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History is not a science, and has little to expect from sciences; it does not explain, and has no method. Better still, history, about which much has been said for two centuries, does not exist.—Paul Veyne, Writing History¹Science can work only on what is supposed to repeat itself—that is to say, on what is withdrawn, by hypothesis, from the action of real time. Anything that is … irreversible in the successive moments of a history eludes science.—Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution²