160 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



general European interest only in the third decade of 

 the century. 1 For the History of European Thought it 

 is important, but also sufficient, to show how the critical 

 spirit entered more and more into regions of research 

 and learning which, before that time, were cultivated 

 without the conscious application of any definite method. 

 To do this I have, as it were, merely sampled an 

 enormous material, having dealt with a few prominent 

 representatives such as Niebuhr and Ranke, Eitschl 

 and Mommsen who are now recognised by authorities 

 all over Western Europe, or with others such as Carl 

 Hitter and Ernst Curtius who exhibit what is peculiarly 

 characteristic and unique among the contributions of the 

 German mind to this department of European thought. 



In one of the later chapters of this section I shall 

 have an opportunity of showing how philosophical 

 criticism has latterly approached, among other subjects, 

 the historical problem also from a different side, having 

 been led to deal with it as one of the principal aspects 

 of a much larger question, of what I have termed " the 

 problem of society." 



III. 



As stated above, we may trace back philosophical 

 criticism, or criticism par excellence, to the writings of 

 Kant. They appeared somewhat later than those of 

 Lessing, whom we have regarded as the first repre- 

 sentative in Germany of that critical movement which, 



1 By Lord Acton, in the ' English Historical Review,' vol. i. p. 7. 



