Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/644

 634 Reviews of Books more and more self-important, grows increasingly conscious of the interdependence between himself and his environment. Chapter i. (pp. 93-179), " Entstehung und erste Entwicklungsperiode des modernen Btirgertums ", shows how the old " Biirgertum " which in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early part of the sixteenth centuries had molded the culture of Germany (mainly in the free cities of the south) decayed. Then through various influences, especially the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia and the great influx of Huguenots after the Revo- cation of the Edict of Nantes, the whole centre of gravity of the poli- tical and social life moved northward, from Niirnberg and Augsburg to Hamburg, Leipzig, and Berlin. Chapter 11. (pp. 180-302), " Neue Gesellschaft, neues Seelenleben ", describes the increasing prosperity of the new " Biirgertum ", which from about 1740 on led to a widening of the horizon and to a con- sequent desire for a new culture adapted to its own needs. The fact that the leaders of the new intellectual life sprang from this class (Winckelmann, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Fichte, etc.) proves its significance. Simplicity, in contrast to the aristocratic standards of the preceding generation, would very naturally be the new ideal. Thus the author insists that the cult of the simple and the emotional in Germany was an indigenous growth. Although Lamprecht may go too far in undervaluing the importance of the influence of Rousseau and English writers like Addison and Thomson, we heartily agree with his protest against that mechanical explanation of all phenomena as the result of literary influence from without (pp. 250 et seqq.). This class, though essentially commercial, by no means aimed solely at the acquisition of money. It was, on the contrary, animated by a genuine desire for a higher intellectual life; its instincts, however, being for some time literary only, not artistic or political. This discussion helps one to understand the ideals of Wilhelm Meister. In the course of a few decades the public — and not the princes as of yore — became the patrons of letters (p. 210). The old nobility thus dropped behind and its literature decayed (p. 224). Here we miss a mention of Wie- land (whom Lamprecht does not adequately appreciate, as appears in his characterization, pp. 437 et scqq.) as the one German writer of the period who, because of his French form, influenced the aristocracy. This middle class, stimulated by many new influences, as we saw, passes through a phase of exaggerated emotionality. The next pages (230- 250) are devoted to tracing the growth and waning of this senti- mentality, which on the one hand produced great originality, on the other many phenomena tending to pathology, such as intense introspec- tion, violent enthusiasm, weakening of the will. Here a few words on Wieland's novel Agathon (1766/7), an expression of intense intro- spection on the part of the author, would have been illuminating. Another helpful reflex of the psychic conditions could have been ad- duced from contemporary "travels" (especially from Heinse). About 1780 came the ebbing of the new sentimentality and excite-