The conflict which for the general consciousness existed between science and faith reappears in Vico's treatment of history as a distinction and opposition between Jewish and Gentile history, sacred history and profane. Jewish history was not subjected, he believed, to the laws of history in general. Its course was unique, and its development proceeded on principles peculiar to itself, namely, the direct action of God. The New Science, which in its philosophical part did not give the explanatory principles of this process, was in consequence not compelled to deal with it in its historical part. This is perhaps what Vico would have wished. But the wish was met, setting aside the necessity of guarding against the charge of impiety, which was certainly a danger, by his scruples as a believer, and a conscientious believer; which urged him to look for some kind of harmony between the two histories, since however sharply distinguished (he recalled how even a Gentile writer, Tacitus, had described the Jews as "unsociable"), both alike developed under terrestrial conditions and had points of mutual contact, at least in the origin of mankind and its regeneration by means of Christianity. Following the inherent tendencies of his thought, Vico ought to and would willingly have avoided the narration of universal history and confined himself exclusively to questions of philosophy and philology. But as it happened, he was compelled now and then to depart from his programme and to attempt at once a unification of the two histories and a defence of sacred history based on arguments supplied by science and profane history.