barred the way by which sociology could have won for itself the liberty of thought already achieved by natural science. No god and no ruler of Nature lives for Kant???s theory of cognition of nature, but history he regards ???as the execution of a hidden plan of nature in order to bring about a state-constitution perfect inwardly???and, for this purpose, outwardly as well???as the only condition in which she can develop all her abilities in humanity.???32 In the words of Kant we can see with especial clearness the fact that modern Collectivism has nothing more to do with the old realism of concepts but rather, having arisen from political and not from philosophical needs, occupies a special position outside science which cannot be shaken by attacks based on the theory of cognition. In the second part of his Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (Ideas to a Philosophy of the History of Humanity) Herder violently attacked the critical philosophy of Kant, which appeared to him as [41] ???Averroic??? hypostasization of the general. Anyone who sought to maintain that the race, and not the individual, was the subject of education and civilization, would be speaking incomprehensibly, ???as race and species are only general concepts, except in so far as they exist in the individual being.??? Even if one attributed to this general concept all the perfections of humanity???culture and highest enlightenment???which an ideal concept permits, one would have ???said just as little about the true history of our race, as I would if, speaking of animality, stoneness, metalness, in general, I were to ascribe to them the most glorious, but in single individuals self-conflicting, attributes.???33 In his reply to this Kant completes the divorce of ethical-political Collectivism from the philosophical concept-realism. ???Whoever said that no single horse has horns but the species of horses is nevertheless horned would be stating a downright absurdity. For then species means nothing more than the characteristic in which all individualsmust agree. But if the meaning of the expression ???the human species??? is???and this isgenerally the case???the whole of a series of generations going into theinfinite (indefinable), and it is hiumed that this series is continuously nearing the line of its destiny, which runs alongside of it, then it is no contradiction to say, that in all its parts it is asymptotic to it, yet on the whole meets it-in other words, that no link of all the generations of the human race but only the species attains its destiny completely. Mathematicians can elucidate this. The philosopher would say: the destiny of the human race as a whole is continuous progress, and the completion of this is a mere idea???but in all intention a useful idea???of the aim towards which we, according to the plan of Providence, have to direct our exertions.???34 Here the teleological character of Collectivism is frankly admitted, and there opens up an unbridgeable chasm between it and the way of thought of pure cognition. The cognition of the hidden intentions of Nature lies beyond all experience and our own thought gives us nothing upon which to form a conclusion as to whetherit exists or what it contains. Such behaviour of individual man and of socialsystems as we are able to observe provides no basis for a hypothesis. No logical connection can be forged between experience and that which we shall or may suppose. We are to believe???because it cannot be proved???that against his will man does that which is ordained by Nature, who knows better; that he does what profits the race, not the individual.35 .