 This modern stance epitomized what Ortega had come to understand as one of the distinctive characteristics of modernity: the consciousness of human life’s increasing depreciation, and the subsequent reaffirmation of life through the expression of creative freedom. Ortega perceived the early twentieth century as a world emptied of meaning and sought to elude the despair provoked by its meaninglessness. To transform this sense of despair, he affirmed “our life, human life”, as the “radical reality”. Human life thus constitutes constancy and change or, as Ortega proclaimed, “historical reality” (Obras, VII: 99–100; 2: 540–41). Through the discussion of historical reality and historical reason, the ground upon which historical knowledge has been based for Ortega becomes apparent. Speculative philosophies of history, the “owl of Minerva”, began its flight at dusk; for Ortega, and for certain twentieth century philosophers of history, “historical reason” proclaims the dawn of human history.