ECONOMIC HISTORY AND KINDRED SCIENCES 207 



or whether on the contrary it rests upon a misunderstanding. 1 I am 

 decidedly of the latter opinion. We see developing upon the same 

 soil completely different stages of civilization, though doubtless 

 in the last analysis definite bounds are set to human activity by 

 natural environment, as for instance, to cite an extreme case, in the 

 polar regions and in the tropics. But within these bounds lies so 

 infinitely wide a field that in most cases it is negligible in our in- 

 vestigation. Economic history proves to us man's great independence 

 of nature. His peculiar capacity for progress is independent, not 

 altogether of external influences, but of those accessible to human 

 knowledge, which alone, therefore, demand our consideration. If 

 in the extreme sense of the word there is no chance, still from the 

 standpoint of human judgment chance does exist in historical 

 events. The death of a ruler at a critical moment, as for example of 

 Gustavus Adolphus in the battle of Liitzen, has of course a natural 

 explanation in the encounter of a good marksman with the king on 

 the battlefield, but from the historical standpoint it nevertheless 

 remains an accident of the deepest significance for the further history 

 not only of the Thirty Years' War but of Germany. So also the fact 

 that Frederick the Great remained unscathed in every battle and 

 reached a great age, although it had its satisfactory natural reason, 

 was for the historian accidental, since causes thus conditioned are 

 withdrawn from human observation and do not stand in any inner 

 connection with the general course of events. At the same time it 

 has nevertheless been already admitted, or at least indicated, that 

 certain prominent individuals can have and continually do have 

 a definite influence upon the further development of civilization as a 

 whole, even though they are bound in their activity to the soil where 

 they have grown, are the product of the milieu out of which they 

 have proceeded, and their influence is determined by the state of 

 civilization and the racial characteristics of the nation upon which 

 they have operated. That just three such men found themselves 

 together as our Emperor William, Bismarck, and Moltke, was for 

 Germany an accident which we have to thank for the existence in its 

 present form of a united German Empire, and no one can say when 

 and how the same end could otherwise have been attained. Because 

 of Bismarck's conviction that his purpose could be effected only by 

 an equal, universal suffrage, the social-democratic party has obtained 

 the political importance which it possesses among us to-day and the 

 Centre exercises a decisive influence upon our legislation. That only 

 the powerful personality of a Luther called the Reformation into 

 being, guided it in the course it took, and made it actually effective, 

 is now generally recognized. The mere enumeration of names is 

 sufficient to recall the influence on all economic life exercised by 

 1 Ed. Meyer, Zur Theorie und Methodik der Geschichte. Halle, 1902. 



