ABSTRACT
It is from our separation and absence from the world that is born the presence and feeling for God (Saint-Cyran: Maximes, 263).
THERE are two distinct but complementary planes on which philosophical thought considers the relationship between man and the world: that of historical progress, and that of the ontological reality which both conditions this progress and makes it possible. Thus, men do not see the world as an unchanging unreality given once and for all, since we cannot know what the world is like 'in itself', when not seen through the categories of the human mind. There is only one reality which we can gradually come to know through our historical researches, and only one possible starting-point for philosophical investigation: it is the succession of ways in which men have, in the course of history, seen, felt, understood and, above all, changed the world in which they lived, felt and thought. It is only when he studies the way in which different social worlds and different world views have followed one another in history that the philosopq.er can begin to discover what is common to all the different relationships which man has had with the world and with his fellows. It is this common element which made it possible for these different world views to follow one another in a manner comprehensible to human reason.l Yet, even as we attempt to discover the basic and objective element common to all forms of social organisation, we must always remember that we see this in a human and consequently subjective manner; we should therefore resist the strong and permanent temptation to consider our own social world as the world (ontologically speaking),
and to look upon it as the one with which men have always been confronted.
