This historical web, which is and is not the work of individuals, constitutes, as has been said, the work of the universal Spirit, of which individuals are manifestations and instruments. In this way are implicitly excluded those views which attribute the course of things to Fate, to Fortune, or to Chance, that is, to mechanism or caprice, both of them insufficient and one-sided, like determinism and free will, each one invoking the other when it becomes aware of its own impotence. The idea of mechanical origin, of an evolution that takes place by the addition of very minute elements, is now being abandoned, even for that fragment of history called _History of Nature_ (the only true and possible Philosophy of Nature), in which is beginning to reappear the theory of successive crises and revolution, and the idea of freedom, whose creations are not to be measured or limited mathematically. But the supreme rationality that guides the course of history, should not, on the other hand, be conceived as the work of a transcendent Intelligence or Providence, as is the case in religious and semi-fanciful thought, which does not possess other value than that of a confused presentiment of the truth. If History be rationality, then a Providence certainly directs it; but of such a kind as becomes actual in individuals, and acts, not on, but in them. This affirmation of Providence is not conjecture or faith, but evidence of reason. Who would feel in him the strength of life without such intimate persuasion? Whence could he draw resignation in sorrow, encouragement to endure? Surely what the religious man says, with the words "Let us leave it in God's hands," is said also by the man of reason with those other words: "Courage, and forward"? [Sidenote: _The infinity of progress and mystery._]