There were also analyses that by studying humanity's more or less ancient, more or less easily vanquished illusions functioned as a sort of transcendental dialectic; by this means it was shown that knowledge had historical, social, or economic conditions, that it was formed within the relations that are woven between men, and that it was not independent of the particular form they might take here or there; in short, that there was a history of human knowledge which could both be given to empirical knowledge and prescribe its forms.