  If historical knowledge is a construction, it follows that what we identify as the past is actually present because it is what the evidence supports now. Historical facts are present because all facts are present, that is, exist as conclusions within a present body of knowledge. A historical past is constructed according to what present evidence—an object, such as an axe, diary, painting, or coin, that has survived and is treated as evidence—compels the historian to believe. Nor is this historical past the only possible kind of past: if there is a historical past then there must be other, non-historical, pasts constructed in modes other than the historical (OH 9). Of these, Oakeshott is particularly concerned with what he calls the practical past because of the difficulty of distinguishing it from a past resulting from historical inquiry: 