Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences

The Origin and Development of the Historical School of German Economists

1.

The historical school of German economists did not start from Burke and Savigny, nor from Niebuhr and W. v. Humboldt. It is really rooted mainly in the efforts of those German historians who toward the end of the last century and during the first four decades of ours taught history and incidentally politics at a few German universities, particularly Göttingen and Tübingen, as the result of the prevailing university arrangements. Accordingly, they found immediate occasion to utilize their historical knowledge for the science of politics and conversely their knowledge in the latter for their historical studies.

The desire to unite the study of politics with that of history first led the meritorious historians we are dealing with here to elucidate the political maxims set up by them with examples from history and to corroborate them by pointing to successes and failures of political measures. During the further course of development, however, it led to the attempt to place politics in general on historical bases and to present it as the outcome of reflective consideration, as a “philosophy” of history. It would be easy to follow these efforts back even farther. But for our purpose it is sufficient if we refer to Spittler, H. Luden, Pölitz, H. B. v. Weber, and Wächter, and furthermore to Dahlmann, Gervinus, and W. Roscher, to show that originally a “historical school” of political scientists arose in Germany and simultaneously a “political school” of historians.1 From these there gradually developed a historical school of economically oriented political scientists and—since economically oriented political science was frequently confused with political economy by the representatives of this general outlook—a historical school of political economy.

The general character of this group of “political scientists” and the close relationship of their typical ideas to those of our historical economists will best become clear from the following brief presentation of historical ideas. H. Luden characterizes the problem of politics with the following words: “I should like to write a book that presents a view of things that is in agreement with life and the eternal doctrines of history…. I should like as far as possible to verify everything with examples from history to make it felt that it is really history that is speaking.”2 Pölitz emphasizes the necessity of historical studies for the political scientist in the following characteristic manner: “If the statesmanship which belongs to the real life of nations and states were to be derived solely from pure reason without hearing the voice of history at the same time, it would become the dried skeleton of abstract concepts. It would not be applicable to the energetic proclamation of the state as a vigorous organization and it would not utilize the great truths which history offers during a period of several thousand years.”3 H. B. von Weber attacks the merely speculative orientation of politics as science:4 historical experience, he says, presents the rules of good sense by which the most effective means for the purposes of the internal and external life of the state may be and ought to be applied.5 Wächter, finally, in his introduction to Spittler’s “Lectures on Politics” (given as long ago as 1796!) praises the consideration of the “individual.” Spittler’s political maxims, he says, are not absolute rules which have to be carried out everywhere and under all circumstances, but they are modified according to localities, temporal circumstances, geographical extent of land, constitution, character, and mode of life of peoples. Furthermore Spittler always demands only a gradual course of reform and transitional stages.6

The initial trend of the orientation of research in the field of politics under discussion here is fully brought out in the above passages. What distinguishes it is the circumstance that, in contrast to the one-sidedly speculative orientations of research workers in the political sciences who follow individual modern German schools of philosophy, it acknowledges experience and particularly history as an essential basis, the most important basis of research in the field of politics. It tries to make the experiences of history useful for politics, even to build up the latter on the doctrines of history. It is the age-old reaction of empiricism in general and of historical empiricism in particular against a priori speculation in political matters which gives this peculiar character to the efforts of the above writers.

The basic thought of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence, the efforts which characterize the Burke-Savigny orientation and constitute the real center of their efforts, “the doctrine of the organic, unintended origin of a number of human phenomena” with all the consequences of that doctrine for legislation and administration—these are, on the contrary, secondary for the above political scientists, and are even quite alien to them. Their mental spheres hardly come into contact with those of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence. They are opponents of abstract speculation (even that of historizing philosophy), but not usually of the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century Enlightenment and of liberalism in politics. They are opponents of a priori construction in the political sciences and history, but not of one-sided pragmatism in the conception of social phenomena. On the contrary, the majority of the writers mentioned here belong to the liberal (even if not an abstract-liberal) orientation themselves. They try to support and substantiate its guiding ideas in their way, i.e., by history, as best they can.7 What the above men, who were basically liberal on the whole, wanted, was a method of research, the utilization of their fine and solid knowledge in political history for the science of politics, and conversely of the latter for the former, but not conservatism in the sense of the great founders of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence.8

On the other hand they keep clear of those dispositions toward one-sidedness which we have characterized in Burke-Savigny’s opposition to the rationalism and pragmatism of the French Age of Enlightenment. Nowhere, as they really were for the most part historians and political scientists at the same time, do they confuse politics with history. Nowhere do they, like Burke, defend what already exists, what has developed historically, simply in opposition to the reform efforts of their contemporaries. Nowhere, like Savigny,9 do they think that the wisdom in organically created social structures is a priori and without sufficient proof higher than human wisdom, i.e., higher than the judgment of the present. Just as little do the majority of them, with all acknowledgment of the significance of the study of history for politics, become the victims of another error so natural for “historical political scientists”—that of one-sided empiricism or even of one-sided overestimation of historical development. Pölitz says:10 “Statesmanship (politics) is a mixed science (i.e., of philosophical principles and historical facts, equally). If one wanted merely to reduce it to rules borrowed from experience and history, it would not merely lack that firm basis which depends primarily on principles of reason. It would not even be without inner contradictions, because not infrequently one can set up examples from history for mutually opposed political views and assertions.” We have already pointed out above11 that Pölitz just as little wants politics derived one-sidedly from reason. Weber expresses himself similarly.12 He says: “Politics is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely historical science. It is a mixed one insofar as it is simultaneously formed from philosophical principles and from historical facts.13 There may be many objections to the above view, especially to the designation of politics as a “partly philosophical” science. Also in the above arguments on the untenability of pure empiricism or of pure historicism in politics, allusion to many obvious objections may be missed. One-sided overestimation of historical development still is not to be found in the presentations of the above-mentioned writers.

2.

Movement toward this kind of one-sidedness—actually a backward movement far behind the position of J. Bodin!—was first undertaken in the thirties of our century, and by an excellent Göttingen historian at that. He had been planning all his life to write a Politik, but had never carried out the idea. He therefore did not experience the clarifying influence which ordinarily is exerted on one-sided scientific ideas by the process of working them out. We refer here to Gervinus, a writer who exerted considerable influence on the young minds of the Göttingen historical school and by a rare concatenation of events was to become of decisive importance for the conception of methodological problems held by German economists.

Dahlmann in his Politics (1835) had stressed the organic view of the origin and formation of social institutions and the inadequacy of the one-sidedly pragmatic position in explaining them. He did this more vigorously and with incomparably greater depth than his predecessors. The mental sphere of the historical school of jurists had made more than superficial contact with him. Nor does he miss any opportunity to stress the importance of experience in general and the study of history in particular for the science of politics. He is protected, on the other hand, against the error of one-sided overestimation of historical development by his insight into the nature of politics as a practical science with the shaping of life as its aim.14

He assigns to politics “the worthy task of distinguishing, with a perspective sharpened by a comparison of the ages, necessary new formations from innovations which are insatiably invented, whether through exuberance or through bad temper.”

In a review of this work, which was first published in 1836, Gervinus now developed the following views on a “purely scientific political science,” which he planned, but never finished. “He (the author) would have gone over and taken up for this work the realm of history in all its extent. He would have tried to retain what was regular and general out of the vast total of experience, out of what is impermanent, fleeting, recurrent, particular. He would have tried to guess the unfinished history of humanity from the finished histories of nations, and to explain the parts from the whole as well as the whole from the parts, the state from the states.… He would have tried to take up in his picture only what proves to be necessary and according to the law of nature in the development of nations and states. His political science would have become equivalent to a history of the state, his history of the state equivalent to a philosophy of history, and that would have become the most necessary foundation stone for a philosophy of mankind or, what is the same thing, of man. For purely scientific politics should be nothing but a philosophy of the political part of history, just as esthetics should be the philosophy of the history of literature…. With this method politics would correspond to physiology, or to that part of it which has recently been derived from the history of life.” Gervinus, however, thinks that he retreated from these high plans because the historical material “was far from adequate for one to be able to think of such a work, and the childish attempts that had been made here and there simply shrank from such undertakings. A science (political) which was to be based entirely on empiricism would best be developed only after a certain termination of experiences…. The writings of Plato and Aristotle were incontestably the prime basis for such a philosophical political science.”15

This plan of work by the distinguished Göttingen scholar, which is magnificent at least in its own way and has opened up a really endless field of activity for the industry of the scholarly world, did not fall on barren soil in Germany. Its execution after all did not demand direct insight into political life or into the goals and means of governmental activity, nor did it call for that great mass of experience and knowledge which only the direct examination of governmental activities and participation in political affairs ordinarily give. Nor did it demand that very difficult judgment in matters of state which in an immediately original way chooses the aims of political activity and the means for achieving them from the consideration of political life. What the above program required was a careful, comprehensive study of historical works and sources and an understanding that abstracted the general from the particular.16 These were prerequisites which could be fulfilled so much the more easily in German scholarly circles, as even individual details offered a praiseworthy contribution to the problem in its entirety. Furthermore, considering the defective character of preliminary historical works, even less perfect accomplishments could count on a friendly and considerate reception by fellow aspirants. The problem offered much that was appealing in every respect. To a high degree it was in tune with the peculiar genius of the vast majority of specialists in the field of the social sciences in Germany.

To this was added the fact that the above plan of work met the need of the scholarly world and the reading public for positive knowledge, a need which was stimulated most keenly by the rank speculation of modern German schools of philosophy, and was even stimulated one-sidedly for the sake of contrast to the latter. The scholarly world and reading public, after the excesses of philosophic speculation, were really languishing for experience and history and seemed inclined to value scientific systems the more highly the more these outbid each other in emphasizing empiricism and historical empiricism in particular.

Gervinus with his program had not brought the previous historical orientation of politics any closer to that of the historical schools of jurisprudence and constitutional law. He had, rather, moved considerably farther away from their mental sphere. However, his “program for the reform of politics” was at any rate as historical as the nature of the science under discussion here permitted.

But with this we find ourselves at the starting point of that school of German economists which at present is called the “historical.”

3.

When the twenty-one-year-old studiosus historicarum politicarumque literarum in Göttingen, Wilhelm Roscher, who subsequently attained such great significance for the school of German economists under discussion here, published his doctoral dissertation on certain doctrines of the Sophists,17 he already took the opportunity to present his views on the relationship of politics (certainly not of political economy!) to history. In this little work Roscher unreservedly assumes the position of the Göttingen historical school of the time. And in particular the over-estimation of historical development which Gervinus brings out in his view of politics seems not to have remained without decisive influence on him. For him history is the exclusive empirical basis of politics, and the latter is merely the result of a universal consideration of history, of a comparison of different national developments. The best politics is that which is the result of considering the golden ages of the history of nations. Anyone who possessed a universal knowledge of history would at the same time be in possession of the whole objective truth in politics, a truth which, as Roscher seems still to have assumed at that time, would correspond not only to certain historical epochs, but to man in abstracto.18

Four years later Roscher still says: “I consider politics as the theory of the laws of the development of the state. I consider state economy and statistics (?) as especially important branches and aspects of politics (?) which are therefore worked out in special detail. I think I will find those laws of development by comparing the national histories known to me…. My political science is certainly based on universal-historical preliminary studies.”19

Only in his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode (1843) does Roscher declare that he is an adherent of the “historical method”20 and with it “wants to attain for state economy something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method attained for jurisprudence.”21 He characterizes the nature of this method by his statement that he will endeavor “to bring together as a law of development what is homogeneous in various national developments,”22 “to find in the great mass of phenomena what is essential, what is regular, for what purpose all nations that one can get hold of are to be compared with each other in the economic respect.”23

But with this there begins a series of misunderstandings about the nature and method of our science which have become detrimental to the development of scientific economics in Germany and have not yet been straightened out. Roscher wants to attain for political science something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method did for jurisprudence.24 But what he has designated as the nature of his method has scarcely a remote similarity to the Savigny-Eichhorn orientation. Neither Savigny nor Eichhorn designates as the main task of his research, nor in general as a major problem, the setting up of laws of the development of law itself, on the basis of comparison of the legal evolution of nations insofar as he can grasp it. And neither seeks to attain to a juridical science of “objective truth” in this way. What they seek is the historical understanding of concrete law codes, the proof that these are the unintended results of organic developments and as such not the objects of arbitrary transformation and the mania for innovation, that they are above human wisdom. The idea of a philosophy of law, or a philosophy of the history of law, for instance in Roscher’s sense, is far from being the object of their scientific endeavors; it is partly in direct contrast to these. What Roscher wants is the treatment of political economy in the sense that Bodin thought he was treating political science, as Gervinus thought he was treating politics. But he does not want the historical orientation of research in the economic field in the spirit of historical jurisprudence.25

The vagueness about the nature of political economy and of its sub-divisions; the lack of any really strict distinction of the historical, the theoretical, and the practical point of view in research in the economic field;26 the confusion of individual orientations of theoretical research and of the philosophy of economic history in particular with theoretical economics and with political economy at large; the vagueness about the nature of the exact orientation of theoretical research and its relationship to the empirical-realistic orientation; the opinion that the historical-philosophical orientation is the only one justified in political economy and is analogous to historical jurisprudence; the failure to recognize the true nature of the historical point of view in our science, especially as regards its theoretical aspects; the exaggerated importance which is attributed to the so-called historical method; the vagueness about the nature of the organic approach in economy and about the problems resulting there from for social research—all these methodological errors and one-sided emphases appearing already to no small extent in Roscher’s youthful writings are also found in his later writings, in which, to be sure, he is more and more frequently likely to designate his method as “historical or (!) physiological.”27

To this is added the fact that with Roscher as with most of his followers the presentation of political economy by no means corresponds to the above theoretical principles. His system of political economy, as every unprejudiced person must admit, is in truth not at all a philosophy of economic history in the sense he himself characterized, but mainly a compilation of theoretical and practical knowledge from “historical” treatments of political economy; usually, however, from “unhistorical” ones. It is a compilation, the historical element of which on the whole does not consist in the special character of the range of theoretical and practical knowledge of economy it reveals, but in adventitious historical and statistical pronouncements and historical and historical-philosophical digressions about individual economic matters. His political economy is in its foundations not a history of economy according to the “historical method.”

The virtues of the scientific personality of the learned Leipzig scholar; his outstanding merits and his advancement of the historical understanding of a number of important economic phenomena; the incomparable stimulation which his studies in the literature of our science have given to all younger colleagues; the judgment pronounced by the educated reading public of Germany on the art of his presentation and on his fine understanding for the literary needs of his circle of readers—all this does not come into question at this point, as scarcely needs to be said. What is to be made clear here are the methodological errors of the founder of the historical school of German economists, errors which have become pernicious to the development of our science and particularly of its theoretical side.

4.

Among the representatives of the historical school of German economists B. Hildebrand is to be mentioned among the very first. To be sure, in his first short work (1845) of partially methodological content28 he merely stresses collectivism in the consideration of economy in contrast to the “individualism” of Adam Smith and the majority of his followers.29 But just three years later Hildebrand30 declares that he wants to clear the way for a basic historical orientation and method in the field of economy and to change this science to a doctrine of the economic laws of development of nations. He proposes a reform of the knowledge of the economic aspect of the life of nations such as the science of language has experienced in this century. Smith and his school, he says, had tried to construct an economic theory whose laws were to be absolutely valid for all times and nations (and thus without considering the various stages of development and the distinctive dispositions of nations). These were to be applied to all states and nations equally and be above time and space. In Germany as in England the laws and rules of economic science had been called “economic laws of nature” and timelessness ascribed to them as to other laws of nature. He plans to oppose this orientation.31

Fifteen years later Hildebrand writes:

The science of economy does not have the task of dealing with laws of nature as do the physiology of the animal organism or other branches of natural science . . . but it has to detect the progress of the human species in the fluctuation of economic experiences and the perfection of the species in the economic life of mankind. Its task is to investigate the course of economic development of both individual nations and of all humanity step by step. It must recognize in this way the foundations and the structure of present-day economic culture as well as mark the task, the solution of which is reserved for the work of the living generation . . . that is to say it must note the link which the work of the present generation is supposed to add to the chain of social development. The history of economic culture in connection with the history of all political and juridical development of nations and statistics is the only sure basis on which a successful development of economic science seems possible.32

Hildebrand’s attitude toward the theoretical problems dealt with here, and particularly his relationship to Roscher’s methodological position, is sufficiently characterized by these statements. He separates theoretical economics from the practical sciences of economy. If he deals almost exclusively with the method of economic theory, the problem of the historical treatment of the practical economic sciences with each other does not grow hazy for him, as it does for Roscher. Hildebrand does not, like Roscher, find the realization of the historical method in the physiological conception of economic problems. He is against “laws of nature” in economy in general, and, if I may say so, he is against an economic physiology as well as against an economic physics. Rather he looks for the nature of the historical method exclusively in the collectivistic consideration of phenomena of the life of the nation and in the determination of the laws of national economic development. Here, in the partly insufficient separation of history and theory of economy and in his lack of understanding for the exact orientation of theoretical research, his views in the main meet certain of Roscher’s statements. But Hildebrand has nowhere expressed himself in detail about the nature of the laws of development which Roscher comprehends in the sense of parallelisms of the economic history of nations. He twice (1848 and 1863) made starts toward doing this and toward the solution of the real problems of historical methodology. But both works were broken off at the decisive points and left as fragments.

5.

To a higher degree than the two previously mentioned writers Karl Knies has helped in the solution of the theoretical problems of the historical orientation of our science. With him we do not find that vagueness about the concept of political economy and the nature of its subdivisions which we find in Roscher; we do not find that limitation of the historical point of view in our science to its theoretical problems, as with Hildebrand, nor to its practical aspect, as with many others. His methodological investigations are not a juxtaposition of disconnected or even of contradictory remarks about the nature of our science, its paths to knowledge, or its methods. Rather, they form a unit borne by homogeneous ideas, substantively even if not always formally. He also has the clear feeling that nothing is accomplished with mere postulates and affirmations in reference to the “historical method,” nor with the demand, kept to very general terms, for a science of “laws of economic development,” if what is written does not in fact agree with those fine postulates which treat economic problems in such fashion as to retain theoretically desirable principles.

But neither did Knies attain full clarity about the nature and problems of the historical orientation of political economy and its subdivisions. He looked now to the historical understanding of economic phenomena, now to an interpretation of the literary history of our science that should do justice to alternating historical conditions, now to a philosophy of economic history, and now to the relativity of results of economic research. The main flaw in his methodological position consists, however, in his one-sided tendency toward realism and collectivism in the view of theoretical economic problems. No writer before him so completely developed the methodological postulates of the realistic orientation of research in the economic field. But also, no one else so completely failed to recognize the independent meaning of the exact orientation of theoretical research in the economic realm, or to recognize the nature of exact economic laws or even of economic laws in general. His position in theoretical economics actually leads to a science of “empirical economic laws” (observed regularities in succession) differing according to time and place. Indeed, it leads ultimately to an acknowledgment of specifically historical research as the solely justified orientation of the striving for cognition in the field of economy.

Knies is a scholar true to his convictions, one who goes thoroughly into the methodological problems of the “historical school” and who draws the logical conclusions from its one-sided premises with relentless love of truth, and thereby to a certain extent completes the sphere of ideas of the above school in respect to the methodology of political economy. Whatever in the way of new results has been brought to light after him by investigation into the methodological problems of historical economics we have taken into consideration in the appropriate place. On the whole, however, it was at least already hinted at by Knies. Even the comprehensive investigations by J. Kautz33 into the historical method of our science and the works, pertinent in many respects, by Dietzel, Held, Schmoller, H. v. Scheel, and Schönberg do not constitute an exception to this as far as the methodology of the historical school of political economy comes into question. We will refrain completely from mentioning numerous Italian and individual English and French adepts of the historical orientation who, not yet completely sobered by their own experience, still expect results from that orientation in the field of our theoretical-practical science which shall be similar to those which modern German jurisprudence and linguistic research have achieved.

What remained to be accomplished in the above field of research after Knies was the clarification of the methodological errors and one-sidedness of the “historical school” of our science and the building up of a theory of knowledge which takes into consideration all justified orientations of research in the economic field.

________________

34 The majority of the above writers are just as intent on aiding historical research by the study of politics as conversely of aiding research in the field of politics through the study of history. They try, if this expression be allowed, to retain not only the historical point of view in politics, but also the “political” point of view in history. For example, Luden says: “One must be in the clear about the principles which rulers have to follow in maintaining, increasing, governing and ruling states … to be able to understand the great events of life, the fates of nations and states (in brief, history!)” (Politik [Jena, 1811], p. iv). On the other hand he again considers history as the basis of politics (ibid., p. vii). Similarly in respect to our science Th. Rogers (A Manual of Pol. Econ. [1869], p. v): “just as the historian, who is ignorant of the interpretations of political economy, is constantly mazed in a medley of unconnected and unintelligible facts, so the economist, who disdains the inductions of history, is sure to utter fallacies.”

35 H. Luden, Handbuch der Staatsweisheit oder der Politik (1811), p. vii ff.

36 Pölitz, Die Staatswissenschaft im Lichte unserer Zeit (1823), I, p. 8 ff.

37 H. B. von Weber, Grundzüge der Politik oder philosophisch-geschichtliche Entwickelung der Hauptgrundsätze der innern und äussern Staatskunst (1827), p. ix. (In Weber’s Politik we find a few allusions to the mental sphere of the historical school of jurists. Cf. especially p. v.)

38 Ibid., p. 42.

39 F. v. Spittler, Vorlesungen über Politik, K. Wächter, ed. (1828), p. xix.

40 Orientations in the political sciences which in particular respects are analogous to those of the historical school of constitutional law and jurisprudence are represented by: Justus Möser, D. G. Strube, Fr. K. v. Moser, Fr. Chr. J. Fischer, G. Sartorius, J. J. v. Görres, Fr. Gentz, Adam Müller, K. L. v. Haller, et al.

41 Similar efforts in the field of political economy run parallel to the above presented efforts to base politics not on speculation, but on experience and history.

L. H. v. Jacob, although an adherent of the Kantian philosophy, had already characterized history as the source of the fact “on which almost all political sciences must be built. Most of the principles of these must be proved from experience, by means of history. The study of history must therefore accompany the study of political sciences.” (Einleitung in das Studium der Staatswissenschaften [Halle, 1819], p. 31). G. Fr. Krause wants to “develop the science of economics from the course of culture and industry” in his Versuch eines Systems der National- und Staatsökonomie mit vorzüglicher Berücksichtigung Deutschlands, aus dem Gang der Völkercultur und aus dem praktischen Leben populär entwickelt, I, p. v. Fr. List, in most respects opposed to the writers mentioned here, declares nevertheless “a sound system (of economy) must absolutely have a sound historical basis” (Das nationale System, I [1841], p. xxxi; cf. also ibid., pp. xxxix and 170 ff.). H. Rau also ceaselessly stresses the significance of the study of history and statistics for political economy (cf. especially his Pol. Oek. [1826], 1, p. 13).

This trend appears even more clearly with E. Baumstark, Joh. Schön, and Fr. Schmitthenner. The first writes (Kameralistische Encyclopädie [Heidelberg, 1835], p. viii ff.): “The political part of our science particularly needs a historical basis, for without this it will go dangerously astray. By this I do not mean that in the case of every doctrine of the science of finance a meager historical introduction with dates and cold historical data should be given, but that the whole doctrine of public economy in cohesion should be placed on historical bases instead of on dogmatism and be developed as a result of research in the history of commerce, of the culture of states and of humanity in general.” Schön declares (Die Staatswissenschaft, geschichtl.-philosophisch begründet, 2nd ed. [Breslau, 1840], p. vii; 1st ed. [1831]) as the purpose of his book “to bring out politics as a philosophy of political history and to develop historical social laws in place of sporadic rules.” According to him, it was a matter of a historical-philosophical foundation for the political sciences which now (1839!) would be more popular than when his book first appeared (1831!).

But the trend under discussion here appears most strikingly in the case of Fr. Schmitthenner. He writes (Zwölf Bücher v. Staate [1845], III, p. 15 ff.), turning directly against the abuses of purely speculative philosophy in the realm of the social sciences in Germany: “A philosophy which sees an organic system in the state cannot allow the claim that it is possible to recognize its nature merely logically, i.e., from the relationship of concepts or from the rational development of concepts. It can only admit the full significance of the logical element where the premises are given to it by historical knowledge.” “For the historical-organic method it is a question of discovering the law of the organic development of mankind.”

42 In the field of jurisprudence also, the historical orientation of the Savigny-Eichhorn school, one-sided in many respects, meets an opposition that is no longer sporadic by any means, and particularly the theoretical aspect of law is recently being emphasized more strongly. This is clear from the writings of G. Beseler, Leist, Bluntschli, Kierulff, Rein. Schmidt, Ihering, Brinz, Ahrens, Kuntze, Lenz, et al. After all, Savigny himself in the evening of his life declared in the preface to his System des heutigen römischen Rechtes (1840) that the historical orientation of research in the field of jurisprudence was fulfilled. He pointed out that the science had to return to subsequently neglected paths. He writes: “All success in our science depends on the collaboration of different intellectual activities. Earlier others and I unsuspectingly used the expression historical school to characterize in its peculiarity one of these activities and the scientific orientation chiefly coming from it. At that time this side of the science was not stressed particularly in order to deny or diminish the value of other activities and orientations. It was because that activity had long been neglected by others; thus it temporarily needed vigorous support more than others to regain its natural due” {op. cit., I, p. xiii). Outstanding representatives of the historical school of jurisprudence at the moment no longer designate their method as a specifically historical one, but as a historical-philosophical one. Cf. J. Unger’s System (1876), I, p. i.

43 Op. cit., p. 7 ff.

44 See p. 179.

45 Op. cit., p. 42.

46 In a similar vein the economists mentioned above (note 102). H. Rau still writes (Pol. Oek. [1863], I, §24): “History presents the opportunity to recognize the influence of fluctuating circumstances on the shaping of economy, and again the influence of economic conditions on the events in political life. Furthermore, it offers … an abundance of most useful experiences by way of favorable or unfavorable results of the procedures selected by governments in respect to economic affairs. The instruction is to be valued so much the more highly because in general one can rarely set up experiments in state administration without endangering the welfare of the state, and one must therefore be instructed by consideration of previous cases…. Historical consideration of economic affairs, however, will not do away with general economic laws, but will make their functioning understandable under the most varied conditions.”

47 Politik (1835), p. 236 (cf. also p. 83 ff.).

48 Gervinus, Historische Schriften (Karlsruhe), VII, p. 595 ff. (The above review appeared first in 1836 in the Litterarische Untersuchungsblätter.)

49 Cf. note 43.

50 De historiae doctrinae apud Sophistas majoris vestigiis (Göttingen, 1838).

51 Op. cit., p. 54 ff.

52 Leben, Werke und Zeitalter des Thukydides (Göttingen, 1842), p. vii ff.

53 Grundriss, p. i.

54 Ibid., p. v.

55 Ibid., p. 2.

56 Ibid., p. iv.

57 Roscher still speaks here of state economy, not national economy, but does not distinguish theoretical economics from the practical sciences of national economy.

58 If we wanted to parallel completely the orientation of research characterized above with the same kind of orientation in jurisprudence, we would have the comparative science of law, that is, something like the orientation of a Feuerbach, a Bernhöft (the editor of the Revue de droit international et de legislation comparée), etc. “Why,” Feuerbach writes in the preface to Unterholzner’s Jurist. Abhandl, p. xi ff., “does the anatomist have his comparative anatomy, but the jurist as yet no comparative jurisprudence?” . . . Just as the philosophy of language, the true science of language comes from the comparison of language, in the same way universal jurisprudence, the science of law, comes from the comparison of laws and legal customs of the most closely related nations as well as of the most heterogeneous ones of all times and countries,” etc. Fr. Bernhöft (“Ueber Zweck und Mittel der vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft” in the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft [1878], I, p. 3) and even before him J. Unger (System [1876], I, p. 4, note 12) and others demand of the philosophy of law that it obtain “its results from research into the ideas present in the history of mankind” and thus also obtain a strictly scientific basis. However, it occurs to none of the jurists mentioned to recognize the nature of historical jurisprudence in general, or even of Savigny’s method, in this orientation of research. Nor are they satisfied to expect from the scientific philosophy of law—for they have this in mind—the establishment of parallelisms of the history of law, for instance. Their intention is aimed rather at finding new bases for the understanding and the reform of the law of the present by comparing the various solutions which have been found for the practical problems of jurisprudence in prescriptive law and in the legislation of the various nations. The laws of the development of law, in the sense of Roscher’s “laws of the development of economy,” could at best be designated as the research goal of a secondary branch of comparative jurisprudence. A comparative science in the sense of the above jurists would, moreover, in our estimation, be of incomparably greater significance in the field of economy than would the determination of all imaginable “parallelisms of economic history.”

59 System, I, §§22 and 26, etc.

60 Roscher in several places in his writings (cf. especially Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift [1849], 1st section) makes a start toward distinguishing the theoretical and practical problems of political economy. Thus, for example, he writes (op. cit., p. 182): “Previously I have already called attention to two essentially different classes of questions which arise in any economic investigation, and in any investigation in political science: the questions, namely, What is? and What is supposed to be?” With this statement not elaborated further Roscher characterizes, however, only the contrast between the “realistic” and the “practical” problems of research in the field of economy. For historical research in the field of economy, also, is concerned with the what is. This contrast thus in no way characterizes the relationship of the theoretical to the practical economic sciences. To be sure, Roscher speaks in the same treatise (p. 180) of laws also, indeed even of “laws of nature, by which nations satisfy their material needs,” of laws of nature especially “by which these needs affect the state and in turn are influenced by the state.” Indeed, he characterizes the investigation of such laws as the task of economics. However, by these “laws of nature” Roscher understands exclusively the parallelisms of economic history (ibid., p. 181): “The simple, but of course far-reaching way to become acquainted with those laws of nature is to compare as many and as different national developments as possible. What appears consistently is set up as a rule, what does not is to be explained as an exception.” Here, too, “theoretical economies’“ is taken over and absorbed in the “philosophy of economic history” in the case of Roscher.

61 Xenophontis et Aristotelis de oecon. pub. doctrinae illustrantur Partic. (Marburgi 1845), I.

62 “quae est inde ab Adami Smithii aetate per Europam divulgata doctrina, ea quidem haud immerito in reprehensionem incurrit propterea, quod solis suis quemque consulere rationibus jubet quodque, cum summam de lucro contendendi licentiam poscat, si ipsam constanter persequantur omnes, omnem tollat honestatem singulorumque in singulos excitet bellum necesse est” (1. e, p. 3). Hildebrand thinks now that the study of the economic writings of the ancients permeated by a common spirit will contribute to correcting this error of the Smithian school. Hildebrand has also in his later writings adhered to the above view directed against “individualism” in economy (cf. especially his Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft [1848], pp. vi and 29 ff.). He thus (and already before him Schütz, Tüb. Zeitschrift für die Staatsw. [1844], p. 133 ff.) contributed appreciably to establishing the “ethical” orientation of economic research in Germany, and in part to establishing the “social-political” orientation probably to be distinguished from the other. This, to be sure, was long after Sismonde de Sismondi had undertaken to solve the same problems in France (cf. in this connection Appendix IX: “The So-Called Ethical Orientation of Political Economy”).

63 Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft (1848), pp. v and 324.

64 Ibid., pp. 27 ff. and 34.

65 Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik (1863), I, pp. 3 ff. and 145 ff.

66 K. Knies and J. Kautz, in contrast to W. Roscher, have taken the “historical method” seriously not only in the theory of research, but also in its practice. They have, in fact, written “political economies according to the historical method,” which, however, are not really presentations of political economy.

• 1The majority of the above writers are just as intent on aiding historical research by the study of politics as conversely of aiding research in the field of politics through the study of history. They try, if this expression be allowed, to retain not only the historical point of view in politics, but also the “political” point of view in history. For example, Luden says: “One must be in the clear about the principles which rulers have to follow in maintaining, increasing, governing and ruling states … to be able to understand the great events of life, the fates of nations and states (in brief, history!)” (Politik [Jena, 1811], p. iv). On the other hand he again considers history as the basis of politics (ibid., p. vii). Similarly in respect to our science Th. Rogers (A Manual of Pol. Econ. [1869], p. v): “just as the historian, who is ignorant of the interpretations of political economy, is constantly mazed in a medley of unconnected and unintelligible facts, so the economist, who disdains the inductions of history, is sure to utter fallacies.”
• 2H. Luden, Handbuch der Staatsweisheit oder der Politik (1811), p. vii ff.
• 3Pölitz, Die Staatswissenschaft im Lichte unserer Zeit (1823), I, p. 8 ff.
• 4H. B. von Weber, Grundzüge der Politik oder philosophisch-geschichtliche Entwickelung der Hauptgrundsätze der innern und äussern Staatskunst (1827), p. ix. (In Weber’s Politik we find a few allusions to the mental sphere of the historical school of jurists. Cf. especially p. v.)
• 5Ibid., p. 42.
• 6F. v. Spittler, Vorlesungen über Politik, K. Wächter, ed. (1828), p. xix.
• 7Orientations in the political sciences which in particular respects are analogous to those of the historical school of constitutional law and jurisprudence are represented by: Justus Möser, D. G. Strube, Fr. K. v. Moser, Fr. Chr. J. Fischer, G. Sartorius, J. J. v. Görres, Fr. Gentz, Adam Müller, K. L. v. Haller, et al.
• 8Similar efforts in the field of political economy run parallel to the above presented efforts to base politics not on speculation, but on experience and history.
• 9In the field of jurisprudence also, the historical orientation of the Savigny-Eichhorn school, one-sided in many respects, meets an opposition that is no longer sporadic by any means, and particularly the theoretical aspect of law is recently being emphasized more strongly. This is clear from the writings of G. Beseler, Leist, Bluntschli, Kierulff, Rein. Schmidt, Ihering, Brinz, Ahrens, Kuntze, Lenz, et al. After all, Savigny himself in the evening of his life declared in the preface to his System des heutigen römischen Rechtes (1840) that the historical orientation of research in the field of jurisprudence was fulfilled. He pointed out that the science had to return to subsequently neglected paths. He writes: “All success in our science depends on the collaboration of different intellectual activities. Earlier others and I unsuspectingly used the expression historical school to characterize in its peculiarity one of these activities and the scientific orientation chiefly coming from it. At that time this side of the science was not stressed particularly in order to deny or diminish the value of other activities and orientations. It was because that activity had long been neglected by others; thus it temporarily needed vigorous support more than others to regain its natural due” {op. cit., I, p. xiii). Outstanding representatives of the historical school of jurisprudence at the moment no longer designate their method as a specifically historical one, but as a historical-philosophical one. Cf. J. Unger’s System (1876), I, p. i.
• 10Op. cit., p. 7 ff.
• 11See p. 179.
• 12Op. cit., p. 42.
• 13In a similar vein the economists mentioned above (note 102). H. Rau still writes (Pol. Oek. [1863], I, §24): “History presents the opportunity to recognize the influence of fluctuating circumstances on the shaping of economy, and again the influence of economic conditions on the events in political life. Furthermore, it offers … an abundance of most useful experiences by way of favorable or unfavorable results of the procedures selected by governments in respect to economic affairs. The instruction is to be valued so much the more highly because in general one can rarely set up experiments in state administration without endangering the welfare of the state, and one must therefore be instructed by consideration of previous cases…. Historical consideration of economic affairs, however, will not do away with general economic laws, but will make their functioning understandable under the most varied conditions.”
• 14Politik (1835), p. 236 (cf. also p. 83 ff.).
• 15Gervinus, Historische Schriften (Karlsruhe), VII, p. 595 ff. (The above review appeared first in 1836 in the Litterarische Untersuchungsblätter.)
• 16Cf. note 43.
• 17De historiae doctrinae apud Sophistas majoris vestigiis (Göttingen, 1838).
• 18Op. cit., p. 54 ff.
• 19Leben, Werke und Zeitalter des Thukydides (Göttingen, 1842), p. vii ff.
• 20Grundriss, p. i.
• 21Ibid., p. v.
• 22Ibid., p. 2.
• 23Ibid., p. iv.
• 24Roscher still speaks here of state economy, not national economy, but does not distinguish theoretical economics from the practical sciences of national economy.
• 25If we wanted to parallel completely the orientation of research characterized above with the same kind of orientation in jurisprudence, we would have the comparative science of law, that is, something like the orientation of a Feuerbach, a Bernhöft (the editor of the Revue de droit international et de legislation comparée), etc. “Why,” Feuerbach writes in the preface to Unterholzner’s Jurist. Abhandl, p. xi ff., “does the anatomist have his comparative anatomy, but the jurist as yet no comparative jurisprudence?” . . . Just as the philosophy of language, the true science of language comes from the comparison of language, in the same way universal jurisprudence, the science of law, comes from the comparison of laws and legal customs of the most closely related nations as well as of the most heterogeneous ones of all times and countries,” etc. Fr. Bernhöft (“Ueber Zweck und Mittel der vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft” in the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft [1878], I, p. 3) and even before him J. Unger (System [1876], I, p. 4, note 12) and others demand of the philosophy of law that it obtain “its results from research into the ideas present in the history of mankind” and thus also obtain a strictly scientific basis. However, it occurs to none of the jurists mentioned to recognize the nature of historical jurisprudence in general, or even of Savigny’s method, in this orientation of research. Nor are they satisfied to expect from the scientific philosophy of law—for they have this in mind—the establishment of parallelisms of the history of law, for instance. Their intention is aimed rather at finding new bases for the understanding and the reform of the law of the present by comparing the various solutions which have been found for the practical problems of jurisprudence in prescriptive law and in the legislation of the various nations. The laws of the development of law, in the sense of Roscher’s “laws of the development of economy,” could at best be designated as the research goal of a secondary branch of comparative jurisprudence. A comparative science in the sense of the above jurists would, moreover, in our estimation, be of incomparably greater significance in the field of economy than would the determination of all imaginable “parallelisms of economic history.”
• 26System, I, §§22 and 26, etc.
• 27Roscher in several places in his writings (cf. especially Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift [1849], 1st section) makes a start toward distinguishing the theoretical and practical problems of political economy. Thus, for example, he writes (op. cit., p. 182): “Previously I have already called attention to two essentially different classes of questions which arise in any economic investigation, and in any investigation in political science: the questions, namely, What is? and What is supposed to be?” With this statement not elaborated further Roscher characterizes, however, only the contrast between the “realistic” and the “practical” problems of research in the field of economy. For historical research in the field of economy, also, is concerned with the what is. This contrast thus in no way characterizes the relationship of the theoretical to the practical economic sciences. To be sure, Roscher speaks in the same treatise (p. 180) of laws also, indeed even of “laws of nature, by which nations satisfy their material needs,” of laws of nature especially “by which these needs affect the state and in turn are influenced by the state.” Indeed, he characterizes the investigation of such laws as the task of economics. However, by these “laws of nature” Roscher understands exclusively the parallelisms of economic history (ibid., p. 181): “The simple, but of course far-reaching way to become acquainted with those laws of nature is to compare as many and as different national developments as possible. What appears consistently is set up as a rule, what does not is to be explained as an exception.” Here, too, “theoretical economies’“ is taken over and absorbed in the “philosophy of economic history” in the case of Roscher.
• 28Xenophontis et Aristotelis de oecon. pub. doctrinae illustrantur Partic. (Marburgi 1845), I.
• 29“quae est inde ab Adami Smithii aetate per Europam divulgata doctrina, ea quidem haud immerito in reprehensionem incurrit propterea, quod solis suis quemque consulere rationibus jubet quodque, cum summam de lucro contendendi licentiam poscat, si ipsam constanter persequantur omnes, omnem tollat honestatem singulorumque in singulos excitet bellum necesse est” (1. e, p. 3). Hildebrand thinks now that the study of the economic writings of the ancients permeated by a common spirit will contribute to correcting this error of the Smithian school. Hildebrand has also in his later writings adhered to the above view directed against “individualism” in economy (cf. especially his Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft [1848], pp. vi and 29 ff.). He thus (and already before him Schütz, Tüb. Zeitschrift für die Staatsw. [1844], p. 133 ff.) contributed appreciably to establishing the “ethical” orientation of economic research in Germany, and in part to establishing the “social-political” orientation probably to be distinguished from the other. This, to be sure, was long after Sismonde de Sismondi had undertaken to solve the same problems in France (cf. in this connection Appendix IX: “The So-Called Ethical Orientation of Political Economy”).
• 30Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft (1848), pp. v and 324.
• 31Ibid., pp. 27 ff. and 34.
• 32Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik (1863), I, pp. 3 ff. and 145 ff.
• 33K. Knies and J. Kautz, in contrast to W. Roscher, have taken the “historical method” seriously not only in the theory of research, but also in its practice. They have, in fact, written “political economies according to the historical method,” which, however, are not really presentations of political economy.
• 34The desire to unite the study of politics with that of history first led the meritorious historians we are dealing with here to elucidate the political maxims set up by them with examples from history and to corroborate them by pointing to successes and failures of political measures. During the further course of development, however, it led to the attempt to place politics in general on historical bases and to present it as the outcome of reflective consideration, as a “philosophy” of history. It would be easy to follow these efforts back even farther. But for our purpose it is sufficient if we refer to Spittler, H. Luden, Pölitz, H. B. v. Weber, and Wächter, and furthermore to Dahlmann, Gervinus, and W. Roscher, to show that originally a “historical school” of political scientists arose in Germany and simultaneously a “political school” of historians. From these there gradually developed a historical school of economically oriented political scientists and—since economically oriented political science was frequently confused with political economy by the representatives of this general outlook—a historical school of political economy.
• 35The general character of this group of “political scientists” and the close relationship of their typical ideas to those of our historical economists will best become clear from the following brief presentation of historical ideas. H. Luden characterizes the problem of politics with the following words: “I should like to write a book that presents a view of things that is in agreement with life and the eternal doctrines of history…. I should like as far as possible to verify everything with examples from history to make it felt that it is really history that is speaking.” Pölitz emphasizes the necessity of historical studies for the political scientist in the following characteristic manner: “If the statesmanship which belongs to the real life of nations and states were to be derived solely from pure reason without hearing the voice of history at the same time, it would become the dried skeleton of abstract concepts. It would not be applicable to the energetic proclamation of the state as a vigorous organization and it would not utilize the great truths which history offers during a period of several thousand years.” H. B. von Weber attacks the merely speculative orientation of politics as science: historical experience, he says, presents the rules of good sense by which the most effective means for the purposes of the internal and external life of the state may be and ought to be applied. Wächter, finally, in his introduction to Spittler’s “Lectures on Politics” (given as long ago as 1796!) praises the consideration of the “individual.” Spittler’s political maxims, he says, are not absolute rules which have to be carried out everywhere and under all circumstances, but they are modified according to localities, temporal circumstances, geographical extent of land, constitution, character, and mode of life of peoples. Furthermore Spittler always demands only a gradual course of reform and transitional stages.
• 36The general character of this group of “political scientists” and the close relationship of their typical ideas to those of our historical economists will best become clear from the following brief presentation of historical ideas. H. Luden characterizes the problem of politics with the following words: “I should like to write a book that presents a view of things that is in agreement with life and the eternal doctrines of history…. I should like as far as possible to verify everything with examples from history to make it felt that it is really history that is speaking.” Pölitz emphasizes the necessity of historical studies for the political scientist in the following characteristic manner: “If the statesmanship which belongs to the real life of nations and states were to be derived solely from pure reason without hearing the voice of history at the same time, it would become the dried skeleton of abstract concepts. It would not be applicable to the energetic proclamation of the state as a vigorous organization and it would not utilize the great truths which history offers during a period of several thousand years.” H. B. von Weber attacks the merely speculative orientation of politics as science: historical experience, he says, presents the rules of good sense by which the most effective means for the purposes of the internal and external life of the state may be and ought to be applied. Wächter, finally, in his introduction to Spittler’s “Lectures on Politics” (given as long ago as 1796!) praises the consideration of the “individual.” Spittler’s political maxims, he says, are not absolute rules which have to be carried out everywhere and under all circumstances, but they are modified according to localities, temporal circumstances, geographical extent of land, constitution, character, and mode of life of peoples. Furthermore Spittler always demands only a gradual course of reform and transitional stages.
• 37The general character of this group of “political scientists” and the close relationship of their typical ideas to those of our historical economists will best become clear from the following brief presentation of historical ideas. H. Luden characterizes the problem of politics with the following words: “I should like to write a book that presents a view of things that is in agreement with life and the eternal doctrines of history…. I should like as far as possible to verify everything with examples from history to make it felt that it is really history that is speaking.” Pölitz emphasizes the necessity of historical studies for the political scientist in the following characteristic manner: “If the statesmanship which belongs to the real life of nations and states were to be derived solely from pure reason without hearing the voice of history at the same time, it would become the dried skeleton of abstract concepts. It would not be applicable to the energetic proclamation of the state as a vigorous organization and it would not utilize the great truths which history offers during a period of several thousand years.” H. B. von Weber attacks the merely speculative orientation of politics as science: historical experience, he says, presents the rules of good sense by which the most effective means for the purposes of the internal and external life of the state may be and ought to be applied. Wächter, finally, in his introduction to Spittler’s “Lectures on Politics” (given as long ago as 1796!) praises the consideration of the “individual.” Spittler’s political maxims, he says, are not absolute rules which have to be carried out everywhere and under all circumstances, but they are modified according to localities, temporal circumstances, geographical extent of land, constitution, character, and mode of life of peoples. Furthermore Spittler always demands only a gradual course of reform and transitional stages.
• 38The general character of this group of “political scientists” and the close relationship of their typical ideas to those of our historical economists will best become clear from the following brief presentation of historical ideas. H. Luden characterizes the problem of politics with the following words: “I should like to write a book that presents a view of things that is in agreement with life and the eternal doctrines of history…. I should like as far as possible to verify everything with examples from history to make it felt that it is really history that is speaking.” Pölitz emphasizes the necessity of historical studies for the political scientist in the following characteristic manner: “If the statesmanship which belongs to the real life of nations and states were to be derived solely from pure reason without hearing the voice of history at the same time, it would become the dried skeleton of abstract concepts. It would not be applicable to the energetic proclamation of the state as a vigorous organization and it would not utilize the great truths which history offers during a period of several thousand years.” H. B. von Weber attacks the merely speculative orientation of politics as science: historical experience, he says, presents the rules of good sense by which the most effective means for the purposes of the internal and external life of the state may be and ought to be applied. Wächter, finally, in his introduction to Spittler’s “Lectures on Politics” (given as long ago as 1796!) praises the consideration of the “individual.” Spittler’s political maxims, he says, are not absolute rules which have to be carried out everywhere and under all circumstances, but they are modified according to localities, temporal circumstances, geographical extent of land, constitution, character, and mode of life of peoples. Furthermore Spittler always demands only a gradual course of reform and transitional stages.
• 39The general character of this group of “political scientists” and the close relationship of their typical ideas to those of our historical economists will best become clear from the following brief presentation of historical ideas. H. Luden characterizes the problem of politics with the following words: “I should like to write a book that presents a view of things that is in agreement with life and the eternal doctrines of history…. I should like as far as possible to verify everything with examples from history to make it felt that it is really history that is speaking.” Pölitz emphasizes the necessity of historical studies for the political scientist in the following characteristic manner: “If the statesmanship which belongs to the real life of nations and states were to be derived solely from pure reason without hearing the voice of history at the same time, it would become the dried skeleton of abstract concepts. It would not be applicable to the energetic proclamation of the state as a vigorous organization and it would not utilize the great truths which history offers during a period of several thousand years.” H. B. von Weber attacks the merely speculative orientation of politics as science: historical experience, he says, presents the rules of good sense by which the most effective means for the purposes of the internal and external life of the state may be and ought to be applied. Wächter, finally, in his introduction to Spittler’s “Lectures on Politics” (given as long ago as 1796!) praises the consideration of the “individual.” Spittler’s political maxims, he says, are not absolute rules which have to be carried out everywhere and under all circumstances, but they are modified according to localities, temporal circumstances, geographical extent of land, constitution, character, and mode of life of peoples. Furthermore Spittler always demands only a gradual course of reform and transitional stages.
• 40The basic thought of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence, the efforts which characterize the Burke-Savigny orientation and constitute the real center of their efforts, “the doctrine of the organic, unintended origin of a number of human phenomena” with all the consequences of that doctrine for legislation and administration—these are, on the contrary, secondary for the above political scientists, and are even quite alien to them. Their mental spheres hardly come into contact with those of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence. They are opponents of abstract speculation (even that of historizing philosophy), but not usually of the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century Enlightenment and of liberalism in politics. They are opponents of a priori construction in the political sciences and history, but not of one-sided pragmatism in the conception of social phenomena. On the contrary, the majority of the writers mentioned here belong to the liberal (even if not an abstract-liberal) orientation themselves. They try to support and substantiate its guiding ideas in their way, i.e., by history, as best they can. What the above men, who were basically liberal on the whole, wanted, was a method of research, the utilization of their fine and solid knowledge in political history for the science of politics, and conversely of the latter for the former, but not conservatism in the sense of the great founders of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence.
• 41The basic thought of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence, the efforts which characterize the Burke-Savigny orientation and constitute the real center of their efforts, “the doctrine of the organic, unintended origin of a number of human phenomena” with all the consequences of that doctrine for legislation and administration—these are, on the contrary, secondary for the above political scientists, and are even quite alien to them. Their mental spheres hardly come into contact with those of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence. They are opponents of abstract speculation (even that of historizing philosophy), but not usually of the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century Enlightenment and of liberalism in politics. They are opponents of a priori construction in the political sciences and history, but not of one-sided pragmatism in the conception of social phenomena. On the contrary, the majority of the writers mentioned here belong to the liberal (even if not an abstract-liberal) orientation themselves. They try to support and substantiate its guiding ideas in their way, i.e., by history, as best they can. What the above men, who were basically liberal on the whole, wanted, was a method of research, the utilization of their fine and solid knowledge in political history for the science of politics, and conversely of the latter for the former, but not conservatism in the sense of the great founders of the historical schools of constitutional law and jurisprudence.
• 42On the other hand they keep clear of those dispositions toward one-sidedness which we have characterized in Burke-Savigny’s opposition to the rationalism and pragmatism of the French Age of Enlightenment. Nowhere, as they really were for the most part historians and political scientists at the same time, do they confuse politics with history. Nowhere do they, like Burke, defend what already exists, what has developed historically, simply in opposition to the reform efforts of their contemporaries. Nowhere, like Savigny, do they think that the wisdom in organically created social structures is a priori and without sufficient proof higher than human wisdom, i.e., higher than the judgment of the present. Just as little do the majority of them, with all acknowledgment of the significance of the study of history for politics, become the victims of another error so natural for “historical political scientists”—that of one-sided empiricism or even of one-sided overestimation of historical development. Pölitz says: “Statesmanship (politics) is a mixed science (i.e., of philosophical principles and historical facts, equally). If one wanted merely to reduce it to rules borrowed from experience and history, it would not merely lack that firm basis which depends primarily on principles of reason. It would not even be without inner contradictions, because not infrequently one can set up examples from history for mutually opposed political views and assertions.” We have already pointed out above that Pölitz just as little wants politics derived one-sidedly from reason. Weber expresses himself similarly. He says: “Politics is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely historical science. It is a mixed one insofar as it is simultaneously formed from philosophical principles and from historical facts. There may be many objections to the above view, especially to the designation of politics as a “partly philosophical” science. Also in the above arguments on the untenability of pure empiricism or of pure historicism in politics, allusion to many obvious objections may be missed. One-sided overestimation of historical development still is not to be found in the presentations of the above-mentioned writers.
• 43On the other hand they keep clear of those dispositions toward one-sidedness which we have characterized in Burke-Savigny’s opposition to the rationalism and pragmatism of the French Age of Enlightenment. Nowhere, as they really were for the most part historians and political scientists at the same time, do they confuse politics with history. Nowhere do they, like Burke, defend what already exists, what has developed historically, simply in opposition to the reform efforts of their contemporaries. Nowhere, like Savigny, do they think that the wisdom in organically created social structures is a priori and without sufficient proof higher than human wisdom, i.e., higher than the judgment of the present. Just as little do the majority of them, with all acknowledgment of the significance of the study of history for politics, become the victims of another error so natural for “historical political scientists”—that of one-sided empiricism or even of one-sided overestimation of historical development. Pölitz says: “Statesmanship (politics) is a mixed science (i.e., of philosophical principles and historical facts, equally). If one wanted merely to reduce it to rules borrowed from experience and history, it would not merely lack that firm basis which depends primarily on principles of reason. It would not even be without inner contradictions, because not infrequently one can set up examples from history for mutually opposed political views and assertions.” We have already pointed out above that Pölitz just as little wants politics derived one-sidedly from reason. Weber expresses himself similarly. He says: “Politics is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely historical science. It is a mixed one insofar as it is simultaneously formed from philosophical principles and from historical facts. There may be many objections to the above view, especially to the designation of politics as a “partly philosophical” science. Also in the above arguments on the untenability of pure empiricism or of pure historicism in politics, allusion to many obvious objections may be missed. One-sided overestimation of historical development still is not to be found in the presentations of the above-mentioned writers.
• 44On the other hand they keep clear of those dispositions toward one-sidedness which we have characterized in Burke-Savigny’s opposition to the rationalism and pragmatism of the French Age of Enlightenment. Nowhere, as they really were for the most part historians and political scientists at the same time, do they confuse politics with history. Nowhere do they, like Burke, defend what already exists, what has developed historically, simply in opposition to the reform efforts of their contemporaries. Nowhere, like Savigny, do they think that the wisdom in organically created social structures is a priori and without sufficient proof higher than human wisdom, i.e., higher than the judgment of the present. Just as little do the majority of them, with all acknowledgment of the significance of the study of history for politics, become the victims of another error so natural for “historical political scientists”—that of one-sided empiricism or even of one-sided overestimation of historical development. Pölitz says: “Statesmanship (politics) is a mixed science (i.e., of philosophical principles and historical facts, equally). If one wanted merely to reduce it to rules borrowed from experience and history, it would not merely lack that firm basis which depends primarily on principles of reason. It would not even be without inner contradictions, because not infrequently one can set up examples from history for mutually opposed political views and assertions.” We have already pointed out above that Pölitz just as little wants politics derived one-sidedly from reason. Weber expresses himself similarly. He says: “Politics is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely historical science. It is a mixed one insofar as it is simultaneously formed from philosophical principles and from historical facts. There may be many objections to the above view, especially to the designation of politics as a “partly philosophical” science. Also in the above arguments on the untenability of pure empiricism or of pure historicism in politics, allusion to many obvious objections may be missed. One-sided overestimation of historical development still is not to be found in the presentations of the above-mentioned writers.
• 45On the other hand they keep clear of those dispositions toward one-sidedness which we have characterized in Burke-Savigny’s opposition to the rationalism and pragmatism of the French Age of Enlightenment. Nowhere, as they really were for the most part historians and political scientists at the same time, do they confuse politics with history. Nowhere do they, like Burke, defend what already exists, what has developed historically, simply in opposition to the reform efforts of their contemporaries. Nowhere, like Savigny, do they think that the wisdom in organically created social structures is a priori and without sufficient proof higher than human wisdom, i.e., higher than the judgment of the present. Just as little do the majority of them, with all acknowledgment of the significance of the study of history for politics, become the victims of another error so natural for “historical political scientists”—that of one-sided empiricism or even of one-sided overestimation of historical development. Pölitz says: “Statesmanship (politics) is a mixed science (i.e., of philosophical principles and historical facts, equally). If one wanted merely to reduce it to rules borrowed from experience and history, it would not merely lack that firm basis which depends primarily on principles of reason. It would not even be without inner contradictions, because not infrequently one can set up examples from history for mutually opposed political views and assertions.” We have already pointed out above that Pölitz just as little wants politics derived one-sidedly from reason. Weber expresses himself similarly. He says: “Politics is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely historical science. It is a mixed one insofar as it is simultaneously formed from philosophical principles and from historical facts. There may be many objections to the above view, especially to the designation of politics as a “partly philosophical” science. Also in the above arguments on the untenability of pure empiricism or of pure historicism in politics, allusion to many obvious objections may be missed. One-sided overestimation of historical development still is not to be found in the presentations of the above-mentioned writers.
• 46On the other hand they keep clear of those dispositions toward one-sidedness which we have characterized in Burke-Savigny’s opposition to the rationalism and pragmatism of the French Age of Enlightenment. Nowhere, as they really were for the most part historians and political scientists at the same time, do they confuse politics with history. Nowhere do they, like Burke, defend what already exists, what has developed historically, simply in opposition to the reform efforts of their contemporaries. Nowhere, like Savigny, do they think that the wisdom in organically created social structures is a priori and without sufficient proof higher than human wisdom, i.e., higher than the judgment of the present. Just as little do the majority of them, with all acknowledgment of the significance of the study of history for politics, become the victims of another error so natural for “historical political scientists”—that of one-sided empiricism or even of one-sided overestimation of historical development. Pölitz says: “Statesmanship (politics) is a mixed science (i.e., of philosophical principles and historical facts, equally). If one wanted merely to reduce it to rules borrowed from experience and history, it would not merely lack that firm basis which depends primarily on principles of reason. It would not even be without inner contradictions, because not infrequently one can set up examples from history for mutually opposed political views and assertions.” We have already pointed out above that Pölitz just as little wants politics derived one-sidedly from reason. Weber expresses himself similarly. He says: “Politics is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely historical science. It is a mixed one insofar as it is simultaneously formed from philosophical principles and from historical facts. There may be many objections to the above view, especially to the designation of politics as a “partly philosophical” science. Also in the above arguments on the untenability of pure empiricism or of pure historicism in politics, allusion to many obvious objections may be missed. One-sided overestimation of historical development still is not to be found in the presentations of the above-mentioned writers.
• 47Dahlmann in his Politics (1835) had stressed the organic view of the origin and formation of social institutions and the inadequacy of the one-sidedly pragmatic position in explaining them. He did this more vigorously and with incomparably greater depth than his predecessors. The mental sphere of the historical school of jurists had made more than superficial contact with him. Nor does he miss any opportunity to stress the importance of experience in general and the study of history in particular for the science of politics. He is protected, on the other hand, against the error of one-sided overestimation of historical development by his insight into the nature of politics as a practical science with the shaping of life as its aim.
• 48In a review of this work, which was first published in 1836, Gervinus now developed the following views on a “purely scientific political science,” which he planned, but never finished. “He (the author) would have gone over and taken up for this work the realm of history in all its extent. He would have tried to retain what was regular and general out of the vast total of experience, out of what is impermanent, fleeting, recurrent, particular. He would have tried to guess the unfinished history of humanity from the finished histories of nations, and to explain the parts from the whole as well as the whole from the parts, the state from the states.… He would have tried to take up in his picture only what proves to be necessary and according to the law of nature in the development of nations and states. His political science would have become equivalent to a history of the state, his history of the state equivalent to a philosophy of history, and that would have become the most necessary foundation stone for a philosophy of mankind or, what is the same thing, of man. For purely scientific politics should be nothing but a philosophy of the political part of history, just as esthetics should be the philosophy of the history of literature…. With this method politics would correspond to physiology, or to that part of it which has recently been derived from the history of life.” Gervinus, however, thinks that he retreated from these high plans because the historical material “was far from adequate for one to be able to think of such a work, and the childish attempts that had been made here and there simply shrank from such undertakings. A science (political) which was to be based entirely on empiricism would best be developed only after a certain termination of experiences…. The writings of Plato and Aristotle were incontestably the prime basis for such a philosophical political science.”
• 49This plan of work by the distinguished Göttingen scholar, which is magnificent at least in its own way and has opened up a really endless field of activity for the industry of the scholarly world, did not fall on barren soil in Germany. Its execution after all did not demand direct insight into political life or into the goals and means of governmental activity, nor did it call for that great mass of experience and knowledge which only the direct examination of governmental activities and participation in political affairs ordinarily give. Nor did it demand that very difficult judgment in matters of state which in an immediately original way chooses the aims of political activity and the means for achieving them from the consideration of political life. What the above program required was a careful, comprehensive study of historical works and sources and an understanding that abstracted the general from the particular. These were prerequisites which could be fulfilled so much the more easily in German scholarly circles, as even individual details offered a praiseworthy contribution to the problem in its entirety. Furthermore, considering the defective character of preliminary historical works, even less perfect accomplishments could count on a friendly and considerate reception by fellow aspirants. The problem offered much that was appealing in every respect. To a high degree it was in tune with the peculiar genius of the vast majority of specialists in the field of the social sciences in Germany.
• 50When the twenty-one-year-old studiosus historicarum politicarumque literarum in Göttingen, Wilhelm Roscher, who subsequently attained such great significance for the school of German economists under discussion here, published his doctoral dissertation on certain doctrines of the Sophists, he already took the opportunity to present his views on the relationship of politics (certainly not of political economy!) to history. In this little work Roscher unreservedly assumes the position of the Göttingen historical school of the time. And in particular the over-estimation of historical development which Gervinus brings out in his view of politics seems not to have remained without decisive influence on him. For him history is the exclusive empirical basis of politics, and the latter is merely the result of a universal consideration of history, of a comparison of different national developments. The best politics is that which is the result of considering the golden ages of the history of nations. Anyone who possessed a universal knowledge of history would at the same time be in possession of the whole objective truth in politics, a truth which, as Roscher seems still to have assumed at that time, would correspond not only to certain historical epochs, but to man in abstracto.
• 51When the twenty-one-year-old studiosus historicarum politicarumque literarum in Göttingen, Wilhelm Roscher, who subsequently attained such great significance for the school of German economists under discussion here, published his doctoral dissertation on certain doctrines of the Sophists, he already took the opportunity to present his views on the relationship of politics (certainly not of political economy!) to history. In this little work Roscher unreservedly assumes the position of the Göttingen historical school of the time. And in particular the over-estimation of historical development which Gervinus brings out in his view of politics seems not to have remained without decisive influence on him. For him history is the exclusive empirical basis of politics, and the latter is merely the result of a universal consideration of history, of a comparison of different national developments. The best politics is that which is the result of considering the golden ages of the history of nations. Anyone who possessed a universal knowledge of history would at the same time be in possession of the whole objective truth in politics, a truth which, as Roscher seems still to have assumed at that time, would correspond not only to certain historical epochs, but to man in abstracto.
• 52Four years later Roscher still says: “I consider politics as the theory of the laws of the development of the state. I consider state economy and statistics (?) as especially important branches and aspects of politics (?) which are therefore worked out in special detail. I think I will find those laws of development by comparing the national histories known to me…. My political science is certainly based on universal-historical preliminary studies.”
• 53Only in his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode (1843) does Roscher declare that he is an adherent of the “historical method” and with it “wants to attain for state economy something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method attained for jurisprudence.” He characterizes the nature of this method by his statement that he will endeavor “to bring together as a law of development what is homogeneous in various national developments,” “to find in the great mass of phenomena what is essential, what is regular, for what purpose all nations that one can get hold of are to be compared with each other in the economic respect.”
• 54Only in his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode (1843) does Roscher declare that he is an adherent of the “historical method” and with it “wants to attain for state economy something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method attained for jurisprudence.” He characterizes the nature of this method by his statement that he will endeavor “to bring together as a law of development what is homogeneous in various national developments,” “to find in the great mass of phenomena what is essential, what is regular, for what purpose all nations that one can get hold of are to be compared with each other in the economic respect.”
• 55Only in his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode (1843) does Roscher declare that he is an adherent of the “historical method” and with it “wants to attain for state economy something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method attained for jurisprudence.” He characterizes the nature of this method by his statement that he will endeavor “to bring together as a law of development what is homogeneous in various national developments,” “to find in the great mass of phenomena what is essential, what is regular, for what purpose all nations that one can get hold of are to be compared with each other in the economic respect.”
• 56Only in his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode (1843) does Roscher declare that he is an adherent of the “historical method” and with it “wants to attain for state economy something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method attained for jurisprudence.” He characterizes the nature of this method by his statement that he will endeavor “to bring together as a law of development what is homogeneous in various national developments,” “to find in the great mass of phenomena what is essential, what is regular, for what purpose all nations that one can get hold of are to be compared with each other in the economic respect.”
• 57But with this there begins a series of misunderstandings about the nature and method of our science which have become detrimental to the development of scientific economics in Germany and have not yet been straightened out. Roscher wants to attain for political science something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method did for jurisprudence. But what he has designated as the nature of his method has scarcely a remote similarity to the Savigny-Eichhorn orientation. Neither Savigny nor Eichhorn designates as the main task of his research, nor in general as a major problem, the setting up of laws of the development of law itself, on the basis of comparison of the legal evolution of nations insofar as he can grasp it. And neither seeks to attain to a juridical science of “objective truth” in this way. What they seek is the historical understanding of concrete law codes, the proof that these are the unintended results of organic developments and as such not the objects of arbitrary transformation and the mania for innovation, that they are above human wisdom. The idea of a philosophy of law, or a philosophy of the history of law, for instance in Roscher’s sense, is far from being the object of their scientific endeavors; it is partly in direct contrast to these. What Roscher wants is the treatment of political economy in the sense that Bodin thought he was treating political science, as Gervinus thought he was treating politics. But he does not want the historical orientation of research in the economic field in the spirit of historical jurisprudence.
• 58But with this there begins a series of misunderstandings about the nature and method of our science which have become detrimental to the development of scientific economics in Germany and have not yet been straightened out. Roscher wants to attain for political science something similar to what the Savigny-Eichhorn method did for jurisprudence. But what he has designated as the nature of his method has scarcely a remote similarity to the Savigny-Eichhorn orientation. Neither Savigny nor Eichhorn designates as the main task of his research, nor in general as a major problem, the setting up of laws of the development of law itself, on the basis of comparison of the legal evolution of nations insofar as he can grasp it. And neither seeks to attain to a juridical science of “objective truth” in this way. What they seek is the historical understanding of concrete law codes, the proof that these are the unintended results of organic developments and as such not the objects of arbitrary transformation and the mania for innovation, that they are above human wisdom. The idea of a philosophy of law, or a philosophy of the history of law, for instance in Roscher’s sense, is far from being the object of their scientific endeavors; it is partly in direct contrast to these. What Roscher wants is the treatment of political economy in the sense that Bodin thought he was treating political science, as Gervinus thought he was treating politics. But he does not want the historical orientation of research in the economic field in the spirit of historical jurisprudence.
• 59The vagueness about the nature of political economy and of its sub-divisions; the lack of any really strict distinction of the historical, the theoretical, and the practical point of view in research in the economic field; the confusion of individual orientations of theoretical research and of the philosophy of economic history in particular with theoretical economics and with political economy at large; the vagueness about the nature of the exact orientation of theoretical research and its relationship to the empirical-realistic orientation; the opinion that the historical-philosophical orientation is the only one justified in political economy and is analogous to historical jurisprudence; the failure to recognize the true nature of the historical point of view in our science, especially as regards its theoretical aspects; the exaggerated importance which is attributed to the so-called historical method; the vagueness about the nature of the organic approach in economy and about the problems resulting there from for social research—all these methodological errors and one-sided emphases appearing already to no small extent in Roscher’s youthful writings are also found in his later writings, in which, to be sure, he is more and more frequently likely to designate his method as “historical or (!) physiological.”
• 60The vagueness about the nature of political economy and of its sub-divisions; the lack of any really strict distinction of the historical, the theoretical, and the practical point of view in research in the economic field; the confusion of individual orientations of theoretical research and of the philosophy of economic history in particular with theoretical economics and with political economy at large; the vagueness about the nature of the exact orientation of theoretical research and its relationship to the empirical-realistic orientation; the opinion that the historical-philosophical orientation is the only one justified in political economy and is analogous to historical jurisprudence; the failure to recognize the true nature of the historical point of view in our science, especially as regards its theoretical aspects; the exaggerated importance which is attributed to the so-called historical method; the vagueness about the nature of the organic approach in economy and about the problems resulting there from for social research—all these methodological errors and one-sided emphases appearing already to no small extent in Roscher’s youthful writings are also found in his later writings, in which, to be sure, he is more and more frequently likely to designate his method as “historical or (!) physiological.”
• 61Among the representatives of the historical school of German economists B. Hildebrand is to be mentioned among the very first. To be sure, in his first short work (1845) of partially methodological content he merely stresses collectivism in the consideration of economy in contrast to the “individualism” of Adam Smith and the majority of his followers. But just three years later Hildebrand declares that he wants to clear the way for a basic historical orientation and method in the field of economy and to change this science to a doctrine of the economic laws of development of nations. He proposes a reform of the knowledge of the economic aspect of the life of nations such as the science of language has experienced in this century. Smith and his school, he says, had tried to construct an economic theory whose laws were to be absolutely valid for all times and nations (and thus without considering the various stages of development and the distinctive dispositions of nations). These were to be applied to all states and nations equally and be above time and space. In Germany as in England the laws and rules of economic science had been called “economic laws of nature” and timelessness ascribed to them as to other laws of nature. He plans to oppose this orientation.
• 62Among the representatives of the historical school of German economists B. Hildebrand is to be mentioned among the very first. To be sure, in his first short work (1845) of partially methodological content he merely stresses collectivism in the consideration of economy in contrast to the “individualism” of Adam Smith and the majority of his followers. But just three years later Hildebrand declares that he wants to clear the way for a basic historical orientation and method in the field of economy and to change this science to a doctrine of the economic laws of development of nations. He proposes a reform of the knowledge of the economic aspect of the life of nations such as the science of language has experienced in this century. Smith and his school, he says, had tried to construct an economic theory whose laws were to be absolutely valid for all times and nations (and thus without considering the various stages of development and the distinctive dispositions of nations). These were to be applied to all states and nations equally and be above time and space. In Germany as in England the laws and rules of economic science had been called “economic laws of nature” and timelessness ascribed to them as to other laws of nature. He plans to oppose this orientation.
• 63Among the representatives of the historical school of German economists B. Hildebrand is to be mentioned among the very first. To be sure, in his first short work (1845) of partially methodological content he merely stresses collectivism in the consideration of economy in contrast to the “individualism” of Adam Smith and the majority of his followers. But just three years later Hildebrand declares that he wants to clear the way for a basic historical orientation and method in the field of economy and to change this science to a doctrine of the economic laws of development of nations. He proposes a reform of the knowledge of the economic aspect of the life of nations such as the science of language has experienced in this century. Smith and his school, he says, had tried to construct an economic theory whose laws were to be absolutely valid for all times and nations (and thus without considering the various stages of development and the distinctive dispositions of nations). These were to be applied to all states and nations equally and be above time and space. In Germany as in England the laws and rules of economic science had been called “economic laws of nature” and timelessness ascribed to them as to other laws of nature. He plans to oppose this orientation.
• 64Among the representatives of the historical school of German economists B. Hildebrand is to be mentioned among the very first. To be sure, in his first short work (1845) of partially methodological content he merely stresses collectivism in the consideration of economy in contrast to the “individualism” of Adam Smith and the majority of his followers. But just three years later Hildebrand declares that he wants to clear the way for a basic historical orientation and method in the field of economy and to change this science to a doctrine of the economic laws of development of nations. He proposes a reform of the knowledge of the economic aspect of the life of nations such as the science of language has experienced in this century. Smith and his school, he says, had tried to construct an economic theory whose laws were to be absolutely valid for all times and nations (and thus without considering the various stages of development and the distinctive dispositions of nations). These were to be applied to all states and nations equally and be above time and space. In Germany as in England the laws and rules of economic science had been called “economic laws of nature” and timelessness ascribed to them as to other laws of nature. He plans to oppose this orientation.
• 65The science of economy does not have the task of dealing with laws of nature as do the physiology of the animal organism or other branches of natural science . . . but it has to detect the progress of the human species in the fluctuation of economic experiences and the perfection of the species in the economic life of mankind. Its task is to investigate the course of economic development of both individual nations and of all humanity step by step. It must recognize in this way the foundations and the structure of present-day economic culture as well as mark the task, the solution of which is reserved for the work of the living generation . . . that is to say it must note the link which the work of the present generation is supposed to add to the chain of social development. The history of economic culture in connection with the history of all political and juridical development of nations and statistics is the only sure basis on which a successful development of economic science seems possible.
• 66Knies is a scholar true to his convictions, one who goes thoroughly into the methodological problems of the “historical school” and who draws the logical conclusions from its one-sided premises with relentless love of truth, and thereby to a certain extent completes the sphere of ideas of the above school in respect to the methodology of political economy. Whatever in the way of new results has been brought to light after him by investigation into the methodological problems of historical economics we have taken into consideration in the appropriate place. On the whole, however, it was at least already hinted at by Knies. Even the comprehensive investigations by J. Kautz into the historical method of our science and the works, pertinent in many respects, by Dietzel, Held, Schmoller, H. v. Scheel, and Schönberg do not constitute an exception to this as far as the methodology of the historical school of political economy comes into question. We will refrain completely from mentioning numerous Italian and individual English and French adepts of the historical orientation who, not yet completely sobered by their own experience, still expect results from that orientation in the field of our theoretical-practical science which shall be similar to those which modern German jurisprudence and linguistic research have achieved.