If we exclude any law of geographical, evolutionary determinism, and assume, on the other hand, as history teaches us, that peoples can go into decline, as developments once begun do not continue, we shall come to know better in what the continuous movement of mankind really consists. It refers to the great spiritual tendencies which dominate mankind, which arise alongside one another, and which fall into certain arranged patterns. But in these tendencies there is always one certain direction which prevails over the others and causes them to recede. Thus, for example, in the second half of the sixteenth century the religious element was so overpowering that the literary was forced into the background. By contrast, in the eighteenth century, utilitarian efforts at social and economic improvement occupied such wide territory that the arts and related fields had to yield. In every epoch of humanity certain great tendencies are expressed. Progress consists in this: in every period a certain movement of the human spirit is revealed, by which for the first time one or another tendency becomes pre-eminent and maintains itself in its own way.
To adopt a contrary point of view, asserting that progress consists in each epoch's raising the life of humanity to a higher power, and that every generation is more perfect than the preceding one, with the later always the preferred one, the earlier ones only porters for the following generations, would be a divine injustice. For such a preceding generation would have no significance in and for itself. It would become meaningful only insofar as it became the steppingstone [sic] to the next generation, and would not stand in any immediate relation to the divine. I would maintain that every epoch is immediate to God, and that its value consists, not in what follows it, but in its own existence, its own proper self. This value gives to the contemplation of history, and of individual lives in history, a unique delight, so that every epoch must be regarded as something valid in itself, fully deserving of such respect.
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