The romantic current not only maintained itself in its excesses during the dominion of positivism, and, as we have shown, insinuated itself even into its naturalistic antithesis, but it also persisted in its genuine form. And although we have not spoken of pedantic imitators and conservatives—whose significance is slight in the history of thought, that is to say, confined to the narrow sphere in which they were compelled to think for themselves—we have nevertheless recorded the preservation of romanticism in the eclecticism of Ranke, who adhered to the theories of Humboldt (another 'diplomatist'). Idealistic and romantic motives continued to illuminate the intellect and soul among the philosophers, from Humboldt to Lotze and from Hartmann to Wundt and those who corresponded to them in other countries. The like occurred in historiography properly so called, and could not but happen, because, if the formulas of agnosticism and of positivism had been followed to the letter, all light of thought would have been extinguished in blind mechanicism—that is to say, in nothing—and no historical representation would have been possible. Thus political, social, philosophical, literary, and artistic history continued to make acquisitions, if not equally important with those of the romantic period (the surroundings were far more favourable to the natural sciences and to mathematics than to history), yet noteworthy. This is set forth in a copious volume upon historiography (I refer to the work of Fueter already several times mentioned in this connexion). There due honour will be found accorded to the great work accomplished by Ranke, which the rapidity of my course of exposition has induced me to illustrate rather in its negative aspects, causing me, for instance, to allude solely to the contradictions in the History of the Popes, which is notwithstanding a masterpiece. The cogent quality of the romantic spirit at its best is revealed in the typical instance of Taine, who is so ingenuously naturalistic in his propositions and in the directive principles of his work, yet so unrestrainedly romantic in particular instances, as, for example, in his characterization of the French poets or of the Dutch and Italian painters. All this led to his ending in the exaggerated anti-Jacobin romanticism of his Origines de la France contemporaine, in the same way that Zola and the other verists, those verbal enemies of romanticism, were lyrical in all their fiction, and the leader of the school was induced to conclude his works with the abstract lyricism of the Quatre évangiles. What has been observed of Taine is to be applied to Buckle and to the other naturalists and positivists, obliged to be historical against their will, and to the positivists who became followers of historical materialism, and found the dialectic established in their house without being able to explain what it was or whence it came. Not all theorists of historiography showed themselves to be so resolutely and madly naturalistic as Bourdeau and one or two others; indeed these were few in number and of inferior reputation. Eclecticism prevailed among the majority of them, a combination of necessity and of liberty, of masses and individuals, of cause and end, of nature and spirit: even the philosophy of history was admitted, if in no other form, then as a desideratum or a problem to be discussed at a convenient time (even though that were the Greek Kalends). Eclecticism, too, presented the greatest variety, from the low level of a trivial arranging of concepts in an artificial manner to the lofty heights of interior labour, from which it seemed at every moment that a new gospel, no longer eclectic, must issue.

This last form of eclecticism and the open attempts to renew romantic idealism more or less completely, as well as romantic methods of historiography, have become more frequent since modern consciousness has withdrawn itself from positivism and has declared its bankruptcy. But all this is of importance rather as a symptom of a real advance in thought. And the new modern philosophies of intuition and philosophy of values must be looked upon rather as symptoms than as representing progress in thought (I mean in general, and not in the particular thoughts and theories which often form a real contribution). The former of these, however, while it correctly criticizes science as an economic construction useless for true knowledge, then proceeds to shut itself up in immediate consciousness, a sort of mysticism, where historical dialectic finds itself submerged and suffocated; and the latter, placing the conception of value as guardian of the spirit in opposition to the conceptions of science like "a philosophical cave canem" (as our imaginative Tari would have said), leaves open a dualism, which stands in the way of the unity of history and of thought as history. When we look around us, therefore, we do not discover that new philosophy which shall lay the foundations and at the same time afford justification for the new historiography by solving the antithesis between imaginative romanticism and materialistic positivism. And it is clear that we are not even able to discuss such a philosophy as a demand, because the demand for a particular philosophy is itself the thinking of that particular philosophy, and therefore is not a demand but an actuality. Hence the dilemma either of saying nothing about it, and in this case of not speaking even of positivism as a period that has been closed and superseded, or of speaking of the new philosophy as of something that lives and exists, precisely because it does live and exist. And since to renounce talking of it has been rendered impossible by the very criticism chat we have devoted to it, nothing remains save to recognize that philosophy as something that exists, not as something to be invoked. Only we must not look around us in order to see where it is, but return to ourselves and have recourse to the thought that has animated this historical sketch of historiography and to all the historical explanations that have preceded it. In the philosophy that we have delineated, reality is affirmed to be spirit, not such that it is above the world or wanders about the world, but such as coincides with the world; and nature has been shown as a moment and a product of this spirit itself, and therefore the dualism (at least that which has troubled thought from Thales to Spencer) is superseded, and transcendency of all sorts, whether materialistic or theological in its origin, has also been superseded with it. Spirit, which is the world, is the spirit which develops, and is therefore both one and diverse, an eternal solution and an eternal problem, and its self-consciousness is philosophy, which is its history, or history, which is its philosophy, each substantially identical with the other; and consciousness is identical with self-consciousness—that is to say, distinct and one with it at the same time, as life and thought. This philosophy, which is in us and is ours, enables us to recognize it—that is to say, to recognize ourselves outside of us—in the thought of other men which is also our thought, and to discover it more or less clearly and perfectly in the other forms of contemporary philosophy, and more or less clearly in contemporary historiography. We have frequent opportunities of effecting this recognition, which is productive of much spiritual comfort. Quite lately, for instance, while I was writing these pages, the historical work of a historian, a pure historian, came into my hands (I select this instance among many) where I read words at the very beginning which seemed to be my very own: "My book is based upon the conviction that German historical inquiry must elevate itself to freer movement and contact with the great forces of political life and culture, without renouncing the precious tradition of its method, and that it must plunge into philosophy and politics, without experiencing injury in its end or essence, for thus alone can it develop its intimate essence and be both universal and national."[1] This is the philosophy of our time, which is the initiator of a new philosophical and historiographical period. But it is not possible to write the history of this philosophy and of this historiography, which is subject and not object, not for the reason generally adopted, which we have found to be false, since it separates the fact of consciousness from the fact, but for the other reason that the history which we are constructing is a history of 'epochs' or of 'great periods,' and the new period is new, just because it is not a period—that is to say, something closed. Not only are we not able to describe its chronological and geographical outline, because we are ignorant as to what measure of time it will fill (will it develop rapidly in thirty or forty years, or will it encounter obstacles, yet nevertheless continue its course for centuries?), what extent of countries it will include (will it remain for long Italian or German, confined to certain Italian or German circles, or will it diffuse itself rapidly in all countries, both in general culture and in public instruction?), but we are unable to limit logically what may be its value outside these considerations. The reason for this is that in order to be able to describe its limitations, it must necessarily have developed its antitheses—that is to say, the new problems that will infallibly arise from its solutions, and this has not happened: we are ourselves on the waves and we have not furled our sails in port preparatory to a new voyage. Bis hierher ist das Bewusstsein gekommen (Knowledge has reached this point in its development), said Hegel, at the end of his lectures upon the philosophy of history; and yet he had not the right to say so, because his development, which went from the unconsciousness of liberty to the full consciousness of it in the German world and in the system of absolute idealism, did not admit of prosecution. But we are well able to say so, for we have overcome the abstractness of Hegelianism.

INDEX OF NAMES


Agnello of Ravenna, 212
Alcmæon of Crete, 93
Aristotle, 72, 79, 166, 188, 189,
190, 198, 221, 222, 232, 239, 240, 262
Asellio, 186
Augustine, St, 57, 178, 205, 207,
208, 209, 211, 213, 214, 218,
248-249, 285
Avito, 205

Bacon, 253
Balbo, C, 36, 45, 266, 278
Bandello, M., 233
Barante, De, 36, 265
Baronio, C, 233
Bartoli, A., 201-202
Baur, C., 273
Beato Renano, 226
Bede, 216
Benedictines, 49, 255
Bernheim, E., 70
Bettinelli, S., 254
Biondo, F., 168, 226, 277
Bodin, 225, 237, 238, 269
Bolingbroke, 30-31
Bonafede, 254
Boscoli, 43
Bossuet, 175, 248-249, 256
Bourdeau, 297, 310
Bracciolini, P., 224
Breysig, C, 297, 304
Brucker, 253, 254
Bruni, L., 224
Bruno, G., 166, 268
Buckle, 46, 297, 302, 310
Buhle, 253
Burckhardt, J., 273
Burke, E., 31

Calchi, 226
Campanella, T., 238, 240
Casanova, 81-82
Cellario, 240
Chateaubriand, 265
Châtelet, Marquise du, 245
Cicero, 47, 187, 190, 196
Ciezkowski, A., 284
Colletta, P., 45
Comines, 222
Comte, A., 175, 270, 297, 302, 304
Condorcet, 175
Cousin, 273

Dahlmann, 266
Daniel, 195, 213, 225
Dante, 221, 222, 258
Davidsohn, 175
Democritus, 200
Descartes, 79, 140, 164, 200, 244,
251, 271
Diodorus Siculus, 196, 197
Diogenes of Halicarnassus, 47, 187, 197
Droysen, 22, 36, 266
Dubos, 253

Eichhorn, 273
Erchempertus, 216, 219
Erdmann, 273
Eusebius of Cæsarea, 206, 209

Ferrari, G., 115
Fichte, 69, 282, 286
Ficker, 266
Fischer, 273
Flint, 71, 175
Florus, 195
Fredegarius, 202
Frederick II of Prussia, 221
Fueter, E., 168, 170, 171-172, 173,
176, 178-179, 224, 225, 252,
253, 255, 257, 266, 277, 305, 310
Fustel de Coulanges, 83, 278

Galiani, F., 269
Gans, E., 273
Gervinus, 266, 273
Giannone, P., 28, 176, 177, 254
Gibbon, 254
Giesebrecht, 266
Gioacchino di Flora, 214, 286
Gioberti, V., 284
Goncourts, 36
Gotti, 128
Gracian, B., 164
Gregory of Tours, 201-202, 216
Grote, 36
Guicciardini, F., 28, 178, 224, 226,
234, 235-236, 238, 248
Guizot, 266

Hamann, 164, 269
Hartmann, E., 309
Hase, 273
Hecolampadius, 226
Heeren, 253
Hegel, 47, 57-58, 68, 71, 79, 102,
103, 105, 153, 157, 160, 166,
270, 271, 273, 282, 286, 293, 314
Heimholtz, 179
Helvétius, 267
Herbart, 270
Herder, 124, 273, 274, 286, 293
Herodotus, 35, 178, 181, 182, 183-184
185, 206
Hesiod, 181, 184
Hirth, 273
Holbach, d', 267
Homer, 181, 184
Hugo Falcando, 220
Humboldt, 47, 309
Hume, 269, 279

Jamsilla (pseudo), 220, 221
Jerome, St, 213

Kant, 73, 79, 133-153, 244, 246,
273, 306
Kluger, 273
Krause, 282

Labriola, 45, 70
Lamprecht, 297, 304
Lanzi, 254
Lassalle, 273
Laurent, 286
Leibnitz, 166, 200, 255
Leo, 266
Lessing, 268, 273
Liutprand of Cremona, 217
Livy, 35, 167, 178, 185, 195, 250, 262
Locke, 258
Lombroso, C, 307
Lorenz, O., 115, 299, 301
Lotze, 309
Lucian, 186, 187
Luther, 242

Machiavelli, 28, 31, 164, 169-170,
171, 175-176, 178, 224, 226, 231-232,
234, 235, 236, 248, 250, 262
Magdeburg group of reformed divines, 233
Malaterra, 220
Malebranche, 140, 251
Manzoni, A., 265, 277-278
Marheinecke, 273
Marineo, L., 228
Mario Vittorino, 20
Marsilio of Padua, 221
Martial, 231
Martin Polonus, 222
Marx, K., 35, 79, 267, 271
Maurini, 168
Meinecke, F., 313
Meo, A. De, 255
Meyer, 273
Michelet, 175, 266
Mommsen, 36, 176, 278, 279
Montesquieu, 253, 254, 269
Möser, J., 150, 186, 253
Mosheim, 248
Müller, G., 266
Müller, K. O., 273
Muratori, 254, 255, 256, 277

Napoli Signorelli, P., 254
Navagero, A., 231
Neander, 273
Niebuhr, 175, 176, 186, 265, 266, 278

Ossian, 305
Otto of Frisia, 209, 211, 214, 218

Pais, H., 176
Paolo Emilio, 228
Pascal, 164
Paterculus, 195
Patrizzi, F., 214, 237
Paulus Diaconus, 216
Paulus Orosius, 204, 211, 218
Perizonius, 182
Pietro da Eboli, 220
Planck, 273
Plato, 166, 198, 200, 222, 232, 258, 262
Plutarch, 43, 197, 204, 210
Polybius, 57, 58, 167, 178, 185,
186-187, 188, 190, 193, 197, 199,
206, 207
Polydore Virgil, 228
Pontanus, 239
Popelinière, de la, 239

Quintilian, 187, 190
Quintus Curtius, 184

Ranke, 266, 291-292, 299, 300-301,
309, 310
Raumer, 266
Renan, 38
Riccardo da San Germano, 220
Rickert, 70
Ricobaldo of Ferrara, 221
Robbia, L. Della, 43
Robertson, 253, 279
Rollin, 175
Romualdo Guarna, 220
Rotteck, 266
Rousseau, 32, 246, 269
Rumohr, 273
Ruskin, 273

Saba Malaspina, 220
Sabellicus, M. A., 224
Sainte-Beuve, 273
Sainte-Palaye, 254
Sallust, 195, 196, 197
Salvemini, G., 175
Sanctis, F. de, 74, 131-132, 273
Sanctis, G. de, 176
Sarpi, 31, 226
Savigny, 273
Schelling, 282, 293
Schlegel, 273, 293
Schlosser, 89-90
Schnaase, 273
Schopenhauer, 103, 104, 270
Scipio, 195
Seneca, 196
Sextus Empiricus, 72
Shakespeare, 258
Sigonio, C, 226
Simmel, 70
Sismondi, 266
Socrates, 190, 271
Spaventa, B., 273
Spencer, 312
Spinoza, 164, 200
Spittler, 273
Strauss, 273

Tacitus, 35, 167, 178, 184, 185,
190, 194, 195, 197, 300
Taine, 65, 66, 68, 75-76, 297, 307, 310
Tari, A., 311
Telesino, Abbot, 220
Thales, 181, 312
Thierry, 36, 278
Thomas Aquinas, 221
Thucydides, 178, 183, 184, 185,
186, 190, 193, 197
Tiedemann, 253
Tiraboschi, 254
Tocqueville, 175
Tolstoi, 54
Tosti, L., 266, 278
Treitschke, 266
Troya, 266, 278
Turgot, 268-269

Ulrici, 167

Valla, 226
Vasari, 231, 235, 236, 240-241
Vega, Lope de, 172
Vico, G. B., 31, 79, 96, 102-103,
105, 124, 164, 171, 191, 229,
269-270, 275, 277-278, 285-286, 304
Villani, G., 220, 222
Villari, P., 175
Villemain, 273
Voltaire, 150, 175-176, 245, 248-263
269, 272, 279, 281
Vossius, 167, 238-239

Wachler, 168-169
Widekind, 216
Winckelmann, 124, 176-177, 253, 254, 273
Wolf, 273, 305
Wundt, 309

Xenophon, 185

Zeller, 71, 273
Zeno, 181
Zola, 310
Zwingli, 226