THE LOGIC OF HISTORY 321 



proved to be " valuable," i.e. to be centres of interest, before- 

 hand. Bickert has observed that the relation to any judg- 

 ments about moral values would render history unhistorieal, 

 for the generalities to which it is related would be the 

 main thing in such a case. But he did not notice, as far as 

 I can see, that history, if related to any " values " whatever 

 if there were any generally conceded would become 

 " non-historical ' just as well : for the generalities as ex- 

 pressed in the " values " would be the main thing in this 

 case also. In fact, there is no escape from the dilemma : 

 either no general centres of interest, and therefore a 

 mere subjective "history"; or general "values," and there- 

 fore history a mere collection of instances. 



The " limits of concepts in natural sciences " then are 

 the same as the limits of intellectual concepts in general. 

 For intellectual, i.e. logical, " values " are the only centres of 

 interest that can lay claim to universality. There are 

 indeed other groups of important concepts, the ethical ones, 

 but they are outside intellectuality and may enter philosophy 

 only as problems, not as solutions. Therefore, history in 

 its true sense, even if related to the ethical group of 

 concepts, has no bearing on philosophy. Philosophically 

 it remains a sum of contingencies, in which certain laws 

 of cumulation and certain series of cumulation may be 

 discovered. But these series and these laws, if taken 

 scientifically, only offer us instances of psychological 

 elementalities. They also might be instances of primary 

 ethical states and relations, if there were such relations of 

 more than a mere subjective and personal validity, which 

 at present at least seems not to be the case. 



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