GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 151 



of Lessing, Herder, and the classical literature of the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century. The greatest 

 example of the fruit of German erudition and philological 

 criticism in union with the large philosophical aspects 

 which the first third of the century produced were the 

 historical works of Leopold von Kanke, beginning with . 



Leopold von 



his ' History of the Popes ' and continued through his 

 ' German History at the Time of the Reformation ' and 

 his ' French and English Histories ' of the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries. In these works Ranke dealt, 

 from a universal point of view, with the great political, 

 literary, and religious agencies which were at work in 

 the formation of modern Europe. No other historian of 

 modern times had shown so much combined erudition 

 and critical acumen in handling the enormous volume of 

 documentary evidence which became accessible when the 

 archives of Europe were for the first time opened. But 

 this alone would not as Ranke himself admitted 

 have sufficed to found and secure his reputation, had it 

 not been for the art of historiography which he possessed. 

 The artistic side did not suffer, as it did in many other 

 German historians, by the weight of material on the one 

 side or by abstract philosophical reflections on the other. 1 



1 A great deal has been written 

 not only in Germany but also in 

 other countries concerning the real 

 methods of Niebuhr as well as quite 

 recently on the " Ideas" of Ranke. 

 What was in both a result of artistic 

 genius and insight has now to be 

 dissected and analysed as biolo- 

 gists have endeavoured to find 

 out and define the principle of 

 life by dissecting and analysing 

 living organisms. In both cases 

 the living principle disappears 



under the hands of the critic, 

 as, indeed, it was not produced 

 by synthesis. So far as Niebuhr 

 is concerned, his views regarding 

 early Roman history have been 

 criticised and discussed in this 

 country where he produced quite 

 as great an impression as in Germany 

 notably by Sir George Cornewall 

 Lewis in his ' Enquiry into the Cre- 

 dibility of Early Roman History.' 

 Among recent German writers we 

 find, e.g. t the statement that the 



