554 LEOPOLD VON RANKE. 



A greater surprise was that in 1880, when it was rumorea that 

 Leopold von Rauke, now eighty-five years old, was writing a History of 

 the World. Dr. George Winter, one of Ranke's private secretaries at 

 this period, narrates in his charming "Erinnerungen" how Ranke first 

 made known to him this new project Ranke had taken a fortnight's 

 vacation, the only one on record in the latter part of his life. He had 

 been to visit General Manteuffel at his country seat. To the astonish- 

 ment of his friends Ranke took no books with him upon tlie journey. 

 He said he was going for recreation, and meant to talk with Man- 

 teuffel. Upon his return, Ranke handed his secretary a manuscript 

 biography of Frederick the Great, dictated during the two weeks' 

 absence without consulting a single book. That wonderful sketch, 

 thrown off apparently for historical amusement, may be found in the 

 " Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic," of which Ranke was the founder. 

 This biography of Frederick the Great was, however, a trifling surprise 

 compared with Ranke's announcement that he had made up his mind 

 at General Manteuffel's to write a History of the World. At first 

 Dr. Winter thought Ranke meant perhaps a brief philosophy of 

 history, but he soon found that the old historian had in mind some- 

 thing much more elaborate than a philosophical sketch. He m.eant a 

 fresh study of universal history from original sources. He proposed 

 a Weltgeschichte in a series of volumes. 



This vast undertaking was the crowning glory of Ranke's life. 

 All his previous writings were but a scientific preparation for this final 

 task. " History," said Ranke in his inaugural address, " is in its very 

 nature universal." It has been said with truth that Ranke never 

 wrote anything except universal history. He treated individual coun- 

 tries, England, France, and Germany, not as isolated phenomena, but 

 as illustrations of world-historic ideas expressed in individual Euro- 

 pean states. For Ranke, as for Abelard, the universal always lay 

 in the particular. Ranke's very first book, on the History of the Latin 

 and Teutonic Nations, was really a contribution to universal history. 

 There is a perfect unity, therefore, between the beginning and end of 

 Ranke's life-work. His '-Weltgeschichte" was but the natural sup- 

 plement of all that had gone before. 



A basis for the proposed history had been laid in a course of 

 lectures by Ranke to King Maximilian of Bavaria, upon " Welt- 

 geschichte." These lectures, says Dr. Winter, still existed in manu- 

 script, and were taken as an outline of the new work. Ranke entered 

 with his secretary upon a fresh study of the ancient historians. The 

 original texts were read aloud, for Ranke could no longer use his eyes 



