FROM THE PREFACE BY THE GERMAN EDITORS

Max Weber delivered the lectures which are here given to the public, under the title “Outlines of Universal Social and Economic History,” in the winter semester of 1919–20. In doing so, he yielded unwillingly to the pressing solicitation of the students, for his interest was entirely centered on the great sociological labors which he had taken up. But after he had given his consent he threw himself into them with that unreserved devotion of his whole power and personality which was characteristic of him. It was the last class which he was allowed to complete; in the middle of his next course, on politics and the general theory of the state, which he began in the summer semester of 1920, he was removed by death.

Even if Weber had lived longer he would not have given his Economic History to the public, at least not in the form in which we have it here. Utterances of his prove that he regarded the work as an improvisation with a thousand defects, which had been forced upon him, and, like every great scholar, he was his own most exacting critic. The question thus put up to Frau Weber and the editors selected by her, as to whether publication was at all permissible, has been answered by them, after much hesitation, in the affirmative. They are convinced that science has a claim to this work of Max Weber. The significance of the work lies, not in the detailed content—Max Weber was not a specialist, and specialists will find enough in the book to take exception to—but in the penetration of the conception according to which a scheme of analysis of economic life is fitted to the exposition of the preparation for and development of modern capitalism, and in the masterly skill with which the results of the investigation are utilized in the service of this idea.

The situation just pictured set the task of the editors and made it a difficult one. No manuscript or even coherent outlines by Weber himself were available. There were found in his papers only a bundle of sheets with notes little more than catchwords set down in a handwriting hardly legible even to those accustomed to it. Consequently, the text had to be restored from notes by students, who willingly made their notebooks available for several months. For the possibility of giving to the world an economic history under Max Weber’s name, thanks are due in the first place to them. The editors hope to have succeeded by this means in restoring the course of the argument. Unfortunately the forceful, dramatic mode of expression has been almost entirely lost as it could only appear in an incomplete and unclear form in the notes, and defied all effort at restoration. As it was impossible to avoid taking some hand in the form of the work, the editors have thought that a somewhat fuller organization and connection of the different parts into paragraphs and subheads would facilitate reading and understanding it. Here, however, their work stopped, with what is essentially only a linguistically conservative mission. It could not be their task to take any position in regard to the material presented by the author, to enter into controversy or attempt to remove in advance doubts such as were certain to arise in regard to his argument. Only in a few places, and then only occasionally and briefly, have they felt permitted to correct an obvious error of the author or essay to complete his statements.

S. HELLMANN.
M. PALYI.

Munich and Berlin, April, 1923.