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‘History shows on all sides, only the same thing, except in different forms: the chapters of the history of humanity are basically only different in name and the dates; the really essential content is the same everywhere ... The material of history is the individual in his solitude and fortuitousness, what always is, and then is not, forevermore, the fleeting intertwining like clouds in the wind of moving humanity, which so often can be transformed completely, through the slightest chance.’So closely comes Schopenhauer’s philosophical idealism to mechanical materialism in its conception of history. In fact, they are opposite poles of the same narrow outlook. And when Schopenhauer said grimly of the materialism of the natural sciences:
‘These gentlemen of the crucible must be taught that simple chemistry makes one capable of being a chemist but not a philosopher’so he should be taught that simple philosophizing makes one capable of sneaking about, but not of historical investigation. However Schopenhauer was consistent in his own fashion, and as soon as he had thrown away Hegel’s dialectical method, then he had to throw away Hegel’s historical constructions with it. "