[Sidenote: _Historical basis of the natural sciences._]
The natural sciences and the empirical concepts which compose them appear therefore like a tachygraphic transcription upon living and mutable reality, capable of complete transcription only in terms of individual representations. But upon what reality? Upon the reality of the poet, or upon the clarified and existentialized reality of--the historian? The constructions of the natural sciences take history for their presupposition, just as judgments of classification take individual judgments. Were this not so, their economic function would have no way of expressing itself, from lack of matter whereon to work. To employ the easy example already given, it would be of no use to the zoologist to construct types and classes of animals that were certainly conceivable, but non-existent. For while those types and classes would distract the attention from the useful and urgent task of summarizing reality historically given and known, they would not exhaust the possibilities, which are infinite And if it appear that imaginary animals are sometimes classified, as for example griffins centaurs, Pegasi, and sirens, it is easy to see that this is not done in Zoology, but in another naturalistic science,--comparative Mythology, in which not animals but the imaginings of men are really classified. These too are historical facts, because they are imaginings or fancies historically given. They are not combinations of images which no people has ever dreamed of, nor any poet represented, for such, as has already been said, would be infinite in number and food for mere diversion.
[Sidenote: _The question as to whether history is the foundation or the crown of thought._]
History, which has philosophy for its foundation, becomes in its turn foundation in the natural sciences. This explains why, with the controversy as to whether history be a science or an art, there has always been inextricably connected the other question as to whether history be the foundation of science or science the foundation of history. The question finds a solution in the solution of the ambiguity of the term "science," which is used indifferently, sometimes in the sense of philosophy, sometimes in that of the natural sciences. If science is understood as philosophy, history is not its foundation, indeed philosophy is the foundation of history. Both mingle and are identified in the sense already explained. If science is understood as naturalistic science, then history is its necessary foundation or precedent. Certainly, naturalistic classifications are also reflected in historical narrative; but, as we have seen, they do not perform a constitutive function in it; they are of merely subsidiary assistance.