Note 172 — Chapter IV · THE PROBLEM OF WORLD-HISTORY (continued 2)
Charles Francis Atkinson translation
Which, inasmuch as it has been detached from time, is able to employ mathematical symbols. These rigid figures signify for us a destiny of yore. But their meaning is other than mathematical. Past is not a cause, nor Fate a formula, and to anyone who handles them, as the historical materialist handles them, mathematically, the past event as such, as an actuality that has lived once and only once, is invisible.