 Dilthey’s most important work is The Formation (Aufbau) of the Historical World in the Human Sciences of 1910. Here Dilthey applies the same kind of structural analysis that we saw him develop for lived experience to the understanding of history. The human sciences give form to the historical world by analyzing the structural systems in terms of which human beings participate in history. In the Introduction to the Human Sciences Dilthey had conceived the psychic nexus, cultural systems and external organizations of society as purposive systems. Now a more neutral covering concept is used to capture all the ways the forces of life can converge. This is the concept of the “productive nexus or system” (Wirkungszusammenhang). Now the efficacy of life and of the historical world is to be understood in terms of productivity before any causal or teleological analysis is applied. The carriers of history, whether they be individuals, cultures, institutions, or communities, are productive systems capable of producing value, meaning, and, in some cases, realizing purposes. Each is to be considered structurally as centered in itself.