Page:Philosophical Review Volume 21.djvu/169

No. 2.] history; that antecedents and causes should consequently be historically construed; that evolution is pluralistic, implying many histories but no single history of the world; that man writes the history only of his own world; that, however, since he discovers his world to be a history, he may have a science of history or evolution which is universal; and that this science indicates that evolution is progressive. Such an opinion is, I believe, liberalizing. It frees intelligence for its own progressive operation untrammeled by any suspicion of its rights. It suggests that the discovery of the world is not principally or essentially the discovery of what it has been, and not at all the discovery of causes which, irrespective of its history, have produced it, but the discovery of its implied possibilities, a discovery which is the surest foundation for the ideals of men and which allows them to look upon their present and their future as something far richer than an illustration of their past.