“What’s Past Is Prologue”

From p. 156 of TOP:

Liberalism, according to Weber, means an end to illusions, including the “illusion” of human progress—along with an attitude of endurance, “endurance [in Lilge’s words] to bear the destruction of all absolutes, with no sentimental turning back or rash embrace of new faiths, only the strength to hold out in the radical though bleak veracity of a cleansed mind.” As to selecting the proper course of action, Weber told the gathering, each individual has to decide the ideals that are “right for him.” Since only questions of means, not of ends, fall within the province of science, he said, ends must be chosen subjectively, by reference to feelings.