ABSTRACT
The philosophical problem of history as it arises in the dual context of the natural law and of the project of a science of humanity is thus fixed for Giambattista Vico. The first effective principle of the synthesis of time and form, and, consequently, the first positive element of the Vichian theory of history, is the doctrine of the modifications of the human mind. The determination of the modifications of the human mind may constitute a psychology of group consciousness. For such a psychology would be, in the last analysis, in gross opposition to the primary concern of the Vichian theory of history, for it could not by any conceivable standard provide the principle for the synthesis of time and idea. Alternately, this problem of the determination of the modifications of the human mind may readily be conceived as the establishment of a 'metaphysic' of the human mind.
