History is life, the life of the past (and 'the past' includes the whole of time up to this very moment). It provides the opportunities for, and sets the limits to, our lives in the present and the future. As Abraham Lincoln once said, 'We cannot escape history'. History also means the study of life in the past, or of some part of it, and the story that is devided from such study. Our conceptions of the past (quite apart from the actualities of the past) have a significant bearing upon our attitudes toward the present. The reserve also is true. Our attitudes toward the present have significant bearing upon our conceptions of the past.