HISTORY examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, defines that freedom by the laws of reason; and so history is only a science in so far as that freedom is defined by those laws.

To history the recognition of the free wills of men as forces able to influence historical events, that is, not subject to laws, is the same as would be to astronomy the recognition of free will in the movements of the heavenly bodies.

This recognition destroys the possibility of the existence of laws, that is, of any science whatever. If there is so much as one body moving at its free will, the laws of Kepler and of Newton are annulled, and every conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies is destroyed. If there is a single human action due to free will, no historical law exists, and no conception of historical events can be formed.

For history there exist lines of movement of human wills, one extremity of which vanishes in the unknowable, and at the other extremity of which in space, in time, and in dependence on cause, there moves men's consciousness of free will in the present.

The more this curve of movement is analysed before our eyes, the clearer are the laws of its movement. To discover and define those laws is the problem of history.

From the point of view from which the science of history now approaches its subject, by the method it now follows, seeking the causes of phenomena in the free will of men, the expression of laws by science is impossible; since however we limit the free will of men, so long as we recognise it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes impossible.

Only limiting this element of free will to infinity, that is, regarding it as an infinitesimal minimum, we are convinced of the complete unattainability of causes, and then, instead of seeking causes, history sees before itself the task of seeking laws.

The seeking of those laws has been begun long ago, and the new lines of thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously with the self-destruction towards which the old-fashioned history is going, forever dissecting and dissecting the causes of phenomena.

All human sciences have followed the same course. Reaching infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of the sciences, leaves the process of analysis and enters on a new process of approximating to summing up the unknown infinitesimals. Forsaking the conception of cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, properties common to all unknown, infinitesimal quantities.

The other sciences, too, have followed the same course, though under another form. When Newton formulated the law of gravity, he did not say that the sun or the earth has the property of attraction. He said that all bodies—from the greatest to the smallest—have the property of attracting one another; that is, leaving on one side the question of the cause of the movements of bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies, from the infinitely great to the infinitely small. The natural sciences do the same thing; leaving on one side the question of cause, they seek for laws. History, too, is entered on the same course. And if the subject of history is to be the study of the movements of peoples and of humanity, and not episodes from the lives of individual men, it too is bound to lay aside the idea of cause, and to seek the laws common to all the equal and inseparably interconnected, infinitesimal elements of free will.

历史从时间和因果关系来考察人的自由意志与外部世界相联系的表现。也就是用理性的法则来说明这种自由，因此，历史只有用这些法则来说明自由意志时才是一门科学。

就历史来说，承认人的自由是一种能够影响历史事件的力量，也就是一种不服从法则的东西，正如对天文学来说，承认天体运动是一种自由的力量一样。

承认这一点，就取消了法则存在的可能性，也就是取消了任何知识存在的可能性。如果有一个天体自由运行，那么凯普勒和牛顿的定律就不再存在了，任何天体运行的观念也不再存在了。如果有一种人的自由行动，那么，任何历史法则，任何历史事件的观念，都不存在了。

对历史来说，人的意志有若干运动路线，其一端隐没在未知世界中，但是在其另一端，一种现今的人的意志在空间、时间和因果关系中活动着。

这个活动范围在我们眼前展开得愈广，这种活动的法则就愈明显。发现和说明那些法则乃是历史的任务。

历史科学从它现在对待它研究的对象的观点出发，并沿着它现在所遵循的途径在人的自由意志中寻求现象的原因，对历史科学来说，阐明法则是行不通的，因为，无论我们怎样限制人类的自由意志支配的作用，只要把它看作不受法则支配的一种力量，法则也就不可能存在了。

只有无限地约制这种自由意志力，就是说，把它看作无限小的数量，我们才会相信原因是完全不可理解的，于是历史把寻求法则作为它的任务，以取代对原因的探寻。

这些法则的探求早已开始，历史学应当汲收的新思想方式，在与那不断把产生现象的原因一再剖析的旧历史学自行毁灭的同时，也正在加以采用。

全人类的科学都走这条路子。数学这门最精密的科学获得无限小数的时候，便放弃解析的过程，开始总和未知的无限小数的新过程。数学放弃原因的概念而寻求法则，也就是寻求一切未知的无限小的元素的共同性质。

别的科学也沿着同样的思路进行研究，尽管其形式不同。当牛顿宣布万有引力法则的时候，他并未说，太阳或地球有一种吸引的性质；他说，从最大到最小的所有物体都具有互相吸引的性质；就是说，他扔开导致物体运动原因的问题，来说明从无限大到无限小的所有物体共同的性质。各种自然科学也有这样的做法：它们扔开原因问题来寻求法则。历史学也是站在这条路上的。假如历史的研究对象是各民族的全人类的运动，而不是记载个人生活中的若干片断，那么，它也应扔开原因的概念来寻求那些为各个相等的、互相紧密联系的、无穷小的自由意志的因素所共有的法则。