Thus Hegel’s conception of an evolution of mankind, it seems to me, fails to stand criticism. By emphasising that there are certain lines of development in history which bring with them a stimulus to perfection, and that these lines relate to all that is highest in culture, Hegel certainly rendered the most important service to the theory of history; but in spite of that he has revealed to us only a special and typical kind of cumulation process, and nothing like an evolution. We may say that the very essence of history lies in this sort of cumulation, in this “pseudo-evolution” as we might say; and if we like to become moral metaphysicians we might add, that it is for the sake of the possibility of this sort of cumulation that man lives his earthly life; the Hindoos say so, indeed, and so do many Christians. But even if we were to depart from our scientific basis in this way we should not get beyond the realm of cumulations. All this, of course, is not to be understood to affirm that there never *will* be discovered any real evolutionary element in human history--in the so-called “subconscious” sphere perhaps--but at present we certainly are ignorant of such an element. THE PROBLEM OF THE “SINGLE” AS SUCH If history has failed to appear as a true evolution, and if, on the other hand, it reveals to us a great sum of different cumulations, some of very great importance, others of minor importance, what then remains of the importance of the single historical event in its very singleness? What importance can the description of this event have with regard to our scientific aims? We could hardly say at present that it appears to be of very much importance at all. The historical process as a whole has proved to be not a real elemental unit, as far as we know, and such elemental units as there are in it have proved to be of importance only *for* individual psychology but not *as* history. History has offered us only instances of what every psychologist knew already from his own experience, or at least might have known if he had conceived his task in the widest possible spirit. But is no other way left by which true history might show its real importance in spite of all our former analysis? Can history be saved perhaps to philosophical science by any new sort of reasoning which we have not yet applied to it here.