O U T L I N E

O F T H E

PRI NCI PLES OF H I ST ORY'

(GRUNDRISS DER HISTORH O

T A D J O H A N N G U S V R O Y S E N,

L AT E PRO FE S SOR O F H ISTORY I N T H E

NI V E RSITY O F B E RLIN U .

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR .

TRANSLATED B Y

B J M I D R S E . E N A N A N E W ,

PR ES I DENT O F B R O WN UNIV E R S IT Y.

’ l 7 o c B N A O STO U . S . , . G I N N O M P A N Y C .

1 8 9 3 . PYR I H T 1 8 C O G , 93 ,

‘ B E M DR EW S . B Y E . NJA IN AN

A LL R IG H T S R ES ER V ED .

(Binn 8 C ompany C he E tbenaeum Dress JBoston

C NT ENT S O .

’ TRANSLATOR S PR E FAC E

’ A U THOR S PR E FAC E TO T H E THIRD EDITION

B IOG RAPHICAL S K E TC H OF D ROYS E N

O U TLINE O F T H E PRINCIPL E S O F HISTORY .

INTRODU CTION

II T H E HISTORICAL M E THOD . " III T H E PROB LE M OF THIS U TLINE . O

T H E DOCTRINE OF

I INV E NTION .

II CRITICISM .

N E P E A ION III . I T R R T T

T H E K Y I N E I . WOR OF HISTOR R LATION TO ITS K I NDS OF

MATTE R

T H E O K O HIS O Y I N E LA IO O I S II . W R F T R R T N T T

T H E K I N III . WOR OF HISTORY R E LATIONTO T H E WOR K E RS

V T H E K Y I . WOR OF HISTOR I N R E LATION T o ITS ENDS

T H E DOCTRINE OF S YSTE M ATIC PRE SE NTATION

N X . T H E E APPE DI I E L V ATION OF HISTORY TO T H E RANK OF

A S CI E NC E

PPE N I X A ND HIS O Y D II . TU RE A T R A N . .

AND E APPENDI X III . ART M THOD

INDE X

LAT R ’ S PR EFAC E T R ANS O .

I BECAME interested in Professor Droysen a s an his

u o n torian so early as 1 882 . In real grasp p the nature and meaning of history he seemed to me the superior

R This n o t . o f a n k e . view I have changed To assist myself in comprehending his very deep thoughts I soon began a translation o f the H isto r ik . At first I had no

o f idea of publishing , but as the value the little work impressed me more and more deeply, I at last deter mined t o English it for others . I subsequently laid the matter before Droysen , receiving his approval in the genial letter which appears upon a preceding page . I expected to finish the work in a few months from

o f the date this letter, but more pressing labors came and became permanent, so commanding my time that I have never since been able to devote to the tra n sla A . t tion more than now and then an hour last, how

so ever, after many years , it is completed, and I give

. Th s it to the public , appendices and all e e greatly " "O elucidate the utline proper, and may very appro ’ pria te ly be read first . Those who know Dro yse n s cum brous yet nervous and abbreviated style o f writing will n o t estimate the extent o f my toil by the number o f pages in thi s book . S h uch was my reverence for Droysen t at, after his 1 884 f ‘ death in , I cherished the hope o preparing a ’ F vi TRANSLATOR S PRE ACE .

- brief biography of him . I relinquished this half formed purpose partly for lack of time, and partly because

o f several excellent sketches him presently appeared .

Iva n Max Duncker himself wrote two of these , one in ’ Miille r s Biographical Year- Book for the Knowledge o f Antiquity, also published separately , and a more

o n e - extended in the Prussian Year Book for August ,

1 884 LI V H e t vo n ( , f edited by Treitschke and Del ’ Dr n briick . o se s Duncker was y close friend, and had access to much helpful material in manuscript . I i n cli n e d to translate o n e o f his pieces for u se in this

th e o f volume , but upon reflection thought biography

Dr . Hermann Krii ge r likely t o be more interesting to

. e . so n o f American readers Prof ssor G Droysen , the " " ’ O K rii e r s author of the utline , considers g account on the whole better than aught else which was written ’ i upon his father s life and work . Th s biography first came o u t in the form of articles in the Mecklenburg

An z ei er o n e S 2 g , the last appearing on aturday, August , 1 4 88 . Krii e r e o f g , too , was an intimat friend Droy ’ sen s . I could not have hoped to write anything better than what these two competent and privileged bio gra h e rs . p had presented Besides , it was intimated to me that Professor G . Droysen would sometime publish a ’ still ampler history o f his di stinguished father s life . It is a reflection upon our times that such a man as Droysen should so soon even seem to be forgotten . I say thi s notwithstandi ng certain reasons for apathy toward him grounded in the nature and habits of the man . O wing to his intense application , and also to his h simple honesty , forbidding in him those arts by whic some German professors are popular, Droysen founded , ’ vii TRANSLATOR S PREFACE .

o f properly speaking, no school , though several the German historians who earned fame during his last d years and after his death were his pupils , inspire by his spirit and impressing upon their works the stamp o f Grii n his manner . Among these may be mentioned

o f o n hagen, Breslau , who has written so well the first S d two ilesian Wars Reinhol Koser, of Berlin , who has edi ted several volumes Of the Political C orrespondence

S I sa a cso hn of Frederick the Great and . , author of the ’ O f excellent Ge schzchte d es p reu ssischen B e a m ten thu m s . Grii n ha e n these Koser is perhaps the ablest, though g is hi hi wh o famous for s fairness . In t s he excels Droysen , was often t o o controversial and always too favorable to Prussia . But not o n e o f these younger historians so much as approaches the mas ter in that wonderful wealth and control o f materials exhibited by him in his x

’ ’ t - Ge sckzch e d e r p r e u sszschen P o litik . The O utline as it appears in English is in cert ain points somewhat more than a reflex o f the original . ’ a Dro se n s In those paragr phs of y , and they are not

so h few, which he painfully abbreviated, leaving t em hardly more than strings o f catch- words fo r lecture - room amplification , the statements have been carefully pieced o u t s m into a fullnes that will , it is hoped, give the clear

. L meaning For the Greek , atin , French , and Italian h l di with whic the author loved to inter ard his scourse ,

E u nglish has in most cases been substit ted, the origi nal being given either in brackets o r in the margin . A few brief explanatory notes have been added at points where they seem most necessary . ’ I consider Dro yse n s H i sto rik the weightiest book of its d o u r h size compose in century, weightier t an any ’ TRANSLATOR S PREFACE .

ll H l . other, sma or great, save certain treatises by ege Ye t I know the present tendency of historical study to o well to expect that all the English and American h l historical sc olars wil read this book who , in my judg

l . ment , would great y profit by reading it In most directions o n e finds a stronger zeal for the knowledge

f r o f history than o the understanding of history . We are so busy at gathering facts that no time is left us t o reflect upon their deeper meanings . Too many who wish to be considered historians seem hardly less

o f ro enthusiastic over the history some town pump , p " " " " vid e d it is fresh and written from the sources , than over that of the rise o f a constitution . Happily

i n this fault is less pronounced than it was . With cre a s ing clearness is it seen that history is rationally inter ’ esting only as man s life is interesting , and that, touching ’ le iti man s life , the element in which one may most g mately feel deep interest is its m oral evolution . This ’ Dro se n s O is emphatically y view, and in the utline he sets it forth in a more inspiring and convincing manner than i s don e by any other writer whom it h a s been my privilege to read . May this translation enable many to derive from his profound conceptions even more profit than they have brought m e .

B J . DR E . EN AN EWS .

B R O WN U NI V E R S I T Y ,

S e te m b e 6 1892 . p r , A T H R ’ S PR EFAC E U O .

LECTU RES upon the Encyclopedia a n d Methodology d o f History which I elivered from time to time , begin

' n i n w ith 1 857 o u t o f g , led me to write the skeleton the Same in order to give my audi tors a basis for my

. hi as oral amplification In t s way , manuscript, first in " 5 8 1 86 2 O 18 and then again in , the following utline

a s . w printed Numerous requests , some of them from

ds foreign lan , determined me , when the little volume had to be printed anew , to give it to the public . Hin drances and scruples o f many kinds have delayed the publication until now, when at last, according to my provisional judgment at any rate , the work is ripe .

To the first impression , in order to give a general idea o f the questions discussed in the body of the work, I had prefixed an introduction . This still stands at the beginning . A couple of articles are appended t to the treatise , , which will , I trus , serve to illustrate certain points touched therein . The first , entitled " Th E o f t o R a n k o f S e levation History the a cience , was occasioned by the appearance of Buckle ’ s well

’ ’ vo n S be l s Zeitsckm t known work , and printed in y f " " 1852 . for The second , on Nature and History, was evoked by a discussion in which all the advantages o f ’ the metaphysical point of view were o n my Opponent s " . o f Art side In the third article , under the title and " h Method , I have collected what is ardly more than a ’ x AUTHOR S PREFACE .

o f succession aphoristic remarks , intended to bring to memory the partly forgotten limits between di lle ta n tism f and science . S ome o them have already found place M ’ in an academic lecture . See the o n a tsberzclzte o f the R a l S 4th 1 86 oy Academy of ciences , July , 7 I hesi ta te d d whether or not to add a fourth iscussion , some C opies Of which I had printed as an introduction to the " " o f n 1 4 second part my History of Helle ism in 8 3 . I wished on the basis of thi s to investigate with scienti fic friends precisely this problem o f the principles o f

o f be history, a problem from which the point View tween theology and philology held by me in the History o f Hellenism and branches o f learning related thereto , seemed to me to derive justification . This a discussion I have preferred to postpone , because it p pe a re d unlikely that readers would be as much inter e ste d as myself in knowing the point whence I set o u t and the roads I traveled to reach the conclusions f presented in the following pages . The purpose o this publication will be attained if it serves to incite further inquiry into the questions which it treats , d o f touching the nature an task History, its method and its competency .

I N e m b e 186 . B E R L N, o v r , 7 I D N PREFACE TO THE TH R EDITIO .

I Nthis new impression of the O utline the arrange h ment has been in some points altered, into a form whic repeated delivery o f the lectures indi cated as better answering my purpose . In the somewhat numerous 1 hs h fi u re s paragrap which ave double g , those in brackets h f 1 6 refer to the order in t e editions o 8 7 and 1875 . The O utline itself makes it clear that it does not

Phil s h o f pretend to be a o op y History, and also why it does not look for the essence of History in that which has Opened so splendid a career to natur al science . H . D E J O U . G S T R OYS N . B E L IN R J u 18 1881 . , ly ,

1 No t e o u ce in s a n s n r pr d d thi tr l a tio . T r .

J O H ANN GU S TAV DR O YS EN .

NN K R E R . B Y DR . H E R M A U G

O N 1 9 1 884 V the morning of June , , in the illa at S o’ ch neberg , near Berlin , whither he had removed upon \ di n medical advice , ed Joha n Gustav Droysen , in whom Germany lost o n e o f its bes t men and o n e o f its greatest T f . o o historians the author these lines , a grateful

o f his pupil , it is no less a necessity of the heart than ’ a duty o f piety to lay a crown o f honor upon this man s grave . Let us begin by briefly sketching the outward course ’ o f Dro yse n s life .

6 th o f 1 80 8 Born on the July, , at Treptow , on the

so n o f Rega, as a minister, and early left an orphan, he obtained his preparation for the university at the

'

- Ma rze n stzft Gym n a siu m in Stettin . H e then studi ed philology in Berlin , and obtained there his first position as teacher, in the Gymnasium of the Gray Cloister . In 1883 di , having already published some stu es —in the o f d domain Greek history, he habilitated as privat ocent at the Berlin University, where he delivered philological and historical lectures with great acceptance , and also advanced very soon to the position of professor extra 1 4 ordinary . In 8 0 he accepted a call to become ordi nary (full) professor o f history in the University o f h 1 851 . Kiel , w ere he worked with great success till At the same time he took an influential part as a politician x vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . in the agitations to which during the forties the p o p u la tion o f Schleswig- Holstein had recourse in view o f ’ Denmark s thr eat to take possession of these duchies by 1 4 force . In 8 8 Droysen was sent from Kiel by the provisional government o f the duchies a s their re pre se n ta tive to the Diet of the Confederation , and later as deputy to the German National Assembly . In the year 1 851 Droysen was called to the University o f a s o f i ts Jena, to which he belonged one first ornaments through the eight following years . From there he accepted in 1 85 9 a call to the University o f

Berlin , where he had begun his academic career, and where from this time o n fo r another quarter ce n tury he wrought with a success which was great and which continued to the last . His lectures were among the most frequented at the university . Particularly those

his upon modern history drew together in auditorium, besides numerous students , also many high civil and

F r military officers and many sa va n s . o Droysen w a s n o t merely an eminent savant and historical investigator, but also an extraordinary teacher .

n o n e As savant and historia he published , from every o f the universities to which he successively belonged , one o r more works which have exalted his name as among the most brilliant in the scientific world . T o his first Berlin period belongs the translation o f

ZEsoh lu s 1882 y that appeared in , which Droysen ,

h a s fo r as a young p ilologist, also an enthusiast

dr the most powerful among the Greek amatists , undertook at first in the interest of a friend not

su bse adequately acquainted with the Greek , and only

o f quently gave to the press . His appreciation the I O H ANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . xvii

r h l Greek natu e , his poetic endowment, and is unusua

o f maste ry the speech , begot by their union a translation which stands forth masterful in its kind and has not been surpassed even to this day . To be sure , the philologists o f strict observance most violently attacked

is this free poetic imitation , which true rather to the

Sp i rit and thoughts o f the writer than to the letter .

lo n n d But Droysen was n o t drawn astray . vi ce that he who will bring a Greek poet like JEsct u s or Aristophanes pleasurably to the understanding o f a German reader must utterly reno u nce the literal mode o f di rendering, he imme ately followed with his trans

f E h lu s o f . o z sc lation Aristophanes This , like that y , speedily found the favor of the public a n d has kept it even to o u r o w n days .

o n Both translations , which Droysen , as is proved by the rendering o f certa in verses a n d the change o f various expressions , has been working right along , exist now in third editions . What power they have to afford high satisfaction and delight even to the most rigid philologists , the writer of these lines learned when , L during his time in eipzig, he listened to the exposition o f R itschl m the Knights of Aristophanes by , and ore than once heard that eminent critic express his ’ Dr admiring approval of o yse n s version .

Meantime there unfolded itself in Droysen , side by t side with his philological genius , s ill more emphatically the talent and the inclination for historical investigation and exposition ; and having once pressed his way into

o f n the sphere Hellenic thi gs , he saw in the thorough investigation o f Grecian antiquity the principal task of hi s scientific calling . A fruit of these Hellenic studi es I xviii B OGRAPHICAL SKETCH .

w a s o f the History Hellenism . begun in Berlin , finished

o f later in Kiel , to which work several volumes the History o f Alexander the Great serves in a way as ’ ‘ . I t t his introduction is , says the au hor in preface , a highly significant yet almost forgotten development o f political and national relations which we have ’ endeavored to fathom and expound . The result was a satisfactory presentation of an epoch till then little known , yet highly important , wherein , amid the ’ violent and often confused struggles o f Alexander s

d i a d o chi generals and successors , those and the Greek spirit was brought into connection with the

O ri e n tal a s o f nature , so , by a process fermentation , de composition , and illumination , to cause a mighty trans formation in the thinking and feeling o f the ancient world, by which , withal , the path was leveled for

Christianity . Droysen apprehends his problem from

Vi elevated points of ew and solves it , bringing clearness O into the tangled chaos f overpowering material , with

e . L undeniably gr at dexterity eo , in his Universal

‘ History , names this work an excellent treatment of the ’ subject . Upon this , too , however, sharp attacks were

d . not wanting , and they were partly well foun ed For

Droysen , still at that time a thorough Hegelian , had in his handling o f the epoch allowed quite too much play

o f to the Hegelian method constructing history, thus

a thrusting much , p rticularly respecting Alexander and

his . plans , into incorrect perspective and false lights

S h saw ubsequently e this himself, and in the preface to

o f the second edition this work , with the perfect honor

his . peculiar to character, he confessed his error JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . xix

Here in Kiel , where Droysen completed his remark

o f able work, the History Hellenism , he completed also

o his transition from ancient to modern hist ry . In 1 846 he published his lectures on the History of the Wars

f r . o Freedom In an ingenious manner, with an almost perfect art o f luminous construction and rich coloring

his in presentation , such as he equaled nowhere else in

so his works , that period excessively abounding in struggles , transformations , developments , and results , is

is unfolded and depicted in speech that fresh , resonant , often out and out ravishing . Whoever wishes a per fe ctly clear consciousness of the difference between

d ile tta n te the born and schooled historian and the , should

fo r compare this History of the Wars Freedom , which for a long time has not in our judgment been sufficiently ’ B e itsk e s appreciated , with much lauded work upon the same period . Although in many parts left behind

’ v Dro s n by more recent in estigations , this work of y e s still presents such a fullness o f spirited remarks and incisive historical observations , that the perusal of it even affords genuine enjoyment . A second work which Droysen be gfi i at Kiel but

finished later in Jena , was the famous Biography of

o f i ts Field Marshal York Wartenburg, at present in ninth edition . T o say anything at so late a day in

o f praise this book, which in its classic completeness i stands forth simply unique in biograph cal literature , would be carrying owls to Athens . We will only remark that although the occasion for the composition o f the book was an outward one , Droysen nevertheless seized upon it with joy, in the conviction that in that lax period of peace nothing w a s better adapted to X X A BIOGR PHICAL SKETCH . strengthen the people ’ s patriotic and moral conscious ness than the example of a great personality like York ,

o s f . energetic , yet ruled by the m t rigid sense o duty ’ The portrayal o f this hero s character was especially intended to be an example to strengthen in the simple service of duty the young Prussian army, exposed in its long and often tedious garrison life to the danger Of laxity . It w a s in the time o f deep political excitement and exhaustion which naturally fo llowed the stirring

his period of the later forties , when Droysen began i labors at Jena . A cond tion of almost entire discourage ment had come in as to the vigorous reconstruction of

. n w Germany The ational dreams , ishes and strivings lay upon the ground like a s e a o f blossoms . Droysen understood this general despair but did not share it . It w a s his irrefragable conviction that although this first E d attempt to erect the German mpire again had faile , it would be followed by others , and that at last, pro

id e d o f v Prussia would only, in proper recognition her historical calling , brace herself up to an energetic policy, the loosely connected German states would unite under her lead into a firm whole , and thus realize after all the perpetual dream o f a new German Empire .

o n b i Borne y this firm hope and conv ction , Droysen f his . o P P , began colossal work the History russian —olicy the first volume appearing in 1 855 . In this path break

o f ing work , which furnishes evidence no less the ’ author s unwearied lust for toil than o f his prodigious

fo r power toil , Droysen introduces us into the history o f the origin of the Prussian state , and shows how this state , amid perpetual struggles with inner and outer xxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .

same domain , will be permitted with impunity to slight ’ Dro yse n s labors . That the author was awarded for it by the scientific commission appointed to make the award, the great prize of a thousand Thalers founded V by Frederick William I , to be given every five years for the best historical work appearing during the same , w a s only the proper recognition o f the astonishing c industry , great critical a umen and scientific thorough ness characterizing the elaboration of this work ; a work which insures Droysen for all time the glory of being reckoned among Germany ’ s most remarkable o f historians . It ends , at present, with the account

O n the first t wo Silesian wars . the basis of private information which has come to me to the effect that the remainder was found in his desk ready for the press , quietly and peacefully closed, as what he wished to give to the public , we may cherish the hope that a fourteenth volume will follow , bringing us to the begin ’ 1 ning o f the S even Years War . Droysen has been not only an historical investigator

o f e especially favored heaven , but also a pre minently remarkable teacher of history . He brought great ’ inborn talent to the teacher s calling ; ye t this would perhaps not have attained so full activity h a d he not

his learned before entrance upon his academic career, C namely as teacher at the Gray loister , to exercise and develop this talent practically in minor relations . This first period o f teaching w a s a decided advantage to him in his entire later activity a s university in

stru cto r .

1 e a n d e a c e s to th e o e n n o f th e T his h a s sin c b e e n pu blishe d , r h p i g ’ S e e n Ye a s a r . T r v r W . JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . xxiii

’ Masterly wa s Dro yse n s knack o f grouping his his t o rica l material in his lectures so a s to render it visible

o f clearly and visible all together, and maintaining the essentials thereof ’ in harmonious relation with minor

n hi storical details . The matter did o t press itself

o n upon the attention in a too massive manner, nor the other hand was it swamped by historical observations .

o f o In his portrayal given epochs , in his characterizati n of towering personalities , in his definite grasp of lead

o f ing points View, he possessed the art of a great master . Yet to go further and portray historical per so n alitie s in their outward manifestation , as Ranke loves to do and does in such a brilliant manner, Droysen

ha s invariably refused . Whether any one yellow hair ’ ‘ and blue eyes , he once said derisively, is a question o n which nothing depends ; in devoting attention to that sort of thing an hi storian descends to miniature ’ ’ painting . It would certainly have been welcome to many o f his hearers and readers if he had n o t so completely renounced this m eans o f concrete re pre se n

t a tio n .

o u - his hi Droysen held y spell bound in lectures , w ch moved upon the middle line between free utterance and literal delivery from manuscript . He di d this by

his e x i his Splendid diction , by sharp and ingenious p o s o f tion , by his extraordinary art letting , at the right time

- and place and often only by a brief, hint like remark , a surprising blaze o f light flash upon special personali

w a s f o f ties . Great also the ef ect the powerful , manly spirit which got expression in all these ways . ’ Hence Dro yse n s lectures could not but convoke a great company o f listeners . They did this even to BIOGRAPH ICAL SKETCH .

h his last days , although other and younger lig ts with equally great power o f attraction later arose at his side T . o as colleagues hear Droysen was , as one often heard

o f said , a delight , and for the sake of this delight many

- h n o te s . is hearers neglected taking Yet any one who ,

o f like the undersigned , in spite the great temptation merely to listen , consistently practiced taking notes , knows how durable and precious a treasur e he possesses t ’ in a H ef written down from Dro yse n s deliverances . But what s o permanently chaine d his pupils and ’ t o a s made them hearken their teacher s words , almost if in worship , and what drew them always again

his se e h straight to lectures , was at bottom , if I rig tly, ’ Dro se n s its y peculiar, mighty personality , which , with

its powerful tendency to the ideal , had roots deep in the moral . Such a personality ever exercises upon academic the youth, so susceptible to ideal , an irresistible magical

. t effect , not to be undervalued For the best hat a

i s h teacher who , besides , an et ical personality, can give l to his pupils , is and remains in the ast analysis ,

is a s himself . This true in a certain sense of the university teacher a s of any . Droysen was a personality

h e n e r e t full of hig moral earnestness , and he always g ica lly asserted even in his lectures the point of View ’ ‘ o f . Th so d the moral judgment e moral , he expresse

o n e himself on occasion , is that which constitutes every ’ ’

his . man s final worth , that is , only worth How much sympathy he h a s therefore (compare the first volume o f V I I the History of Prussian Policy) with Henry , of L uxemburg, and how little for the talented Talleyrand I h is e in utter frivolousness Not rich talent, or pre minent

su r genius with its egoistic tendency, but unselfish JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . X X V

o f render to the idea the good , he viewed as alone ’ ‘ o f . worthy respect and admiration What, he once ‘ ? asked, is the truly great in history It is controlled, so ennobled, glorified passion but yet , it reads further

‘ in his Principles of History, everything historically ’

- great is only a sun mist in the manifestation o f G o d . Not in the sphere of the Greek world — as people have supposed, and as Hans Prutz has again recently

- —A asserted and emphasized in the Na ti o n a l Zei tu ng not ’ in the Sphere of the Greek world did Dro yse n s moral

u view of the niverse have its roots , but in the soil of

Christianity . In his thought the development of humanity — whose preparatory stages he characterizes as recognition o f self a n d recognition o f the world (see his Principles of History) completes itself in the re co gn i

‘ tion o f G o d . History itself is t o him not the light and

R o f the truth but only witness and a conservation them , a sermon upon them ; a s John was n o t himself the Light f ’ but sent to bear witness o the Light . The warmth and luminousness of this deep moral V iew streamed o u t ’ hr Dro n t ough his lectures , although it was not yse s manner to repeat o r to express it in definitely fo rm u lated utterances o r propositions . During his exuberant activity Droysen delivered over two h dr o f u un ed courses lect res , before assemblies

o f . always numerous , academic youth They embraced

a s as well ancient modern and the most recent history .

Besides , he lectured over and over again upon the E di ncyclope a and Methodology of History . This course presented an infinite abun dance o f instructive

n and inspiri g matter, and, in the opinion of the under h signed , was for t e prospective historian simply BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .

indispensable . Perhaps not to o stron g was the recent assertion that it is doubtful whether a course like that ’ of Dro yse n s o n the Encyclopedia o f History will ever be delivered again by any university teacher . Many placed his course o f lectures o n Greek history ’ at the head . This certainly combined Dro yse n s compre h e n sive knowledge o f the ancient world with his deep d understan ing of Greek affairs , his sympathetically reproductive sense for Greek thinking and action , and for the changing forms o f Greek political life and o f Greek national art , in such wise as to render it a

‘ highly interesting and i n structive course . What

o Droysen presented was not m re dry information, that

u pains had hunted p and collected ; but, supported by the thorough and many—Sided knowledge that he had

o f won by long years study, he reconstructed from the fullness of his livin g vision the Greek world in its d political and social evelopment , in its aspects of light and shade , in its rise and its decadence .

Years after, there came back to me a Vivid recollection f i o those lectures . I was temporarily resid ng in Berlin

’ and was ta king a walk with Droysen in the T hzerga r ten

o n e . fine August evening It was , if I mistake not ,

u r in the summer o f 1 87 7 . O conversation led to the

’ d i a d o chz contests of the , and from these back to ’ Dro se n s Alexander and Demosthenes . Knowing y derog a to r y judgment of the statesman Demosthenes , I found it easy by an utterance of a contrary tenor to evoke his contradiction and to lead him o n to a fundamental

h a n d justification of his view . In speec that was all life motion Droysen n o w not only unfolded in the most various directions an astonishi ng abundance of ready N JOHA N GUSTAV DROYSEN . xxvii

d d so information , but swept forwar s and backwar s , with

o f deep a grasp Greek relations . that a wish more lively than ever came over my soul : O h that this man had chosen t o think out a Greek history for us "O h that he in preference to so many others had been called to fill up this painful gap so long felt ’ Still larger than Dro yse n s classes in ancient history were those which heard him upon modern and the most recent periods . The lectures upon the latter were

Of even more universal interest than the others . In them he took his hearers from about the middle o f the fifteenth century o n to the fifties o f the present cen tury, setting down and maintaining as landmarks to ’ his separate but continuous lectures the Thirty Years ’ S fo r War, the even Years War, the Wars Freedom and the Revolutionary time o f 1848 with its pro x i mate results . These lectures bore , like the others , a thoroughly Spirited , inspiring and at the same time strongly scientific character but they had an i n co m p a rably greater practical effect upon the immedi ate present , many securing through the deeper understand

o f ing which these lectures afforded German history,

its a better insight into the present and tasks , so that the power of the political Shibboleth, which especially in the first half of the sixties dominated so much the

o f musings and aspirations our youth, was more and more broken . It is equally true that Droysen extremely seldom ll a owed himself, near as the temptation often lay, an allusion to present political revolutions , and when he did indulge it was done in a brief and definite word .

h o f 1 864 co n stitu T us , once , in the winter , when the xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . tio n al its conflict was at height , he closed a lecture with

: ‘ o f these words It was the curse this party that it ,

o u r o f - precisely like party progress to day, ended by ’

- placing party interest above interest in the Fatherland .

o f In consequence this concluding utterance , his entire academic audience , which was then in great part feeling the touch of progressist breath , became excited . The h students determined, against the next evening, s ould Droysen in his customary brief recapitulation again be guilty o f a remark so deeply injurious to progressist ’ to o f ‘ feelings , raise the cry scandal and to make an f . o infernal racket Apprised this plot, Droysen came on the following evening into the large auditorium , this time full even to suffocation , ascended the platform with easy step , and, glancing over the assembly with a

: ‘ firm look out of his large dark eyes , began We con i cluded yesterday even ng, gentlemen , with the words and then followed exactly the final words o f the pre ceding lecture . All was silent ; not a person stirred . Every one had the feeling that he who stood upon that platform was a m a n . ’ A his Dro se n s fo r S in lectures , y special talent teach ing showed itself also in the historical society con ducted by him , whose members assembled around him

o f every S aturday in his study . The reading the paper that had been prepared on the assigned theme w a s followed by a debate , Droysen leading, in which he , in a fashion open and free yet of extreme forbearance , criticised what had been presented, and thereby set forth the method o f historical investigation in a manner

H is f at once thorough and inspiring . ef orts progress i l ve y to form his pupils to Scientific , independent

X X X BIOGRAPH ICAL SKETCH .

glowing through and through with patriotic wrath, in ’ ‘ O . pposition to Danish arrogance What business , a

o f u s ? passage it reads , has Denmark with What we with Denmark ? We have no mind for any price what ever to be guilty o f treason to ourselves and t o Ger ’ ’ ‘ ‘ . w d many Heed , he further arns the Danes , hee the evolving time . Disdain ye what we have spoken , fill ye the king ’ s ear with adverse counsel and your heart 1 with the unrighteous plunder ; then see to it what sort of advice ye are giving yourselves "We are the f ’ o . wards a great people , a great Fatherland ’ Dro yse n s intervention in this patriotic way fo r the

o f h cause the duc ies in those evil days , his accurate

o f knowledge the relations in question , and his sharp political vision , Specially qualified him to represent the cause o f the duchies elsewhere as well . He was there fore sent by the provisional government subsequently

o f established , as its confidential agent to the Diet the

Germanic Confederation at Frankfort . When , then , in consequence of that movement which shook Germany 1 84 8 in the Spring of , the National Assembly convened

hi . at Frankfort, Droysen was chosen to t s also He

so — - a joined the called hereditary imperial p rty, and, as

o n d member of the committee the constitution , rew up ’ - fill d . e its protocol Afterwards , when men s hope dreams of a new, united Germany had melted like

Da hlm a n n E . . snow , Droysen , with , M Arndt and

1 84 9 . others , in May , left the National Assembly ’ ‘ so Pale as a corpse , Droysen once told the story in

‘ Dahlm a n n after years , entered the hall in order to set his name to the notification o f departure . All eyes

1 ’ Geti ckt. JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . xxxi

a n d were upon him . Deeply moved scarcely master of himself, he seized the pen and subscribed . What he suffered was fo r him notification o f the death o f all ’ o f his patriotic hopes . Droysen was less destitute

to o . courage , though he , , was bowed to the very earth Even in those most evil days he could not and would n o t let go the hope o f a renewal o f the German Empire .

H o n enceforth , as before , he placed his entire reliance

t o n o f Prussia , whose calling advance to the pin acle a newly united Fatherland he viewed as irrefutably demonstrated by her history . As an historian he conceived to be equally certain his duty to stamp this historical calling of Prussia fast and deep upon the soul o f the despairing race o f his days a promise , as it were , of a better future . He accord in l o f g y began that work his , planned in the broadest

h o f . style , t e History Prussian Policy In this he now

s o f espied the principal ta k his life , and to it he hence forth consecrated his entire strength . After his service at Frankfort Droysen never again

. w as came forward as member of a political body It , we have already remarked , not without hope in his heart that he bade farewell to Frankfort . He had looked upon the business of the first German parliament as

u f Simply a first , tho gh unsuccessful ef ort, to be followed by others with happier result ; and in the album pro ' — vid e d fo r its members characteristically enough of t his then View of things he wrote , slightly al ering the

' Vergilian verse : T a n ta e m all s e r a t Ge rm a ma m con d e re ’ gen tem . But he would not again accept a commission to public political activity, and he declined with

‘ An emphasis an election to the parliament at Erfurt . y PH A H xxxii BIOGRA IC L SKETC .

’ o n e we who has made such a fiasco as did at Frankfort, he

o n expressed himself a later occasion in his open , honest

‘ way, ought to give these things once for all a wide h ’ berth and relegate them to ot er and more artful hands .

However, in his scientific labors and in pushing for

n ward his masterpiece , he continually nourished his o w hope and that of his n ation . And when the mighty events O 1 866 f the year announced the break of a new day , and in the autumn o f that year the author o f these h h lines again visited im at his home , almost is first

d ‘ No w wor s , Spoken with joyful confidence , were , the movement will go through and what we have been so ’ long striving fo r will succeed . A few years more and h o f e saw his prediction , boldly spoken in a time

th e discouragement , that Hohenzollern would sometime

H o h e n sta u ffe n take the place of the , fulfilled to the f . o E letter The splendor the mpire , fresh from its resurrection , glorified the evening of his declining life . ’ Dro yse n s nat u re had the build of genius . His ability

- was many Sided . To a Sharp , deeply penetrating intel lect he joined a lively , mobile imagination , along with a fine feeling for form and a decided sense fo r the realities

o f fo r . life and their worth His poetic sensibility, which qualified him beyond many" O thers for the translation of an Aeschylus and an Aristophanes , did not h n i der him from becoming and remaining, as a pupil of ’ B o e ckh s o f h , likewise a philologist in the best sense t e

. o f d v n o t word Full as he was i eal ele ation , it was in o f h the circle thoug ts prevalent in the Hellenic world , whose deep shadows he recognized beyond almost every

bu t o f C other historian , in the real sphere hristianity, that he found full and enduring satisfaction for the JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . xxxiii

moral need o f his nature . O nce an enthusiastic pupil H of egel, he later became a thorough connoisseur and

to a dm i rer of Aristotle . Indeed , a decided inclination phi lO S 0 phicthinking formed a strongly prominent feature

Of his character . To the end of his days Droysen applied himself to phi losophical studies with a persist ence and a thoroughness hard to be matched by any

o f modern historian , although the results this are not

immediately manifest in his writings , unless we take

into account his tendency, which increased with his

years , toward abstract expressions . Amid this abundance o f richest endowment Droy

n o t di u n sen did ssipate his power, but with the

o f usual energy characteristic him , was able to limit himself to the realm for which it was manifest he was

peculiarly adapted, that of history . A master in investi

gating details , as is shown by his minor but thoroughly E classical treatises upon Pufendorf, berhard Windeck ,

S trahle n d o rf O the Marchioness of Bayreuth , the pinion ,

and others , he was at the same time an historical

o n in investigator a larger scale , who never viewing the particular lost from his eye its connection with the

great whole . His innate d rawing to Universal History led him to cultivate departments farthest removed from

o n e h o f n o o f anot er, the world antiquity less than that

the closing Middle Age and modern times . Yet these ‘ ' difi e re n t pe ri o ds appeare d to him n o t as disconnected

hi c l . fragments , but as an stori tota ity organically united

O fo r This susceptibility f his universal history, as well as the sharpness a n d thoroughness with which b e

investigated, and equally with these the great variety

o f r D fo r his scientific works , assu e to roysen all time xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .

C o r haei his place among the yp of German historians , putting him among moderns in immediate connection

An d with Ranke . he is , indeed, so far as I have

a s observed , yet the only historian whom any one , as Professor Ma u re n bre ch e r essayed to do I n discussion — some years ago has ventured to compare with Ranke . h T e relation between these two great historians , who for years worked side by side at the same university, was unfortunately not the best . The causes of this may here so much the better be left unexplained, in

th e n that undersigned , to tell the truth, is u able clearly

fo r to assign the ultimate reason the phenomenon . Meanwhile let us all the more rejoice — remembering — a word from Goethe in the fact that we can call two ’ such men with their mighty creations forever our own . The aged Ranke still 1 works away with the strength

f fo r co m o youth upon his Universal History, whose ple tio n all adherents and admirers o f this great his torian heartily wi sh him undiminished mental as well

. t as bodily freshness Droysen , some hirteen years

n o f younger, to the great pai his numerous pupils

re and reverers , is much earlier than many expected moved from temporal scenes . With a constitution ten h der on the w ole , Droysen long ago felt his power de clin i n i g, and noth ng but the great energy with which he bore up in spite o f increasingly morbid conditions made it possible for him to continue his lectures till just before last Whitsuntide . Even three days before this festival he delivered in his customary manner his

d o f S carefully elaborate paper in the Academy ciences , a member o f which he had been for years .

1 J R n e e o n Ma 23 1886 . 1 4 . a u ly , 88 k di d y , J O H ANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . X X X V

O nly a little while before his end, upon the

o f n e ce s pressing advice his physician , he saw himself sita te d to announce by a notice upon the blackboard

a a cessation o f his lectures for that Semester . He w s destined never to resume them . His strength sank

hi dr rapidly . His c l en hurried anxiously to his Side , to ease by their devoted and loving care the last days o f wh o h d his their father, since t e eath of dearly loved second wife had been alone . Meantime his weakness increased, unconsciousness alternating with conscious

. O ness nce more , however, four days before his end, ’ Dro yse n s strong love for work came back . He had himself carried to his writing- desk and his pen handed him . But the fingers that had so often guided it n o w refused the service . Deeply moved, Droysen laid down

. n the pen , tears streaming from his eyes He k ew it now ; he was at the goal . He proceeded to arrange

i hi s everyth ng with care , even in respect to funeral . O n the evening o f June 1 8th the shadows o f death sank down around him deeper and deeper . But yet ,

fo r f clear to the last , he had every tender service o

i its love , bring ng brief alleviation , its transient coolness h f . to t e heated head, a mild, friendly smile o thanks

hf o f Thus , surrounded by the fait ul , ministering love d f his chil ren , he ell softly and calmly asleep . Wind and clouds now play over the spot which con ce a ls what o f Droysen was mortal ; but the breath of immortality also sighs above that grave and sweeps withal through the works which he created .

H (we ia a n im a . , p

DR . E K H R M . G RU ER . O TE NHA E N Ju 18 4 B L G , ly , 8 .

f Ou tlin e of the Prin ciples o History.

No one will withhold from historical studies the

o f recognition having, like others , their place in the living scientific movement of our age . New historical discoveries are busily making, old beliefs are examined afresh , and the results presented in appropriate form .

’ ‘ But if we demand a scientific m i so n d étre for these studies , if we wish to know their relation to other

o f forms human knowledge , and the underlying reason

n o t why they take the course they do , they are in con dition to give satisfactory information . No t that they regard themselves logically above such

o r e . questions , incompetent to solve th m Now and then an attempt has been made to do this , the solution having been sometimes put forward within the very circle of historical studies , sometimes borrowed from f other branches o learning . By some the history of the world is assigned a place in the Encyclopedia o f

o f ff Philosophy . Writers a di erent tendency, skeptical about logical necessities , all the more confidently on this account recommend u s to develop history out of

o f material conditions , out the figures put down in statistics . Another, and he only expresses in the form of a theory what men without number are thinking o r

‘ te s - have thought, questions the very exis nce of o called ’ ‘ history . Peoples exist purely in the abstract ; the 4 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

o f individual is the real thing . The history the world is strictly a mere accidental configuration , destitute of ’

. E metaphysical significance lsewhere , pious zeal

o f pious , course , more in appearance than in reality , insists upon substituting the miraculous workings o f

’ God s power under his unsearchable decree , for the

o f natural causal connection human things , a doctrine having this advantage , at least , that, being stated, it is under no further indebtedness to the understanding .

o f Within the sphere historical studies , even so early

’ o f E C o as the close the ighteenth entury , the G ttingen school o f that day had busied itself with these general questions ; and they have been handled afresh from time to time ever since . Writers have undertaken to ’ h is ‘ s ow that history essentially political history, and

a n d that the many sorts of elementary , auxiliary other sciences belonging to o u r department group themselves around this kernel . Then the essence o f history has

a s been recognized consisting in method, and this ’ a s o f characterized a criticism the sources , as a setting ’ ‘ forth of the pure fact . O thers have found the de

fin itive o f o u r ‘ task science in artistic exposition , the ’ work of the historical artist , and even celebrate as the greatest historian of our time him whose exposition ’ approaches nearest to Sir Walter S cott s romances . The historical sense is too active in human nature n o t to have been forced to find its expression early, and, wherever conditions were fortunate , in appropriate forms and it is this natural tact which points out the way and gives the form to our studies even at the present time . But the pretensions of the science could not be satisfied with this . It must make clear 5 PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY .

its . O to itself aims , its means , its foundations nly thus can it exalt itself to the height of its task only

se t thus , to use expressions from Bacon, can it aside the preconceptions now governing its procedure , the idols of the theatre , tribe , forum and den , for whose maintenance just as powerful interests are active now

o f as once interposed in favor astrology, of lawsuits

o f against witches , and belief in pious and impious witchcraft . By thus becoming conscious , history will make good its jurisd iction over an incomparably wider realm of human interests than it is likely o r possible that the science should master otherwise . The need o f attaining clear conceptions touching our

its science and problem, every instructor who has to introduce youth into the study will feel , just as I have , though others will have found o u t how to satisfy it in a different manner . I for my part was urged to such investigations especially by a sor t o f questions which are usually passed over because in our daily experience they seem to have been solved long a go .

- — The political events of to day, to morrow belong to

o f to - f . o history The business transaction day, if con sequence enough , takes rank after a generation , as a

is a fi a ir piece of history . How it that these mere s tur n 1 into history ? What criterion is to determine whether they become hi story o r n o t ? The contract o f purchase — - in d ivid u a lS concluded to day between private , is it the thousand years that transforms it into an historical document ? Every o n e declares history to be an important means of culture and in the education o f to - day it certainly

1 Geschdfte in to Geschi chte . 6 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

? is a weighty element . But why is it thus In what form ? Did not history render the same service to the Greeks o f the age o f Pericles ? T o be sure the form — was different them probably that o f the Homeric

S ongs . And how can national poems have had to Greeks and to Germany under the H o h e n sta u ffe n the educational value o f historical instruction ?

O bservation of the present teaches us how , from ff i ff di erent points of v ew , every matter of fact is di er ently apprehended , described and connected with others ; how every transaction in private as well as in public life receives explanations of the m ost various kinds . A man who judges carefully will find it di fficult to gather o u t o f the plenitude o f utterances

ff a n d so di erent , even a moderately safe permanent picture o f what h a s been done a n d of what has been purposed . Will the correct judgment be any more

so certain to be found after a hundred years , out of the soon lessened mass o f materials ? Does criticism of the sources lead to anything more than the reproduction of vi ews once held ? Does it lead to the ‘ pure fact ? ’ And if such querying is possible as to the objective ’ ? content of history, what becomes of historical truth C a n history be in any sense characterized by truth without being correct ? Are those right who speak of history in general as a fable agreed upon ? A certain b natural feeling , as well as the undou ting and agreeing

f so judgment o all times tells us that it is not , that there is in human things a unity, a truth, a might , which , the greater and more mysterious it is , so much the more challenges the mind to fathom it and to get acquainted with it . 7 PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY .

s Right here another list of questions presented it elf, quest-ions touching the relation o f this potency in his tory to the individual , touching his position between this a n d the moral potencies which bear him o n and

t o - bring him self realization , touching his duties and his highest duty ; considerations leading far beyond the

di u imme ate compass of our study, and of co rse , con vin ci n g u s that the problem by them presented was to be investigated only in its most general connections . Could o n e venture to undertake such investigation with only the circle of information and attainments ’ that grow o u t o f the historian s studies ? Could

i o f these studies presume , as the stud es nature have

so t o s done with Splendid a result, make them elves ? their own foundation O n e thing was clear : that if w the historian , ith his merely historical cognizance of

o f what philosophy, theology, the observation nature ,

. o u t o f etc , have wrought , was to take hold these ffi di cult problems , he must have no inclination to

o w n speculate , but must in his empirical way proceed from the Simple and solid basis o f what has been done and discovered . ’ I found in William vo n Humboldt s investigations i so O the thought wh ch , I believed , pened the way to a sort o f a solution to these problems . He seemed to me i to be for the h storical sciences a Bacon . We cannot ’ o f Speak of a philosophical system Humboldt s , but what the ancient expression ascribes to the greatest of

‘ historians , political understanding and the power o f ’ 1 interpretation, these he possessed in remarkable har

hi hi s mony . His t nking, investigations , likewise the

z I t I t I 1 ' ' 7 a vueo cs Iro h r cx m i 7 (S u va u s e ue vr m 7 n 7 / pun n. 8 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . wonderful knowledge o f the world w o n through that

o f active life of his , led him to a View the world which had its centre of gravity in his o w n strong and thoroughly cultivated sense of the ethical . As he traced o u t the practical and the ideal creations o f the

a c human race , languages in particular, he became qu a in te d with the at once spiritual and sensuous nature th e of race , as well as with the perpetually creative power which , as men mutually impart and receive , belongs to the expression of this nature ; these , the

tw o nature and the power, being the elements in which

so to the moral world , producing , speak , ever new electric currents in ever new polarizations , moves by creating forms and creates forms by moving . It appeared to me possible by the aid o f these thoughts to pierce deeper into the question of our science , to explain its problem and its procedure , and,

o f from a true recognition its nature , to develop in a general way its proper form . In the following paragraphs I have endeavored to d o this . They have grown out of lectures delivered by me upon the E ncyclopedia and Methodology of "O History . My aim has been to give in this utline

t o a general view of the whole subject, and hint at particulars only so far as seemed necessary to make clear the sense and connection .

10 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

s so to ceaseless growth , the sy tem continually making , ’ 1 to t . speak , a contribution i self In those phenomena

o f in which we discover an advance this kind , we take

o f the successive character, the element time , as the

n determining thi g . These we grasp and bring together

as History .

3 .

O T the human eye , only what pertains to man appears

o f io to partake this constant upward and onward mot n ,

o f and this , such motion appears to be the essence and

en sem ble o f the business . The this restless progress

upward is the moral world . O nly to this does the ex i pression History find ts full application .

4 .

The science of History is the result o f empirical

’

im o ra . perception , experience and investigation, p All empirical knowledge depends upon the specific energy

o f o f o f the nerves sense , through the excitation which ’ ‘ o f the mind receives , not images but signs things

without , which signs this excitation has brought before

it . Thus it develops for itself systems of signs , in which the correspondin g external things present them f t o . selves to i , constituting a world ideas In these

the mind, continually correcting , enlarging and build

i ts o f ing up world, finds itself in possession the

is so a s external world , that , far it can and must possess this in order to grasp it, and, by knowledge , will and formative power, rule it .

’ 1 - b A s o e d e a n i m a II 5 7 . A e n II a t the m aca w e is a in . ri t tl , , , , pp dix

" m c o n O f 1 a n d 2 e n d O f this Ou tlin e is an a plifi a ti he re . R F P INCIPLES O HISTORY . 11

§ 5 . All empirical investigation governs itself according

to the data to which it is directed , and it can only direct itself to such data a s are immediately present to f it and susceptible o being cognized through the senses .

fo r n o t The data historical investigation are past things ,

fo r i these have d sappeared, but things which are still

n o w o f present here and , whether recollections what

w a s o r o f done , remnants things that have existed and

of events that have occurred .

6 .

E very p o int in the present is one which h a s come to

n be . That which it was and the man er whereby it — be . S came to , these have passed away till , ideally

is . O its past character yet present in it nly ideally,

however, as faded traces and suppressed gleams .

n Apart from knowledge these are as if they existed o t .

O hi o f nly searc ng vision , the insight investigation , is

able to resuscitate them to a new life , and thus cause

to n o f light Shine back i to the empty darkness the past . ' is n o t Yet what becomes clear past events as past .

These exist no longer . I t is so much o f those past

things as still abides in the now and the here . These quickened traces o f past things stand to u s in the

o f n stead their originals , mentally co stituting the

‘ ’ present o f those originals .

The finite mind possesses only the now and the here . But it enlarges for itself this poverty—stricken

o f t o f narrowness its exis ence , forward by means its

s o f willing and its hopes , backward through the fullnes I H 1 2 C A NN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

’ its . memories Thus , ideally locking together in itself both the future and the past, it possesses an experience analogous to eternity . The mind illuminates its

th e o o f present with vision and kn wledge past e vents , which yet have neither existence nor duration save in and through the mind itself . Memory , that mother of ’ 1 w h o Muses , shapes all things , creates for it the forms and the materials fo r a world which is in the truest ’ sense the mind s o w n .

§ 7 .

It is only the traces which m a n h a s left only what

’ ’ s h a s man s hand and man mind touched , formed,

t u s . s amped, that thus lights up before afresh As he

o n i n goes fixing imprints and creating form and order, every such utterance the human being brings into

o f h is existence an expression of his indi vidual nature , ’ o f I . Whatever residue such human expressions and imprints is anywise , anywhere , present to us , that speaks t o u s and we can understand it .

— T H E HI ST ORIC AL M ET HOD . I I .

8 s . The m ethod of historical investigation i s determined by the morphological character of its material . The essence o f historical method is u n d e rsta n d in g by means

Of i n vestiga ti on .

g 9 .

The possibility o f t his understanding arises from the kinship o f our nature with that o f the utterances lying

’ ’ 1 r' o e ' d v v JEsch lu s P m t 60 u y d n d vr wv o va o . o e he u s 4 y mm n p fi p p y n y . r , 1 8 PRINCIPLES O F HISTORY .

before us as historical material . A further condition ’ o f this possibility is the fact that man s nature , at once

o n e o f sensuous and Spiritual , speaks forth every its inner processes in some form apprehensible by the senses , mirrors these inner processes , indeed, in every

. O n utterance being perceived , the utterance , by pro j e ctin g itself into the inner experience of the per

ci i e n t . o n p , calls forth the same inner process Thus , hearing the cry of anguish we have a sense of the anguish felt by him who cries . Animals , plants and the things of the inorganic world are understood by us only in part, only in a certain way, in certain relations , namely those wherein these things seem to us to corre spo n d to categories of our thinking . Those things

fo r n o have us individual , at least no personal , exist ence . Inasmuch as we seize and understand them only

n o t se t in the relations named, we do scruple to them at

as naught to their individual existences , to dismember

u se . and destroy them , to and consume them With

o n human beings , the other hand, with human utter a n ce s and creations , we have and feel that we have an ’ essential kinship and reciprocity of nature : every ‘ I di enclosed in itself, yet each in its utterances sclosing itself to every other .

10 . The individual utterance is understood as a Simple

i o f speak ng forth the inner nature , involving possibility o f inference backward to that inner nature . This

o f inner nature . offering this utterance in the way a

o n Specimen , is understood as a central force , in itself e hi and the same , yet declaring its nature in t s single

o f ff voice , as in every one its external e orts and expres 14 TO H A NN V GUSTA DROYSEN .

Sions . The individual is understood in the total , and the total from the individual .

The person who understands , because he like him ’ ‘ I whom he has to understand , is an , a totality in him ’ o u t self, fills for himself the other s totality from the indi vidual utterance and the individual utterance from ’ u the other s totality . The process of nderstanding is as truly synthetic as analytic , as truly inductive as deductive .

1 1 .

From the logical mechanism o f the understanding process there is to be distinguished the act o f the faculty of understanding . This act results , under the conditions above explained , as an immediate intuition , wherein soul blends with soul , creatively, after the f manner o conception in co ition .

12 s .

The human being is , in essential nature , a totality in himself, but realizes this character only in understand d ing others and being un erstood by them, in the moral

hi . partners ps of family, people , state , religion , etc

i n The individual s o ly relatively a totality . He understands and is understood only a s a specimen and expression of the partnerships whose member he is and in whose essence and development he has part, him self being but an expression - o f this essence and development .

o f The combined influence times , peoples , states , i n . s o f religio s , etc , only a sort of an expression the absolute totality, whose reality we instinctivelysurmise and believe in because it comes before us in o u r O ogito PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 15

’ e r o sa m a s o u r g , that is , the certainty of own personal

a s n being , and the most i dubitable fact which we can

know .

13 . The false alternative between the materialistic and the idealistic view o f the world reconciles itself in the

m to historical , na ely in the view which the moral world leads u s for the essence of the moral world resides in

e ve r m o m e n t the fact that in it at y _ the contrast spoken

o f o to its rec nciles itself in order own renewal , renews

itself in order to its own rec o nciliation .

4 s 1 . According to the objects and according to the nature

of human thinking, the three possible scientific methods

: are the speculative , philosophically or theologically,

a n d . is the physical , the historical Their essence to

o u t . O ld find , to explain , to understand Hence the

: L E canon of the sciences ogic , Physics , thics , which

n o t o n e o f are three ways to goal , but the three sides a

prism , through which the human eye , if it will , may,

in colored reflection , catch foregleams of the eternal

light whose direct splendor it would n o t be able to bear .

15 .

The moral world, ceaselessly moved by many ends , and finally, so we instinctively surmise and believe , by

o f the supreme end, is in a state restless development ‘ O o n and of internal elevation and growth, n and , as ’ 1 man eternalizes himself . Considered in the successive character of these its movements the moral world pre

1 ’ ’ — X V 84 . Ad "o ra cm e t n o m s e te rn a . Da n e I n e rn o a m a n o t , f , , 1 6 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

sents itself to us as Histo ry . With every advancing

step in this development and growth , the historical

understanding becomes wider and deeper . History ,

is that is , better understood and itself understands

b t r . i e te The knowledge o f History is History itself .

o n Restlessly working , it cannot but deepen its investi

a i n g t o s and broaden its circle o f vision . Historical things have their truth in the moral forces

‘ s as natural things have theirs in the natural law ,

mechanical , physical , chemical , etc . Historical things

are the perpetual actualization o f these moral forces .

thin k s e e To historically , means to their truth in the

actualities resulting from that moral energy .

— " I I I TH E PROB LEM O F T HI S OU TL INE .

1 6 .

This H isto rik o r discussion o f the Principles o f

o f History is not an encyclopedia the historical sciences ,

o r o f a philosophy or theology history, or a physics of

the historical world . Least of all is it a discipline for

the artistic composition of history . It must se t its own

is o f problem , which to be an organon historical thinking

and investigation .

g 17 .

Canvass the history of this problem from Th u cyd id e s

P l o f and o ybi Ii s to Jean Bod in and Lessing . The kernel ’ the question is in William vo n Humboldt s I n tro d u ction ’ t t a w — ‘ o he K i la n gu age . See also Ge rvin u s s Principles ’ ’ ’ o f I iI sto rik C ‘ History [ ] , omte s Positive Philosophy, ' ’ ’ S ch affl e s ‘ S t L S ructure and ife of the ocial Body , etc .

18 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

I . INV ENTION .

20 .

The point o f departure in investigation is historical interrogation . Invention puts us in possession o f the ’

w . materials for historical ork It is the miner s art , that d of finding and bringing to the light , the undergroun ’ 1 work .

2 1 . Historical material is partly what is still immediately

to present , hailing from the times which we are seeking understand (Remains) , partly whatever ideas human o f d beings have obtained those times , an transmitted to

S o be remembered ( ources) , partly things wherein b th these forms of material are combined (Monuments) .

2 2 s . Amid the abundance of historical Remains may be di stinguished

a W o rk s wh o se is ( ) _ form due to human agency ,

. a s o artistic , technical etc , r ads , plats of leveled ground , and the like . (6) C onditions constituting what we have spoken ’ o f a s . the moral partnerships , viz , customs and usages , laws , political and ecclesiastical ordinances , and the like .

o f (0 ) Whatever sets forth thoughts , items knowl

o r o f a s hilo so edge , intellectual processes any kind, p

h e m e s . p , literatures , mythological beliefs , etc , also historical works as products o f their time .

1 u Ni e b hr . PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 1 9

relating to business , as correspondence ,

o f business bills , archives of all sorts , and other things

this nature .

2 3 . Remains in the creation of which the purpose of o' serving the memory co perated with other aims , such

' a s . . ornaments , practical utility, etc , are Monuments " These include documents to certify to posterity when a

o f wa s piece work concluded , likewise all kinds of

o f works art , inscriptions , medals , and in a certain

sense , coins . Finally comes in every kind of marking

by means of monuments , even the stone landmark , and

a s a s . things insignificant titles , arms , and names

2 s 4 . Under S ources belong past events as human under t 'sta ii di n h a s g apprehended them , shaped them to itself

and passed them over to the service of the memory . E so very recollection of the past , long as it is not

a externally fixed, as in verses , in sacred formul e , or in

o f written composition some kind , partakes the life and the transformation o f the C ircle of ideas belonging

to those who cherish it . Tradi tion in the Church of

Rome illustrates this . The credibility of oral tradition l I s only quantitatively different from that of written . O u r S ources may grasp the subject either in a pre

' dominantly subjective way, or in the closest possible i ’ ‘ ‘ . su b accord with the facts , pragmatically To the je ctive order belong partly such S ources as present a View clouded by a superabundance o f phantasy or o f

ds . h feeling , like legen , historical lyrics , etc , partly suc as use historical matter of fact only as material for 20 I O H A NN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

o f ff r considerations and arguments a di erent natu e , as speeches in court, parliament , etc . , documents relating to public law , etc . The Prophets , Dante , Aristophanes ,

. S . etc , also illustrate ources of this kind ’ Within the ‘ pragmatic order of S ources we may d is tin u ish g those which mostly impart only isolated facts , from those which classify more . In addition to this difference the aim with which the facts were a ppre hended will help to determine the meaning o f our

S ources . The apprehension will obviously vary accord ’ ing a s it was intended to aid the author s own memory

fo r o n e o r o r fo r or others , for person , a few, all ,

o r fo r contemporaries posterity , for instruction , for

f r o r o . entertainment , purposes of business ’ ‘ The so - called Derived S ources are views of other

’ men s views .

2 5 . The three Species of materials will vary in relative value according to the purpose for which the investiga

. E tor is to use them ven the very best give him , so to speak , only polarized light . By the use of what we have termed Remains , he may with entire certainty penetrate to minor data, yes , even to the very minutest . The keener his Sight in fathoming these deeps the more will

. o f he get out of them However, data this class form but accidental and scattered fragments . In consequence o f the nature of its materials e m piri cal inquiry in history must dispense with the great helps which corresponding study in th e physical world possesses in observation and experiment . Still the fact that all sorts o f experiments are yet making in the d h moral world and un er the most thoroug observation , PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 2 1 compensates historical investigation through the clear i ‘ ing up of ts obscure x by means o f analogies .

2 6 . Historical Interrogation results in our ascertaining S what Remains , Monuments and ources are to be ’ ‘ f brought forward for the reply . It is the art o his ’ to rica l ‘ investigation t o extend and complete the historical material ; and especially : (a ) by search and

o f d b discovery, as a iviner ; ( ) by combination , which , putting things in their proper places , makes into mate rial for history that which appears not to be such f’ witness A . Kirchof s History of the Greek alphabet ; c ( ) by analogy, which casts light upon the subject through Similarities of result under Similar conditions

d o f ( ) by hypothesis , proof which is evidence for the event in question . The last would be illustrated by the level ground plats of the ancient German villages f as expressions o order in the primitive community .

2 7 .

’ ‘ Invention , like each of the parts of Historical

co Method yet to be named , presupposes the continual

o n operation o f the others . For every e of them all historical knowledge and all other related knowledge , whether philological or pertaining to general facts , serves as an auxiliary science .

M . II . C RITI C IS

2 8 .

’ Criticism does not seek ‘ the exact historical fact ;

so - for every called historical fact , apart from the means 2 2 JOHANN GUST AV DROYSEN .

leading thereto , and the connections , conditions and

is purposes which were active at the same time , a com plex of acts of will , often many , helping and hinder ing , and acts of will which , as such , passed away with

t o the time which they belonged , and lie before us now only either in the remnants o f contemporary and

o r a s related transformations and occurrences , made known in the views and recollections o f men .

2 9 . The task o f C riticism is to determine what relation the material still before u s bears to the acts o f will whereof it testifies . The forms o f the criticism are determined by the relation which the material t o be investigated bears to those acts o f will which gave it shape .

30 .

(a ) We must inquire whether the material actually is what it is taken to be or pretends to be . Reply to this question is given by ‘ criticism o f its genuine ’ o f is ness . Proof ungenuineness complete when the

o r o f is . time , the origin the aim the falsification proved The thing so proved ungenuine may serve in some other direction as weighty historical material . O n e application of the criticism of genuineness in reference to a given department is Diplomatics . The business of this branch is the testing Of the genuineness of records and other pieces of writing by outward Signs , ’ — ‘ in contrast with the so called higher criticism .

1 g 3 . (b) We must also inquire whether the material has maintained its original and pretended character 2 PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 3

n o t unchanged, or, if , what changes are to be recognized as having occurred in it and a s therefore to be left o u t

in of account . This question is answered the criticism ’ ‘ di ro o f earlier and later forms , known as acritical p 3 ce d u re . This procedure usually results in the pointing ’ ‘ o u t o f a so - called development from the first form to the form before u s . In such a demonstration the separated parts are mutually explanatory and co n firm a to ry [Ferdinand C hristian Baur] .

32 .

e ( ) We must inquire , still further, whether the di d material , under the circumstances of its origin ,

o r f or could involve all that for which it is , of ers itself

a s o r to be , taken voucher ; whether, immediately at

n o t n o t that time and place , it must have been , or may even have proposed to be , correct only partially, relatively and in a certain way . This question finds ’ o f r answer in the criticism correctness o validity . This form of criticism must ask 1 ( ) Whether, judged by human experience , the fact stated is in itself possible . (2 ) Whether it is possible considering the alleged conditions and circumstances .

In both these cases the criticism measures , in reference

o r to the objects events in question , both the given view

a nd f itself also the correctness o this view . (3) Whether any beclouding of vision is recognizable

o r t o f in the motives , aims personal rela ions the author o f the account . (4) Whether incorrectness was unavoidable through insufficiency of the means for observation and forming j udgment . 24 N JOHAN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

h o f 3 In eac these cases , ( ) and criticism gauges both the view arrived at and its correctness , in the light o f the process and of the instrumentality by which the view w a s arrived at . 33 s .

The application o f the criticism of correctness to

’ ‘ - S ources is technically called S ource criticism . If this is understood only in the sense Of pointing o u t how o n e author has used another, it is only an occasional means ,

n e its o among others , business being to present o r

o r prepare demonstration of correctness incorrectness . The Criticism o f S ources distinguishes

1 - u h a s ( ) What a given source doc ment grasped , a s reproduced , and now presents , events , transactions , original words , earlier sources , etc .

(2) What general coloring this source - document received from the circle of ideas prevalent at the time its and place of origin , for instance the demonological

en n u i coloring of the fifteenth century, or the , as of

e i o n i . p g , characterizing the Alexandrian period (3) What individ ual complexion the author himself o f his has in virtue culture , his character, some special

o r . tendency, the like § 34

The primitive ‘ source does n o t consist in the dreary maze of contemporary opinions , accounts , reports . This is only the daily repeated atmospheric process o f ascending and self- precipitating vapors from which the true S ources o r Springs are replenished . AS a rule the earliest historical composition respecting an event governs all subsequent tradition . That case

6 2 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . dition a s renders possible a relatively safe a n d correct

o view . The conscientiousness which refuses to g

n beyo d the immediate results of criticism , makes the mistake o f resigning all further work with these results to o f 0 11 fancy, instead going to find such rules for this further work a s shall assure i ts correctness .

P III . INTER RETATION .

37 . Beginnings are neither sought by criticism nor de m a n d e d by interpretatio n . In the moral world nothing is without medial antecedents . Yet historical investi

a ti o n o f g does not propose to explain , in the sense f deriving, as mere ef ects and developments , the latter from the earlier, or phenomena from laws . If the i logical necessity of the later lay in the earl er , then , instead of the moral world , there would be something

o f analogous to eternal matter and the changes matter . Were the life o f Histo ry only a reproduction o f what i s permanently identical with itself, it would be void o f freedom and responsibility, without moral content and only of an organic nature . The essence of interpreta tion lies in seeing realities in past events , realities with that certain plenitude of conditions which they must have had in order that they might become realities .

38 .

As in walking are united (a ) the mechanism of the b o f moving limbs , ( ) the tension the muscles according o r n to the evenness unevenness , smoothness , hard ess ,

. 0 w etc , of the ground , ( ) the will hich moves the body , PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 2 7 and (d ) the purpose which leads the person who wills so to walk, criticism completes itself from four points

o f o n f o f View . The exaltation any e o these as by itself essentially or exclusively determi native of va lidit o f y, is the source many theoretical and practical errors . It is doctrinaire

39 s . (a ) Pragmatic interpretation takes up the body o f criticised facts according to the causal nexus naturally

di r bin ng together the original e vents in their cou se , in — o rder to re construct this course of events as it once ’ ‘ i actually w a s . By body of criticised facts s meant those remains and those views o f the once actual course o f events which have been verified and arranged in the work o f criticism . In case of plentiful ma terial the

Simple demonstrative procedure is sufficient . If the

o f material is defective , the nature the thing as made known t o us from similar cas es leads us to apply analogy, viz . , a comparison between the known quantity ’ ‘ and the x in question . The analogy between the ’ ’ ‘ x s so two far as they are mutually supplementary, yields th e ‘ comparative procedure The supposition o f a connection in which the matter possessed by u s only in fragments di splays itself as fitting into the ’ ‘ o f i curve the assumed connection , thus confirm ng ’ ‘ itself visibly, as it were , is hypothesis .

4 s 0 .

’ (b) The ‘ interpretation of the conditions proceeds upon the truth that we must think the conditions which made the original fact possible and possible so and so , 28 J OHANN GUSTA V D R OYSEN .

as a part of the fact itself, and hence as certain to enter, however fragmentarily , into all views and rem

. n o nants of the fact Thus the position , in itself t

o f o f beautiful , the Borghese gladiator reveals the line

fo r the pediment which the statue was intended .

to a i n n u m The conditions relating sp ce , omitting e r d able insignificant ones , receive eluci ation from details like the geography of a theatre O f war and o f a battle ’ o f field , the position a country s natural boundaries ,

o f E s the valley formation gypt , the mar hes upon the

S . North ea, and many more The conditions of time comprise that already present state o f things into which the event in question made its entry , and the contemporary events which had a more or less determinative effect up o n it .

A third order of conditions is found in the means ,

o f material and moral , by which the course things was rendered possible and actual . The material means i n o o o f n lude the manif ld sorts substa ces and instruments , and along with these an immeasurable field of techno ’ logical interpretation , which thus far remains almost f untouched . The moral means include the passions o

o f o r men , the moods the masses , the prejudices views governing them , etc . The general , the statesman , the w O artist, who ishes to perate upon the masses and

his through them , has character in that same measure determined by them .

g 4 1 .

’ (c) ‘ Psychological interpretation seeks in the

o f . S given fact , the acts will which produced it uch interpretation may take cognizance of the subject who

d o f his so wille , and of the energy volition far as this PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 29

o f o f influenced the course events under survey, and

s o his intellectual force far as this determined his will . But neithe r did the subject of the volition fully ex

o n e n haust himself in this turn of thi gs , nor did that which came t o pass come to pass merely through the ’ f r strength o this one man s will o intelligence . It is neither the pure nor the entire expression o f h is per

so n a lity . Personality as such do es n o t find in History the tests

a o r of its value , in what it undert kes , does suffers i f . s o w there To it reserved a circle its own , herein ,

o r in o r however poor rich gifts it may be , significant

s f o r h a s in ignificant in respect to e fects results , it to do

o f its with itself and its God , a circle own , wherein is

o f its the truest source willing and existence , where that takes place which justifies or condemns it before

o i itself and before Go d . His conscience ( Gei ssen ) is the most certain (ge wi sse ste ) thing which the individual possesses ; it is the truth of his existence . Into this sanctuary the ken of investigation does not press .

Human being understands human being, but only ’ in an external way ; each perceives the other s act , speech , mien , yet always only this one deed or o

feature , this Single element . Prove that I under i stand my fellow rightly or entirely I cannot . It s t ano her thing for a friend to believe in his friend ; or,

o f in a case love , for the one party to hold fast to the ’ ’ other s image as that other s true self : ‘ Thou must ’ fi be so for so I understand thee . That sort of co n dence is the secret of all education . S The poets , as hakspere , develop the course of events which they present, from the characters of certain 8 0 J OHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

. 0 11 to persons They poetize, each event a psychological ’ interpretation . But in actual facts effects come through other elements than personalities . Things / o f o o d Or take their course in spite the will , g bad, of those through whom they come to pass . The con ti n u it its its y of History, work and advance , lies in the

moral potencies, In these potencies all have hi s . part, each in place Through them , mediately, even the meanest and poorest participates in the life o f hi History . But even the most ghly endowed man ,

o f is strongest will and most exalted in power, only an

of element in this movement the moral potencies , though always , in his place , specially characteristic and efficient . In this réle and in this only does historical ’ investigation View any man , not for his person s sake but o n account o f his position o r work in this or that

o f one among the moral potencies , on account the idea whose bearer he was . 42 S .

’ ‘ (d ) The i n te rp re ta t-ion Of ideas fills up the gap which psychological interpretation leaves . Fo r the individual builds a world for himself in that measure in which he has part in the moral potencies . And the more diligently and successfully he builds , in his place

o f and for the brief Space his life , the more has he furthered those partnerships in which he lived and which lived in him ; and the more has he o n his part

' se rve d th e moral potencies which survive him . With

n o t out them man were man ; but they develop , grow

o f o f and rise only in the united work men , peoples , of times , only in the progressive history whose develop ment and growth is their unfolding . 81 PR I NCIPLES OF HISTORY .

The ethical ‘ system o f a n y period is only the grasp ing a n d bringing together of the ethical life thus far unfolded ; only an attempt to su m it up and speak it out according to its theoretical con tent . Every period is a complex o f the o u tw o rk i n gs o f all

s v the moral potencie , however de eloped or rudimentary

o n their unf ldi g may be , however much the higher may

a s S still be veiled in the lower, when the tate existed in the form o f the family .

43 .

In the great diversity o f the moral spheres wherein

m ds human life takes root and oves , investigation fin the list of questions with which it approaches any given historical material in order to interpret it as to its ethical content .

We can proceed in either of two ways .

a O ( ) We may take a statical view, bserving in the materials before us the state o f the moral formations as they existed at the time in question and up to that time . In this way we get the ethical horizon withi n which stood everything that w a s and w as done at this period among this people . We thus secure the measure for every individual process within thi s period among this people .

6 O r ( ) , dynamically, we may seek and seize the progressive elements in the given state of moral forma tions , and by putting these into relation with that h state to which they have led in acting t emselves out, catch sight o f the movement at that period and among

o f that people , the striving and struggling men , their victories and defeats . 2 A N A 8 JOH N GUST V DROYSEN .

44 s .

is In such movement it now this , now that , among the moral potencies , which takes the lead , and it often seems as if this leading potency were alone involved, everything else being subordinate to it . As the

o f i n fl a m e s thought this time , this people , this man , it ’ men s minds and leads , dominates and impels society to take a step essentially forward . The thought o r the complex o f thoughts which

o u t interpretation points in any course of events , is to u s the truth o f that course o f events . The course o f

is f h o f events to us the ef ect, t e phenomenal form , this thought . O u r methodical reproduction of the facts must by its correctness enable the thought to make good its char

o f acter as underlying the course events , and the course o f events to justify the thought . For that thought is C to us true to which an existence orresponds , and that existence true which corresponds to a thought .

R I F Y T H E DO C T NE O S S TEM .

4 5 .

The realm o f historical method is the cosmos o f the moral world . The moral world as it sweeps restlessly on from past to future every moment forms an endless

O . maze f affairs , circumstances , interests , and conflicts

o f There are manifold points view , technical , legal , l religious , political , and the ike , from which this moral scene can be considered and scientifically handled .

34 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . himself 4 2) in these moral partnerships and using

his l - them as helps , builds litt e world , the bee cell of ’ ‘ i his I . Each of these cells s conditioned and su p t d por ed by its neighbor, and in turn con itions and supports . All together they form a restlessly growing building , conditioned and supported by the existence

o f o f . its minute , yes , its minutest parts

48 s .

By this building and forming process in its individu als , developing as it works , humanity creates the cosmos of the moral world . Without the restless growth and

o f de velopment its moral partnerships , that is , without

History , its work would be like a mountain of infusoria h f . . t e o Shells Without consciousness continuity, viz , without History, its work would be as barren as a plain

o f . of sand , the sport the winds Without the conscious

o f o f h ness ends and the highest end, without t e

di o f Theo cy History , its continuity would be a mere

n . motio in a circle , repeating itself

49 .

The moral world is to be considered historically

m . I . In relation to the Matter wherein it creates for s

II . In relation to the Forms into which it shapes itself .

II I . In relation to the Workers through whom it builds itself up .

I V . In relation to the Ends which realize themselves in its movement . PRI NCIPLES OF HISTORY . 35

L A THE WORK O F HISTORY I N RELATION

T I T S K ND F M A E O I S O TT R .

g 50 . The Matter for the work of History comprises what nature originally gave and what History itself ha s

evolved . Both these are at once the condition and the

o f its means this work , at once business and its limit

n ation . The ceaseless enlargeme t of the matter for the work is the measure o f the enlargement of the

work itself .

5 1 .

a AS u n a tu r e u ( ) man st dies and comprehends , r les

and transforms nature to serve human ends , the work

u of History lifts nature p into the moral sphere , and

o f Spreads abroad over the circle the earth the signs ,

the a erq n o bilis of hu man will and power . Such di signs are scoveries , inventions , improvements , agri

culture , mining , the training and breeding of animals , changes produced in countries and landscapes by the

transmigration of plants and animals , the circle of the

t o sciences , and many others parallel each of those

named .

s 52 .

(b) The work o f History causes the mere creature

man , by discovering in the sweat of his brow what he

is designed to be , to realize this design and to discover

u t o f e n u s hom o it by realizing it . O the mere g it thus

makes the historical man , which means the moral man .

o Amplification o f this would involve Anthrop logy, 36 i o H A NN GUSTAV DR O Ys EN .

E o f thnography, the question races and of the crossing

o f ra s o . ces , the propagation of the human race , and on

s 53 .

0 o ( ) Those human formations which have c me to be , resulting from the work and circumstances of History are constantly becoming in their turn norm to that

to . work , as well as impulse and means new work

Hence the value o f statistics . Hence the historian

. co m must study poverty , commerce , etc , and all that

- prises the so called history o f civilization .

54 S . (d ) O u t of the purposes of men and the ardor o r passion with which they surrender to these , History forms her incentives and impelling forces , and produces her massive effects . National spirit , particularism,

so . fanaticism , rivalries and on illustrate this

II —THE ORK O F HI STORY I N REL ATION . W

T M T O I S FOR S .

5 5 .

The Forms in which th e work of History moves o n h are the moral partnerships , w ose types , as moral poten

s . cies , are in the heart and conscience of human being ‘ He who cannot enter into community o r wh o o n

o f his - su ffici e n c is account self y needs nothing, either a brute or a God ’ 1 In the moral potencies lies the

’ ’ 1 ‘ ’ O 6? M7 Ovvdne vo s Ko wwvei v ii 11 77681: OGOILGVO S Oi a rn dpx e ca v i} 017,0 1o

5 Get n - s l t s I 12 s éo . o e Po i ic 1 . } Ari t tl , , , PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 37

o f h a s ed ucating might History, and every one part in the life o f History in the measure in which he has part in them Human relations are moral in the measure in which they educate ; and they educate in th e measure in which the moral element in them is mighty .

E o f its ach these moral potencies creates Sphere , its

fo r world itself, Shut up in itself, and yet making the demand on every man to come forward with it and labor on its behalf, at the same time setting in activity and working out in it his own moral worth .

o f o f The individual is not an atom humanity, one the molecules which laid together in infinite number would produce humanity . He belongs to his family, people ,

i ‘ a . s s state , etc , a living member only through them , i ’ the hand separate from the body s no longer a hand . The doctrine of native human rights goes beyond its

is n own premises . It forgets that there o right without duty, and that a thousand kinds of obligations are fulfilled toward every individual before he himself h a s been able to acquire a right .

56 .

The partnerships , in accordance with the nature of m the hu an being, spring either from a natural need , or

o n e . from an ideal , or partly from each As moral potencies they have a development and a history as well in themselves a s in relation to other potencies and to everything else .

5 7 .

’ ‘ h is A . In the natural partnerships that whic natural has to be made moral by means of a primary 3 8 J OHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

o f . process will , by means of love , fidelity, duty etc The fact that among men a partnership o f soul issues d from a natural nee , and from mere impulse a life of

o volition and obligation and a permanent b nd , dis tin gu ish e s the human being from the lower creatures .

58 s .

a T H E F . ( ) AMILY Here , in the narrowest Space , d in the forms lowest down towar s the creature , are

su b found the strongest moral ties , the deepest social structures . Under this rubric consider, with much

o f else , the gradations marriage up to monogamy,

so - paternal authority , the family hearth , called patri

- archal government , and blood vengeance .

59 .

6 T H E N D — H r co me i n t o ( ) EIGHBORHOO e e , View the first d evelopments o f friction in the spatial colloca tion of men , involving the foundation of the village community as a great family . Consider the elders ,

o f the constituency the community, the various plots of land .

60 .

(c) T H E TRIBE . Here we have a relationship ’ ‘ 1 ‘ not by nature but by convention , by an appetency ’ 2 a s Dicee a rch u s . for the union , says Notice the tribal

1 ’ No t (prio n bu t Oéo a . 2 ’ 1r 60c T vvéoo v Pa o n n t o th e m ss e n in Dro se n s p fis a . rtly w i g i p lli g , y e f o n e o f e m e se e e o s ca u se th e a n s a o m u c t xt , o th , th Gr k w rd d tr l t r h

e e fo r th e ss a o n o f c h e is n o t a e n e e d t p rpl xity , di ip ti whi h littl i d bt o th e a cco m s e H e e n s A n o G e e n Es o f P o n T e pli h d ll i t , r ld r , q , r vid e ce . h y a re fro m a fra gm e n t o f Dicae a rch u s ha n d e d d o w n by Ste pha n u s o f

B z a n u m a n d a re e n C a o u s Mu lle ru s Fr y ti , giv by r l , a gm en ta B isto ri l 2 39 e ca u m Gree ca r u m vo . . a n co u m n 0 r , ii , p , l ft h d l , § , a s fo ll o ws 39 PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY .

en tilici a sa cr a hero , the g , racial and clan formations ,

co n a tio n e s e t ro in u ita te s . g p p q , battles and cleavages

6 1 s . — (d ) T H E PEOPLE W e li a ve h e re to study com m o n w e a lth s and religions as instituted by nature , the

‘ n fix e d n e ss m o eth ic age of the world , the and the ’ bilit o f y of peoples types , in fact the whole subject

so - o f a n d o f the called comparative psychology peoples , ’ ‘ o f . Demology, including the principle nationality

62 .

’ I n ‘ o f B . the ideal partnerships it is the task the spiritual nature to find expression fo r itself and to pass over into the sphere of actual things , that thus it may be capable of being perceived and understood , becoming a bond between spirits , a common treasure .

63 .

L - l (a ) SPEECH AND THE ANGUAGES . A l thinking is h a s Speaking , moving in forms which language evolved even when carrying these further . Vocal

o f d imitation is not mere mimicry soun , but a trans

" lation o f perceptions into vocal expression . T ace the

o f successive stages linguistic evolution , in multiplicity o f o f forms , complexity syntax , growth of specific

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Mu e e e s t o e a : r ed ) T s O' U VOOO U 7 7 3 1r 6r' e o u e vo év ll r pr f r r d o fi 3 p p y u ns. H e is ta lkin g a b o u t th e tra n sfe ren ce o f a w o m a n fro m o n e phra tria t o a n o e a n d sa s : so a o m e o n t o th e e s e o f co i o n th r , y th t f r rly , wi g d ir ti f a o e a m m u n o f s s e s o siste rs with br th r , diffe re n t co ity a cra wa ta b " s e Mii lle r e e s to m a e th e o m e l e e t o th e e s e fo r li h d . pr f r k f r r y r f r d ir

' ' co i tio n ra the r tha n t o th e tim e o f th e e sta blishm e n t o f th e diffe re n t

T r co m m u n ity o f sa cre d rite s . . 4 0 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

n mea ings to words . Accordingly, by no means does ‘ the life of language cease where the life of History ’

S . S begins ( chleicher) tudy sound and writing , also

f o f - the dif erences thought activity in languages , with phonetic writing and pictorial or ophthalmic languages .

4 6 . — (6) THE B EAUTI F UL AND THE ARTS Artistic

C n imitation is no mere opying , mirrori g , or echo , but

o f u the reproduction an impression made pon the soul , sometimes even to the mistaking of o n e sense for a n

d a n se u se . other, as the dances the Spring Mark the

o f o f ideal , and also the agreeableness the imitation it

(Rumohr) . The technical and the musical also fall here .

6 5 . — (0 ) THE TRUE AND THE S C I EN C ES Canvass sci e n tifi c truth , the bearing of methods , the nature of s o f o f o f kepticism , doctrine , hypothesis , Nominalism a nd Realism .

66 . — (d ) THE S ACRED AND R ELIGIONS . Every relig i o n is a n expression of the need and helplessness o f

t o finite being , and of the need it has know itself at the same time as enclosed in and with an infinite Being .

o f o u r It is an attempted expression feeling after God, of o u r confidence of sa n ctifica tio n and salvation through

o f o u r o f E Abso him , certainty the ternal , Perfect , and lute . Hence faith and worship , religion and theology, and the sacred history involved in every religion .

4 2 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

Gauge here the reach of the sphere of justice . Justice ’ a s must remain justice , but l o must wish to be nothing

o f else . The modes establishing it , putting it into t operation and extending its scope are to be dwel upon , as also the conception o f the State as just an organ for securing justice (R e chtssta a t) .

1 7 . — (at) THE SPHERE OF A UTHORITY . The State as su m sumes to be the , the united organism , of all the moral partnerships , their common home and harbor, and

S O far their end .

S is o f a n d d e fe n sive The tate the public p wer , o fensive , ‘

I II both at home and abroad . the life o f the State and S of tates , authority is thus the essential thing, in the

is same way as love in the sphere of the family, faith

o f in the sphere the church , the beautiful in the sphere f i . o s of art, etc The law authority valid in the political world like that of gravity in the world o f ’ ‘ i s . matter . A ship a Span long no ship at all O nly the State h a s the d u ty o r the right to be the

. u authority in this sense Wherever j stice , property,

o r society, wherever even the church, the people the

o f community come into the position authority, the nature o f the State is either not yet discovered o r lost i n l degeneracy . Pub ic authority is highest where the

a n d o f fullest labor, health freedom all the moral

n Spheres feed it . The State is o t related to the other moral spheres merely as they to one another , but em braces them all within its o wn Scope . Under its pro te ctio n and laws , under its guardianship and responsi bilit o r y they all move forward to its salvation ruin . 4 PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 3

The State is not the sum of the individuals whom it

s n o r n o r comprehend , does it arise from their will , does it exist o n account o f their will . The more rough the form o f the State the more does force take in it the place o f authority ; so much the poorer is it in freedom . O u t o f the chaos o f mere peoples State upon State crystallizes itself . Their relation to one another moves 1 a d ve rsu s ho stem wte rn a a u cto r ita s e sto on from the , to treaty and peaceful commerce and to international law .

S o f S The Federal tate , the confederation tates , the

o f S - o f S — system tates , the world system tates , these are the ever further reaching wave - circles of this move ment .

III T H E WORK O F HISTORY I N RELATION

T H E T O WORK ERS .

s 72 . All changes and formations in the moral world are

o f wrought by acts will , as in the organic world every thing is formed from cells . Acts o f will are the ffi S e cients even where we say that the tate , the people ,

d . . o the church , etc , this and that

73 . Every human being is a moral subject only thus is

h a s he a human being . He to build for himself his i moral world In every ind vidual , as a per so n ality in part already developed and in part still the

’ 1 b e n o m n As a ga in st a fo re ign e r y o u r title sha ll e ter a l . R a L a w o f th e T we lve T a ble s . 4 4 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

e subject of d velopment , we feel an infinite interest . Witness how insatiably poetry and romance follow o u t and realize this interest . E ven the narrow , the very narrowest o f human

. o relations , strivings , activities , etc , have a pr cess , a

fo r history, and are the persons involved , historical . S o family histories , local histories , special histories . i But over all these and such histories s I I isto ry .

74 .

o f S As this marriage , this work art , this tate , stands

‘ to o f o f f related the idea the family , the beautiful , o ’ S O ‘ authority, does the empirical , ephemeral I 55 ) ’ stand related to that ‘ I in which the philosopher

s thinks , the artist create , the judge judges , the historian ’

. o f investigates The Universal , this I humanity, is l i (ra v' / the subject o f History . History is the v r Ol o f

Humanity, its consciousness .

s 7 5 .

o f i The life pulse historical movement s freedom . ’ The word ‘ freedom has been understood differently h at di fferent times . Primarily it a s only a negative

is meaning . The real meaning of freedom unhindered participation in the life and work o f each o n e o f the

n o t o r moral spheres , being disturbed hampered in one

f . o them by another, and not being excluded from any

E o n e o f o f n o t very them claims the whole every man , seldom to th e total exclusion of the others . In the

o f collision duties , in the constantly painful perform

o f ance these , and in the often crushing result , finite human nature Sinks beneath the postulate o f freedom .

1 ‘ ’ K n o w T hyse lf . 4 PR INCIPLES O F HISTORY . 5

7 6 .

T he problem of the life of History is not t o be sought in the false alternati ve between freedom and

i o f s . s s neces ity Nece sity the opposite arbitrariness , ’ is ‘ — accident, aimlessness ; morality the ought lying

is co m u l in the realm of the good , and not subject to p m l sion . Being free is the opposite of suffering co pu ’ s o f o f o f ‘ I ion , being dead will , destitute ; the moral is the willing of the goo d and is n o t subject to m co pulsion .

i s to The highest freedom li ve for the highest good , fo r the end supreme toward which the move

o f o f H is ment all movements , the science which is

‘ is . o f tory, directed Hence the full royal freedom ’ t he c n moral man (Fi hte) ; he ce the consecrating word , ’ 1 ‘ d o wherefore I crown and mitre thee over thys elf .

g 7 7 .

All movemen t in the historical wo rld goes o n in this

: c o f way Thought , which is the ideal ounterpart things a s a s to they really exist , de velops itself things ought be ; and characters , filled with the thought , bring the things to its standard . The condition o f being thus

m i do s filled with a thought is passion ( ) , which comes under obligation and responsibility in and through

di o ld ‘ action , accor ng to the proverb, act much, suffer ’ 2 much .

7 8 .

Thoughts constitute the criticism o f that which is and yet is not as it should be . Inasmuch a s they may

’ 1 ch to te so t —D n Pu Pe a e co o n o e m it i a . a e a to i o II r p r r r t , rg r , X X V ,

2 ‘ ' — 42 n fi i v 1 . a aim y n a e . ] Esch lu s Cho e ho i 313 p y , p r , . 46 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

to bring conditions their level , then broaden out and harden themselves into accord with custom , conserva tism a n d is obstinacy , new criticism demanded , and thus on and o n .

o f The continuity of this censorship thought , ‘ those who hold the torch passing it from o n e to ’ 1 — another i s what Hegel in his Philosophy o f His ’ ‘ tory calls the Dialectic o f History .

7 9 .

That o u t of the already given conditions new

o u t o f thoughts arise and the thoughts new conditions , — is o f . this the work men The many, indeed , living only for their own interests a n d the business o f the

e present , devot d to petty, ephemeral aims , following habit, the general stream , the nearest suggestions

s o r these work for Hi tory without choice will , in the

- bulk , unfreely . They are the noisy thyrsus bearers in

o d ‘ the festal train of the g , but few are the genuine ’ ’ 2 o n 36 r e n a fi o c Bacchanals [d x p ] . To anticipate the new thoughts in the movement o f the moral world, to express them, to realize them , that

‘ ’ is . historical greatness , giving name to rolling time

T H E W K F I N E A N I V . OR O HI ST ORY R L TIO

T O I T S ENDS .

s 80 . All development and growth is movement toward an end , which is to be fulfilled by the movement, thus

1 ’ ' k k Aa u n afida éx o w e s Ota duxfo vo w d hn o w.

2 r h e e n d th e e n e e e e n ce se e P a o Pha d C Fo t e Gr k , a tir r f r , l t , e o , 69 . 4 PRINC I PLES OF HISTORY . 7

" coming to its realization . In the moral world end

n links itself to end in an infinite chain . Every o e of these ends has primarily its o w n way to go and its o w n

development to further, but at the same time each is a

condition for the others and is conditioned by them . O ften enough they repress , interrupt and contradict

n o e another . O ften appear here and there temporary and partial s teps backwards ; but always only that

so presently, with much stronger advance and with w exalted elasticity, work may be pushed for ard at some

o r new spot in some new form , each form impelling the

rest and impelled by them .

8 1 s .

The highest end, which conditions without being t condi ioned, moving them all , embracing them all , ex

is is plaining them all , that , the supreme end

d i r d be sco ve e . not to _ by empirical investigation

O u t Of the self- consciousness o f o u r I o u t of the pressure o f our moral will and o u r sense o f Obligation out of that longing after the o n e

o u r complete , eternal Being in whom needy , ephemeral and fragmentary existence first feels its lack supplied, there reveals itself to us , in addition to the other ’ ‘ o n e proofs of the existence of God, the which is for us most demonstrative . Evil cleaves to the finite spirit ; it is the Shadow o f its finiteness when it is turned to the light . It belongs in the economy of the historical movement, but only

as what vanishes in the process of things , destined for ’ destruction . 4 8 I H N R C A N GUSTAV D OYSEN .

s 82 . — What their genus is to animals and plants fo r the genus exists ‘ in order th at they may participate in the ’ 1 timeless and the divine that History i s to human beings . Ethics is the doctrine o f the moral potencies and not merely that of the relations of persons to them and in

- . E co a s them thics and History are ordinates , it were fo r History furnishes the genesis o f the ‘ postulate o f ’ ‘ the practical reason , which postulate pure reason

n could o t discover .

83 .

Histo ry is human ity becoming and being conscious f concerning itself . The epochs o History are not the ’ ‘ — life periods o f this I o f Humanity empirically we ’ do not know whether this race ‘ I is growing o ld or

i ts i t n o t renewing youth , only that does continue to ’ w a s i s — be what it or , but they are stages in that ego s

- its self knowledge , knowledge of the world and of

God . 84 g .

According to the number of these traversed stages , grows the expression which man is able to form of the

S E his o f upreme nd , of longing after it , and the way to it . The fact that this expression broadens , enlarges

is o and deepens itself with every stage , the nly thing which can wish to pass fo r the advancement of humanity .

85 .

T o the finite eye beginning and end are veiled, but the direction o f the streaming m ovement it can by in

1 2 l 6 e lo u er' é wo w iron 1 0 0 016 m 7 0 H n x .

5 0 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN .

1 — as Herodotus h a s it i n order that the investigation

a s o f h a s may, it were , give an account what it purposed and attained .

88 .

The forms o f presentation here are n o t d etermined

o f l o r after the analogy epic , yric , dramatic composi 2 o ti n , or by the distribution of time and Space applied ’ 3 S ~ to the acts of human freedom in the tate , or follow

o f ing the accidental medley chronicles , remarkable v events , pictures from antiquity, narrati es of exploits in which the narrator personally took part 4 but they are

fixed by the double nature of the matter investigated .

h o w The investigation which knows , from the present and fro m certain elements given in the present and

it a s s t o o f used by _ hi torical material , produce ideas processes and circumstances pertaining to past events , such inve stigation h a s a double nature it is tw o things i at once . It s the enrichment and deepening of the i i present by clearing up past events perta n ng to it, and it is a clearing up o f these past events by unlocking and

o f unfolding certain remnants of them , remnants facts which were relatively obscure and perhaps exceedingly

so . , even when present S v till , in every case , however fruitful the in estigation

its frOm may have been , ideas arrived at by aid are far reaching the fullness of content , movement , manifold ness o f forms and o f real energy which the o rgin a l things ’ had when they constituted the present . Always ,

e x o si moreover, whatever form may be chosen for the p tion o f the results which investigation h a s brought

1 3 i T l e c sm u . o O d wéd t ts e rvin u s . Wa p ns é . G h th

4 u u e lliu h s s t A l s G s qu i u re bu s a g en d i i n erfu erit i s qu i n a rret. PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 5 1

forth, this exposition will and can correspond only par tia ll o f v y, in a certain way and from certain points iew , to the existence of thi ngs as they appeared when pres

s ent , in the eyes of men then living and active . In thi

s it is analogous to representations by graphic method .

8 g 9 . For a long time historical presentation satisfied itself with taking up views contained in oral and written

re - o r a n d sources , Shaping them more less , recounting them afresh ; and the facts regarded through this illu ’ a s sion transmitted, passed for valid History, much as ’ if the history of Alexander the Great s successors Should

a s pass nothing but a succession of wars , because for sooth our sources for that period speak of scarcely any

O o thing else but wars . nly since we have begun t recognize Monuments and Remains as included in his to rica l material and to avail ourselves of them method ica ll h a s y, the investigation of past events gone deeper . and planted itself o n a firmer foundation . And with the di scovery o f the immeas urable gaps in o u r historical

n o t knowledge , which investigation has yet filled up and perhaps now never can fill up , investigation espies ever wider breadths to the domains with which it h a s

d o . to , and anticipates one day filling them with life The presentation o f the results o f investigation will be more correct the more its C onsciousness of its ignorance equals that of its knowledge

90 .

’ a ( ) Interrogative exposition , to set forth the result " n h a s O in at which investigatio arrived, uses the form f 5 2 A AV JOH NN GUST DROYSEN .

ve stiga tio n itself . This species of exposition is not a re port or minute register of the actual investigation , includ it ing its false steps , errors and resultless measures , but proceeds as if what has at last been di scovered in the

r investigation were now first to be discovered o sought .

is It a general imitation of preceding search or discovery . It may adopt the form o f starting o u t from assumed ignorance with a question o r a dilemma and seeking the

s true answer , as the adv—ocate at the bar proceed when he has to prove the so called subjective fact from the

o r o f objective ; the form taking some certain datum , following up its signs and traces and finding further data at every step until at last the total result stands before us connected and complete . This course cor

o f wh o responds to that the judge , , in conducting an

h as o b inquiry, to infer the subjective fact from the f je ctive . The former o these methods is the more co n vin cin g and demonstrative the latter i s the more r F d amatic and commands the attention better . o r both

t o is so it is essential avoid what natural , introducing a

o f chaos irrelevant topics , casting less light upon the h f h subject than upon t e learned idleness o the aut or .

9 1 .

. ’ (b) ‘ Recitative exposition sets forth the results o f investigation as a course of events in imitation o f its actual development . It takes those results and shapes from them an image o f the genesis o f the historical h facts upon which investigation as been at work . It is ’ only in appearance that the ‘ facts in such a case ’ ‘ speak for themselves , alone , exclusively , objectively .

Without the narrator to make them speak , they would R P INCIPLES OF HISTORY . 5 3

i ’ be dumb . It is not objectivity that s the historian s i best gl o ry . H s justness c o nsists in seeking to under

stand . Recitative exposition is possible in either o f four forms (1) The ‘ pragmatic Shows how an event that was

o r premeditated foreordained by fate , could occur, did

so so occur, and was forced to occur and , through the

movement of things converging upon that point . ’ (2) The ‘ monographic shows how in its develop ment and growth an his torical formation grounded and w deepened itself and rought itself out, brought forth it s . genius , as it were ’ t (3) The ‘ biographical shows how the genius of an his torical personality determined from the beginning

a n d ff o f the action su ering that personality , and also

manifested and attested itself in the same . 4 ( ) The catastrophic shows various forms , tenden

. o n its cies , interests , parties , etc , each with some right

side , engaged in a battle , wherein the higher thought , whose elements or sides display themselves in the

parties contending in the struggle , justifies and fulfils

itself by vanquishing and reconciling them . This Species o f exposition shows how o u t o f the wars o f the

Titans a new world and the new gods came into being .

9 2 . h (c) Didactic exposition seizes the matter that h a s

his been investigated , under the thought of its great

to rica l its continuity, in order to bring out significance

a s f r p instruction o the present . History is not instructive in consequence o f affording patterns for imitation o r h rules for new application , but t rough the fact that we 5 4 V JOHANN GUSTA DROYSEN .

mentally live it over again and live according to it . It is a repertory o f ideas furnishing matter which judg ment must needs put into the crucible in order to ’ 1 purify it .

Finished intellectual training is culture . This is military , legal , theological , if intended for these callings , o r general culture if it has the aim o f exercising and developing in us n o t this or that individual o r technical ability, but the human qualities in general . It may ’ ‘ ‘ then be well termed Humanity, for precisely the i course whereby the human race arr ved at its perfection , every individual human being must have passed over ’

(Lessing) . ’ In the conception o f this author s ‘ Education o f ’ — the Human Race , culture apart from special and technical derives its matter as well as its forms 6 ) from History . And indeed the fact that the great movements of History comple te themselves in a small circle of typical formations , the greatest in a still smaller circle , makes it possible valuably to apply His tory in a didactic way not only to the higher and

to . even the highest needs , but also the elementary Are there forms of historical presentation for this ’ purpose ? Are Herder s presentations o f Universal ’ ’ ’ o r S t vo n M iille r s L History, e zer s , Johannes , eo s , ’ vo n fo r o f or Ranke s , patterns this kind historical composition No o n e will measure the worth of the sermon in the E vangelical Church by printed sermons , still less desire

’ 1 F est u n re erto i re e e c th e (E vr s I V . x vn C r d ri e Gr a t , u e , , p : p ’ d id ées qu i fo u rn it d e la m a tiere qu e le j u gem en t d oi t p a sser a u cre u set ’ ou l é r r p r p u e . PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY . 55 the enforcement o f a canon securing for every Sunday a sermon according to a prescribed pattern . Rather Should every sermon be a new witness to the living evangelical spirit in o u r Church ; and so far a s the d ifi d congregation is e e by them they are so . The correct form o f di dactic exposition is the his to rica l instruction o f youth . Particularly i s this so where it is in the hands o f a teacher who moves in the

s o f a s field History master, with the highest possible

a s freedom and independence an investigator, and by communicating his instruction in ever new Shapes and turns bears witness to the spirit that fills and bears o n the life o f History . ‘ s 93 .

’ (d ) Discussive exposition takes the total resul t of a its the investigation , g thers all rays as in a concave

n o f mirror, and turns them upon some defi ite point present interest, throwing light upon it thus in order 7 to set it clear . It may be some question to be decided,

o f i some pair alternatives wh ch is to yield a choice , or some new phenomenon the understanding o f which is

to . be mastered To everything new, not only political di f facts , but also fresh scoveries , recent ef orts in art and science , etc . , historical elucidation and comparison has to assign its place in the progressive course and sweep

f . t o scie n o human endeavor We here refer criticism ,

tific a o f . , esthetic , the publicist , etc The points to be established in any given di scussion

hi a s lie partly wit n the subject discussed, that this h i i . a s nation , th s power, th s church , etc , had, in virtue

f s . o its historical antecedent , such or such a character

F r o ld ‘ sin t u t su n t a u t n o n sin t o instance , the But 56 JOHANN GUSTAV DROYSEN . also in outside matters simply conditioning and deter mining the subject , and in fact in the whole congeries o f events prevailing at any moment , the elements which give broad determination to its historical connection are to be found , interpreted and applied . The essence o f theory i s that it gathers from the Shaping and elaborating process o f investigation its net

t o results , and imparts them the form of a principle , a lawgiving conclusion , with , indeed , a legitimate claim to this character . The more the theory has failed t o su m o n e — up all the elements , the more sidedly it brings

is into prominence what lies nearest or least active , the more doctrinaire it is . This appears in that the

‘ determinative element, which at any given time led to

i ts the further step , was , with favoring nature , present and operative only for that case , under those circum

fo r e n d . stances , that

E S h a s its o a s very tate own politics , d mestic well as

s n s foreign . Discus ion , eve in the pres , in the council

i s a s of state , and in parliament , reliable in proportion it is historical ruinous in the degree in which it bases

o f itself upon mere doctrines , or upon idols the theater, forum , den and tribe . The practical Significance o f historical studies lies in the fact that they , and they alone , hold up before the

i n S o r ts o w . E tate , or people , army, picture specially is historical study the basis fo r political improvement and

. is culture The statesman the historian in practice ,

able to see into realities , and to do the things that are ’ 1 i . S s to be done The tate , however , but the most complex among the organisms belonging to the moral

1 O e w n x V 11 1» x n b 7 V G VT LU V pn bs 7 65 6 7 40 Ka i n pa x s 66 C C .

5 8 U JOHANN G STAV DROYSEN .

b i tents itself with being a le in its expos tions of results , to give only so much as its province and investigation

so enable it to get , only much as its methods put withi n its powers . And the more questions there are in its various departments which it is conscious o f being no longer or not yet able satisfactorily to answer, the more carefu l it will be about pretending that its result is greater than it legitimately is or can be . The aim of the historical expositor thus is to afford an idea elabor ated in the most certain measure possible and developed h in the closest possible accord with facts , of things whic were present and actual , whether in recent, distant or most ancient times , though they now live and have a contemporary character only in the knowledge o f men .

6 2 APPENDICES .

But this judgment here appears in a universal form , I . S whose legitimacy is more than questionable it, indeed, true that a new conquest is made in Science only when vital phenomena are transferred to the class o f ? d e fin i physical Would that be , in fact , a correct tion o f the essence and scope of science ? Should the other realms of human discovery be obliged to recognize themselves as o f a scientific nature only in so far as they are in a condition to transfer vital phenomena to the class o f physical phenomena ? It is not alone the astonishing performance and results o f work in natural science which spreads abroad the conviction that its method is in a pre eminent meas ure scientific , the only scientific one . The deeper ground o f popularity attaching to that way o f looking at thi ngs whose counterpart is in the world o f quanti ta tive o f phenomena , lies in the mode culture prevalent

o u r in age , and in that stage of development at which we have arrived socially and politically . Buckle is n o t the first wh o has attempted to treat

o f l the unscientific character History, the method ess ’ 1 matter, as an ancient writer names it , by the method Of exhibiting vital phenomena under points o f view analogous to those which are the starting- point of the exact sciences . But a notion which others have inci dentally broached under some formula about ‘ natural ’ o r o u t growth , carried in the very inadequate and merely figurative idea o f the inorganic ; what still

‘Philo so hi e Po si others , as Comte in his attractive p ’ tive , have developed Speculatively , Buckle undertakes to ground in a comprehensive historical exposition .

1 d é o do l S e e a e 10 7 . u fi s n. p g THE ELEVA TION OF HI STORY . 6 3

He speaks with Sharp expressions of the ‘ guild o f

o f historians and their doings hitherto , the poverty of thought under which they have labored, and the absence

o f . principles in their investigations He thinks that,

fo r working in their way , every bootmaker is fitted a ’ writer of history . If , through indolence of thought or natur al limitation he i s n o t capable of handl ing the

o f highest branches knowledge , he needs only to apply

o f a few years to the reading of a certain number books , and he may write the history o f a great people and ’ attain consideration in his profession . Mr . Buckle finds that ‘ as regards all higher tendencies of human think ing , History still lies in deplorable incompleteness and presents so confused and anarchical an appearance as were to be expected only in case o f a subject with ’ unknown laws or destitute as yet even o f a foundation . He purposes to raise History t o a science by showing h o w to demonstrate historical facts o u t of general laws . He paves the way for this by setting forth that the earliest and rudest conceptions touching the course o f human destiny were those indi cated by the ideas o f ’ ‘ i o u t o f chance and necessity , that in all probab lity these grew later the ‘ dogmas of free will and pre

‘ ’ destination , that both are in great degree mistakes , or

ds ‘ o f that, as he ad , we at least have no adequate proof ’ their truth . He finds that all the changes of which r Histo y is full, all the vicissitudes which have come upon the human race , its advance and its decline , its happi

o f ness and its misery, must be the fruit a double agency, the working o f outer phenomena upon o u r nature and ’ o f o u r the working nature upon outer phenomena . He has confidence that he has discovered the ‘ laws o f 6 4 APPENDICES .

this double influence , and that he has therefore elevated f t the History o mankind o a science . Buckle sees the peculiar historical content o f H u ’ manity s life in that which he calls Civilization . He E has traced the history of civilization among the nglish , S S French , panish , and cotch , that he may illustrate by these examples the application of his method and the justification of the laws discovered by him . He arrives

a s at these laws , he says , in the two only possible ways , deduction and induction . He proceeds deductively in showing how the historical development of civilization is explained by these laws , and inductively in that he gathers o u t o f the multitudinous facts w hich he has

his collected in studies the standard and important ones , and finds the higher expression that unites them . I will not attempt to criticise his induction and de duction from the point o f vie w of the historical material brought forward in substantiation of them . There

h is might be in manner of employing sources , in the

o f his choice his statements , in the fitness of combina

o tions , a large and c nstant intermixture of error, caprice

- m — and inadequacy a s i s actually the case without lessening the scientific importance of the problem which he introduces to o u r science or o f the method which he recommends for its solution . Buckle the his torian would only have retired behind Buckle the

fo r his philosopher, and it would remain professional t o ria n s to exemplify and test the great discovery pre sented by him better than the gifted dilettant in o u r studies could do . ’ V o n S ybe l s Ze itschr ift contained some time ago a few instructive essays up o n Historical Method and the mode

6 6 A PPENDICES .

’ here is another . A work like Buckle s is well adapted d to remind us how very unclear, contra ictory and beset with arbitrary Opinions the foundations o f o u r science

are . And the deep impression which the work h a s made n o t only upon the numerous lovers o f each newest

a - o r paradox , be it t ble rapping , phalanstery, the olive

o f o f o n O fI n e r leaf the friends peace , but also many y g o f h r adherents istorical studies , may well be a wa ning t o us at last to seek after the foundation o f our science

too , in certitude about which the natural sciences since Bacon — unl ess he is for other reasons undeserving of — place at the head o f the development are in ad vance

o f u s . Now is it Buckle ’ s merit to have achieved his pur pose ? Can he have developed the true meaning and idea o f the historical branches of learning o r fixed the extent o f their application ? Is he the Bacon o f the historical sciences and his work the O rganon to teach us to think historically ? Has the method which he propounds power to remove from the realms o f hist o ri

o f cal knowledge the idols the den , forum , theatre , and

o n t o — o u r so , which even day obscure sight in the form ’ ‘ o f o f - the errors , as he calls them , free will and divine

- O providence , the over valuation f the moral principle in

t o ? relation the intellectual , and the like And if he is really right in appealing for the most interesting of his

- o u r fundamental propositions , that touching free will , to

wh o Kant , , like Buckle himself, as Buckle thinks ,

‘ regarded the reality of free - will in the world of phe ’ n o m e n a as an untenable assumption , can he claim pri o rity in the discovery just made in Germany with such ’ re lively acclaim , that Kant s teaching is precisely the THE ELEVATION OF HISTORY . 6 7

h a s verse of what hitherto been supposed, and that the ’ result o f Kant s two Critiques is that both are false ? Buckle ’ s translator adverts to the fact that up to the present time the Kantian philos o phy h a s been the ex

s treme limit to which Engli h thinkers have ventured . ’ ‘ He calls Buckle s philosophy incomplete thinking, in ’ which crude criticism passes as philosophy, and charges V upon his author, in spite of the edas and of Cousin

- E and Kant, the only non nglish authorities he quotes , a truly antique consciousness touching all proper ’ thought . When , however, he greets the laws found by Buckle ‘ as a Splendid and entirely truthful program o f ’ o f o f the progress the human mind , and speaks the ’ reformer s réle which the work i s to play even in Ger

u s . many, the utterances badly embarrass Must we , an

antistrophe as it were to our former statement , admit

o f that a large element error, inadequacy and antique ness runs right through Buckle ’ s philosophical buttress

o f his ing theory, yet does not lessen the reformatory significance of his work, this being injured as little by the philosophical as by the historical dilettantism o f the author ? ° ‘ o f Perhaps , free from the scholastic anticipations

o so b th these two departments , and able to canvass the more impartially the question o f the nature and laws o f s o History, Buckle can point out the way, clear to every sound human understanding , by which History is to be raised to the rank o f a science . He repeatedly confesses that he wishes to observe and argue entirely and only a s an empiricist . At least the great a n d simple

o f vi outlines the empirical procedure , provided sion is not obscured by prepossessions , appear plain to the 68 PPE A NDICES .

s o - called s o und human understanding with o ut explana

n i tion . Such an understandi g s precisely what the English mean when they dub ‘ philosophical ’ those natural sciences whose laurels do not permit o u r in ve s

‘ ti a t o rs . g to rest Buckle hopes , he says , to accomplish for the History o f mankind that or something similar t o that which other investigators have achieved in the

natural sciences , where occurrences apparently the most irregular and contradictory have been explained and proved to accord with certain unchangeable and general

o laws . If we subject the pr cesses of the human world

to a Similar treatment, we certainly have every prospect ’ of a similar result . It is of interest to notice the qu id p ro qu o from which

Buckle starts o u t . Can any one who believes in the ’ o f a s possibility of a science History, he himself does and a s he i s certain that by applying th e method o f natural science he h a s established the propriety of

so doing, fail to notice that this method does not much

raise History t o a. science by itself a s it places it among

? e r the natural sciences c sciences , too , such as

theology and philosophy , at the times when their methods passed for the only scientific ones , believed that they w ere entitled to take History and nature

s o o f under their juri diction , but neither the kn wledge Nature n o r that o f History w a s thereby advanced in th e measure intended by those interested in orthodoxy o r I . s speculation there , then , never more than one way, one method o f knowledge ? Do not its methods i n cessantly vary according to their objects , like the organs f f o sense with the dif erent forms of sensuous perception , and like o rgans in general with their diverse functions ?

7 0 A PPENDICES .

O u r founder o f the science of History approaches his

’ task with enviable n a i ve te . He considers it unnecessary to investigate the ideas with which he intends to work , or to limit o ff the department in which his laws find h i their application . IV a t science s he thinks every o n e

o f . knows , and the same History Not quite , after all , fo r he takes particular pains to state what it is not .

Philo so hi e P o sitive He cites with hearty assent Comte , p ,

‘ V . . 1 8 p , who remarks with displeasure that it is entirely inappropriate t o characterize a s History the ’ piling up o f di sconnected facts . How memorable is c this sentence of the Fren h thinker, and how instructive it is that the Englishman appropriates it to himself I ' ’ We of course designate a s History that infinite suc cession o f objective facts in which we se e the life o f

o f o f o n men , nations , humanity going , just as we em brace the totality o f another kind of phenomena under ’ the name of Nature . But pray has anyone ever thought that a collection of dried plants constituted ff f Botany, or a lot of stu ed or unstuf ed animal skins Zoo' logy ? Did anyone ever suppose it even possible to

o r collect and pile together, whether in an orderly in a disorderly way, purely objective facts , such as battles ,

o f revolutions , business crises , foundings cities , and the ’ like ? Has ‘ the guild of historians actually not yet made the observation that objective facts are a different thing from the manner in which we know them ? If Buckle really wished to kindle a light for u s his t o ri a n s groping in the dark , he should first of all have made it clear to himself and to us how and with what ’ right History h a s been able to fix itself a s name for ’ o f o a s ‘ su c a definite series phen mena . Nature has THE ELEVATION OF H ISTORY . 71

ce e d e d in making itself the name o f another definite

series o f manifestations . He should have Shown what

it means that the wonderful abridger, the human Spirit , apprehends Spatial manifestations a s Nature and tempo ral occurrences a s History not because they are so and

bu t so distinguished objectively, in order to be able to

grasp and think them . He would then have known the nature o f the material with which a ‘ science of

’ History can have to do . If he had been aware what

to n o t it means have been an empiricist, he would have

a s o f omitted to investigate , the nature all empiricism

s h o f histo r demand , the manner in whic these materials

ical investigation lie before us and o u r sense - perception

at the present time . Then surely he would have had to s co nfu recognize that not past even t , not the infinite

o f ‘ n o w h e u s sion facts which constituted them , before as materials fo r investigation that instead these facts vanished forever with the moment to which they be longed , and that , as human , we possess only the present,

o f the here and now, with the impulse and ability,

im ~ course , by learning , insight, and will , to develop measurably this ephemeral point . He would have seen that among the processes peculiar to the realm o f the

o n e o f Spirit, the most remarkable is that which makes it possible fo r us again to awaken to present reality

h n o w events whic are forever past and lie behind us ,

o u r to and to make them live in minds , that is , all human intents and purposes , make them eternal . If Buckle had wished to raise u s and himself above ’ f ‘ his thoughtless use o the word History, with the

o f di m anticipations which arise out this and our vision , he would have had to take u s on into a second line of 7 2 APPENDICES .

considerations . In occasional intimations o f his we ascertain that History h a s to do with the ‘ actions o f ’ t ‘ men , tha it is connected with the unsatisfied desire ’ fo r knowledge which characterizes o u r fellowmen ; but he omits to tell us in w hat manner these actions of

men are of an historical nature , and leaves us in the dark touching the character of the questions fo r which

u r the curios ity displayed by o fellowmen seeks answer . It does n o t require deep penetration to se e that the

n o w human acts which are historical , at the moment when they happened and in the minds o f thos e through

whom and for whom they happened , had only in the rarest instances the purpose or determination to be h . w o historical deeds The general gives battle , the

statesman who negotiates a treaty , has quite enough to do to a tta m the practical end which concerns him at

the moment . S o o n down to the mi nute and even the ’ minutest ‘ acts of men : they all fulfil themselves in

that illimitably manifold interplay of interests , conflicts , b usinesses , of motives , passions , forces and restrictions , the sum of which has been well named the moral world . We may consider these under very various points o f

. O n e o f View, practical , technical , legal , social , etc the ways in which the moral world may be surveyed is the historical . I decline to set forth the full bearing of these

. se e observations The attentive reader will that, were

h o w Ge this done , it would become clear History ( ’ schichte to o u t o f ) emerges , so Speak, men s doings We Should also thus learn of what sort and nature that knowledge is which i s based on such materials and applicable in such a realm ;

4 7 APPENDICES .

to o u r consciousness this ideal content o f History when we represent to ourselves in a kind o f narrative form

h o w is that which has come to pass , what else do we thus do but employ History in understanding that whi ch

is , the elements in which we move as thinking , volitional

? o r f and active beings This is the way, at least one o

the ways , immeasurably to extend, enrich and elevate the needy and lonesome Here and No w o f our ephemeral

existence . In proportion as we , I mean the working

o f — races men ascend higher, the horizon which we

survey is extended , and with every new point of view each particular element thereof displays itself to us in

n e w . new perspectives , in and wider relations The width o f our horizon is almost exactly the measure o f the height reached by us and in the same measure has

o f the circle the resources , conditions , and tasks of our

existence extended . History gives us the consciousness

of we are and have . ‘ what is o f Here a connection thought, it is worth while

o n e se e to notice , whence may what culture is and

what it means to us . Goethe says What thou

hast inherited from thy ancestors , earn in order to ’ possess it . We find here the justification o f this

obscure utterance . However high may be the position of the age or of the nation into which we individuals

o r are born , however great full the inheritance accruing

o u r so to advantage without our cooperation, long as we have n o t gained it through our o wn efforts and have

i s o f in not recognized it as that which it , the result

th e cessant toil on part of those who were before us , we hold it a s if we had it not . Now culture means

e a s that we hav lived and toiled through over again , a TH E ELEVATION OF HISTORY . 75

h as o f continuation , that which , in the History times , ’ peoples and humanity, been wrought out in men s Spirit

in the way o f thought . Civilization is satisfied only f with the results o f culture . Amid utmost fullness o

’

i s bla se O . mere wealth , it poor, with pulence of enjoyment After Buckle has complained h o w little the rich and ’ ‘ - h a s ever growing mass of facts hitherto been utilized, he assigns as a reason explaining this phenomenon a ’ ‘ ‘ peculiarly unfortunate circumstance . In all the ’ o ‘ other great departments of investigati n , he says , the n e ce ssit ‘ o f o n e y generalization is admitted by every ,

and we meet with noble exertions , based on specific facts , to reveal the laws under whose rule the facts

stand . Historians on the contrary are so far from making this procedure their own a s to be dominated by the strange thought that their business is solely to u recount transactions , enlivening these at the tmost ’ th appropriate moral and political remarks . A certain patience i s necessary to follow these repe titi o u s trivialities and this confusion o f ideas which chase each other around in a circle . Generalizations then are the laws which Buckle seeks . He thinks it possible in the way o f generalization to find the laws which shall reveal , that is , determine with necessity, the phenomena o f the moral world . Then are the rules o f ? T o a language linguistic laws be sure , induction sums up particulars into the general fact not, however,

- simply by arriving at a generality hap hazard, but by combining particulars in that which is really common to them . But to proceed from the rule t o the law, to find the ground for the general phenomenon , there i s need o f analytical procedure . Buckle does 7 6 APPENDICES . n o t consider it necessary t o give hims elf and us any account o f the logic o f his investigation . He satisfies himself with setting aside a ‘ preliminary hindrance ’ ‘ h is . which seems to block way It is supposed , says

‘ i s he , that there in human things something provi dential and mysterious , which makes them impervious to o u r investigation and will conceal from us forever ’ fi their future course . He meets this dif culty with the ’ ‘ Simple alternative : ‘ Are the acts o f men and

o r hence also of society subject to definite laws , are they the result either of accident or o f supernatural ’ ? : i s influence Certainly if this cloud not a camel , it is either a weasel o r a whale . We have already remarked that if there i s to be a

o f o w n d is science History, this must have its method of co ve ry and relate t o its own department of knowledge . If in other fields induction or deduction has rendered

n o t o f excellent results , it does follow that the science History must employ exclusively the one or ~the other of those methods . Fortunately there are between heaven and earth things related as irrationally to deduction as to induction ; which demand deduction and synthesis along with induction and analytical treatment ; which are grasped by being subjected alternately to both procedures which even then are not entirely compre

n o t a hended, but more and more , exhaustively but p proximately and in a certain way things which demand ’ ’ ‘ ‘ not t o be developed o r explained but understood . The ‘ desire for knowledge which characterizes o u r ’ fellow men is ‘ insatiable ’ because whatever it brings to us is rationally comprehensible , and because with our growing understanding o f man and o f what exists and

7 8 APPENDICES .

o his . circumstances fr m country , people , age , etc , while

9; is the vanishingly little his own contribution , the ’ work of his free will . However vanishingly small this

or i s o f . a n d may be , it infinite value Morally humanly

d h a s . considere it alone value The colors , the brush , the canvas which Raphael used were o f materials which he had n o t created . He had learned from one and another master to apply these materials in drawing and painting . The idea of the Holy Virgin and o f the saints and angels , he met with in church tradition . Various cloisters ordered pict u res from him at given prices . That this incitement alone , these material and technical conditions and such traditions and contem

la ti o n s S p , should explain the istine Madonna, would

i n - A z a x be , the formula , the service of the vanish i n gly little at . Similarly everywhere . Let statistics go on showing that in a certain country so and so many illegitimate births occur . Suppose that in the formula

‘ A z a 2 this a includes all the elements which ex plain the fact that among a thousand mothers twenty, thirty, or whatever the number is , are unmarried ; each

h a s individual case of the kind its history, how often a f touching and affecting one . O those twenty or thirty wh o have fallen is there a single one who will be co n soled by knowing that the statistical law ‘ explains ’ her case ? Amid the tortures of cons cience through

o f o n e o f nights weeping , many a them will be profoundly convinced that in the formula A Z a a: the vanishingly

as o f little is immeasurable weight, that in fact it em

o f braces the entire moral worth the human being , his total and exclusive value . THE ELEVATION O F HISTORY . 7 9

No intelligent man will think of den ying that the statistical method of considerin g human affairs has its

h o w great worth ; but we must not forget little , rela

tive l to . y, it can accomplish and is meant accomplish Many and perhaps all human relations have a legal side ; yet no o n e will 0 11 that account bid u s seek for 1 the understanding of the Eroica or o f Faust among ’ jurists definitio ns concerning intellectual property .

I will . n o t follow Buckle in his further discussions ’ ’ n th e ‘ ‘ w touchi g laws of nature , mental la s , the

o f n superiority the i tellectual o ver the moral forces ,

his and so on . The essence of views in the first part

o f he sums up at the beginning the second, in the ’ ‘ following four generic thoughts , which pass accord ing to him for the foundations o f a History o f Civiliza

‘ 1 . tion . The progress of the human race depends upon the effect with which the laws o f phenomena are investigated and the extent to which the results o f 2 these investigations are made known . . Before such

o an investigati n can begin , a Spirit of scepticism must be awakened , which then in turn furthers investigation

3 . and i s furthered by it . The discoveries made in this manner strengthen the influence of intellectual

n o t truths and weaken relatively, though absolutely,

o f the influence moral truths , the latter being in couse qu e n ce less subject to growth and development than

4 . the intellectual truths . The chief enemy of this movement and hence the chief enemy of civilization is i the paternal or guard anship spirit, the idea, namely, that human society can not prosper unless its a fi a irs

’ 1 B s Ni n e T h e S i n n i a E o i ca o f e e o e n . S e e G o e eetho ven fo r , B th v r v ,

T r S m h i s . y p on e . 80 A PPENDICES . are watched over and protected at every step by State S and Church the tate teaching men what to do , the ’ Church what to believe . If these are the laws in which ‘ the study of the ’ o f History humanity is to attain scientific elevation , then the happy discoverer is truly an object of envy in the n a i ve te with which he succeeds in deceiving him self even for a single moment a s to their extraordinary shallowness . Laws of this sort could be discovered

- o f daily by the dozen , in the self same way generaliza tion , laws none of which would in depth and fruitful ness be inferior to the well known saying that the ’ measure of a pe o ple s civilization is its consumption of soap .

‘ Bacon - somewhere says that truth emerges more ’ 1 readily from error than from confusion . The con fusion of which Buckle i s guilty is obvious . Because he neglected to examine and s o und the nature o f the

to subjects with which he undertook deal , he proceeds with them as if they did not have any nature or char acter o f their own at all and so did not need a method of their o w n ; and the method which he does apply in

so to this department foreign it, avenges itself by making him put up with commonplaces instead o f the calculable formulas in which it elsewhere expresses its laws : commonplaces which may have a certain pro

i t fo r - pr e y to day and yesterday, but which , in face ’ m ill e n iu m s o f o f History s , in face the great social formations of the middle age , of beginning Chris ti a n it o f y, and the Greek and Roman world, appear entirely unmeaning .

1 o u s io C iti u s em ergi t verita s ea: erro re qu a m ex cnf n e .

82 APPENDICES .

’ artist s soul before the work in which it w a s to be

a f realized existed . There w s need also o the purpose

vo w which the statue should fulfil , perhaps a to the

a rescuing god whose temple it w s t o adorn . The skilful

t o o hand, , was required , to put together the motive , the thought- image and the material into the completed work . D oubtless the bronze as well w a s necessary in order to the origination o f The Praying Boy ; yet it would take a mean civilization to appraise this wonder

o f a s ful work art only at the value of the metal in it,

Buckle does with History .

Buckle proceeds not a whit less o n e - s idedly than those people — how severely he censures them I who explain History solely from the motive which theology, fo r o r su r instance , ascribes to it, the religious Spirit mises a s dominant in it o r those who se e and observe in respect to any work only the deft ge schickt] agents

a s Ge schiche which perform it, just if the fates [ ] did n o t take their course in Spite of the good or evil will 1 o f the people through who m they are put in execution o r - those who , always on hand with their ready made static ideas and doctrines about things which are con tin u all y developing and thus criticising themselves , always just know and know better than any o n e else

h o w S . the tate , the Church , the social order, etc , ought t o have been obliged t o exist and develop . Each o f

is these ways of viewing things in itself partial , untrue ,

i s destructive , even though each in a sense justified ’ ‘ . E and necessary verything, teaches the ancient philosopher just referred to , everything which subsists

1 h h t o s in th e a c e s T e a u tho r in te n de d a pl a y u po n t e wo w rd br k t , i T r . b u t in u sin g the m co n fu se s ra the r tha n cl a rifie s h s m e a n in g . 83 THE ELEVATION OF HISTORY .

n o t by the agency of a cause , and is , like the divinity, ’ 1 — o self subsistent , c ntains those four elements , no one o f which al one and by itself can explain the whole .

to More precisely, it is according those four elements that we mentally analyze anything for ourselves , for o u r contemplation , conscious that in the reality which we wish to consider they are at the same time com ple te ly one with and permeated by each other . We thus separate and distinguish , although aware that the process i s only an aid to o u r re - constructive un der di o f stan ng, while certain other activities our soul give and receive totalities instantly and immediately .

Pardon these very elementary observations . In View ’ o f Buckle s confused procedure they could not have been avoided if the questions involved were to be gotten onto a safer track . We s e e that in History the material upon which it works is n o t the only thing t o be considered . Close to the material comes the form . In its varying forms r History has a ceaseless and ever prog essive life . These forms are the moral partnerships in which we become di bo ly and spiritually what we are , and by virtue of which we raise ourselves above the miserable desolation

i o f o u r i re ce i and ind gence atomic egoism , giv ng and v ing in order thus t o become the richer the more we bind and obligate ourselves . These are departments in which laws o f an entirely di ffe re fit nature and energy from those which the new science seeks , have their place and exercise their power . These moral forces ,

1 81 82 iz Re e e to o n a e s v . th e m a e a th e o m f rr d p g , , , t ri l , f r , th e n u e n d th e e n d o r n u h m o vi g ca s , a fi a l ca se . T e tho u ght is fro m

T r . Aristo tl e . 84 APPENDICES .

as they have been finely termed , are to a great degree

o f at once factors and products the historical life .

Ceaselessly developing , they , by what they have at

wh o any time come to be , determine shall be there

o f after the bearers their completed products , and raise them above themselves . In the community of

S . the family , the tate , the nation , etc , the individual h a s lifted himself above the narrow boundary o f h is

e o to ephemeral g , in order, if I may so speak, think

o f and act as prompted by the ego the family , the

S . nation , and the tate In this elevation and undis tu rbe d participation in the activity of the moral forces , ’ according to each man s character and duty, not in the unlimited and boundless independence o f the indi

o f . vidual , lies the true essence freedom Without the

is moral forces it nothing it is immoral , a mere power of movement . O f these moral forces Buckle certainly holds a very l o w opinion . In Church and State he sees nothing but ‘ T guardianship and encroachments . o him right and

n law are only barriers and impediments . The co sequence O f his manner o f view would be not so much to refer the child to the care and love of its parents and

o f its the discipline and guidance teachers , as rather to consider it by and for itself a manifestation of so ve r

i n e g liberty . Buckle arrives at S u ch an extraordinarily crude idea o f liberty because he neglects proper attention to the ’ agents engaged in working o u t History s task because he thinks only of the massed capital known as civili z a tio n n o t , of the ever new acquisition which forms the t n o t . h n o essence of culture Moreover, e does or will

86 APPENDICES .

th o u htr a u to m a to n o f that he has as a g , destitute self consciousness , composed the work by which he intends to elevate History to the rank of a science . Nay, not ’ ‘ its intended , for he denies the will along with free dom . But some being or other must have thrown into this thinking- mill a lo t o f facts piled together in some

o r . th e way other The mill ground grist , and the ’ ‘ 1 result, a swindling, tricky, subtle sophism entire , thus ground out, became the new science of History . In spite of all this Buckle recognizes the progress

a s in History, and is unwearied in describing it what is i most truly characteristic in the life of man . This s certainly very thankworthy, but it does not accord with

o f n o r i s the main trend his views , the thought con i i sist e n tl . s y carried out If there progress , the d rection o f the movement must be observed, and make itself visible to him fo r whose sake it exists . The method of study belonging to natural science is in a different position from this in respect to the point of View under which it apprehends phenomena . The changes which it observes it traces up to the equivalents of forces , and it sees in them only the permutations of equals and constants . Vital phenomena interest it only in so far

o r as they repeat themselves , either periodically mor ph o lo gically . In the individual being it sees and seeks only the idea o f the species or the medium o f material change . Since according to its method it excludes ’ o f — the idea progress , Darwin s theory of development — is the strongest proof of this , progress not in its

1 ’ M i ra m K li a r a i n d h . Sho T h e u o a o n is o m o / , pn , np w q t ti fr

s o a n e s B i d s 430 431 e e e se e r a e t Ari t ph , r , , , wh r th e pith ts a e ppli d o a e o n T r p rs . . THE ELEVATION OF HISTORY . 87

knowledge , but as an element in that which it wishes

n to k ow, it has neither place nor expression for the

o f o f idea purpose , but leaves it out account, partly i L ’ degrad ng it to utility , thus leaving open essing s o ld ’ ‘ o f ? question, what then is the utility utility and

a s partly waiving it, under forms such the eternity of matter, evolution , etc . , as a problem for other methods . In adducing the idea of progress as a fact o f the his t o rica l o f world , Buckle falls into a paralogism a very striking kind . He might confess that historical i n ve s ti a tio n h a s ri m u m m o bile g not brought him to the p , that by the nature o f empirical methods it is u n a tta i n

in w a able this y, and that it cannot even be adequately expressed by the speech o f science with its conceptions and way of thinking ; but does this justify the con elusion that a p rim u m m o bile does not exist save as a piece o f o u r error ? Are there n o t various other forms o f knowledge , other methods , competent, perhaps , in virtue o f their nature to treat precisely the realities which the forms and methods o f natural science decline and decline as a logical consequence o f their point o f

View, and which the historical also either decline or

? T o treat inadequately illustrate , would there be no such thing a s an msth e tic judgme nt because n o such ’ could be arrived at by jurists procedure , or no legal proposition because such was sought in vain ae sth e ti

’ cally ? O n e who maintains that progress marks the historical world may lament that only a part o f this O movement peculiar to humanity is pen to our view , and that we cannot descry the cause or the goal thereof, but only the fact . But will he be satisfied, and can he satisfy that deepest need o f the spirit to perceive and 88 APPENDICES .

a s know itself a totality , by the circumstance that one form of empiricism shows him a riddle which another

n o t ? does solve After recognizing that a problem , a

- riddle , exists , will he declare it non existent because he cannot solve it, and cannot solve it because while the enigma resides in the sense of it he wishes to se e it

C - a s solved as a harade , as a word catch , or a syllable or letter riddle ? Because from the o n e standpoint of scientific knowledge a certain side of the total being and the universal life , namely , the metaphysical Side , is invisible , being Situated , by the old play upon the ’ ‘ word, behind the physical ; and because from the standpoint of a knowledge di ffering from this the eye

a s just grazes metaphysics a little in perspective , must we conclude that this third side h a s n o existence ? except a s an illusion of ours If we cannot take hold

o r of light with the hands , hear it with the ears , does it therefore n o t exist ? I S not the fact rather that the ’ eye is made sensitive to the sun s rays in order that by apprehending the light it m ay make perceptible to u s what we can not seize with the hands or hear with the ears ?

I pursue these questions no further, since they lie beyond the circle of thoughts in which Buckle ’ s effort to found a scientific doctrine o f History moves . The hints given will suffice to Show that he has not a p pro a ch e d the task which he proposed in the way that

to h was necessary in order advance it , that e appreciates di i ts n o r . neither compass its gnity And yet his task has , to o f as it seems me , outside its particular significance h h for our studies , anot er w ich is more general , and on that account begins to engage the attention o f the

90 APPENDICES .

II NAT RE AND HISTORY U . .

It is a traditional habit to apply the expression ’ ‘ ‘ History also to nature . We speak o f Natural His ’ o f o f tory , the History de velopment in organic ’ f ‘ f o o s o o n . existences , the History the globe , and

w a s O k e n ia n What else the theory, what else is the

Darwinian theory, but emphasizing the historical ele

s o o f ment , if we please to call it, in the realm organic nature ? Efforts are n o t wanting t o treat History according to

o r the laws which have been ascertained for nature , at least according to the method built up for the natural

s sciences , and to establi h even for the historical world the doctrine that to refer Vital phenomena to physical laws is nothing less than a new conquest for science . Forms and movement in the Sphere o f the historical life ’ a s ‘ have been characterized organic developments , and their laws given basis by means of statistical calculation .

’ It has become customary to Speak of natural growth in connection with these departments , the phrase being even deemed a very special improvement . To our science as to every other belongs the duty and the right to investigate and settle the co n e e pti o n s with which it has to d o . If it were to borrow these from the results of other sciences , it would be obliged to accommodate and subordinate itself to modes o f view

h a s over which it no control , perhaps to those by which it sees its o w n independence and right to exist called

d e fi in question . It would thence perhaps receive ’ n itio n s o f ‘ the word Science , to which it would be NATURE AND HISTORY . 91

n - n obliged to Object . The circle of co ceptions belongi g

o u r its o w n to it science will have to seek for itself, in ,

is . that , in an empirical manner It will be permitted to attempt this because its method is the method of

n understanding . It proposes to understa d terms which language and usage in language daily employ and offer fo r it to practice upon . ’ NV e find in o u r language the words ‘ nature a n d ’ ‘ ‘ ? ’ history . What is meant by history Every o n e

o f will agree that the idea a course of time , of the

n s temporal , insta tly connects it elf with the word when

f is f . O o so ever heard eternal , that timeless things ,

a s o f far we can grasp ideas this kind , there is no t histo ry . They appear o us as historical only S O far a s they enter into the temporal , be it through revelation , o r o r in their effects , in the belief which finite minds di minds stan ng under the conditions of the temporal, have respecting them . ’ ‘ These minds exist after the image o f Go d . They

t f n i are Spirit se amid the conditions o fi tu d e . They are countless in point o f space and in ceaseless develop ment in point of time . The present which belongs to

o f them and to which they belong , is an analogue

" eternity, for eternity, which we do not know from experience but infer from the self- consciousness o f o u r spiritual being, is the present as we have it, yet thought without the limitation in which we have it , without the change of coming and going and without the dimness o f future and past . Human existence is Mind under

fin itu d e the ban of , spiritual and sensuous at once and

n in an inseparable man er, a contrast which is reconciled

its n o every moment in order to re ewal , renewed in rder 92 APPENDICES .

. O u r is to its reconciliation being , so long as it itself, healthy and awake , can at no moment be merely sen suons or merely spiritual . Another peculiarity of our Spiritual nature is its

o f - to its power self vision , the ability look into own depths and to initiate movement within and from itself as if its outward connections were not . In thinking , wi believing and observing , the mind fills itself th a content that in a certain sense lies beyond the limits o f

fin itu d e . E n o w ven then , though it touches the earth with but the tips of its toes , it remains still under the

fin it u d e ban of , in the forms of conception which it has w o n and developed therefrom .

What occurs , now, if the spirit, in the same entirety

h o f — and power, turns to t e outer side its double formed nature ? By this expression I do not refer to man ’ s practical will and action , but to a phenomenon of his

his intelligence . His theoretical procedure , investi

a tio n g and discovery in —practical directions , will be conditioned by his sense life . The sensuous side of his existence does n o t bring t o him merely as to a motionless and untroubled mirror, diversified impulses from the separate objects perceptible by sense ; but ,

o f his with and through this side nature , as he stands in the midst o f the finite Objects that surround and

is submerge him , he conditioned and moved by them

so and driven about with them , that, in the restless dust

o f fin ite s whirl these restlessly changing , he resembles in all but a Single particular the atoms which accompany i f him in this tumult . But the d f erence is after all infinite , for by virtue of his Spiritual essence man has h l d h t e abi ity to be like a fixe point in t is confusion , or

94 APPENDICES .

names are before us in infinite variableness , manifold f ness , and dif erences of kind but the mind masters this

is desolate multifariousness by taking that which , in a

vi z . co m bin way, , essentially and mentally, the same , and ing it in this sameness . As to their objective o r rather s their external phasis , things are simply numberles indi vid u als in numberless combinations and separations and in ceaseless change ; but as represented in the human mind they stand forth fixed and classified according to ffi their similarities , a nities and relations . They are the orderly Signs and counterparts o fthe finite things chaoti

o f o f cally flowing about us , the confused multitude changing and hovering phenomena . This world of names and ideas is to the mind the counterpart of the

i f . world without . For us it s the truth o that world

Thus simplifying, separating and combining , regu lating and subordinating , thus creating in itself a cosmos o f representations and conceptions over against the

o f confused world finite realities , the human mind makes itself by Speech and thought theoretically master o f those fin ite s amid which and the changes of which its temporal being stands . E very human being goes

o n e through this anew ; every is a new beginning , a

- fresh ego creation . Each becomes this by learning to feel and apprehend himself as a totality within himself, by seeing , thinking ,

so is i s re and, far as in him , Shaping everything that

to lated him and to which he is related, however narrow o r wide this realm may be , as a closed circle about him d self as its middl e point . He can o this by that gift of combining particulars according to their nature , that

o f restlessly working gift simplifying and generalizing, AND H T 95 NATURE IS ORY .

o f separation and combination, by virtue of which he is

continually embracing wider stretches , taking them up

1°e re se n ta tio n into his p and, as it were , building them

his . o n e n into mind The rose , word for cou tless par

ticu la r attributes , he distinguishes from the pink , but ,

i s tw o fixing upon what similar in the , he calls both

f o f w . m o flo ers He akes plants them both , as he does

the bushes and th e grasses . Plants he sees to be quite f dif erent from animals , yet plants and animals arise ,

grow, and die in a Similar manner . This life of theirs di stinguishes fo r him the organic world in contrast with

se a . stone , , flame , and so on He thus develops and

applies more and more comprehensive forms , more and

more general ideas . The last and most universal o f these classifications

among things perceptible by the senses , are Nature and

History . They comprehend the world of phenomena under the two most inclusive representations ever ap h applied, representations w ich have , perhaps wrongly, f been complimented by the title o intuitions a p rio ri . We are certain to embrace the totality o f phenomena if

nk o f u s we thi them as arranged for in Space and time , or in other words if we say Nature and History . O bviously, whatever is in space is also in time , and vic e ve rsa . The things o f the empirical world exist neither spatially nor temporally but we apprehend them so according as the o n e or the other element appears

se e to us to preponderate , or according as we occasion to exalt the one o r the other as the more weighty or essential characteristic . O f co urse not much is said when we have thus defined

‘ the word history and its conception , unless we are in 96 A PPENDICES .

S condition to search the notion more deeply . pace and time are the widest, that is the most empty representa tions of our mind . They obtain a content only in the measure in which we determine them lengthwise and t o . crosswise , as both succession and propinquity This means distinguishing the particulars within them not merely saying that they are , but what they are . That these phenomena which we summarily embrace a s History and Nature , in themselves possess other de terminations and predicates than just being o r being distinguished in time and space , we know by the fact

a s o u r u that we ourselves , to sens ous existence , stand in

O f re the midst them , are determined by them and are

is lated in one way and another to them . That , we have d . a empirical knowledge Without this , space n time

at o f would be to us an empty , and the world phenomena

to . O would remain us a chaos nly as we , while stand

o f ing in the midst them , separate them from ourselves , relate ourselves to them with the different sides and susceptibilities of our sensuous existence affected by n o w n o w these those exponents , and according to these exponents distinguish and compare them with each

o u r other ; only thus , in ego , through our cognition , in o u r re knowledge , does what exists in space and time O ce ive wider denominations and determination s . nly

d o f thus o the empty generalities space and time , the empty catch - alls o f Nature and History develop them

u s selves for into a discrete content, into definite series of ideas , into particular beings existing in synthesis and succession . Space and time are related like repose a n d re stle ss ness , indolence and haste , bondage and freedom . They

98 APPENDICES .

’ numerically but in nature o r kind . In such phe

n o m e n a o f hi the mind lays hold the constant, that w ch

abides in the midst of change , that to which motion

: relates the rule , the law , the substance , that which

l . is fil s Space , etc For it the forms that repeat them

» o f selves here , and the immaterial character their peri o di cal return lowers the temporal element in their

n o t to motion to a secondary place , indeed in relation their being but as regards our apprehension and under

i n standing . This is the way which we win for the

o f i ts is general notion Space discrete content, and it this conten t which is embraced by u s in the designation

‘ Nature . I II other phenomena our mind emphasizes the change

in that which abides the same . It notices that here

S O motion results in ever new forms , formations new and so determinative that the material substrate o n

which they appear seems like a secondary element, while every new fo rm is indi vidually di fferent from the

so f a s its others , dif erent indeed that each, it assumes

its is place after predecessor, conditioned by it, grows

out of it , ideally takes it up into itself, yet when grown

out o f it contains and maintains it ideally in itself . It is a continuity, in which everything that precedes trans

i s i plants itself into what later , filling it out and extend ng it as ‘ a contribution to itself while the latter pre

m o f sents itself as a result, fulfilment , and enlarge ent

is n o t the earlier . It the continuity of a circle that returns into itself, of a period repeating itself, but that o f an endless succession , and this in such wise that in every new a further new has its germ and the assurance

1 ei «1 91 6 S e e a e 10 . a zao m s . p g NATURE AND HISTORY . 99

Fo r o f working itself o u t . in every new the entire

i s series of past forms ideally summed up , and every one of them appears a s element and temporary ex

su m . pression in the growing In this restless succession , in this continuity advancing upon itself, the general

its notion of time wins discrete content , which we ’ designate by the expression History . Even those phenomena which we gather under the

o expression Nature exist in individual f rms , separate

is h from each other, that if we apprehend t em also as

O u t o f — homogeneous and similar . every wheat kernel , if it is n o t withdrawn from its periodi c life by a di fferent

a s - application , germination , stalk growth , flower, ripen i ff ing of the fruit , there grows an individually d erent

o f . stalk , a new generation kernels The oaks in the

its o u t same wood, though sprung each like neighbor of

th e di the acorns perhaps of same maternal oak , are in vidually different not only in space but also in age , size , ramification , grouping of the masses of foliage , etc . di We indeed perceive the fferences , but they appear to

u s n o t . S a s as essential cientifically practically, their indi viduality is immaterial to u s . Among existences o f this kind o u r mind has n o Special category fo r indi

id l F r f n v u a s . o this kind o individuals we have o other name than that of their species . We of course notice that they change , but in the simply periodical return of their changes they have for u s no history . We indeed di di f stinguish the in viduals , but their dif erences Show us f no succession o formations advancing one upon another .

We apprehend them according to Space , material , the

- permanent in change , the indifference of self repeating variety for only in these relations ha s our mind ca te go 10 0 P AP ENDICES .

fo r e ries them , and only according to th se categories can

to we grasp and understand them , or relate ourselves them practically o r theoretically . And according to these o u r o f u se modes apprehension we and consume them ,

n o taki g them for that which they are to us . We s w

- a n d fo r these wheat kernels care these oaks , in order in their time to kill them and consume them a s what they are to us , combustible material or farinaceous fruit .

We rear these animals , in order daily to rob them of

n a n d the milk provided for their you g , finally to Slay

i n them . And so on . IV e unweariedly observe and ve stiga t e in order to know Nature acc o rding to i ts

o u r materials , forces and laws , that we may apply it to ends according to the categories under which we appre

i f r hend and comprehend it . It s o us nothing but

its material . In individual manifestations we find it

f . sealed , incomprehensible , indif erent

And when , in grafting fruit trees , rearing animals and crossing breeds , in order to produce nobler results ,

a s we play it were the part of Providence , it is our cun

o n ning and calculation , not any understanding the part

o f u s . those creatures , that brings such results When

o r o o r we analyze compound b dies chemically, treat them physically s o or S O to is olate certain of their func tions in order to observe these or to make them produce

n o t i s effects , we do seek or find what individually characteristic of this stone , this flame , this vibrating

f r is o o . chord, but what characteristic genus species

a t And when we appropriate and apply, es hetically, for instance , the temporary forms which the animal or the

o r o f u s o plant world the landscape f ers , we well kn w that it is n o t the individuality o f thi s piece o f the

1 0 2 APPENDICES .

upon and with one another, in their restless impulse to

Shape things and to understand and be understood, d e ve lo ps this marvellous stratum o f spiritual being which

o u r enswathes globe , forever touching the natural world I . ts and yet free from it elements are representations , thoughts , passions , mistakes , guilt and the like . It does n o t imply too light an estimate of the moral world to lay it down that this restlessly flowing and swelling stratum of Spiritual existence is the habitat and

its so ground of formations , the plastic mass , to Speak , where they originate . Such formations are certainly none the less realities , or of less power objectively,

s because they essentially live only in the soul , hearts ,

l o f know edge , and consciences human beings , and em ploy the body and things o f a bodily kind merely a s their expressions , bearing their impress . True , they can be perceived, understood, and investigated only in these expressions and impressions ; but they do not exist merely that the historical method may be applied to them . They can be scientifically surveyed from still i other points of V ew than the historical . They are

O fo r pen to this , what they are they have become , and to make o u t the development of things from their de ve lo e d p forms , and their developed forms from their development is the nature of the historical method .

o n e We offer, in conclusion , more remark to parry

N n objections . o o e thinks of contesting the applica tion

o f o f to physics the name science , or of doubting the scientific results of physical research , although the science is not nature , but only a manner of observing

N o n nature . o e objects to mathematics on the ground that its whole proud structure stands o nly within the NATURE AND HISTORY . 1 0 3

O u r r knowing mind . sh ewd mother tongue forms from ’ the p articiple of the word ‘ to know (wissen ) its

wi ss . descriptive for that which is —certain (ge ) It does not name the outer and S O called objective bei ng o f ’ ’ hi o cciI rre n ce s t ngs certain , but beings and considered 7 ‘ r as known . Not what add esses us as sensuously ’ ‘ di o u r perceptible is true , accor ng to language . No ’ t s ‘ material thing presen s it elf to us as true , but we 1 ‘ take it true and make it certain by means o f o u r

knowledge . ’ O u r o u r perception , knowledge here would lurk

the most dubious subjectivism , were the human world

composed of atoms , each filling its span of Space and

time , and without any connection from beginning to end

’ or of atomic men as exemplified by th e o ld philosopher s

o f plucked cock , and by the view man which modern radi calism takes a s the starting point of its human l rights , and modern materialism and nihi ism for the ’ ‘ basis o f their sociology . The individual as such

be bo rn sa could not even . , to y nothing of being cared f r o . , brought up , and developed into a human adult

o f his hi From the moment birth , and even of s con ce ti o n p , he has place in the moral partnerships , this S family, this nation , tate , faith or unfaith, etc . , and it is from and through them that he originally receives

di o r o f whatever he is and has , whether of bo ly Spiritual fortune . It is clear that the scepticism o f these views does n o t o f go to controvert the reality the natural world, still

’ ’ 1 m n e a ‘ to a e a s u e wa h ‘ u e n Wa hrn eh e , lit r lly t k tr ( r , tr , a d

hm is in Ge m a n s c o o th e e c n ca o d e n n e e n , r p y h l gy t h i l w rd o t ’ ‘ —T r in g t o pe rce ive . . 1 04 A PPENDICES .

o r less the actuality of the historical moral formations . ‘ f ’ To us nature is not a phantom o the brain . Even less is the moral world the threadbare ‘ a ffirm a tio n of ’ the will to live . Practically we live and act in the

- o f - confident self feeling our ego hood, and also in the direct apprehension of the outer totality in the midst of which we stand . These are the two elements which

o f result from the character our being , Spiritual and sensuous at once . O n this immediate certainty with which we cognize

o n ourselves and the world , this belief, however high or low the expression we have arrived at for its ultimate

o u r ground or its highest end , is based human existence and activity . This immediate reality we possess , and we go o n to search fo r and work o u t the truth beneath it, which grows and deepens as we search and work .

In the poverty o f o u r e go - hood and ego - development S and th—is is present and irrepressible with our first poken word lies the pressure upon us to bring to o u r

a n d be li e ve d to co m consciousness what is perceived . , prehend it , to free it as it were from the umbilical cord which attaches it to the immediate realities , and arrange it in order among the categories of our thinking . These categories are related to the totality o f the actual

o u r things which we immediately perceive , including

- to . ego hood , as the polygon is the circle Never so

- to many sided and similar a circle , the polygon remains angular and bounded by straight lines, circle and poly go n never ceasing to be m u ta lly incommensurable . It is the mistaken pride of the human mind to bolster the circles o f what it di rectly apprehends upon its own

n angular constructio s as their norm or confirmation ,

N I 1 0 6 A PPE D C ES . whi ch present the contents of it to the eye as actual occurrences , and that such myths grow along with the sagas . But when this restlessly living fusion , finally satiated , comes to an end in the form of great epics , i myths will no longer belong to the na ve faith alone .

i o f The earl est history, that the Greeks , began with the collection and sifting of such myths and sagas . Theirs were the earliest efforts to bring into this pri m e val forest of traditions order, connection , agreement, a chronological system , the first attempts at real investi ga ti o n . From the Greeks dates the continuity o f the ’ . A sc—iences lmost all of these which busy men s minds to day had their beginnings in Greece . Particularly ’ the field which has been well designated as that of the i moral sciences was tilled by them with pred lection .

o n But they have no treatise the Principles of History, ’ ‘ e co no historics , to accompany their ethics , politics ,

n o m ics . , etc After geniuses had historically described the age o f

Marathon and the age of Pericles , Thucydides being

o f I so k ra te s the last member the galaxy , it was left to and not to Aristotle to found an historical school . This fact drew history into paths from which Polybiu s vainly exerted himself to bring it back . It became , and with di d the Romans it remained , so far as philology not get

f o r be lle s l tt o e re s . possession of it, a part rhetoric l Between the two , philology and rhetoric , historica sketches for practical purposes , including encyclopedias and school books , gradually sank to the most miserable dryness .

We come to the middle age . Its historical work is even less likely t o betray any new impulses toward 10 ART AND M ET H O D . 7

scientific thought than is that of declining antiquity, unless we except the sense fo r theological construction which the middle age here and there exhibits . This

o f judgment is true , in spite the fact that an occasional hi storian in the times o f the Carolingians and the O ttos sought his model o f style among the ancients and tricked out his heroes wi th their rhetorical flourishes .

r to As the middle age d ew a close , the renewed strife against the papacy and the hi erarchy seized upon hi s to rica l investigation as a weapon , and the researches in regard to the alleged donation o f Constantine were fol lowed stroke after stroke by histo rico - critical attacks

- upon the false traditions , the anti scriptural institutions , and the canonical assumptions of the Church . Even then , however, in these important scientific onsets , rhet i ori o again and speed ly got the upper hand o f history .

This occurred first in Germany . The last magnificent

o f S attempt on the German side , that ebastian Franck , scientifically to collate the knowledge and practice which

dr di n o f had been won , was owned by the the brawl, so

ds . soon grown dogmatic, between the cree

O o f nly after the natural sciences , sure and conscious their way, had established their method and thereby di d made a new beginning in scientific thought, the notion emerge of findi ng a methodi ca l side even fo r the dl ’ 1 T f metho ess matter o f History . o the time o Gal ileo a n d Bacon belongs Jean Bodi n to that of Huygens

Pu fe n d o rff L i and Newton, and also eibnitz , the th nker, who broke paths in all di rections at once . Then the E nglish Illumination , if it is permitted thus to name the

- so l . period of the cal ed deists , took up this question To

1 d éfio do h e e e 62 . n s ii n. S pa g 1 0 8 APPENDICES . its representations was due the first effort to divide o u r

r science according to its problems o departments . They

o f H u spoke of the History of the World, the History S manity, Universal History, the History of tates , of peo

. V ples , and so on oltaire , the pupil and continuator of hi E t s nglish tendency, contributed to it the unclear de ’ ’ ‘ signation p hilo sop hi e d e l histo ire . The GOttin ge n his to rical school developed a kind o f system among the newly created sciences and associate sciences in their

field , and began to infuse its spirit even into branches but remotely connected with History . More than o n e o f the great poets and thinkers of o u r nation went deep into the theoretical question of historical certitude and there developed in historical labor and investigation itself a habit of sharp and certain criticism , which pro d u ce d entirely new and surprising results in every realm o f History where it was applied . In this historical criticism the German nation has ever since Niebuhr o u t stripped all others and the style o r technique of in ve s tiga tio n maintained in the Splendid labors o f German sa va n s seemed to need only expression I n genera l and theoretical propositions in order to constitute the his t o rica l method .

n o t To be sure , the great public was at once served by this application of o u r historical toil . It wished to

n o t read, to study , and complained that we set before it the process o f preparing food instead of the food

s . it elf It called the German method in history pedantic , exclusive , unenjoyable . How much more agreeable to read were Macaulay ’ s Essays than these learned and tiresome investigations How the accounts of the ’ French Revolution in Thi e rs s splendid delineation

1 1 0 APPENDICES . failure which treads under foot the most righteous cause "The art o f the historian lifts the reader above thought of any such side issues . It fills his fancy with representations and views which embrace but the

dl n o f h splendi y illumi ated tips the broad, ard, tediously

s slow reality . It per uades him that these sum up all the particular events and constitute the truth o f the realities not dwelt upon . It helps in its way the limit

o f O i t o less influence public pinion , lead ng people measure the reality according to their ideas and to call upon reality to form or transform itself accordi ngly . Readers demand this the more impatiently the easier custom has made it for them to think of such a reversal of thi ngs . We Germans too already boast an historical literature answering the popular need . Among us as elsewhere the insight is attained or the confession made ’ that History is at once art and science . At the same

o f time the question method, which is what we are

is . concerned with here , falling into obscurity anew

is What then , in works of an historical kind , the ? mutual relation between art and science For instance , is the fact that History is marked by ‘ criticism and learning ’ enough to give it a scientific character ? Is that incumbent o n art whi ch the historian ought in any event to do ? Should the historian ’ s studies actually have no other aim than that he may write a few books ? Should they have no application but to entertain by instructing and to instruct by entertaining 7‘ History is the only science enjoying the ambiguous fortune of bein g required to be at the same time an

o f art, a fortune which , in Spite Platonic dialogues ,

n n o t eve n philosophy shares with it . It would o t be 111 A R T AND METHOD . without intere st to inquire the reason for this peculiarity of _ History .

o f . We , however, pass to another side the question

o f In artistic labors , according to an old manner expres ’ sion , technique and Muses work go hand in hand . It belongs t o the nature o f art that its productions make you forget the defects which inhere in its means of ex pression . Art can do this in proportion as the idea

' which it wishes to bring out in given forms , upon such

vivi fie s and such materials , and with this technique , and illumines all these . What is created in such a manner ’ is . a totality, a world in itself Muses work has the power to make the observer or hearer fully and exclu sive ly receive and feel in a given expression what that work w a s meant to express .

It i s different with the sciences . Particularly the empirical ones have n o more imperative duty than to make clear the gaps which are based in the objects o f their search ; to control the errors which arise o u t of their technique to inquire the scope of their methods , recognizing that they can give right results only within the limits essentially pertaining to them . Perhaps the greatest servi ce o f the critical school in

o n e History, at least the most important in respect to t method , is to have given rise to the insight tha the groundwork o f our studies is the examination of the

‘ r sources from which we draw . In this way the e lation of History to past events is placed at the point which yields a scientific rule . This critical view that

u s past events lie before no longer directly, but only in

di n o t o b a me ate manner, that we can restore them ’ ’ e ctive l o ‘ j y , but can nly frame out of the sources a 1 1 2 P IC A PEND ES .

o r o r O more less subjective apprehension , View , opy of them , that the apprehensions and views thus attainable and won are all that it is possible for us to know of the

‘ n o t past, that thus History exists outwardly and as

a s o u t a reality , but only thus mediated , studied , and

— so o u r o f known , this , it seems , must be point de parture if we will cease to naturalize in history . What is before us fo r investigation is not past events as such , but partly remnants of them , partly ideas o f them . The remnants are such only for historical con sideration . They stand as wholes and on their o w n account in the midst of this present , many of them ,

a s fragmentary and widowed they are , instantly remind

u s W f ing that they ere once dif erent , more alive and important than n o w ; others transformed and still in living and practical application others changed almost beyond recognition and fused in the being and life of the present . The present itself is nothing else but the u m s of all the remnants and products of the past .

o f n o t Furthermore , views what was and happened are always from contemporaries , those acquainted with the

o r o f facts , impartial witnesses , but often views views , at third or fourth hand . And even when contemporaries h tell what happened in their time , ow much did they ? O ’ personal—ly se e and hear of what they relate ne s o w n -e r a ll eye sight and hearing embrace aft but a part,

. o n . a Side , a tendency of the occurrences And so In point o f method the character of these two kinds o f materials is so extraordinarily different that o n e does

’ well to keep them separate even in technical nomencla ture and it behooves such as wish their writings to be sources to name their sources even when in most respects

1 4 1 APPENDICES .

They are remnants of that which happened ; they are

o f o f pieces the transaction and the course it pursued,

di u r which still he rectly before o eyes . And if I

so may give the expression wide an application , it is as

‘ ’ a transaction , in the broad maze of the present , con ditio n e d and conditioning in a thousand ways , that those events come to pass which we afterwards apprehend successively as History . We thus look at them in a quite different way from that in which they occurred, and which they had in the wishes and deeds o f those wh o enacted them . S o it is not a paradox to ask h o w History ( Ge schichte) comes out o f transactions Ge scha ten ( f ) , and what it is which with this transfer

is o r . into another medium , as it were , added lost " I may be permitted to offer a Single remark in con clu sio n . I have in another place sought to refute the contention made against our science by those who vi ew the method of natural science as the only scientific one , and who think that History must be raised to the rank o f a science through the application o f that method . Just

o f is as if in the realm the historical , that , of the moral life , only analogy were worthy of regard and not also

- i . anomaly, the ind vidual , free will, responsibility, genius As if it were n o t a scientific task to seek ways o f i n ve sti a ti o n i g , of verification , of understand ng for the movements an d effects Of human freedom and o f per

lo w sonal peculiarities , however high or the estimate which may be placed upon them . We certainly possess immediately and in subjee " thin s o f tive certainty, an understanding of human g , every expression and impression of man ’ s creation o r t o so a s behavior which is perceptible us , far it 115 ART AND METHOD .

is perceptible . What we have to do is to find

‘ methods , in order to secure objective rules and control for this immediate and subjective grasp of events ,

a s especially we now have before us , to represent the

o f o r past, only the views others fragments of that which once existed . We need to ground, sound and justify our subjective knowledge O nly this seems able to assert itself a s the sense o f the historical objectivity so often named . f We are to discover methods . There is need o differ

fo r ent ones different problems , and often a combination

f n of several is required for the solution o o e problem . S o long a s History w a s believed to be essentially politi

to cal history, and the task of the historian was just recount in new presentation and connection what h a d been transmitted about revolutions , wars , state events ,

ffi s . u e etc , it might su ce to take for from the best w sources , hich had perhaps been critically authenticated as the best , the material to be wrought into a book ,

o r . a lecture , the like But Since the insight has been

n awakened that also the arts , jural formatio s , every

o f thing human creation , all the formations character izing the moral world , can and must be investigated in

w a s order to deduce that which is from that which , demands of a very di fferent kind are made upon our science . It has to investigate formations according to

t s o f their his orical connection , formation which perhaps i O only ind vidual remnants are preserved, to pen fields

n o t o f hitherto considered or treated as historical , least all by those who lived in the midst o f them . Thus questions are pressing upon History from all sides , questions touching things fo r the most part in co m pa ~ 11 6 APPENDICES . ra bly weightier than the often very superficial and accidental accounts which have hitherto passed for I History . s investigation to lay down its arms here ?

o f E When we enter a collection gyptian antiquities , we have at once the subjective View of their wonderful ancientness , and the accompanying strange impression ; but at least in certain directions we can by investigation come to more positive results . Here are these syenites , hewn and p olished . Here are these colors , these woven fabrics . What tools , what metals were required to work such hard stone ? What mechanical contrivances were needed to raise such masses o u t o f the quarry and put them aboard ship ? H o w were these colors prepared chemically ? O u t o f what materials are these fabrics made and whence did they come ? In the way o f such technological interpretation of remains , facts are made o u t which in numerous and important directions fill up o u r meagre tradition concerning ancient Egypt ; and these facts possess a certainty so much the greater for the indirectness o f the manner in which they were deduced .

h e i ii Many think it t part of criticism , touching , for o f stance , the constitution ancient Rome or Athens

a s before the Persian wars , to allow only that to pass good history which is explicitly transmitted and attested . The reader ’ s fancy will not fail to combine these scanty

a notices and thus to fill them out into picture only ,

o f this filling out is commonly a play the fancy, and the picture more o r less a rtifiCial . Is it not possible to find methods which will regulate the process of such filling d ? out, an give it a foundation In the pragmatic nature exhibited by things of this kind — and writers Should

1 1 8 APPENDICES .

o f in the works art or in things related thereto . He was called upon n o t only aesthetically to feel but per ’ suasively to point out the artist s deeper o r more super ficial View or intention .

The same in all other departments . O nly the deep

ao and many Sided technical and Special knowledge ,

a s it e cording is art , law, commerce , agricultur , or the

S is tate and politics that to be historically investigated , will put the investigator in condition to ascertain the

fo r methods demanded the given case , and to work with them . Just S O new methods are continually found o u t in the natural sciences to unlock dumb ’ nature s mysteries . All such methods which come into play in the realm o f historical studies move within the same periphery

T o and have the same determining centre . unite them

to in their common thought, develop their system and

h n o t o b e c t eir theory, and so to establish , the laws of j tive History but the laws of histo rical investigation and — is fl isto r ilc. knowledge , this the task of I ND E X .

A . e a rh e r a n d a e o m s 23 l t r f r , ;

’ o f co e cn e ss o r a sch lu s Dro se n s T a n s a o n rr t v lidity , fE y , y r l ti o f th e so u ce s 2 4 r , ; o f u o e 12 313 . , xv ; q t d , ’ o u o m e o f a 2 5 2 c 6 . n e th e e a Dro se n s t , wh t , , Al e xa d r Gr t , y

H s o o f . i t ry , xvii D .

A e n ce s 6 1 a n d fo l . c a a c pp di , ; h r D a m a n in F a n o A sse m f hl , r kf rt bly t e r . o , ix , x f 4 x o 18 8 . i F n f A s , xix M . n a o A n E . r dt , , r k rt

D n e u o e 15 4 . a t , q t d , 5 m l o f 1848 . se b y , xxix ’ V n 1 1 Da c 7 . A is o an e s Dro se n s T ra n sla i i , r t ph , y D a c ca o ce u e 23 . f u i riti l pr d r , o n o o e 86 . ti , xvi ; q t d h Dicae a rc u s u o e 38 . s o e D o se n co n n o sse u , q t d Ari t tl , r y a i r D a c c E o s o n 53 a n d f l f x u e 36 3 id ti xp iti , o . o o 10 8 . , xxii ; q t d , , D 22 o m a cs . Art a n d Me 0 n d f l ipl ti , o 1 5 a o . th d , D u e o s o n n f l sc ss E 55 a d o . A s th e n d h B u i iv xp iti , a t e e a u 40 . rt , , tif l ,

f . D o se n G . so n o J . . h f 42 r y , , G , vi u o t e e e o . A th rity , Sph r ,

D se n . . a n a s s o n ro y , J G , r k hi t ria ,

V ii a n d fo l . o a e s v , , xiv bi gr phi ,

u s s e h is e vi ; p pil , vi ; tyl , v ; pr f

n F . u e B a co , , q o t d 80 . " h u n e ce to t e d . a O tli , ix ; o u F 23 B a r , . C . , . d E e u to 3r d . ca o n , xi ; d ti , xiv ; B e a u fu th e a n d th e A 4 ti l , , rts, 0 . e a e a c n a n d o s rly t hi g w rk , xv , B o a ca E o s n 53 i gr phi l xp itio , . a n s o n to s o xvi ; tr iti hi t ry , xvi ’ ; B o a Dro se n s S e c o f i gr phy , y , k t h , H s o o f He e n sm its i t ry ll i , xvii ; n d f l xiv a o . a u s a n s o n to m o d f lt , xvii ; tr iti .

o n e a n 16 1 . B di , J , , 0 7 e m a t Je n s . o o a hi t , xviii ; r v l ,

u T . s o f c e . o B kl , H , Hi t ry Civili a i n a e m a n Em e xix ; f ith G r pir , z ti n n f l a o e e e 6 1 a d o . r vi w d , H s o o f P u ss a n Po c xix ; i t ry r i li y ,

x ix n d f l n a o . ; Dro yse a s a

n f l h is er te a che r , xxi a d o . ; p

a as o c n li h i C ni C E o s o n 53 . so a t s s a t tr phi xp iti , y , xxiii ; hri ti ty , m 6 . C o e A . 1 70 x m a n n e ss x o ca t , , , x iv ; li , xvii ; p liti l

C csm in H s 2 n d f l . l o 1 a o n d fo . e e riti i , i t ry , ; a ctivity , xxviii a bri f r

o f e n u n e n e ss 22 o f o s x e a o n s g i , ; w rk , xxii ; r l ti with 12 0 INDEX .

a n e R k , xxxiii illn e ss a n d e a d th , xxxiv . e e 46 . H g l , Du n c e M x f ’ a o . s e c e s o k r , , bi g k t h He e a n sm Dro se n s X II g li i , y , V , D o se n r y , vi .

' DIi re r A e ’ c 117 . , lbr ht , He e n sm Dro se n s H s o r f ll i , y i t y o ,

xvii . E .

e e 4 . H rd r , 5 E e a o n th e o f H s o to a n l v ti , , i t ry r k He u u e ro d o t s, q o t d 50 . o f a e n f Sc ce 6 1 a n d l . i , o H s o ca Me o th e 2 i t ri l th d , , 1 a n d E n cyclo pe dia a n d Me tho do l o gy l fo . ’ o f H s o Dro se n s e u e i t ry , y l ct r s u e s Histo rica l St di , pre se n t co n di

o n 8 . , ix , xxiv , o n n d e f 3 6 1 a n d f ti a vi ws o , , o l .

En s in H s o 46 a n d fo l . d i t ry , s o c W n e se n te n Hi t ri a l riti g, pr t En h 4 n f l d t e e s 7 a d o . , high t , d e n c o f a n ce n a n d y , viii ; i t h f e e n E o ca t e o B o e 79 . r i , ; th v , m l n d f l e d imva , 106 a o . E o s o n n e o a e 5 1 52 xp iti , i t rr g tiv , , ; H i storilc th e o r u n e o f th e , , O tli e c a e 52 53 — a c c r it tiv , , ; did ti , n a Pri ciple s o f Histo ry . Ch ra c 53 54 scu ss e 55 a n d f l , ; di iv , o . te r f 16 17 . o , vii , ,

s o a o u s e s o f its n Hi t ry , v ri vi w a

l n u e 3 a n d fo . a u e 9 t r , t r , , 90

F a m th e 38 . ily , , n d f l n e s e f m a o . o a o e i v lv id ti ,

F a n c Se a s a n 10 7 . r k , b ti , 10 ; co rre l a tive o f m o ra l F a n o Na o n a Asse m a t ’ r kf rt , ti l bly , 1 e a o n o f a s a n d wo rld , 0 ; r l ti p t in 48 18 . , xxix e sen in 11 e a s o n pr t , ; d l ly with F e e cth e e a u 4 d ri Gr t , q o te d 5 . 2 i u m n 1 . r wh a t s h a , m m f F e e o e a n n o 44 45 . r d , i g , , o e n 117 . H lb i , F m in o r s , th e which Histo ry n x I n , H o e n a d Sc e s x V . lst i , hl wig ,

o s 36 a n d fo l . w rk , m W m v n m o n e Hu o . o a c b ldt , , i p rt f l f f r s o n d o . 16 . o o Hi t ry , 7 a ,

G . I ll . e iu u u s u o e 50 . G s, A l , q t d e n e s u I e a a n e s s th e O fS o ce G is, q o te d 93 . d l p rt r hip , , i ty , f l rv n 39 a n d o . Ge i u s , 16 , 50 .

o n e n s o ca c o o o f I u m n a o n th e E n s 10 7 . G tti g , hi t ri l S h l ll i ti , gli h ,

h n 4 I n e e a o n in H s o 26 a n d i n 18t e u . C t ry , t rpr t ti , i t ry , c 2 7 o f co n er 44 fo l . a m a q OI (T u rn , . ; pr g ti , ; di

a C o s e G m n a s u m o f o n s 2 7 s c o o ca 2 8 Gr y l i t r , y i , ti , ; p y h l gi l , ; D e t o f e a s 30 its u e s o n s 31 ro yse n te a ch s a , xiv , xxi . id , ; q ti ,

n A n o Es e a n e a n d fo l . Gre e , r ld , q , l r d

3 I n e o a o n in H s o 2 1 . e e n s 8 . H ll i t , t rr g ti , i t ry ,

I o a e E o s o n 5 1 52 . G un a e n P o f o f B e s a u V I I . n te rr g tiv xp iti , , r h g , r , r l ,

1 0 0 INDEX .

R o m a n L a w o f T e e T a e s T m e o s o , w lv bl , i , a c rre la tive o f Hi t ry ,

u o e 43 . 98 n f l q t d a d o .

T a n s a o n th e e se n c r l ti , pr t , h a ra c f te r o . , vii f T a n s a o P e a ce o . Sa ce th e a n d Re n s 4 r l t r , r f , v r d , , ligi o , 0 . ’ T e h 3 t e 8 . h fii rib , , S c a e e , 16 . h 0 T u e h e a n d t e ce n ce s 4 . c e e u r , t , S i S hl ich r , q o te d 40 .

Sc e s a n d H o s e n hl wig , l t i , xxviii .

Sce n ce s th e a n d th e T u e 4 i , , r , 0 . V o a e lt ir 108 . So ce th e S e e f o 41 . i ty , ph r , S o u ce s s o ca e fin e 19 W r , hi t ri l , d d , ; .

e e e n e 20 . d riv d , d fi d , W m u a chs th , 50 . a ce co e a e to a u e Sp , rr l tiv N t r , a s a h n m n s n ca n ce o f its W r eh e , ig ifi T m e t o s o 97 . i Hi t ry , e m 10 3 o o . ty l gy , S e e c n d th L n u e p h a e a g a g s, 39 . ’ Wa s fo r F e e o m Dro se n s r r d , y a e th e 42 43 St t , , , , s o o f . Hi t ry , xviii l v n 64 f l b e o . o . S y , , xxxviii , [ W o th e o f H s o 43 a n d fo l . rk , , i t ry , s e m th e o c n e o f 32 a n d Sy t , d tri , W o e s th e o f s o r 43 a n d rk r , , Hi t y , f l T o . .

Y . T a e s T e e o f o m a n L a w bl , w lv , R , 4 Yo o f Wa e n u F e Ma r qu o te d 3 . rk rt b rg , i ld ’ Dro se n s B o a o f T e s F e n c e o u o n 10 8 . s a hi r , r h R v l ti , h l , y i gr phy ,

T u c e s 16 3 . . h ydid , , 7 xviii