KARL LAMPRECIIT AND KULTURGESCIIICIITE. 423 



Dorf records, the very store accounts of the people. What could have 

 been more revolutionary? In addition to this, history embraces, ac- 

 cording to the new comer, all phases of intellectual and physical activ- 

 ity, and not, as the Rankiancr believe, only the political side of things. 

 This was not only a sharp reflection on the older school, but a second 

 very practical, if unspoken, declaration that the aristocratic portion of 

 the country should occupy relatively only a few of the pages of history. 



Still another cause for complaint of Lamprecht's 'history as a 

 science' is to be found in the latter 's approval of the work of the 

 Eankianer as a basis for KuUurgeschi elite, for a true Weltgeschichie 

 which was declared to be a necessary result of the new method. The 

 idea that Eanke and Mommsen had been preparing the way for still 

 greater historians was distasteful enough to the Berlin professors — the 

 wearers of the Eanke mantle. Another of Lamprecht's disagreeable 

 claims is that a full and complete list of authorities may be omitted 

 and that the historian's page need not always be securely underpinned 

 Avith double columns of notes and references. The text itself should 

 embrace the results of the works of individual scholars who have pre- 

 ceded him, should show that the author has compassed the whole field 

 and garnered the fruits of others, but he is not necessarily required to 

 give the names of all the sowers. ' Too many compilations of this kind 

 we have already,' says the Leipzig professor. 



Again, Lamprecht's history is based on Darwinism, i. e., it views 

 every element of our present culture world as a result of evolution. 

 Now every follower of Eanke believes in the correctness of Darwin's 

 principal conclusions, and a history which applied these conclusions 

 would have met with their approval but for the fact that it appeared 

 as a sort of criticism of themselves. Emerson's saying that we dis- 

 trust our own best thoughts until another gives them expression might 

 fitly apply here if he had but added 'but we are usually angered at the 

 one who announces them if they prove popular.' Schopenhauer's pro- 

 test against idealism, his violent destructiveness, seriously affected the 

 Weltanschauung of Eanke historians; then came the Englishman's 

 revolutionary teaching completely superseding the traditional German 

 philosophy, but all to no effect so far as hi story- writing was concerned. 

 Lamprecht believes the theory of evolution has ceased to be a theory, 

 that it is really the basis of modern thought, and consequently he holds 

 that history must be rewritten, if it is to meet the demands of the 

 time. His 'Deutsche Geschichte' reestablishes the connection between 

 history and philosophy. 



A work of such revolutionary character must necessarily meet vio- 

 lent opposition rather than fair criticism. The question which the 

 unbiased student of history asks is : Does the book satisfy the demands 

 of history while answering the requirements of philosophy? Del- 



