OF SOCIETY. 501 



or, as Hegel said, the Idea. But in this whole region 

 the development of the human mind in history is the 

 most conspicuous and instructive instance of the work- 

 ing of the universal spirit. This conception, implying 

 an apparent dualism between the living and active 

 forces and the material substance, was not peculiar 

 and original to Schelling and Hegel. It constituted 

 a view which was very generally accepted, and ran 

 through the whole of German literature and poetry 

 ever since the time of Leibniz, Lessing, and Herder. 

 It was the older form of the doctrine of evolution. 

 Hegel attempted to put it into a systematic form, to 

 give it a logical expression, and to invent a method 

 which could be employed for tracing coherently and 

 in definite detail what was indefinite but implied in 

 the higher mental w^ork of his age and country. Al- 

 though in certain directions Hegel's attempt at defin- 

 ing the indefinite led to conspicuous success, notably 

 in the history of philosophical and religious thought, 

 as also in that of aesthetics, the extreme formalism 

 peculiar to his writings, and still more conspicuous 

 with some of his followers, led to a kind of revolt 

 of the genuine historical school against what they con- 

 sidered to be a construction rather than an exposition 

 of historical facts and events. On the whole this school, 

 which had in Mebuhr and Eanke its greatest repre- 

 sentatives, and acquired European fame and influence, 

 disliked and turned away from the historical specula- 

 tions of Hegel. It did not abandon the fundamental 

 point of view from which that classical age looked upon 

 history ; the difference may rather be stated by saying 



