Lamprecht's Method 54] 



19. I have dwelt on the fundamental ideas of Lampreeht, because 

 they are not yet widely known in England, and because his system It 

 the ablest product of the sociological school of historians. It carries 

 the more weight as its author himself is a historical specialist, and 

 his historical syntheses deserve the most careful consideration. Bui 

 there is much in the process of development which on Bach 

 assumptions is not explained, especially the initiative of individuals. 

 Historical development does not proceed in a right line, without tin- 

 choice of diverging. Again and again, several roads are open to it. 

 of which it chooses one — why? On Lamprecht's method, we ma) be 

 able to assign the conditions which limit the psychical activity of men 

 at a particular stage of evolution, but within those limits the indi- 

 vidual has so many options, such a wide room for moving, that the 

 definition of those conditions, the "psychical diapasons," is only pari 

 of the explanation of the particular development. The heel of 

 Achilles in all historical speculations of this class has been the role 

 of the individual. 



The increasing prominence of economic history has tended t<> 

 encourage the view that history can be explained in terms of genera] 

 concepts or types. Marx and his school based their theory of human 

 development on the conditions of production, by which, according to 

 them, all social movements and historical changes are entirely con- 

 trolled The leading part which economic factors play in Lamprecht's 

 system is significant, illustrating the fact that economic changes 

 admit most readily this kind of treatment, because they have been 

 less subject to direction or interference by individual pioneers. 



Perhaps it may be thought that the conception of social environ- 

 ment (essentially psychical), on which Lamprecht's "psychical 

 diapasons" depend, is the most valuable and fertile conception that 

 the historian owes to the suggestion of the science of biology — the 

 conception of all particular historical actions and movements as 



(1) related to and conditioned by the social environment, and 



(2) gradually bringing about a transformation of that environment. 

 But no given transformation can be proved to be necessary (pre- 

 determined). And types of development do not represent laws ; 

 their meaning and value lie in the help they may give to the 

 historian, in investigating a certain period of civilisation, to enable 

 him to discover the interrelations among the diverse features which 

 it presents. They are, as some one has said, an instrument <>t 

 heuretic method. 



20. The men engaged in special historical researches — which 

 have been pursued unremittingly for a century past, according to 

 scientific methods of investigating evidence (initiated by Wolf. 

 Niebuhr, Ranke) — have for the most part worked on the assumptions 



