If there was no change, would there be history? Here is Foucault from Archaeology of Knowledge: The notion of discontinuity is a paradoxical one: because it is

If there was no change, would there be history? Here is Foucault from Archaeology of Knowledge: The notion of discontinuity is a paradoxical one: because it is both an instrument and an object of research; because it divides up the fields of which it is the effect; because it enables the historian to individualize different domains but can be established only by comparing those domains.