hypothetical,” as if it were self-evident that only non-hypothetical questions were meaningful. The attitude behind these words seems to say: what will be, will be, and what has been, has been, and we need know no more. Yet common discourse is shot through with expressions designed to inquire or to indicate what would have happened if an event that actually took place had not occurred. We always have an answer to the person who asks us: “What would you now be doing if I had not interrupted you?” History in this respect is no different from ordinary experience even when it has more exalted themes.
It is reported that President Roosevelt at his Press conferences sometimes evades embarrassing questions by waving them aside as “iffy.” But an “iffy” question, like any other question, may be intelligent or unintelligent, relevant or irrelevant. And as a fool or wise man asks, so should he be answered. But not by denying the validity of this form of question. Were one to ask what the foreign policy of the United States would have been like if Willkie had been elected President in 1940 instead of Roosevelt, we should not have had to be wise only after the event to answer that it would have been the same.
The nature and importance of the problem, and the variety of standpoints adopted toward it, justify our looking more closely at the significance of if in history.
