An historical work rests, as F. H. Bradley pointed out in The Presuppositions of Critical History, on prejudications of what could have been the case. But Bradley's idea may be extended; it may be argued that all writing rests on prejudications not only of what could have been, or can be, the case but also of what should have been, or should be, the case. To say this is to acknowledge that a book carries with it intuitions about what the world ought to be like, judgements about what the world is like and the assumption that the world deserves praise, or blame, for being what it is.

Some of the prejudications involved in writing are obvious, and yield to straightforward analysis.