XIX. Human Spiritual Activity (Freiheit)

Therefore in history, whose subject, after all, is man, one should not speak about outer influences upon his actions, about ideas that live in a certain time, etc., and least of all about a plan underlying history. History is nothing but the evolution of human actions, views, etc. “In all ages it is only individuals who have worked for science, not the age itself. It was the age that executed Socrates by poison; the age that burned Hus; ages have always remained the same,” says Goethe. All a priori constructing of plans that supposedly underlie history is in conflict with the historical method as it results from the nature of history. The goal of this method is to become aware of what human beings have contributed to the progress of their race, to experience the goals a certain personality has set himself, the direction he has given to his age. History is to be based entirely upon man's nature. Its willing, its tendencies are to be understood. Our science of knowledge totally excludes the possibility of inserting into history a purpose such as, for example, that human beings are drawn up from a lower to a higher level of perfection, and so on. In the same way, to our view it seems erroneous to present historical events as a succession of causes and effects like facts of nature the way Herder does in his Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. The laws of history are in fact of a much higher nature. A fact of physics is determined by another fact in such a way that the law stands over the phenomena. A historical fact, as something ideal, is determined by something ideal. There cause and effect, after all, can be spoken of only if one clings entirely to externals. Who could think that he is giving an accurate picture by calling Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is essentially a science of ideals. Its reality is, after all, ideas. Therefore devotion to the object is the only correct method. Any going beyond the object is unhistorical.