In this context he says that the conception of an infinite "progressivity" is included in the conception of "history," but adds that the perfectibility of the race cannot be directly inferred.

For it may be said that man has no proper history but turns round on a wheel of Ixion.

The difficulty of establishing the fact of Progress from the course of events lies in discovering a criterion.

Schelling rejects the criterion of moral improvement and that of advance in science and arts as unpractical or misleading.

But if we see the sole object of history in a gradual realisation of the ideal state, we have a measure of Progress which can be applied; though it cannot be proved either by theory or by experience that the goal will be attained.