Althusser rejects any essentialism within either dialectical or historical materialism. No one aspect or instance is the essence of any other. There is no subject of which the social totality is the predicate: no essence, no origin, and no telos. Rather, history is seen as the ceaseless interplay or mutual effectivity of aspects or instances. It is a process without a subject, theistic or otherwise. Althusser's notion of dialectical materialism rules out any essentialist concept of society.