The study of history does not consist in an examination of the past projected, as it were, into the present; it is the study of the past considered as a part of the constant coming and going of men. And in order to become qualified as historians we must first of all attain a point of view from which we may, independently of time, behold history with all its great events file by; as though we were men who had ascended to some elevation in the universe from which they could look down upon the whole earth lying as a unity before them. This is rendered possible through the power of abstraction gained from a study of history; it enables us, on the one hand, to adapt ourselves to strange times and beliefs, and, on the other, to look upon our own day--all time to its contemporary men--objectively, as a mere hour of the ages of human development. We must learn to escape from the present, to withdraw ourselves from that which we may call the tyranny of our own time. [Illustration: THE PRIMITIVE ART OF WEAVING The art of weaving arose from plaiting, and soon developed to perfection, the American Indians and most primitive peoples of our own day being skilled weavers. ] From universal history we obtain a picture of the development of humanity--that is, the development of the various active germs or principles inherent in man. By these are meant the active principles innate in mankind in the aggregate, in contradistinction to those which may exist in single individuals or in single races. The result of development is called “civilisation”--the state of intellectual being, and of outward, material life, attained by a people through evolution. Although spiritual and material culture flow into each other, they may be separated to this extent: as a physical being endowed with senses, man endeavours to obtain satisfaction of his needs, and strives for a position in relation to his environment corresponding with the efforts he has made to obtain welfare; as a feeling, inquiring, spiritual being he contains within him an ever-present desire to fuse the multitude of separate impressions he receives into unity, and to struggle forward until he arrives at a conception of the world and of life. [Illustration: