The Philosophy of History
About everything that could be called "the philosophy of history" I am a desperate sceptic. I know nothing of the future, not even whether there will be any future. I don't know whether past history has been necessary or contingent.
I don't know whether the human tragicomedy is now in Act I or Act V; whether our present disorders are those of infancy or old age. I am merely considering how we should arrange or schematise those facts - ludicrously few in comparison with the totality - which survive to us (often by accident) from the past. I am less like a botanist in a forest than a woman arranging a few flowers for the drawing-room. We can't get into the real forest of the past; that is part of what the word "past" means.~C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, "De Descriptione Temporum" (1955)
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"I'm sure our progeny will be a lot smarter than us."
I don't know Sandi--they say history repeats itself. Perhaps our progeny will just go on repeating the same dumb mistakes we've made.
As for a "philosophy of history" I really don't have an opinion, other than I think I'm not in agreement with the romantic view of history as you have explained it. The Middle Ages, while giving birth to chivalry and wonderful legends, was also a time of scarcity of books, dreadful disease, and the oppression of serfs by the ruling landowners.
But then again, I was the kind of person who always fell asleep in history class!
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