ABSTRACT
Two errors, apparently contradictory but in fact connected, lie at the origin of the idolatry of History. 'Churchmen' and 'faithful' both allow themselves to fall into the trap of absolutism, and then proceed to indulge in a limitless relativism. The twin errors of absolutism and of relativism are both refuted by a logic of the retrospective knowledge and understanding of human facts. The plurality of meaning which results from the indefinite-ness of historical entities and the distinction between 'specific' meanings and 'experienced' meanings involves the renewal of historical interpretation; it offers at once a protection against the worst form of relativism; that which is combined with dogmatism. "A philosophy of History presupposes that human history is not a simple sum of juxtaposed facts–individual decisions and adventures, ideas, interests, institutions–but that it is, instantaneously and sequentially, a totality moving towards a privileged state which will give meaning to the whole".
