The theory of history in this narrower meaning of the word has been the subject of very numerous controversies in the last twenty years, especially in Germany, and these controversies have led very deeply into the whole philosophical view of the universe. We shall try to treat our subject as impartially as possible. Hegel says, in the introduction to his *Phänomenologie des Geistes*: “*Die Philosophie muss sich hüten erbaulich sein zu wollen*” (“Philosophy must beware of trying to be edifying”). These words, indeed, ought to be inscribed on the lintel of the door that leads into historical methodology, for they have been sadly neglected by certain theoretical writers. Instead of analysing history in order to see what it would yield to philosophy, they have often made philosophy, especially moral philosophy, the starting-point of research, and history then has had to obey certain doctrines from the very beginning. We shall try as far as we can not to become “erbaulich” in our discussions. We want to learn from history for the purposes of philosophy, and we want to learn from history as from a phenomenon in time and in space, just as we have learnt from all the other phenomena regarding life in nature. Every class of phenomena of course may be studied with respect to generalities as well as with respect to particulars. The particular, it is true, has not taught us much in our studies so far. Perhaps it may be successful in the domain of history proper. If I take into consideration what the best authors of the last century have written about human history with respect to its general value, I cannot help feeling that none of them has succeeded in assigning to history a position where it would really prove to be of great importance for the aims of philosophical inquiry. Is that the fault of the authors or of human history? And what then would explain the general interest which almost every one takes, and which I myself take in history in spite of this unsatisfactory state of things? CUMULATIONS IN HUMAN HISTORY