The word 'professes' towards the end is significant. ‘However’ is constant in the options. One needs to pick out the best contrast.
Options 3 and 4 get easily eliminated as they contain ‘history’, which will require a lot of explanation in the context. The last sentence will not contain any new ideas requiring further clarification.
Option 5 is eliminated because of ‘penchant’ – the paragraph does not make such assertions.
For the same reason, the ‘intention’ in option 1 gets it eliminated.
The word 'professes’ in the paragraph directly leads to the ‘veil’ and ‘understood’ in option 2.
Hence, the correct answer is option 2.