Third, we think that the right way to present an idea is in the speech of the men to whom it came as a revelation. Therefore, we have constantly shown ideas as held by people-by single men or by groups of men. In general , each of our chapters focuses on the outlook of man or of a group of men who epitomize a way of thinking such men as descartes and bentham, groups of men such as the early humanists and the dissenting manufacturers in the lunar society. These men are not paraded as heroes or as dramatic figures in themselves. We see them and we show them as the living embodiment of the thought of an age, and the interest of their lives is that in them the conflicts of the age take on the sharp edge of struggles of conscience.
These three principles, in our view , give reality to the history of ideas. Ideas are not dead thoughts, even when they are no longer contemporary ; for they remain steps in the evolution of contemporary ideas. We have wanted to present the ideas of each age not as fossils but as evolving organisms, and not as butterflies in a box but as the vital processes of the human mind. This is a history of the life of ideas: active, mobile, and changing. We have therefore presented it and written it as integrated history.