ABSTRACT
This historical world, the subject matter of history, is life in its temporal extension. The development of the human studies depends on the deepening of experience and on the increasing tendency to bring their content to the surface; at the same time it is dependent on the spread of understanding over all the objectifications of mind and on the increasingly complete and methodical extraction of the mental content from the different expressions of life. History itself produces principles which are valid because they make the relations contained in life explicit. Such principles are the obligation which is based on a contract and the recognition of the dignity and value of every individual simply as a man. These truths are universally valid because they impart order to every aspect of the historical world. Experience in its concrete reality is made coherent by the category of meaning.
