The* monetary economists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries succeeded in dissipating the popular fallacies concerning an alleged stability of money. The old error disappeared, but a new one originated, the illusion of money’s neutrality.

I.*

The history of civilization is the record of a ceaseless struggle for liberty.

I. Thought and Conduct*

Earlier historians dealt almost exclusively with the deeds and exploits of kings and warriors. They paid little or no attention to the slowly working changes in social and economic conditions. They did not bother about the modifications of doctrines, creeds, and mentalities.

Karl* Knies has recommended to replace the traditional division of economic goods into consumer goods and producer goods with a threefold classification: producer goods, consumer goods, and means of exchange.

I*

Up to the eighteenth century, historians paid little or no attention to the epistemological problems of their craft.

I*

One of the manifestations of the present-day “revolt against reason” is the tendency to find fault with the social sciences for being purely rational. Life and reality, say the critics, are irrational; it is quite wrong to deal with them as if they were rational and open to interpretation by reasoning.

I*

The foundations of the modern social sciences were laid in the eighteenth century. Up to this time we find history only.