Few academic historians take an evolutionary perspective on the past, but this outcome was not inevitable. Leading eighteenth-century intellectuals often took evolutionary perspectives, but particularists largely discredited them in and after the 1780s. By the time Spencer and Darwin revived evolutionism in the 1850s, distinctive historical questions and methods were very well-established. Public intellectuals regularly called for Darwinian history, but almost no academics saw much to gain in it. Most twentieth-century social scientists became generalizers but not evolutionists, while most historians not only refused to engage in generalization of any kind but also criticized divisions of labor in which evolutionists would test theories against data generated by historians. Possibilities remain open for a properly evolutionary history, in which scholars trained as historians but asking evolutionary questions would work alongside those trained as evolutionists but analyzing historical data, but currently, this field's prospects depend too much on individual personalities and even luck.

中文翻译：

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进化史

很少有学术历史学家对过去采取进化的观点，但这种结果并非不可避免。18 世纪的主要知识分子经常采取进化论的观点，但特殊主义者在 1780 年代及之后在很大程度上质疑了他们的观点。当斯宾塞和达尔文在 1850 年代复兴进化论时，独特的历史问题和方法已经非常成熟。公共知识分子经常呼吁达尔文主义历史，但几乎没有学者认为它有什么好处。大多数二十世纪的社会科学家成为了概括者，但不是进化论者，而大多数历史学家不仅拒绝从事任何形式的概括，而且还批评进化论者根据历史学家生成的数据来检验理论的分工。正确的进化史仍然存在可能性，其中受过训练的历史学家但提出进化问题的学者将与那些受过训练的进化论者但分析历史数据的学者一起工作，但目前，该领域的前景过于依赖个人性格甚至运气。