History often appeared to the ancients to move in cycles, for their imaginations were dominated by seasonal periodicity and by the eternal return of life everywhere. St. Augustine, however, was directed by his faith to belief in a steady and straight advance from creation, through the coming of Christ and the New Law, to the second coming, which would be the perfection and end of time. This cumulative and progressive model was later secularized and exercised a profound influence upon certain aspects of modern scientific and technological thinking. It will be interesting to follow up these two leads and to determine whether either has anything to say or to suggest about philosophical thought in history, in particular about the ways of phenomenological thinking.