Introduction
In this discussion, we are requested to interrogate the place of man in the shaping of the movement of history. This is contradistinguished from what some would regard as the role of ‘factors’ in determining the course of the endless match of civilization. Thus man’s consciousness as a living being who necessarily experiences the vagaries of life for good or for evil in the ‘factor theory’, is relegated to the background of no significant essence. Yet, those ‘factors’, the various aspects of life such as justice, injustice, poverty and affluence are upgraded over and above man’s consciousness in historical narratives of (re)construction. Our position is that the ‘ultimate factor’ in history is man’s consciousness of his environment which he strives daily and through episodes by every means and all means possible to sustain and recreate for his own use. But first, we shall do a brief exposition on the speculative nature of history, an aspect of historiography that concerns itself with the pattern of history.
