history, as Collingwood has framed it. Second, the reason for this systematic study is for human self-knowledge. A (necessarily) speculative account of the solar system’s past will yield very little that will help us know ourselves better. A further point that emerges from reflection on Collingwood’s statement is that the evidence will require interpretation that presupposes some standard of evaluation by which the significance of the data can be interpreted. Finally, “science” presupposes that the