[163] An immanent vitalistic phylogeny without a pre-established end has recently been advocated by H. Bergson (L’évolution créatrice, Paris, 1907).
[164] In this connection the problem may be raised, whether there can be such a thing as unchangeable “species” in spite of the mutability of the individuals. Compare page 251, note 1.
[165] On account of the limited size of the earth a certain final stage of human civilisation might be expected in a future time; but it would be the size of the earth which determined this end, and not the process of civilisation itself.
[166] Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, Tübingen and Leipzig, 1902.
[167] The word “universality” to be understood here in quite an unpretentious quasi-popular meaning, not strictly epistemologically.
[168] To avoid mistakes I wish to say here most emphatically that, according to Rickert, the method of history is regarded as completely free from subjectivity as soon as its “values” are once established. But this cannot avail to save the theory.
[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.