Robert W. Franson & abandoned automobile
at Old Route 66 Memorial
Painted Desert, Arizona.
photo by JMF
  

  
Ulysses (to Achilles):

                     Time hath, my lord,
A wallet at his back, wherein he puts
Alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster
Of ingratitudes. Those scraps are good deeds past,
Which are devoured as fast as they are made,
Forgot as soon as done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright.

William Shakespeare
Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.139-145

  
The intellectual methods of science do not differ in kind from those applied by the common man in his daily mundane reasoning. The scientist uses the same tools which the layman uses; he merely uses them more skillfully and cautiously. Understanding is not a privilege of the historians. It is everybody's business. In observing the conditions of his environment everybody is a historian.

Everybody uses understanding in dealing with the uncertainty of future events to which he must adjust his own actions. The distinctive reasoning of the speculator is an understanding of the relevance of the various factors determining future events. And ... action necessarily always aims at future and therefore uncertain conditions and this is always speculation.

Acting man looks, as it were, with the eyes of a historian into the future.

Ludwig von Mises
"The Epistemological Problems", S.8
Human Action
A Treatise on Economics  (1949; 3rd edition 1966)
[emphasis added]