314 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



ideally. And this process is not less a process of cumula- 

 tion than any other sort of development or so-called 

 " progress J; in history is. Philosophers of the Middle 

 Ages, in fact, sometimes regarded human history as one 

 evolutionary unity, beginning with the Creation and ending 

 with the Day of Judgment ; but every one must agree, I 

 think, that even under the dogmatic assumptions of 

 orthodoxy history would by no means necessarily be an 

 " evolution." Even then the paths taken by different 

 individuals or different branches of the human race on their 

 way to redemption can be regarded as independent lines. 



Thus Hegel's conception of an evolution of mankind, 

 it seems to me, fails to stand criticism. By emphasising 

 that there are certain lines of development in history which 

 bring with them a stimulus to perfection, and that these 

 lines relate to all that is highest in culture, Hegel certainly 

 rendered the most important service to the theory of 

 history ; but in spite of that he has revealed to us only a 

 special and typical kind of cumulation process, and nothing 

 like an evolution. We may say that the very essence 

 of history lies in this sort of cumulation, in this " pseudo- 

 evolution ' as we might say ; and if we like to become 

 moral metaphysicians we might add, that it is for the 

 sake of the possibility of this sort of cumulation that 

 man lives his earthly life ; the Hindoos say so, indeed, and 

 so do many Christians. But even if we were to depart 

 from our scientific basis in this way we should not get 

 beyond the realm of cumulations. 



All this, of coarse, is not to be understood to affirm 

 that there never will be discovered any real evolutionary 

 element in human history in the so-called " subconscious ' 



