Spanish language learning forums - Se trata, me parece, de un buen ejemplo..

Okay,

Here's the text:

Quote:

Se trata, me parece, de un buen ejemplo do lo que es un tópico de nuestro oficio: la conciencia histórica guía el saber histórico; éste puede controlarla, someterla a la prueba del rigor, pero no ignorarla.

My attempt:

This, it seems to me, is a good example of what is a topic [phonomenon?] of our craft: the historical consciousness guiding historical knowledge; this can control it, submit it to the test of rigor but not ignore it.

First, do I have the 'order of guidance' correct? That is, is he saying the historical conciousness is guiding historical knowledge?

Second: to what is éste referring? I'm assuming it's in reference to historical knowledge. This would be confirmed by the gender of the predicate pronoun: i.e. controlarla.

Then could this (theoretically) be rewritten as

This, it seems to me, is a good example of what is a topic of our craft: the historical consciousness guiding historical knowledge. Such historical knowledge can control historical consciousness and submit it to the test of rigor but cannot ignore it.

Yes? But this, unfortunately, makes no sense to me. People and yes, perhaps "consciousnesses", can perform tests of rigor and submit things for proof, etc. but can "knowledges" perform such animate actions?

I admit I'm again confused by this author. Perhaps this is again traceable to my lack of familiarity with the Argentinian historicist tradition;)

Thanks for any insight!
Ben