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LEOPOLD VON RANKE 247

more satisfactory, and he went home from them "with the incitement to study the great persons, the mighty leaders of literature in mediaeval and modern times." ^ During the earlier years at Leipzig his studies were mainly Old and New Testament Introduction and New Testament Interpre- tation. Doctrinal studies did not attract him, and the preva- lent rationalism awakened no sympathy. It is interesting to note that he made a thorough historical study of the Psalms, 2 trying to connect one and another with specific events in the history of the kings. To the stimulating in- struction of Hermann and Beck in philology he always looked back with gratitude. Hermann taught him to under- stand Pindar, who, with the tragedians, remained a favorite among the poets. Thucydides he studied with especial thor- oughness, making many extracts of his political teachings.

The first German historical work that impressed him was Niebuhr's Roman History^ and it exercised the greatest in- fluence on his historical studies. At first, however, he did not fully appreciate its scientific significance, and it served mainly as a stimulus to his classical studies. It breathed the classical atmosphere, calling to mind the great writers of antiquity and convincing him that there might be mod- ern historians. Among the other literary influences of this period were Fichte's Addresses to the Gierman Nation^^ and like all his fellow-students he greatly admired Goethe. Of more importance, however, was his resorting to Luther's works to learn modern German at the fountain head. In so doing he became so absorbed in their contents and so im- pressed with Luther's greatness that, in 1817, when public interest in Luther was revived by the tercentenary of the Reformation, he essayed a life of the reformer. To the young student fresh from the study of Luther's own writings the current popular accounts seemed feeble. The project, how- ever, proved beyond his resources.^

In 1818 Ranke went to Frankfort-on-the-Oder to take a position not unlike that of a professor of ancient languages

1 Pages 29, 60. 2 Pages 31, 41, 59. » Pages 31, 59.