cows began to have obvious moral preferences over and above
a desire for grass, then cows would begin to have a history. They would
also begin to have a highly unpleasant time, which is perhaps the same
thing.
The economic motive is not merely not inside all history; it is actually
outside all history.
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