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502 genuine spirit that he was a gracious and merciful judge of men, forgetful of himself, and deemed it his true function to describe events, committing ideas, institutions, and principles to those whom they professionally concern. His fame will rise or fall with the authority of the school which still reigns supreme. If, taking other examples and other methods into account, historians occupy themselves with all that goes to weave the web of social life, then the work of Giesebrecht, like the work of Ranke, will appear neither sufficient nor efficient, but characteristic of a passing stage in the progress of science. But if politics and history are one, so that the historian has only to record, in absolute purity, the action of organised public forces, then he deserves to be remembered, among the best men of Germany, as one who during his lifetime was unsurpassed in mediæval narrative.