And it follows that history as regarded by Rickert cannot serve as the preliminary to philosophy. It *may* be[169] of use for personal edification or for practical life: granting that the “centres of interest” as referred to are of any real ethical or at least factual importance. But you may take away from history even the greatest personalities, and your view of the universe, your philosophy, would remain the same, except of course so far as these personalities themselves have contributed to philosophy in any way. [169] This is a rather optimistic conception of “history.” Personally, I must confess that even its emotional and practical importance seems to me to be at least diminished by the retarding effects which all sorts of “historical” considerations--in science as well as in arts and in public life--carry with them. All real progress is non-historical--and its champions almost always have become martyrs: this fact seems not to recommend history as a means of education, except for persons of a very strong character. Now, on the other hand, it is worth noticing that, even if there were generally accepted “values,” history as the doctrine of singularities would be deprived of philosophical importance. Its single cases would then be merely *instances* of certain types of actions and occurrences which have been proved to be “valuable,” *i.e.* to be centres of interest, before-hand. Rickert has observed that the relation to any judgments about moral values would render history unhistorical, for the generalities to which it is related would be the main thing in such a case. But he did not notice, as far as I can see, that history, if related to *any* “values” whatever--if there were any generally conceded--would become “non-historical” just as well: for the *generalities* as expressed in the “values” would be the main thing in this case also. In fact, there is no escape from the dilemma:--either no general centres of interest, and therefore a mere subjective “history”; or general “values,” and therefore history a mere collection of instances.