As to the remedy, it is clear that if the divergences as to the concepts arise from ignorance, prejudice, negligence, illegitimate private or national interests, and from other disturbing passions, that is to say, from _insufficient conceiving of the concepts,_ or from inexact thought, the remedy is certainly not to be sought in the abandonment of concepts and of thought, but in correcting the former and making perfect the latter. Abandonment would not only be cowardly, but impossible. Having left the Eden of pure intuition and entered the field of history, it is not given us to retrace our steps. There is no returning to blessed and ingenuous ignorance; innocence is lost for ever, and we must no longer aspire to it, but to virtue, which is neither innocent nor ingenuous. Why does what seems good to the Protestant seem bad to the Catholic? Evidently, owing to the different conception that each forms as to this world and the world above us, death and life, reason and revelation, criticism and authority, and so on. It is necessary, then, to open the discussion with the enquiry as to whether the truth is with the Protestants or with the Catholics, or whether it be not found rather in a third view, which goes beyond both. Once a definite result has been obtained, perplexity will be at an end (at least for him who has attained it), and the narrative can be constructed with as much security as the available historical sources permit. The way indicated will seem hard; but it is the only way. Whoever decides to retain his own opinions, received without criticism, will perhaps provide for his own convenience, but he will renounce history and truth. For the rest, we do not here draw up a programme for the future, but simply establish what history is in its true nature, and consequently how it is manifested and has _always_ been manifested. Men in every age have discussed the concepts with which historical reality has been interpreted and have agreed upon very many points, as to which there is no longer any discussion. Both Catholics and Protestants, Revolutionaries and conservatives are, as has been already remarked, more in agreement than they were formerly; because something has passed and penetrated from each to each, or rather the _humanity,_ which is in both, has become elevated. Scepticism accomplishes an easy task, but uses an illusory argument, in history as in philosophy, when it catalogues the points of disagreement. These are before the eyes of all, just because they represent the problems which it is important to solve. Would it not be worth while to keep in view as of equal importance the points already solved, and to say, for example, that historians are henceforth agreed that Anchises did not sleep with Aphrodite, that the wolf did not suckle Romulus and Remus, and that William Tell did not establish the liberty of the Swiss Cantons? In short, it would not be easy to find either those who support or those