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Table of Contents - Special Paper 355

Is the Present the Key to the Past or the Past the Key to the Present?

James Hutton and Adam Smith versus Abraham Gottlob Werner and Karl Marx in Interpreting History

Preface ix
Abstract 1
Introduction 2
Actualism and Uniformitarianism: Definition and Some Implications 2

Religious Roots of Nonactualistic Thinking in History

3
Definition of History 3
The Problem of Historical Disciplines 4

   Hume's Law

4

   Incompleteness of the Historical Record

5
Historical Disciplines versus Natural Sciences 6
Historical Science in the Hands of Adam Smith and James Hutton 7

   Smith's and Hutton's Work on the Knowledge of the Past in Relation to
   the Philosophy of David Hume

8

   Adam Smith (1723-1790)

9

   James Hutton (1726-1797)

15
Historical Science in the Hands of Abraham Gottlob Werner and Karl Marx Abraham 22

   Gottlob Werner (1749-1817)

22

   Karl Marx (1818-1883)

28
Evolutionary Theories of Hutton, Smith, Werner, and Marx: A Comparison 31
Conclusions 34
Acknowledgments 39
Endnotes 40
References Cited 44