All this is intended by Renouvier to combat the “universal justification of the past.” He sees that the doctrine of progress as usually stated is not only a lie, but that it is an extremely dangerous one, for it justifies the past, or at least condones it as inevitable, and thus makes evil a condition of goodness, demoralises history, nullifies ethics and encourages the damnation of humanity itself. This fatalistic doctrine, asserts Renouvier with great earnestness, must be abandoned; freedom must be recognised as operative, and the human will as making history.There is no law of progress, and the sooner humanity can come to realise this the better it will be for it. Only by such a realisation can it work out its own salvation. “The real law lies”, declares Renouvier,”only in an equal possibility of progress or deterioration for both societies and individuals.” If there is to be progress it can only come because, and when, humanity recognises itself as collectively responsible for its own history, and when each person feels his own responsibility regarding that action. No acceptance of events will avail; we must _will_ progress and consciously set ourselves to realise it. It is possible, but it depends on us. Here Renouvier’s considerations lead him from history to ethics. “Almost all the Great Men, men of great will, have been fatalists. So slowly does humanity emerge from its shadows and beget for itself a just notion of its autonomy. The phantom of necessity weighs heavily,” he laments, “over the night of history.”[9] With freedom and a recognition of its freedom by humanity generally we may see the dawn of better things. Humanity will then consciously and deliberately make its history, and not be led by the operations of herd-instinct and fatalistic beliefs which in the past have so disgraced and marred its record. [9] _Psychologie ralionnelle_, vol. 2, p. 91.