The author contrasts an approach to history that focuses on inevitability with one that focuses on historical contingency. The author associates a “cogent story” with this latter kind of approach (focus on historical contingency). So, although the author believes the wish for historical inevitability is a vain hope, this doesn’t mean the author believes the wish for history to proceed as a good story does is a vain hope.

This is the best answer. The reference to “cognitive satisfaction” from a belief in historical inevitability helps us understand why people feel a “nostalgia for determinism.”

The author never suggests that the idea of satisfaction from universal laws has become less popular.

The author doesn’t question the applicability of narrative techniques to unrepeatable details of human events. Rather, the author believes there can be a historical approach that provides narrative satisfaction and includes unrepeatable details of historical events.

The author doesn’t argue that interest in universal determinants will decline. Although the author speculates that the intellectual discomfort we feel as a result of failing to achieve cognitive dissatisfaction “might finally persuade us to relinquish the vain hope for inevitability,” this doesn’t constitute a prediction that interest in historical inevitability will decline. There’s a difference between saying something “might” happen and that it “will” happen.