ABSTRACT
What lies behind the positive statements in Professor Gomperz' paragraph is the very different and merely negative proposition that Thucydides records nothing which is not consistent with a scientific conception of the world, that he tacitly rejects supernatural causes. And, besides rejecting this general conception, we must beware of saying that Thucydides looked for such entities as 'political factors', 'relations of forces', 'the natural foundation of historical phenomena', 'universal forces which animate men'. It is precisely in respect of these conceptions that modern history differs from ancient. It is precisely in respect of these conceptions that modern history differs from ancient. They have been imported, but yesterday, from Darwinian biology and from branches of mathematical and physical science which in fifth-century Athens were undiscovered, and which, if they had been discovered, no one would have dreamed of bringing into connexion with human history.
