A vast subject, as you see. Rather than enumerate doctrines or problems, it would be better to devote ourselves to one point, only one, but the one that, right or wrong, we hold to be central. This is the relation between history and sociology. It is not precisely a new point; but what if, before beginning to compare, we undertook to ask ourselves if one of the terms of the comparison even exists? If there is such a thing as Sociology? Suppose that sociology is nothing but a word, a homonymous word, under which one traditionally classes various anomalous activities which are, at bottom, history that is not recognized as such? Suppose that sociology is no more a human science than is history, that it is not a science? But first, what is a science?

For the last two or three years my students have been asking me to explain the concept of historical law. I know for a fact that they have discussed this topic among themselves. This curiosity does not necessarily emanate from the Marxist group, where it would find a fairly natural place. And I am wondering whether I am witnesssing—from afar—a phenomenon of ideological maturation such as we experienced as a result of the second world war. At that time, with my studies ended, I had left a university at which the conception of the objective of history was (for the students) strictly orthodox (history as a study of fact in its unique aspect). In 1945 I came across a university in which the vast majority of the students were impregnated with the spirit of “Annales.” I never really knew how this had come about. It certainly was not due to the teachers—they were, and had remained, the same. At that time there was no such thing as an “assistant.” But it must be admitted that the students were, to some extent, inhaling the mood of the moment. Today, in this mood of the moment, we are faced with a host of questions about the concepts of recurrence and historical law.

One can only situate and appreciate the importance of this situation with any accuracy by considering the recent evolution of historical thinking.

I hope we shall not invite reproach for singling out the comic actor from among the various types of actor, and for giving him our special attention. There is a philosophy of the tragic and there is a philosophy of laughter; there are thorough theories about the serious genre and the comic genre: for the purposes of this study, therefore, it would seem perfectly admissible to isolate the actor who makes one laugh. But we have not artificially detached the actor for the sake of analytical dissection: if we say that a comedian plays comic parts, we recognise his use of the comic.

Up to a point, but only up to a point, Utopia is the product of ancient nostalgia mixed with some examples drawn from the past. By “nostalgia” we mean the cast of mind which finds its way by mental channels to feelings and states of mind which are already familiar. The nostalgic aspect of Utopia which consists in the exorcism of reality by the evocation of a perfectly happy society, is only a repetition, rendered conscious and methodical, of the same range of insoluble questions and imaginary solutions which led to the creation of the myth of the Golden Age or of the Land of Cocaigne.

It is with fear that one approaches anything closely or distantly related to the idea of death and the dissection of a body which has held life. To some, giving one's body or an organ is a “taboo” subject. And yet numerous transplants can only be conceived of by starting from a corpse from which one removes the liver, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, etc… It is thus, for example, that between 15th March 1963 and 15th March 1965, 196 kidney transplants were registered in the world, taken from corpses, with 35.7% of successes.