122 MEDIEVAL HISTORY 



journalism of the decades of sentimentalism and the "Sturm und 

 Drang" periods tried at least to set it free from the old traditional 

 metaphysical theories. A universal genius like Kant was right to 

 refrain from taking part in such primitive beginnings, and this stage 

 of philosophy corresponded to that of history. 



Psychology and historical science begin to approach each other 

 about 1800, under the influence of the new ideas of the time; but 

 they were as yet far from meeting; between them still lay heavy 

 and bulky masses of scientifically unanalyzed psychic matter. 



How different it is to-day in the first decade of a new period of 

 subjectivism, which in so many of its parts seems to be a restora- 

 tion of the old, only in a higher stage of development. To-day psy- 

 chology looks back on two generations of investigators, who delivered 

 it from the deadly grasp of metaphysics and made it an independent 

 science. Wundt followed Herbart. And now a younger, a third, 

 generation is at work perfecting and amplifying the results obtained. 

 These results, however they may vary and become matters of dis- 

 pute, according to the direction of investigation, permit a profound 

 insight into the legitimate course of individual-psychic life, such as 

 was denied to our predecessors. The most important results of all 

 this investigation for the historical student are recorded in the 

 works of Wundt, Ebbinghaus, Miinsterberg, Lipps, collections of 

 data which have already become indispensable to the allied sciences. 



This is a condition of things extremely helpful to historical science 

 in the socio-psychic direction. If one penetrates into the depths of 

 historic causation, it will be found that psychology has prepared 

 the way and has become a safe guide to the historian, who wishes to 

 make known his discoveries in formulae in which they may be fitly 

 expressed. 



In this way psychology and historical science entered into partner- 

 ship. The partition between them is giving way, and certainly one 

 may say if it may thus be expressed that psychology increas- 

 ingly serves as a mechanical force to history. 



But the relations of the two sciences are by no means thus com- 

 pletely described. Just as along with the psychology of the normal 

 adult there must be kept in mind that of childhood and old age in 

 order that the antithetic character of all psychic processes, the 

 full extent and the whole circle of the potentiality of the human 

 psyche, as far as the individual is concerned, may be appreciated 

 and the corresponding biological functions be observed, so it is 

 necessary to obtain a full comprehension of the meaning of the 

 socio-psychological process in history in order to proceed in a man- 

 ner quite analogous. In this instance psychology is dependent on 

 history, and only from an intensive investigation of the cultural 

 periods of mankind as a whole are the data attainable which will 



