would have been entirely unaltered by the facts assuming this or that shape. Goethe might—possibly—have died young, but _not_ his “idea.” Faust and Tasso would not have been written, but they would have “been” in a deeply mysterious sense, even though they lacked the poet’s elucidation. For if it is incidental that the history of higher mankind fulfils itself in the form of great Cultures, and that one of these Cultures awoke in West Europe about the year 1000; yet from the moment of awakening it is bound by its charter. Within every epoch there is unlimited abundance of surprising and unforeseeable possibilities of self-actualizing in detail-facts, but the epoch itself is necessary, for the life-unity is in it. That its inner form is precisely what it is, constitutes its specific determination (Bestimmung). Fresh incidentals can affect the shape of its development, can make this grandiose or puny, prosperous or sorrowful, but alter it they cannot. An irrevocable fact is not merely a special case but a special type; thus in the history of the Universe we have the type of the “solar system” of sun and circling planets; in the history of our planet we have the type “life” with its youth, age, duration and reproduction; in the history of “life” the type “humanity,” and in the world-historical stage of that humanity the type of the great individual Culture.[162] And these Cultures are essentially related to the plants, in that they are bound for the whole duration of their life to the soil from which they sprang. Typical, lastly, is the manner in which the men of a Culture understand and experience Destiny, however differently the picture may be coloured for this individual and that; what I say here about it is not “true,” but inwardly necessary for this Culture and this time-phase of it, and if it convinces you, it is not because there is only one “truth” but because you and I belong to the same epoch.