her, and either these ends are utterly incapable of realization,
or the means are ineffectual. So, the innumerable conflicts of
individual wills and individual agents in the realm of history reach a
conclusion which is on the whole analogous to that in the realm of
nature, which is without definite purpose. The ends of the actions are
intended, but the results which follow from the actions are not
intended, or in so far as they appear to correspond with the end
desired, in their final results are quite different from the conclusion
wished. Historical events in their entirety therefore appear to be
likewise controlled by chance. But even where according to superficial
observation, accident plays a part, it is, as a matter of fact,
consistently governed by unseen, internal laws, and the only question
remaining, therefore, is to discover these laws.

Men make their own history in that each follows his own desired ends
independent of results, and the results of these many wills acting in
different directions and their manifold effects upon the world
constitute history. It depends, therefore, upon what the great majority
of individuals intend. The will is determined by passion or reflection,
but the levers which passion or reflection immediately apply are of very
different kinds. Sometimes it may be external circumstances, sometimes
ideal motives, zeal for honor, enthusiasm for truth and justice,
personal hate, or even purely individual peculiar ideas of all kinds.
But on the one hand, we have seen in history that the results of many
individual wills produce effects, for the most part quite other than
what is wished--often, in fact, the very opposite--their motives of
action, likewise, are only of subordinate significance with regard to
the universal result. On the other hand, the question arises: What
driving forces stand in turn behind these motives of action; what are
the historical causes which transform themselves into motives of action
in the brains of the agents?

The old materialism never set this question before itself. Its
philosophy of history, as far as it ever had one in particular, is hence
essentially pragmatic; it judges everything from the standpoint of the
immediate motive; it divides historical agents into good and bad and
finds as a whole that the good are defrauded and the bad are victorious,
whence it follows that, as far as the old materialism is concerned,
there is nothing edifying that can be obtain