Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/265



LEOPOLD VON RANKE^

A LITTLE more than sixty years ago the expectation had become general that historical research would be as charac- teristic a note of the nineteenth century as philosophical speculation had been of the eighteenth. 2 It is hardly pos- sible so soon to decide what has been the dominant intel- lectual characteristic of our century, ^ but certainly, in the increase of positive historical knowledge, the elaboration of sound historical method, the enlargement of the range of his- torical evidence, and especially in the development of the historical way of looking at things, the nineteenth century stands out conspicuous above any century since the Renais- sance. To these immense changes no one contributed so much as Leopold von Ranke, the centenary of whose birth was celebrated last week.*

That the American Historical Association should observe in some way this anniversary is fitting for general reasons, and, in particular, because Ranke was an honorary member of our organization. It is not my purpose to-night to pre- sent a general account of Ranke 's life. That was done in a

1 An address before the American Historical Association in Washington, December 26, 1895, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of Ranke's birth, December 21, 1795.

2 ", . . cette opinion, deja (i. e., 1824-1830) tres repandue, que Thistoire serait le cachet du dix-neuvieme siecle, et qu'elle lui donnerait son nom, comme la philosophie avait donne le sien au dix-huitieme." Augustin Thierry, preface to his Dix Ans d'l^tudes Historiques, 1834.

3 Comte, forty years ago, wrote : " Le siecle actuel sera principalemeut carac- terise par I'irrevocable pre'ponderance de I'histoire en philosophie, en politique, et meme en poesie." Politique Positive, III, 1, cited from Lord Acton's The Study of History, 131.


 * Hanke was born December 21, 1795.