INTRODUCTION. 



13 



the thoughts which stirred it. 1 It is the object of these 20. 



Object of 



volumes to fix, if possible, this possession ; to rescue from 

 oblivion that which appears to me to be our secret prop- 

 erty ; in the last and dying hour of a remarkable age to 

 throw the light upon the fading outlines of its mental 

 life ; to try to trace them, and with the aid of all possible 

 information,* gained from the written testimonies or the 

 records of others, to work them into a coherent picture, 

 which may give those who follow some idea of the 

 peculiar manner in which our age looked upon the world 

 and life, how it intellectualised and spiritualised them. 

 This attempt is therefore not a history of outward politi- 

 cal changes or of industrial achievements : the former will 

 probably be better known to our children than they have 21. 



Not a politi- 



been to us ; the latter will soon be forgotten as such, or cai history, 



nora history 



incorporated in the still greater results of the future, for ^n^ture' 

 which they will be the preparation. Nor is it a history and Art 

 of Knowledge and Science, of Literature and Art, which 

 I purpose to write ; though as these are the outcome of 

 the inner life, and contain it, so to say, in a crystallised 

 form, they will always have to be appealed to for the 

 purpose of verifying the conclusions which we may arrive 



^ On the division of History into 

 centuries see what Du Bois-Rey- 

 mond says (' Reden,' Leipzig, 1886, 

 vol. i. p. 519), and the fuller dis- 

 cussion of the subject by Prof. O. 

 Lorenz, ' Die Geschichts - wissen- 

 Bchaft' (Berlin, 1886, p. 279 sqq.) 

 The latter refers to what the first 

 historian says (Herodotus, ii. 142 : 

 KOI'TOI rpirtKOfftat ftfv avSpwv ytvtal 

 Svffarat fivpta trfa ytvfal yap rpels 

 avtipuv tKcnbv tr*d fffn). A per- 

 son born in 1840 can claim to have 

 a personal knowledge of the last 



half, and through his parents and 

 teachers a knowledge of the first 

 half, of the century. In this way 

 it may be said that his personal 

 direct or indirect knowledge ex- 

 tends over nearly a century. Lor- 

 enz says correctly : " Fur jeden 

 einzelnen bildet der Vater und der 

 Sohn eine greifbare Kette von 

 Lebensereignissen und Erfahrun- 

 gen." And that this applies even 

 more to ideas and opinions, to 

 Thought, than to events and facts, 

 is evident. 



