570 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



to observe in the development of German thought in 

 other regions, the theoretical principles which guide 

 these two celebrated historians in their extensive 

 labours were not clearly brought out till after they 

 had been put into practice in the treatment of large 

 historical subjects. Ranke himself never attempted a 

 consistent exposition of his fundamental and guiding 

 ideas. It is only from scattered indications, notably 

 from the Introduction to some of the later of his works, 

 that a younger generation of historians has attempted 

 to fathom and define his historical method. 



And so far as Lamprecht is concerned it is only 

 after having published several works on the economic 

 aspects of various historical periods, and after having 

 written the greater part of his ' German History ' that 

 he has, in a series of polemical tracts, 1 attempted to 



1 Notably the following : (1) 

 'Alte und neue Richtungen in 

 der Geschichtswissenschaft ! (1896). 

 This contains a dissertation on 

 historical method and a very valu- 

 able collection of extracts with 

 the object of defining Ranke's 

 ' Ideenlehre ' ; (2) ' Die Kultur- 

 historische Methode' (1900); (3) 

 ' Moderne Geschichtswissenschaft ' 

 (5 Lectures, 1905). In the latter 

 Lamprecht tries to define more 

 clearly what he terms the socio- 

 psychological method. He believes 

 in a Sozialpsyche, in the soul of 

 society, and he maintains that the 

 laws which govern the life and 

 development of this social soul or 

 mind must be found through the 

 study of the psychology of the 

 individual, referring to the recent 

 development of psychology in Ger- 

 many under the hands of such 

 thinkers as Wundt, Ebbinghaus, 

 and Lipps. Although the economic 



and physical foundations and con- 

 ditions of national life are extreme- 

 ly important and are emphasised 

 by Lamprecht, he does not fall 

 in with Karl Marx's materialistic 

 treatment of history. He seems 

 to think that at certain moments 

 the psychical influences gain the 

 upper hand and become dominant. 

 His views on this point, though 

 characteristic of his whole position, 

 are not sufficiently clear to afford 

 a concise statement or criticism, 

 but the following passage may give 

 an indication to the reader of this 

 interesting speculation, which, in 

 the Lectures referred to, is especi- 

 ally applied to the psychological 

 development in the history of Ger- 

 many. "The latent possibilities 

 of the soul in the direction of 

 historical developments form an 

 extensive region let us say, the 

 area of a circle. Within this circle 

 external stimulants move into the 



