All time processes are histories, but man only is the writer of them, so that historical comprehension becomes the significant trait of human history. To live in the light of a past remembered and understood is to live, not the life of instinct and emotion, but the life of intelligence. It is to see how means converge upon ends, and so to discover means for the attainment of ends desired. Human history becomes thus the record of human progress. From it we may learn how that progress is to be defined and so discover the purpose of man in history. For him the study of his own history is his congenial task to which all his knowledge of other histories is contributory; and for him the conscious, reflective, and intelligent living of his own history is his congenial purpose. FOOTNOTE: [4] See especially his "Données immédiates de la conscience," 1888. (Eng. tr. "Time and Free Will," by F. L. Pogson. The Macmillan Company, 1912.) "L'évolution créatrice," 1908. (Eng. tr. "Creative Evolution," by Arthur Mitchell. Henry Holt and Company, 1913.) III THE CONTINUITY OF HISTORY Although history is pluralistic, it is not, therefore, discontinuous. We can not divide it in two in such a manner that its parts will be wholly unconnected. Any division we may make, although we make it as plain as the fence which divides a field, gives us a boundary which, like the fence, belongs equally to the parts on either side of it. Novelty and distinction may abound in the world, but nothing is so novel or distinct that it is wholly cut off from antecedents and consequences of some sort. It is this fact which we denote when we speak of the continuity of history. We indicate that every action of time, every conversion of the possible into the actual, is intimately woven into the order of events and finds there a definite place and definite connections. Consequently it becomes easy to represent the movement of history as a kind of progress from earlier to later things, from ancestors to descendants, or from the original or primitive to the derived. If, however, progress is to mean anything more than just this representation of historical continuity, if, for example, it is to mean, besides a progression from the earlier to the later, some improvement also, clearly a criterion is necessary, by which progress may be judged and estimated. An inquiry is thus suggested into the continuity of history to see in what sense progress may be affirmed of it and by what criteria that affirmation may be warranted. As a preliminary to this inquiry it is advisable to envisage the continuity itself and determine how far it assists in understanding what has happened.