THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 147 



by man, the last ports to be visited in his voyage down the stream of 

 time. It is strange how this childish delusion, this spell of the present, 

 has blinded the profoundest thinkers. Hegel thought that the final 

 form of political constitution was something closely resembling the 

 Prussian state, that the final religion is Christianity, that the final 

 philosophy is his own. This was logical in his case, because it was 

 part of his view that the plenitude of time has come; yet we can have 

 very little doubt that this doctrine was prompted psychologically 

 by what I have called the spell of the present. But even those who 

 were able, in phrase at least, to transcend the present and look 

 forward to indefinite progress, speak and argue nevertheless as if 

 the ideas which are now accessible and within the range of our vision 

 could never be transcended in the course of the progress which 

 they admit. The absurdity of this view is illustrated by reflecting 

 that the ideas with which these writers conjured such as humanity, 

 liberty, progress, in the pregnant meanings which those words now 

 possess were beyond men's horizon a few centuries before. We 

 must face the fact that our syntheses and interpretations can have 

 only a relative value, and that the still latent ideas which must 

 emerge in the process of the further development of man will intro- 

 duce new and higher controlling conceptions for the interpretation 

 of the past. 



I have pointed out the common error into which philosophies of 

 history have fallen, through not perceiving that in order to lay bare 

 the spiritual process which history represents, we must go to history 

 itself without any a priori assumptions or predetermined systems. 

 All that philosophy can do is to assure us that historical experience 

 is a disclosure of the inner nature of spiritual reality. This disclosure 

 is furnished by history and history alone. It follows that it is the 

 historian and not the philosopher who must discover the diamond 

 net; or the philosopher must become an historian if he would do so. 



But not only is it necessary to abandon unreservedly the Pro- 

 crustean principle; the method of approach must also be changed. 

 This is the point to which it has been my particular object to lead up. 

 The interpreter of the movement of history must proceed backward, 

 not forward; he must start from the modern period. Fora thorough, 

 fully articulated knowledge of the phenomena is essential not 

 the superficial acquaintance with which speculators like Hegel 

 worked; and such a knowledge is only attainable for the modern 

 period, because here only are the requisite records preserved. Here 

 only can one hope to surprise the secrets of the historical process 

 and achieve a full analysis of the complex movement. The records 

 of ancient and medieval history are starred with lacunae; we are 

 ignorant of whole groups of phenomena, or have but a slight know- 

 ledge of other groups; and what we do know must often be seen in 



