 Collingwood’s account of re-enactment could be criticised for over-rationalizing the subject matter of history. His identification of the object of re-enactment with “thought”, and of history as a criteriological or normative inquiry into thought, to the exclusion of “feelings” or “sensations”, might seem too restrictive since a great deal of action is not rational, and irrationality has been the driving force behind much that has happened in history. When considering this objection, one must bear in mind that “history” understood as a form of inquiry distinct from natural science should not be conflated with “history” as an academic discipline practised in university departments. Practising historians will inevitably be concerned with much more than “thought” and the specific norms by which past agents led their lives. They will inevitably mention irrational factors, just as they mention arational natural forces (earthquakes, floods and other natural phenomena that impact on historical agents). Collingwood’s goal was not to tell historians what they can and cannot say about what happened in the past, but to distinguish between two very different ways in which the past can be approached: under the assumption of the uniformity of nature and under the assumption that the deeds of historical agents are responses to norms rather than instances of natural laws.