All history is written by selecting out of the almost infinite mass of recorded or remembered facts that tiny proportion of them which is believed to be significant for the story… . A mere sum of all recorded facts is not history.

No one can tell a story well unless he sees the point of the story. The hearer does not see it until the end. How then does one tell the story of the human race when we are still in the middle of it and do not know what the end will be? Can it be otherwise than on the basis on the basis of some belief, however provisional, about the point of the story as a whole? And that means a belief which will precisely NOT be a demonstrable certainty.