Critical Studies in the Logic of the Cultural Sciences

A Critique of Eduard Meyer's Methodological Views

I

When one of our most eminent historians feels impelled to give an account to himself and his colleagues of the aims and methods of his scholarly work, this must necessarily arouse an interest far beyond the limits of his special discipline because in doing so he passes beyond the boundaries of his special discipline and enters into the area of methodological analysis. This has to begin with certain unfavorable consequences. The categories of logic, which in its present state of development is a specialized discipline like any other, require, if they are to be utilized with assurance, the same daily familiarity as those of any other discipline. Obviously, Eduard Meyer, whose Zur Theorie und Methodik der Geschitchte (Hadle, 1900) ) we are discussing here, does not and cannot claim such constant contact with logic anymore than the author of the following pages. The methodological details of that work are, so to speak, a diagnosis not by the physician but by the patient himself, and they are intended to be evaluated and understood as such. The professional methodologist will take umbrage at many of Meyer's formulations and he will not learn much that is really new for his purposes from the work itself. But this does not diminish its significance for the neighboring special disciplines.¹

Indeed, the most significant achievements of specialist methodology use "ideal-typically" constructed conceptions of the objectives and methods of the special disciplines, and are therefore so far risen over the heads of the latter that it is often difficult for the special disciplines to recognize themselves with the naked eye in these discussions. For this reason methodological discussions rooted within their own subject matter may be more useful for the self-clarification of special disciplines in spite of, and in a sense even because of, their methodologically imperfect formulation. Indeed, the easy intelligibility of Meyer's exposition offers the specialist in the neighboring disciplines the opportunity to focus attention on a whole series of points for the purpose of resolving certain logical problems which he shares in common with "historians" in the narrower sense of the word.

Such is the aim of the following discussions which, in connection with Meyer's book, will attempt to elucidate concretely a whole series, in sequence, of specific logical problems, and will then critically review a number of further newer works on the logic of the cultural sciences from the standpoint arrived at in the course of our discussion of Meyer. We are intentionally taking our. point of departure in purely historical problems and will enter only hi the later stage of our discussions on those disciplines concerned with social life which seek to arrive at "rules" or "laws"; we do this especially because hitherto the attempt has usually been made to define the nature of the social sciences by distinguishing them from the "natural sciences." In this procedure there is always the tacit assumption that history is a discipline which devotes itself exclusively to the collection of materials, or if not that, is a purely descriptive discipline which in fortunate cases drags in "facts" which serve as the building materials for the intellectual work which "really" begins only after the historical work has been done. And what is more, even the professional historians, unfortunately, have contributed not a little to the strengthening of the prejudice that "historical work" is something qualitatively different from "scientific work" because "concepts" and "rules" are of "no concern" to history; they have done this by the way in which they have sought to define the specific character of "history" in the specialist's sense of the word. Since social science is itself usually given an "historical" foundation because of the persisting influence of the "historical school," and since for this reason the relationship of our discipline to theory has remained problematic even as it was twenty-five years ago, it appears to be correct procedure to ask, first, what is to be understood logically by "historical" research, and to decide this question in the domain of what is indubitably and generally acknowledged to be historiography, with which the book we are now criticizing is primarily concerned.

Eduard Meyer begins with a warning against the over-estimation of the significance of methodological studies for the practice of history: the most comprehensive methodological knowledge will not make anyone into an historian, and incorrect methodological view-points do not necessarily entail erroneous scientific practice; they show, rather, only that the historian can formulate or interpret in-correctly his own correct maxims of procedure. The following pro-position recommends itself as essentially true: methodology can only bring us reflective understanding of the means which have demonstrated their value in practice by raising them to the level of explicit consciousness; it is no more the precondition of fruitful intellectual work than the knowledge of anatomy is the precondition for "correct" walking. Indeed, just as the person who attempted to govern his mode of walking continuously by anatomical knowledge would be in danger of stumbling so the professional scholar who attempted to determine the aims of his own research extrinsically on the basis of methodological reflections would be in danger of falling into the same difficulties.² If methodological work—and this is naturally its intention—can at some point serve the practice of the historian directly, it is indeed, by enabling him once and for all to escape from the danger of being imposed on by a philosophically embellished dilettantism. Only by laying bare and solving substantive problems can sciences be established and there methods developed. On the other hand, purely epistemological and methodological reflections have never played the crucial role in such developments. Such discussions can become important for the enterprise of science only when, as a result of considerable shifts of the "viewpoint" from which a datum becomes the object of analysis, the idea emerges that the new "viewpoint" also requires a revision of. the logical forms in which the "enterprise" has heretofore operated, and when, accordingly, uncertainty about the "nature" of one's own work arises. This situation is unambiguously the case at present as regards history, and Eduard Meyer's view about the insignificance in principle of methodology for "practice" has rightly not prevented him from now busying himself with methology.

He begins, first, with an exposition of those theories which recently, from the methodological standpoint, have sought to transform historical studies, and he formulates the standpoint which he will wish to criticize in particular (page 3), as asserting that:

the following are insignificant for history and are thus not to be looked upon as properly belonging to a scientific exposition:
a. the "accidental";
b. the "freely" willed decision of concrete personalities;
c. the influence of "ideas" on the actions of human beings;—as asserting on the contrary,
that the proper objects of scientific knowledge are:
a. "mass phenomena" in contrast to individual actions;
b. the "typical" in contrast with the "particular";
c. the development of "communities," especially social "classes" or "nations," in contrast with the political actions of individuals;
and as asserting finally that
historical development, because it is scientifically intelligible only in a causal manner is to be conceived as a process following "laws." Consequently, the discovery of the necessary "typical" sequence of "developmental stages" of human communities and the integration of the rich variety of historical data into this sequence are the proper aims of historical research.

In the following discussion, all of those points in Meyer's analysis which deal particularly with the criticism of Lamprecht will, for the time being, be left entirely to one side, and I allow myself the liberty of rearranging Meyer's arguments, singling out certain of them for particular discussion in the following sections in accordance with the requirements of the following studies, which do not have as their goal the mere criticism of Eduard Meyer's book.

In order to oppose the point of view which he is combatting, Meyer first refers to the very great role which "free will" and "chance"—both of which are in his view perfectly "definite and clear concepts"—have played in history and in life in general.

As regards the discussion of "chance" (p. 17 ff.), Eduard Meyer obviously does not interpret this concept as objective "causelessness" ("absolute" chance in the metaphysical sense), nor does he interpret it as the absolute subjective impossibility of knowledge of the causal conditions which necessarily recurs in regard to each individual instance of the class of events (as, for example, in the toss of dice) ("absolute" chance in the epistemological sense).³ He understands by "chance," rather, "relative" chance in the sense of a logical relationship between groups of causes conceived as distinct complexes and understands it, in the main, in the way, although naturally not always "correctly" formulated, that this concept is accepted by professional logicians, who despite many advances in detail still base their theory in this regard on Windelband's earliest writing. In the main, he makes a correct distinction between two concepts of chance: (1) the causal concept of "chance" ("relative chance" so-called) :—the "chance" effect here stands in contrast with such an effect as would be "expected" from the event's causal components which we have synthesized into a conceptual unity—that is a matter of "chance" which is not usually derivable in accordance with general rules of change from those determinants which alone have been taken into account in the unification of causal components into causes but which has been caused by the operation of some conditions lying "outside" them (pp. 17-19). From this causal conception of "chance," he distinguishes (2) the rather different teleological concept of "chance," the opposite of which is the "essential" reality; here either it is a question of the construction of a concept for heuristic purposes through the exclusion of those elements or components of reality which are "unessential" ("chance" or "individual") for the knowledge, or it is a question of assessment of certain real or conceptualized objects as "means" to an "end," in which case, then, certain characteristics alone are practically relevant as "means" while the others are treated in practice as "indifferent" (pp. 20-21).⁴ Of course, the formulation (especially on page 20 et seq., where the contrast is conceived as one between "events" and "things") leaves much to be desired, and it will become quite clear by our further discussion of Meyer's attitude toward the concept of development (in Section II) that the problem has not been fully thought out in its logical implications. However, what he says is adequate for the needs of historical practice. What interests us here, however, is the way in which at a subsequent passage (p. 28) he recurs to the concept of "chance." "Natural science can ... assert," Meyer says, "that when dynamite is set on fire an explosion will take place. But to predict whether and when in a specific instance this explosion will take place, and whether in such a situation a particular person will be wounded, killed, or saved, that is impossible for natural science because that depends on chance and on the free will of which science knows nothing but with which history deals." Here we see the very close union of "chance" with "free will." It appears even more prominently when Meyer cites as a second example the possibility of "calculating" with "certainty" the possibility of a constellation by use of the devices of astronomy, meaning by "certainty" the assumption of the non-occurrence of "disturbances" such as, for example, the intrusion of strange or foreign planets into the solar system. In contrast with this, he declares it to be impossible to predict with certainty that the constellation will be "observed." In the first place, that intrusion of the foreign planet, according to Meyer's assumption, would be "incalculable"—in that sense astronomy, and not only history, has to take "chance" into account. Secondly, it is normally very easily "calculable" that some astronomer will also attempt to "observe" the calculated constellation, and when no "chance" disturbances intrude, will actually succeed in observing it. One obtains the impression that Meyer, although interpreting "chance" in a thoroughly deterministic fashion, has in mind, without, however, clearly expressing it, a particularly close affinity between "chance" and "free will" which determines a characteristic irrationality in historical events. Let us examine this more closely.

What Meyer designates as "free will" does not involve, according to him, in any way (p. 14) a contradiction of the "axiomatic" "principle of sufficient reason" which is, in his view, unconditionally valid even for human conduct. Rather, the distinction between "freedom" and "necessity" in conduct is resolved into a simple distinction of points of view. In one case, we are contemplating what has happened, and this appears to us as "necessary," including the decision that was once actually made. In the case of freedom, however, we look on the event as "becoming," that is, as not yet having occurred, and thus as not "necessary"; it is, in this form, only one of infinitely; numerous "possibilities." From the point of view of a development in process, we can, however, never assert that a human decision could not have been made differently than it actually was made later. In the discussion of human action, "we can never transcend the ‘I will’."

The question now arises: is it Meyer's view that this distinction between two viewpoints (i.e. (1) "development in process" which is for that reason conceived as "free" and (2) "events" which have "occurred" and for that reason conceived as "necessary") is to be applied only in the sphere of human motivation and not in the sphere of "dead" nature? Since he remarks on page 15 that the person who "knows the personality and the circumstances" can predict the result, that is, the decision which is "evolving" "perhaps with a very high probability," he does not appear to accept such a distinction. But a really exact prediction of an individual event from given conditions is also dependent, in the sphere of "dead" nature, on these two pre-suppositions: (1) that there are involved "calculable," that is, quantitatively expressible components of the event, and (2) that all of the conditions which are relevant for the occurrence can really be known and measured exactly. Otherwise, and this is always the rule wherever it is a question of the concrete individuality of an event, such as the exact character of the weather on a particular day in the future, we cannot transcend probability judgments of various degrees of certainty. "Free" will, then, would not have any special status, and "I will" would only be the same as the formal "fiat" of consciousness discussed by James, which is, for example, accepted by the determinist criminologists without any damage to their theories of legal responsibility.⁵ "Free will" signifies, then, only that causal significance has been attributed to the "decision" which has arisen from causes which are, perhaps, never fully to be discovered, but which are in any case "sufficient"; and this will not be seriously contested even by a strict determinist. If there were nothing more involved in this, then we would be unable to see why the concept of irrationality of historical events, which is occasionally mentioned in discussions of "chance," would not be acceptable.

But for such an interpretation of Meyer's point of view, it is disturbing to note that he finds it necessary in this context to emphasize freedom of the will, as a fact of inner experience, as indispensable if the individual is to be responsible for his own voluntary acts. This would be justified only if Meyer were intending to assign to history the task of judging its heroes. It is therefore a question to what extent Meyer actually holds this position. He remarks (p. 16) : "We attempt to uncover the motives which have led them"—for example, Bismarck in 1866—"to their decisions and to judge the correctness of these decisions and the value (nota bene!) of their personality." In view of this formulation, one may well believe that Meyer regards it as the highest task of history to obtain value judgments concerning the "historically acting" personality. Not only his attitude toward "biography," which is still to be mentioned, but also the highly pertinent remarks regarding the non-equivalence of the "intrinsic value" of historical personalities and their causal significance (pp. 50-51) make it certain that by "value" of personality in the foregoing sentence he means only, or can consistently only mean, the causal significance of certain actions or certain qualities of those concrete persons which may be positive, or also, as in the case of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, negative, for some value judgment. But what is meant by the "judgment" of the "correctness" of those decisions may be understood again in a variety of ways: as either (1) a judgment of the "value" of the goal which lay at the basis of the decision—for example, the goal of driving Austria out of Germany from the standpoint of the German patriot—or as (2) an analysis of those decisions with reference to the question whether, or, rather, since history has answered this question affirmatively,—why the decision to go to war was at that moment the appropriate means to achieve the goal of the unification of Germany. We may pass over the question whether Meyer has, in actuality, clearly distinguished in his own mind these two ways of putting the question. In an argument regarding historical causality, obviously only the second one is relevant; for this judgment of the historical situation, "teleological" in form, and expressed in terms of the categories of "means and ends," is obviously meaningful in a presentation which takes the form, not of a book of instructions for diplomats, but of "history," as rendering possible a judgment of the causal historical significance of events. Such a judgment asserts that at that moment an "opportunity" to make a decision was not "passed over" because the "maker" of the decision, as Meyer says, possessed the "strength of soul and mind" to maintain it in the face of all obstacles; in this way is determined what is to be attributed causally to that decision and its characterological and other preconditions; in other words, the extent to which, and the sense in which, for example, the presence of those "character qualities" constituted a "factor" of historical "importance." Such problems causally relating a certain historical event to the actions of concrete persons are, however, obviously to be sharply distinguished from the question of the meaning and significance of ethical "responsibility."

We may interpret this last expression in Eduard Meyer's writing in the purely "objective" meaning of the causal ascription of certain effects to the given "characterological" qualities and to the "motives" of the acting personalities which are to be explained by these characterological qualities and the numerous "environmental" circumstances and by the concrete situation. But then it becomes strikingly noteworthy that Meyer, in a subsequent passage in his treatise (pp. 44-45), indicates that the "investigation of motives" is "secondary" for history. The reason which is alleged, namely, that inquiry into motives passes beyond what is secure knowledge, that it often indeed results in a "genetic formulation" of an action which cannot be satisfactorily explained in the light of the available data and which action is, therefore, to be simply accepted as a "datum," cannot, however correct it may be in individual instances, be adhered to as a logical criterion in view of the often equally problematic "explanations" of concrete external natural or physical events. However that may be, Meyer's point of view regarding inquiry into motives, in association with his strong emphasis on the significance of the essential factor of the "willed decision" for history and the quoted remark concerning "responsibility" leads in any case to the suspicion that as far as Meyer is concerned, the ethical and the causal modes of analyzing human action—"evaluation" and "explanation"—reveal a certain tendency to fuse with one another.⁶ For quite apart from the question as to whether one regards as adequate Windelband's formulation that the idea of responsibility has a meaning which does not involve that of causality and constitutes a positive basis for the normative dignity of ethical consciousness,—in any case this formulation adequately indicates how the world of "norms" and "values" as envisaged from the empirical, scientific, causal point of view is delimitable from such a standpoint.⁷

Naturally, in judging a certain mathematical proposition to be "correct," the question as to how the knowledge of it came about "psychologically" and whether "mathematical imagination," for instance, is possible to the highest degree only as an accompaniment of certain anatomical abnormalities of the "mathematical brain," does not arise at all. The consideration that one's own ethically judged "motive" is, according to the theory of empirical science, causally determined does not carry any weight before the forum of conscience; nor does the consideration that an instance of artistic bungling must be regarded as being as much determined in its genesis as the Sistine Chapel carry any weight in aesthetic judgment. Causal analysis provides absolutely no value judgment⁸ and a value judgment is absolutely not a causal explanation. And for this very reason the evaluation of an event—such as, for instance, the "beauty" of a natural phenomenon—occurs in a sphere quite different from its causal explanation; for this reason concern on the part of history to judge of historical actions as responsible before the conscience of history or before the judgment seat of any god or man and all other modes of introducing the philosophical problem of "freedom" into the ! procedures of history would suspend its character as an empirical science (Erfahrungwissenschaft) just as much as the insertion of miracles into its causal sequences. Following Ranke, the latter is naturally rejected by Eduard Meyer (p. 20) in the name of the "sharp distinction between historical knowledge and religious Weltanschauung" and it would have been better, in my opinion, if he had not allowed himself to be misled by Stammler's arguments which he cites (p. 26; fn. 2) and which blur the equally sharp distinction between historical knowledge and ethics. Just how disastrous this mixing up of different standpoints can be from the methodological point of view is demonstrated immediately when Meyer (p. 20) claims that by means of the empirically given ideas of freedom and responsibility a "purely individual factor" is present in historical development, which is "never capable of being reduced to a formula" without "annihilating its true nature" and when he then seeks to illustrate this proposition by the high historical (causal) significance of the individually willed decision of particular personalities. This old error ⁹ is so dangerous precisely from the point of view of preserving the specific character of history because it introduces problems from quite distinct fields into history and produces the illusion that a certain (anti-deterministic) conviction is a presupposition of the validity of the historical method. The error in the assumption that any freedom of the will—however it is understood—is identical with the "irrationality" of action, or that the latter is conditioned by the former, is quite obvious. The characteristic of "incalculability," equally great but not greater than that of "blind forces of nature," is the privilege of—the insane.¹⁰ On the other hand, we associate the highest measure of an empirical "feeling of freedom" with those actions which we are conscious of performing rationally—i.e., in the absence of physical and psychic "coercion," emotional "affects" and "accidental" disturbances of the clarity of judgment, in which we pursue a clearly perceived end by "means" which are the most adequate in accordance with the extent of our knowledge, i.e., in accordance with empirical rules. If history had only to deal with such rational actions which are "free" in this sense, its task would be immeasurably lightened: the goal, the "motive," the "maxims" of the actor would be unambiguously derivable from the means applied and all the irrationalities which constitute the "personal" element in conduct would be excluded. Since all strictly teleologically (purposefully) occurring actions involve applications of empirical rules, which tell what the appropriate "means" to ends are, history would be nothing but the applications of those rules.¹¹ The impossibility of purely pragmatic history is determined by the fact that the action of men is not interpretable in such purely rational terms, that not only irrational "prejudices," errors in thinking and factual errors but also "temperament," "moods" and "affects" disturb his freedom—in brief, that his action too—to very different degrees—partakes of the empirical "meaninglessness" of "natural change." Action shares this kind of "irrationality" with every natural event, and when the historian in the interpretation of historical interconnections speaks of the "irrationality" of human action as a disturbing factor, he is comparing historical-empirical action not with the phenomena of nature but with the ideal of a purely rational, i.e., absolutely purposeful, action which is also absolutely oriented towards the adequate means.

Eduard Meyer's exposition of the categories of "chance" and "free will" which are characteristic of historical analysis, reveals a some-what unclear disposition to introduce heterogeneous problems into historical methodology; it is further to be observed that his conception of historical causality contains striking contradictions. He emphasizes very strongly on page 40 that historical research always seeks out causal sequences by proceeding from effect to cause. Even this—in Eduard Meyer's formulation¹²—can be disputed: is is from the nature of the case quite possible to formulate in the form of an hypothesis the effects which could have been produced by a given historical event or by a newly ascertained historical occurrence and to verify this hypothesis by testing it with the "facts." What is really meant, as we shall see, is something quite different—that which has recently been called the principle of "teleological dependence" and which dominates history's interests in causes. Furthermore, it is of course also unsatisfactory when the aforementioned ascent from effect to cause is claimed to be peculiar to history. The causal "explanation" of a concrete "natural event" proceeds exactly in this way and in no other. And while the view is put forward on page 14—as we have seen—that what has already "occurred" is for us tantamount to the absolutely "necessary" and only what is conceived as "becoming" is to be interpreted by us as mere "possibility," on page 40 he emphasizes the contrary proposition, stressing the particularly problematic element in the inference of the cause from the effect, in such a way that Eduard Meyer himself feels called upon to avoid the term "cause" in historical studies and, as we have seen, the "investigation of motives" becomes discredited in his eyes.

One could try, taking Eduard Meyer's point of view, to resolve this last contradiction by a formulation in which the problematic element in the inference from effect to cause was seen to be grounded in the fundamental limitations of our capacities for knowledge, while determinism remained an ideal postulate. But he decisively rejects this procedure too (p. 23) and follows it (p. 24) with a discussion which once more raises serious doubts. At one time Eduard Meyer identified, in the introduction to Die Geschichte des Altertums, the relation between the "general" and the "particular" with that between "freedom" and "necessity" and both of these with the relationship between the "individual" and the "collectivity"; in consequence of this (cf. above), the "individual" was dominant in "detail" (in the particular instance),, while the "major trends" of historical events were governed by "law" or "rule." This view, which prevails among many "modern" historians and which in this formulation is entirely and basically confused is expressly withdrawn by him on page 25, partly on the authority of Rickert, partly on the authority of von Below. The latter had taken particularly objection to the notion of a "development governed by law"; against Eduard Meyer's example—that the development of Germany to a unified nation appears to us as an "historical necessity," while the time and form of the unification into a federal state with twenty-five members depends, on the contrary, on the "individuality of the historically operating factors," von Below complained: "Could it not have happened otherwise?" Meyer is unquestionably open to this criticism. But it appears to me to be quite easy to see—however one judges the Meyerian formulation which is attacked by von Below—that this criticism in any case proves too much and therefore proves nothing. For the same objection is appropriate when we, along with von Below and Eduard Meyer, apply the concept of "law-governed development" without any qualms. The fact that a human being has developed or will develop from a human foetus appears to us as a law-governed development—and still it could undoubtedly "have a different outcome" as a result of external "accidents" or "pathological" inheritance. In the polemic against the theorists of "development" it is obviously only a question of correctly perceiving and logically delimiting the meaning of the concept of "development"—the concept obviously can not simply be eliminated by such arguments as the foregoing. Eduard Meyer himself is the best instance of this contention. For it is the case that only two pages later (p. 27) he again proceeds in a footnote which designates the concept of "middle ages" as "a clearly defined concept," in accordance with a schema set forth in the "Introduction" which he had repudiated: and in the text, he says that the word "necessity" in history signifies only that the "probability" of an historical consequence following from given conditions, attains a very high level, that the whole development so to speak, presses on to a single outcome. He did not wish, moreover, ever, to say more than that by his remark about the unification of Germany. And when he emphasizes in this connection that there was, despite everything, a possibility of the event's non-occurrence, we wish to recall that he had stressed in connection with astronomical calculations that they could possibly be "disturbed" by wandering heavenly bodies. There is indeed in this respect no distinction from particular natural events, and even in explanations in the sphere of nature, ¹³ whenever it is a question of concrete events, the judgment of necessity is by no means the only or even merely the major form in which the category of causality can appear. One will not go wrong with the hypothesis that Eduard Meyer arrived at his distrust of the concept of "development" through his discussions with J. Wellhausen in which it was essentially (but not only) a matter of the following contrast: whether to interpret the "development" of Judaism as one which had occurred essentially "from the inside outwards" ("evolutionalistically") or as one that had been conditioned by certain concrete historical forces entering from the "outside," in particular, the imposition of "laws" by the Persian kings out of considerations deriving from Persian politics and which are not related to the intrinsic characteristics of the Jews ("epigenetically"). However that may be, it is in no case no improvement on the formulation used in the Introduction when (p. 46) "the general" appears as "the essentially (?) negative," or more sharply formulated, the "limiting" "condition" which set the "boundaries," within which the infinite possibilities of historical development lie, while the question as to which of these possibilities becomes a "reality" ¹⁴ depends on the "higher (?) individual factors of historical life." Thereby, the "general" (das "Allgemeine")—i.e., not the "general milieu" which is wrongly confused with the "general" ("generellen") but rather the rule which is an abstract concept—is hypostasized into an effective force operating behind the historical scene, and this ignores the elementary fact—which Eduard Meyer stresses clearly and sharply at other places—that reality is constituted only by the concrete and particular.

This dubious formulation of the relations between the "general" and the "particular" is by no means peculiar to Eduard Meyer and it is by no means confined to historians of his stamp. On the contrary, it lies at the basis of the popular conception which is nonetheless shared, by many "modern" historians—but not by Eduard Meyer—which maintains that in order to establish the study of history in a rational manner as a "science of the individual," it is necessary to establish the similarities and identities of patterns of human development, in which case the particularities and the Incomparable and unanalyzable elements remain as a residue, or as Breysig once said, "the finest flowers." This conception which comes closer to actual historical practice represents an advance as contrasted with the naive belief in the vocation of history to become a "systematic science," But it, too, is very naive in its own way. The attempt to understand "Bismarck" in his historical significance by leaving out of account everything which he has in common with other men and keeping what is "particular" to him would be an instructive and amusing exercise for beginners. One would in that case—assuming naturally, as one always does in logical discussions, the ideal completeness of the materials—preserve, for example, as one of those "finest flowers" his "thumbprint," that most specific indication of "individuality" which has been discovered by the criminal police and the loss of which for history would be irreplaceable. And if to this argument it were indignantly countered that "naturally" only "spiritual" (geistige) or "psychological" qualities and events can be taken into consideration as "historical," his daily life, were we to know it "exhaustively," would offer us an infinity of expressive traits which would never be found in this blend and pattern in any other person in the world, and ; which would not exceed his thumbprints in their interest. If it is further objected that quite "obviously," as far as science is concerned, only the historically "significant" constituents of Bismarck's; life are to be considered, the logical answer would be: that that very "obviousness" involves the decisive problem since it raises the question; as to what is the logical criterion of the historically "significant" constituent parts.

This exercise in subtraction of the common from the unique—assuming the absolute completeness of the data—would never be brought to an end even in the most remote future, and there would still remain, after subtraction of an infinity of "common qualities," a further infinity of constituent parts; even after an eternity of the most energetic subtraction from this latter infinity of particular parts, not a single further step would have been taken to answer the question as to what is historically "essential" among these particularities. This would be the sole insight which would emerge from an attempt to perform this exercise. The other insight is that this operation of subtraction presupposes such a perfect grasp of the causal course of events, as no science could aspire to even as an ideal goal. As a matter of fact, every "comparison" in the historical sphere presupposes that a selection has already been made through reference to cultural "significances" and that this selection positively determines the goal and direction of the attribution of causal agency while it excludes a rich infinity of "general" as well as "particular" elements in the data. The comparison of "analogous" events is to be considered as a means of this imputation of causal agency, and indeed, in my view, one of the most important means and one which is not used to anywhere near the proper extent. We shall deal later with its logical meaning.

Eduard Meyer does not share, as his remark on page 48 which is still to be discussed shows, the erroneous view that the particular as such is the subject matter of history and his comments on the significance of the general in history to the effect that "rules" and concepts are only "means" and "presuppositions" of historical work (p. 29 middle) is as we shall see logically right in the main. It is only his formulation which we have criticized above that is doubtful and it reveals the same tendency as the error which we have just criticized.

Now in spite of all these criticisms the professional historian will retain the impression that the usual kernel of "truth" is contained in the views which are here criticized. That this is the case goes without saying for an historian of such distinction who discusses his own procedure. Indeed, he has come quite close many times to the logically correct formulation of the elements of truth which are contained in his arguments. For instance, on page 27, top, where it is said of "developmental stages" that they are "concepts" which can serve as guiding threads for the discovery and ordering of facts, and particularly in the numerous passages where he employs the category of "possibility." It is here however that the logical problem really begins; we must discuss the question of how the ordering of historical events occurs by means of the concept of development, and what is the logical meaning of the "category of possibility" and the way in which it is applied in the elaboration of historical interconnections. Since Eduard Meyer failed to confront these issues he was able to "feel" what is correct in regard to the role which the "laws" governing events play in historical research, but he was not able—as it seems to me—to give it an adequate formulation. This task will be undertaken in a special section of these studies (II). Here we shall concern ourselves, after these necessarily essentially negative re-marks against Eduard Meyer's methodological formulation, first with the treatment of discussions of the problem of what is the "object" of history, which is dealt with in the second (pp. 34-44) and third (pp. 54-56) parts of his essay—a question on which the considerations just presented have indeed already touched on.

We, too, may along with Eduard Meyer also formulate the question as follows: "Which of the events on which we have information are 'historical'?" He answers it at first in quite general form: "that is historical which has consequences and which has occurred." This means that the "historical" is that which is causally important in a concrete individual situation. We disregard all other questions which are relevant here in order to point out that Eduard Meyer on page 37 gives up this conception which he has just formulated on page 36.

It is clear to him that—as he says—"even if we were to confine ourselves to that which produces effects," "the number of particular events would still remain infinite." He rightly asks: what governs "the selection which every historian makes among them?" And he answers, "historical interest." He adds, however, after some considerations with which we shall deal later, that there are no absolute norms of historical interest and he elucidates this thesis in such a way that, as we previously mentioned, he once more renounces his restriction of the "historical" to the "effective." On Rickert's illustrative remark "that ... Friedrich Wilhelm IV turned down the German crown is an ‘historical’ event but it is entirely indifferent which tailor made his coats" he comments : "the tailor in question might of course always remain indifferent for political history but we can easily imagine taking an historical interest in him in connection for instance with the history of fashions or of the tailoring industry or of prices, etc." This is certainly to the point—although Eduard Meyer can scarcely overlook on further reflection that the "interest" which we take in these different cases involves quite considerable differences in logical structure and that the failure to bear these differences in mind leads to the danger of confusing two fundamentally different but often identified categories: the ratio essendi and the ratio cognoscendi. Since the case of the tailor is not entirely unambiguous, let us make the distinction in question clear with an illustration which exhibits this confusion in a more explicit fashion.

K. Breysig in his essay on "Die Entstehung des Staats ... bei Tlinkit und Iroskesen" ¹⁵ attempts to show that certain events which occur among these tribes, which he interprets as the "origin of the state from the kinship constitution" ("Geschlechterverfassung") are "important as representative of a species"; i.e., in other words, they represent the "typical" form of the formation of the state—and possess on that account "validity ... of almost universal significance."

Now the situation obviously—on the assumption of the correctness of Breysig's factual assertions—is are follows: the fact of the emergence of these Indian "states" and the way in which it occurred remains of extraordinarily slight significance for the causal nexus of the development of world history. No single "important" fact of the later political or cultural development (Gestaltung) of the world is influenced by it, i.e., can be related to it as a cause. For the formation of the political and cultural situation in the contemporary United States, the mode of origin of those Indian states and probably their very existence as well is "indifferent"; i.e., there is no demonstrable causal connection between the two while the aftereffects of certain decisions of Themistocles are still visible today—however disappointingly this may block the attempt to construct an imposing unified scheme of "evolutionary historical development." On the other hand—if Breysig is right—the significance of the propositions produced by his analyses concerning the process of the formation of those states would, in his opinion, be epoch-making for our knowledge of the way in which states arise in general. If Breysig's view of the course of development as "typical" were correct and if it constituted a new addition to knowledge—we would then be in a position to formulate certain concepts which quite apart from their value for the conceptualization of the theory of the state, could at least be applied as heuristic devices in the causal interpretation of other historical developments. In other words, as a real historical factor, that specific development is of no significance, but as supplying a possible "principle of knowledge" his analysis is uncommonly significant (according to Breysig). On the other hand, to have knowledge of Themistocles' decisions, for example, signifies nothing for "psychology" or any other conceptualizing science; the fact that statesman "could" in the situation in question decide in that manner is intelligible to us without the aid of a "science constituted by laws" and our understanding of that fact is indeed the presupposition of our knowledge of the concrete causal nexus but it implies no enrichment of our generalized knowledge.

Let us take an example from the sphere of "nature": those particular X-rays which Roentgen saw flashing from his screen have left certain concrete effects which according to the law of the conservation of energy must still be acting somewhere in the cosmic system. But the "significance" of those particular rays in Roentgen's laboratory does not lie in their character as cosmic real causes. What happened in Roentgen's laboratory, just like every experiment, has importance only as the ground for inferring certain "laws" of the occurrence of events.¹⁶

This is, of course, exactly how the situation stands in those cases which Eduard Meyer cites in a footnote to the passages which we are criticizing here (p. 37, fn. 2). He recalls there that "the most indifferent person whom we come to know by chance (in inscriptions or documents) acquires historical interest because we can come to know the circumstances of the past through them." And the same confusion occurs when—if my memory does not fail me—Breysig (in a passage which I cannot locate at the moment) believes that he can completely destroy the argument that the selection of subject matter in historical research is oriented towards the "significant," the individually "important," by reference to the fact that research has achieved many of its most important results from the use of "clay fragments" and the like. Similar arguments are very popular today and their affinity with Friedrich Wilhelm IV's "coat" and the "insignificant persons" in Eduard Meyer's inscriptions is quite apparent—as is that confusion which is once again under discussion here. For as we have said, Breysig's "fragments of clay" and Eduard Meyer's "insignificant persons" are not—any more than the particular X-rays in Roentgen's laboratory—integrated as causal links in the historical sequence ; rather, certain of their characteristic properties are means of ascertaining certain historical facts which facts in their turn become important for "the elaboration of concepts", i.e., they can themselves become heuristic instruments for the establishment of the generic "character" of certain artistic "epochs" or for the causal interpretation of concrete historical interconnections. This division of the logical use of the data given by cultural reality ¹⁷ into (1) conceptuaization with the illustrative use of "particular facts" as "typical" instances of an abstract "concept," i.e., as an heuristic instrument on the one hand—and (2) integration of the "particular fact" as a link, i.e., as a real causal factor into a real, hence concrete context with the use among other things of the products of conceptualization on the one hand as exemplificatory and on the other as heuristic devices—entails the distinction between what Rickert called the "natural-scientific" and Windelband the "nomothetic" procedure (ad 1) and the logical goal of the "historical cultural sciences" (ad 2). It also implies the only justified sense in which history can be called a science of reality (Wirklichkeitswissenschaft). For the meaning of history as a science of reality can only be that it treats particular elements of reality not merely as heuristic instruments but as the objects of knowledge, and particular causal connections not as premises of knowledge but as real causal factors. We shall, moreover, see how inaccurate is the naive popular view that history is the "mere" description of a pre-existent reality or the simple reproduction of "facts." ¹⁸

Rickert's "tailor" whom Eduard Meyer criticizes is in the same position as the clay fragments and the "insignificant persons" of the inscriptions. The fact that a certain tailor delivered a certain coat to the king is prima facie of quite inconsequential causal significance, even for the cultural-historical causal interconnection of the development of "fashion" and the "tailoring industry." It would cease to be so only when as a result of this particular delivery historical effects were produced, e.g., if the personality of this tailor, or the fortunes of his enterprise were causally "significant" from some standpoint for the transformation of fashion or industrial organization and if this historical role had been causally affected by the delivery of that very coat.

As an heuristic device for the ascertainment of fashion, etc., on the other hand, the style of Friedrich Wilhelm IV's coats and the fact that they came from certain (e.g., Berlin) workshops can perfectly achieve as much "significance" as anything else which is accessible to us as material for the discovery of the fashion of that period. The coats of the king are, in this case, to be considered as instances of a class-concept, which is being elaborated as an heuristic instrument—the rejection of the Kaiser's crown, on the other hand, with which they are compared, is to be viewed as a concrete link in an historical situation as real effect and cause in a specific real series of changes. These are absolutely fundamental logical distinctions and they will always remain so. And however much these two absolutely distinct standpoints become intertwined in the practice of the student of culture—this always happens and is the source of the most interesting methodological problems—no one will ever succeed in understanding the logical character of history if he is unable to make this distinction in a clear-cut manner.

Eduard Meyer has however presented two mutually incompatible viewpoints regarding the mutual relationship of these two logically distinct categories of "historical reality." On the one hand he confuses, as we have seen, the "historical interest" in the historically "effective," i.e., the real causal links in historical interconnections (rejection of the Kaiser's crown) with those facts (Friedrich Wilhelm IV's coat, the inscriptions) which can become important for the historian as heuristic instruments. On the other hand, however-and now we shall speak of this—the distinction of the "historically effective" from all other objects of our actual or possible knowledge is so sharpened that he makes assertions about the limits of the scientific "interest" of the historian, the realization of which to almost any degree in his own great work would necessarily be deeply regretted by its admirers. He says (p. 48), "I have long believed that in the selection which the historian must make, what is characteristic (i.e., what is characteristically singular and which distinguishes an institution or an individuality from all other analogous and similar ones) is decisive. This is undeniably the case but it is of concern for history only insofar as we are able to grasp the individuality of a culture by its characteristic features. Thus the historian's selectivity is historically always only a means which renders the culture's historical effectiveness ... conceivable to us." This is, as all the previous considerations show, entirely correct, as are the conclusions drawn therefrom: that the popular formulation of the question of the "significance" of the particular and of personalities for history is poorly put, that the "personality" "enters into" history, by no means in its totality but only in its causal relevance for the historical situation as this latter is established by the science of history, that the historical significance of a particular personality as a causal factor and the general "human" significance of the same personality in the light of its "intrinsic value" have nothing to do with one another, and that the very "inadequacies" of a personality in a decisive position can be causally significant. This is all perfectly right. And yet the question still remains whether—or let us rather say at once—in which sense is it right to assert that the analysis of the content of culture—from the historical viewpoint—can aim only to make the cultural events under consideration intelligible in their effectiveness. The logical importance of this question is disclosed as soon as we consider the conclusions which Eduard Meyer draws from his thesis. At first (p. 48) he concludes that "existing circumstances in themselves are never the object of history but rather become such when they become historically effective." A work of art, a literary product, an institution of constitutional law, mores, etc., cannot possibly be analyzed in "all their aspects" in an historical work (including art and literary history) ; nor is it appropriate—since in doing this, elements must be considered which do "not achieve historical effectiveness"; while on the other hand the historian must include in his work "details which are of quite subordinate status in a system" (e.g., of constitutional law) because of their causal significance. He concludes further from the aforementioned principle of historical selection that biography is a "literary" and not an historical discipline. Why? Its object is the particular given personality in its total intrinsic nature and not as an historically effective factor—that it was historically effective is here merely the presupposition, the reason for its having a biography devoted to it. As long as the biography is only a biography and not the history of the age of its hero, it cannot fulfill the task of history: the presentation of an historical event. To this assertion, one responds with the question: Why is this special status accorded to "personalities"? Do "events" like the Battle of Marathon or the Persian Wars in general "belong" in their "totality" in an historical narration, described in all their specimina fortitudinis in the style of the Homeric recital? Obviously even in the case of the instances just mentioned only those events and conditions belong in an historical narration which are decisive for historical causal connections. This has been so in principle, at least, ever since heroic myths and history began to follow divergent paths. And now what is the case with regard to "biography"? It is, whatever one may say, obviously false (or a rhetorical hyperbole) to assert that "all the details ... of the external and inner life of its hero" belong in a biography, however much the Goethe-research which Eduard Meyer has in mind seeks to give that impression. It is simply a question here of collections of materials which aim to include everything which can possibly acquire significance for Goethe's life-history, be it as a direct link in a causal series—i.e., as an historically relevant fact—or be it as a means of establishing historically relevant facts, i.e., as a "source material." In a Goethe biography which meets high scholarship standards, however, only those facts which are significant obviously belong as elements in the presentation.

Here we of course come up against an ambiguity in the meaning of this word ("significant") which requires logical analysis and which analysis, as we shall see, can disclose the "correct kernel" of Eduard Meyer's views as well as the defect in the formulation of his theory of the historically "effective" as the object of history.

In order to see the various logical standpoints from which the "facts" of cultural life may be scientifically considered, let us take an example: Goethe's letters to Frau von Stein. It is not—let us clear this up in advance—the perceivable "fact" before us, i.e., the written paper, which is treated as "historical." This paper is rather only the means of knowing the other fact, namely, that Goethe had the sentiments expressed there, wrote them down and sent them to Frau von Stein, and received answers from her, the approximate meaning of which can be inferred from the correctly interpreted "content" of Goethe's letters. This "fact" which is disclosed by an "interpretation" of the "meaning" of the letters—undertaken ultimately by "scientific" procedures—is in truth what we have in mind when we refer to these "letters." This fact may (1) be integrated directly as such in an historical causal context: for example, the ascetic restraint of those years which was bound up with a passion of unheard of force obviously left profound traces in Goethe's development which were not extinguished even when he was transformed under the Southern skies. To investigate these effects in Goethe's "personality," to trace their influence in his creative work, and to "interpret" them causally by showing their connection with the events of those years to the extent that this is possible, are among the least questionable tasks of literary history. The facts of which those letters are evidence are "historical" facts, i.e., as we have seen, are real links in a causal chain. Now let us assume—we do not raise here the question as to the probability of this or any other assumptions that we may make henceforward—that it may be positively demonstrated in some way that those experiences had no influence whatsoever on Goethe's personal and literary development; that is, that absolutely none of his traits or productions which "interest" us were influenced by them. In that case, despite their causal ineffectiveness, these experiences could (2) gain our interest as heuristic means; they could present something "characteristic"—as it is usually said—of Goethe's historical uniqueness. This means, however, that we could perhaps—whether we could really do it is not at issue—derive from them insights into a type of conduct and outlook on life which were peculiar to him throughout his life or for a substantial period and which influenced markedly his literary expressions and personal traits which interest us historically. The "historical" fact which would then be integrated as a real link in the causal nexus of his "life" would be that "outlook on life"—a conceptual complex of grouped qualities constituted by the inherited personal qualities; of Goethe and those which were acquired through education, milieu and in the fortunes of his life and (perhaps) by the deliberately acquired "maxims" according to which he lived and which played a part in the determination of his conduct and his creations. The experiences with Frau von Stein would indeed in this case—since that "outlook on life" is a collective concept (begriffliches Kollektivum) which is "expressed" in particular events—be real components of an "historical" fact. But they obviously would not come up for our consideration—under the assumptions made above—essentially as such, but rather as "symptoms" of that outlook on life, i.e., as heuristic means. Their logical relationship to the object which is to be known has therewith undergone a shift.

Let us now further assume that this, too, is not the case. Those experiences contain nothing which would in any respect be characteristic of Goethe in contrast with other contemporaries; instead they correspond completely to something which is thoroughly "typical" of the pattern of life of certain German social circles of that period. In that case they would not tell us anything new for our historical knowledge of Goethe, but they could under certain circumstances probably (3) attract our interest as a conveniently usable paradigm of that type, as, in other words, a means of knowing the "characteristic" features of the mental and spiritual attitudes of those circles. The particular features of the attitudes which are "typical"—on the basis of our assumptions—of that group in the past and that pattern of life which was its expression, would, in its contrast with the pattern of life of other epochs, nations, and social strata, be the "historical" fact to be integrated into a cultural-historical causal context as real cause and effect; it would then have to be causally "interpreted" with respect to its difference from the Italian cicisbéa and the like in the light of a "history of German morals and manners" or to the extent that such national divergences are considered non-existent, in the light of a general history of the morals and manners of that age.

Let us now suppose further that the content of these letters is not useful even for this purpose, and that on the contrary it is shown that phenomena which are in certain "essential" respects of the same sort regularly occur under certain cultural conditions—in other words, that in these respects those experiences (of Goethe) reveal no peculiar features of German or Ottocento culture but rather certain features common to all cultures under certain conditions which are capable of being formulated in precise concepts. In this event then it would (4) be the task of a "cultural psychology" or a "social psychology," for instance, to determine by analysis, isolating abstraction and generalization, the conditions under which these common components emerge, to "interpret" the basis of the regular sequence and to express the "rule" so achieved as a genetic class-concept (Gattungsbegriff). These thoroughly general (Gattungsmassige) components of Goethe's experiences which are highly irrelevant as regards his particular and unique features would, then, be of interest simply as means of attaining this class-concept (Gattunsbegriff).

And finally, (5) it must be regarded a priori as possible that those "experiences" contain nothing at all which is characteristic of any stratum of the population or any cultural epoch. But even in the absence of all occasion for a "cultural-scientifie" (Kulturwissenschaftlicher") interest, it is conceivable—whether it is actually so is once again indifferent here—that a psychiatrist interested in the psychology of love-relationships might view them from a variety of "useful" viewpoints, as an "ideal-typical" illustration of certain ascetic "disturbances," just as Rousseau's Confessions, for example, are of interest to the specialist in nervous diseases. Naturally, the possibility here must be taken into account—that the letters are to be considered as serving all these various scientific purposes—of course, the variety does not entirely exhaust the logical possibilities—through the various components of their content, as well as serving various purposes through the same components.¹⁹

Upon reviewing the foregoing analysis in reverse order, we see that these letters to Frau von Stein, i.e., the content which can be derived from them with regard to Goethe's utterances and experience, acquire "meaning" in the following ways: (a) in the last two cases (4, 5) as instances of a class, and hence as heuristic means (Erkenntnismittel) to the disclosure of their general nature (No, 4, 5) ; (b) as "characteristic" components of a composite phenomenon (Kollektivum) and on that account as a heuristic means to the disclosure of its particular (individuellen) features (No. 2, 3);²⁰ (c) as a causal component of an historical nexus (Zusammenhang) (No. 1). In the cases listed under (a) (No. 4 and 5), "significance" for history exists only insofar as the class concept (Gattungsbegriff), constructed with the aid of these particular instances, can become important under certain conditions—to be dealt with later—in checking an historical demonstration. On the other hand, when Eduard Meyer confines the range of the "historical" to the "effective"—i.e., to No. 1 (c) of the foregoing list—it cannot possibly mean that the consideration of the second category of cases of "significance" under (b) lies outside the purview of history, that, in other words, facts which are not themselves components of historical causal sequences but which only serve to disclose the facts which are to be integrated into such causal sequences, e.g., such components of Goethe's correspondence which "illustrate" for instance those "particular features" of Goethe which are decisive for his literary production or which "illustrate" those aspects of the culture of the society of the Ottocento which are essential for the development of morals and manners. In other words, it cannot possibly mean that these facts which serve to produce the kind of knowledge just referred to should be once and for all disregarded by history—if not (as in No. 2) by the "history" of Goethe, then by a "history of manners" of the 18th century (No. 3). Meyer's own work must be carried on continuously with such heuristic means. What is meant here can only be that, in any such work, the "components of an historical nexus" (Zusammenhang) are a different thing from an "heuristic means." But neither "biography" nor "classical studies" uses such "characteristic" details as the aforementioned components of Goethe's correspondence in any way contrary to this distinction. It is obvious that this is not the stumbling block for Eduard Meyer. Now, however, a type of "significance" greater than all of those already analyzed comes before us. Those experiences of Goethe—to adhere to our example—are "significant" for us not only as "cause" or as "heuristic means" but—quite apart from whether we obtain from them some new and hitherto completely unknown knowledge of Goethe's outlook on life, the culture of the 18th century, or the "typical" course of cultural events, etc., and quite apart from whether they have had any sort of causal influence on his development—the uniquely characteristic content of these letters is also an object of valuation (Bewertung) for us—just as it is and without and strained search for any "meanings" which lie outside it and which are not contained in it. The letters would be such an object of valuation even it nothing else at all was known of their author. Now what primarily interests us here involves two points: first, the fact that this "valuation" is connected with the incomparable, the unique, the irreplaceable literary element in the object and—this is the second point—that this valuation of the object in its characteristic uniqueness (individuellen Eigenart) supplies the reason why the object becomes an object of reflection and of—at this point we will deliberately avoid saying "scientific"—intellectual treatment, that is, it becomes an object of interpretation. This "interpretation"²¹ can take two paths which in actual practice almost always merge but which are, however, to be sharply distinguished from one another logically. Interpretation can and does become first "value-interpretation" (Wertinterpretation), i.e., it teaches us to "understand" the intellectual, psychological and spiritual (geistigen) content of that correspondence; it develops and raises to the level of explicit "evaluation" that which we "feel" dimly and vaguely. For this purpose, interpretation is not at all required to enunciate or to "suggest" a value judgment. What it actually "suggests" in the course of analysis are rather various possible relationships of the object to values (Wertbeziehungen des Objektes). The "attitude" which the evaluated object calls forth in us need not be a positive one : thus in the case of Goethe's relations with Frau von Stein, the usual modern sexual philistine, for example, just as well as, let us say, a Catholic moralist, would take an essentially negative attitude, if at all an "understanding" one. Or when we successively consider Karl Marx's Kapital, or Faust, or the ceiling of the Sistine chapel or Rousseau's Confessions, or the experiences of St. Theresa, or Mme. Roland or Tolstoi, or Rabelais, or Marie Bashkirtseff, or the Sermon on the Mount as objects of interpretation, there confronts us an infinite multiplicity of "evaluative" attitudes. The "interpretation" of these very different objects shares—if the interpretation is thought to be worthwhile and is undertaken, which we assume here for our purposes—only the formal feature that the meaning of interpretation consists in disclosing to us the possible "evaluative standpoints" and "evaluative approaches." Interpretation imposes a. certain valuation as the only "scientific" one only where, as in the case of the intellectual content of Karl Marx's Kapital, for instance, norms (in that case, of thought) come into account. But here, too, the objectively valid "valuation" of the object (in this case, the logical "correctness" of the Marxian forms of thought) are not necessarily involved in the purpose of an "interpretation." And such an imposition of a valuation would be, where it is a question not of "norms" but of "cultural values," a task completely transcending the domain of "interpretation." One can, without any logical or substantive contradiction—that is all that is involved here—reject as inherently without validity all the products of the poetic and artistic culture of antiquity or the religious attitude of the Sermon on the Mount just as well as that mixture—contained in our example of the letters to Frau von Stein—of glowing passion on the one side, asceticism on the other with all those flowers of emotional life which are so superlatively fine from our standpoint. That negative "interpretation" would not, however, be at all "valueless" for the person making it for such an interpretation can despite its negative character, indeed even because of it, provide "knowledge" for him in the sense that it, as we say, extends his "inner life," and his "mental and spiritual (geistigen) horizon," and makes him capable of comprehending and thinking through the possibilities and nuances of life-patterns as such and to develop his own self intellectually, æsthetically, and ethically (in the widest sense) in a differentiated way—or in other words, to make his "psyche," so to speak, more "sensitive to values." The "interpretation" of intellectual and mental (geistigen), æsthetic or ethical creations has in this respect the effects of the latter, and the assertion that "history" in a certain sense is an "art" has in this respect its justifiable "kernel of truth," no less than the designation of the cultural and humanistic sciences ("Geisteswissenschaften") as "subjectivizing." In this function of interpretation, however, we reach the outermost edge of what can still be called the "elaboration of the empirical by thought" ; there is here no longer a concern with "historical work" in the proper and distinctive sense of the word.

It is probably clear that by what he called the "philosophical consideration of the past," Eduard Meyer meant this type of interpretation which has its point of departure in what are in essence atemporal relations of "historical" objects,'i.e., their axiological validity (Wertgeltung) and which teaches us to "understand" them. This is indicated by his definition of this type of scientific activity (p. 55) which according to him, "places the products of history in the present and hence deals with them as finished" treating the object, "not as becoming and having historical effects but as being," and therefore in contrast with "history," treating it in "all its aspects"; it aims, according to Eduard Meyer, at an "exhaustive interpretation of particular creations," primarily in the fields of literature and art, but also as he expressly adds, of political and religious institutions, manners and attitudes, and "ultimately of the entire culture of an epoch treated as a unity." Naturally, this type of "interpretation" has nothing "philological" about it in the sense appropriate to the specialized linguistic disciplines. The interpretation of the textual-linguistic "meaning" of a literary object and the interpretation of "mental, intellectual and spiritual (geistigen) content," its "meaning" in this value-oriented sense of the word may in fact proceed hand in hand, ever so frequently and with good reason. They are nonetheless logically fundamentally different procedures; the one, the textual-linguistic interpretation, is the elementary prerequisite—not in regard to the value and intensity of the mental work which it requires but with respect to its logical role—for all types of the scientific treatment and utilization of "source materials." It is, from the historical standpoint, a technical means of verifying "facts"; it is a "tool" of history (as well as of numerous other disciplines). "Interpretation" in the sense of "value-analysis" (Wertanalyse)—as we shall designate in ad hoc fashion the procedure which has just been described above²²—does not in any case stand in the same relationship to history. Now, since this type of "interpretation" is oriented neither towards the disclosure of facts which are "causally" relevant for an historical context nor toward the abstraction of "typical" components which are usable for the construction of a class concept (Gattunsbegriff), since in contrast with these it rather considers its object, i.e., to keep Eduard Meyer's example, the "total culture," let us say, of the high point of Hellenistic civilization as a unity—"for its own sake" and makes it intelligible in its "value-relations." Hence it is not subsumable under any of the other categories of knowledge, the direct or indirect relations of which to "history" were previously discussed. This type of interpretation can not, in particular, be properly deemed as an "auxiliary" to history—as Eduard Meyer (p. 54, bottom) views his "philology"—for it indeed treats its objects from viewpoints quite other than history does. If the distinction between the two kinds of interpretation were to be sought only in this, that the one (i.e., value-analysis) treats its objects "statically" as finished products while the other (history) treats its objects "developmentally," the former cutting a cross section through events, the latter a longitudinal section, then it would assuredly be of quite minor significance. Even the historian, e.g., Eduard Meyer in his own works, must in order to weave his design, take his point of departure in certain "given" beginnings which he describes "satically" (zuständlich) and he will, in the course of his exposition, repeatedly group the "results" of "developments" into "static" cross sections. A monographic presentation, for instance, of the social composition of the Athenian ecclesia at a certain point of time for the purpose of helping to make clear its own causal-historical conditions. on the one hand and its effect on the political "situation" in Athens on the other, is certainly, even according to Eduard Meyer, an "historical" work. The distinction in question seems for Eduard Meyer rather to lie in the fact that "philological" (i.e., "value-analytical") work can and indeed normally will concern itself with facts which are relevant to history but that together with these, it will have occasion to concern itself with facts which are quite different from those dealt with by history. "Value-analysis deals with facts which are neither (1) themselves links in an historical causal sequence, nor (2) usable as heuristic means for disclosing facts of category (1). In other words, the facts of value-analysis stand in none of the relations to history which have been hitherto considered. In what other relations then do they stand, or does this value-analytical approach have no relationship whatsoever to any type of historical knowledge?

To get ahead with our discussion, let us turn to our example of the letters of Frau von Stein and let us take as a second example Karl Marx's Kapital. Both can obviously become the objects of interpretation, not only of textual-linguistic interpretation of which we shall not speak here, but also of the "value-analytical" interpretation which enables us to "understand" their relations to values (Wertbeziehungen) and which analyzes and "psychologically" interprets the letters of Frau von Stein in the way, for instance, in which one "interprets" "Faust" or investigates Marx's Kapital with respect to its intellectual content and expounds its intellectual but not its historical—relationship to other systems of ideas concerned with the same problems. "Value-analysis" treats its objects for this purpose, following Eduard Meyer's terminology, primarily in a "static" (zuständlich) way, i.e., in a more correct formulation, it takes its point of departure in their character as "values" independent of all purely historical-causal significance, and to that extent as having a status which is for us, beyond history. But does "value-analytical" interpretation confine itself to such an object? Certainly not!—an interpretation of those letters of Goethe no more than one of Das Kapital or of Faust or of Orestes or of the Sistine Chapel paintings. It would rather, precisely in order wholly to attain its own goal, take into account that that ideal value-object (Wertobjekt) was historically conditioned, that numerous nuances and turns of thought and sentiment remain "incomprehensible," when the general conditions, e.g., the social "milieu" and the quite concrete events of the days on which those Goethe-letters were written are unknown, when the historically given "problem-situation" of the time in which Marx wrote his book and his development as a thinker remain undiscussed. Thus the "interpretation" of Goethe's letters requires for its success an historical investigation of the conditions under which they came into being, including all those very minor as well as the most comprehensive relationships (Zusammenhange) in Goethe's purely personal—"domestic"—environment as well as in the total broader cultural environment in its widest sense which were of causal significance—"effective" in Eduard Meyer's words—for their particular quality. For the knowledge of all these causal conditions teaches us indeed the psychic constellations in which those letters were born, and thereby it enables us really to "understand" them. ²³

But it still remains true, on the other hand, that causal "explanation," here as elsewhere, undertaken for its own sake, and à la Duntzer, "grasps only part of the matter." And obviously, that type of "interpretation" which we have alone called "value analysis" functions as a guide for this other "historical," i.e., causal type of "interpretation." The former type of analysis reveals the "valued" components of the object, the causal "explanation" of which is the problem of the latter type of analysis. The former creates the points of attachment from which there are to be regressively traced the web of causal connections and thus provides causal analysis with the decisive "viewpoints" without which it would indeed have to operate, as it were, without a compass on an uncharted sea. Now, anyone can.—and many will—deny that there is need, as far as they themselves are concerned, to see the whole apparatus of historical analysis straining at the task of the historical "explanation" of a series of "love letters," be they ever so sublime. Certainly—but the same is true, however, disrespecful it seems, of Karl Marx's Das Kapital, and for all the objects of historical research. The knowledge of the materials out of which Marx constructed his work, the knowledge of how the genesis of his ideas was historically conditioned, and any historical knowledge of today's power relationship, or of the development of the German political system in its particular characteristics can, of course, appear to anyone to be a thoroughly dull and fruitless thing or, at least, one of very secondary importance and one which as an end in itself is indeed quite meaningless. But neither logic nor scientific experience can "refute" him, as Eduard Meyer has expressly conceded, although certainly in a somewhat curt way.

It will be profitable for our purposes to dwell a fait longer on the logical nature of value-analysis. The attempt has been made in all seriousness to understand or to "refute" H. Rickert's very clearly developed idea that the construction of the "historical individual" is conditioned by "value-relevance" (Wertbeziehung) as asserting that this relevance to values is identical with a subsumption under general concepts²⁴ such as the "state," "religion," "art," etc., and similar concepts, which are assuredly, it is said., the "values" in question; the fact that history brings its objects into relation with these values and thereby attains specific "viewpoints" is then equivalent—this is what is added—to the separate treatment of the "chemical," "physical," etc., "aspects" of events in the sphere of the natural sciences.²⁵ These are remarkable misunderstandings of what is and must be understood by "value-relevance" (Wertbeziehung), An actual "value-judgment" concerning a concrete object or the theoretical establishment of the possible "value-relations" of the object does not imply that I subsume them under a certain class-concept: "love letter," "political structure," "economic phenomenon." Rather, the "value-judgment" involves my "taking an attitude" in a certain concrete way to the object in its concrete individuality; the subjective sources of this attitude of mine, of my "value-standpoints" which are decisive for it are definitely not a "concept," and certainly not an "abstract concept" but rather a thoroughly concrete, highly individually structured and constituted "feeling" and "preference" ; it may, however, be under certain circumstances the consciousness of a certain, and here again, concrete kind of imperative (sollens). And when I pass from the stage of the actual evaluation of an object into the stage of theoretical-interpretative reflection on possible relevance to values, in other words, when I construct "historical individuals" from the objects, it means that I am making explicit to myself and to others in an interpretative way the concrete, individual, and on that account, in the last analysis, unique form in which "ideas"—to employ for once a metaphysical usage—are "incorporated" into or "work themselves out" in the political structures in question (e.g., in the "state of Frederick the Great"), of the personality in question (e.g., Goethe or Bismarck) or the literary product in question (e.g., Marx's Kapital). Or in a different formulation which avoids the always dubious and moreover avoidable metaphysical mode of expression: in constructing historical individuals I elaborate in an explicit form the focal points for possible "evaluative" attitudes which the segment of reality in question discloses and in consequence of which it claims a more or less universal "meaning"—which is to be sharply distinguished from causal "significance." Das Kapital of Karl Marx shares the characteristic of being a "literary product" with those combinations of printers' ink and paper which appear weekly in the Brockhaus List—what makes it into an "historical" individual for us is, however, not its membership in the class of literary products but rather on the contrary, its thoroughly unique "intellectual content," which "we" find "set down" in it. In the same way the quality of a "political event" is shared by the pothouse political chatter of the philistine having his last drink at closing time with that complex of printed and written paper, sound waves, bodily movements on drill grounds, clever or also foolish thoughts in the heads of princes, diplomats, etc., which "we" synthesize into the individual conceptual structure of the "German Empire" because "we" turn to it with a certain "historical interest" which is thoroughly unique for us, and which is rooted in innumerable "values"—and not just political values either. To express this "significance"—the content of the object, for instance, of Faust, with respect to possible relevance to values, or stated in another way, to think of expressing the "content of our interest" in the historical individual—by means of a class-concept is obviously nonsense. Indeed, the inexhaustibility of its "content" as regards possible focal points for our interest is what is characteristic of the historical individual of the "highest" order. The fact that we classify certain "important" tendencies in the ways of relating historical objects to relevant values and that this classification is then useful as äbasis for the division of labor of the cultural sciences, naturally leaves entirely unaffected²⁶ the fact that the proposition: a "value" of "general, i.e., universal significance" is a "general," i.e., abstract (genereller) concept is just as curious as the opinion that one can express "the truth" in a single sentence or perform "the ethically right" in one single action or embody "the beautiin one single work of art.

But let us return to Eduard Meyer and his attempts to cope with the problem of historical "significance." The foregoing reflections do indeed leave the sphere of methodology and touch on the philosophy of history. From the point of view which stands firmly on the ground of methodology, the circumstance that certain individual components of reality are selected as objects of historical treatment is to be justified only by reference to this factual existence of a corresponding interest. "Value-relevance" cannot indeed mean more for such a view which does not enquire after the meaning of this interest. And thus Eduard Meyer, too, is on this matter, content to say—justifiably from this point of view—that the fact of the existence of this interest suffices for history, however lowly one might rate this interest in itself. But certain obscurities and contradictions in his discussion are clearly enough the results of such an imperfect philosophical-historical oriention.

"The selection" (of history) "rests on the historical interest, which the present has in any effect, in the results of historic development, so that it feels the need of tracing the causes which have brought it about," says Eduard Meyer (p. 37). He later interprets this to mean (p. 45) that the historian finds "the problems with which he approaches history within himself," and that these problems then give him "the guiding principles by which he orders the material."

This agrees entirely with what has already been said and is, moreover, the only possible sense in which the previously criticized statement of Eduard Meyer about "the ascent from effect to cause" is correct. It is not a question here, as he believes, of utilizing the concept of causality in a way peculiar to history but rather of the fact that only those "causes" are "historically significant" which the regressus, which begins with a "valued" cultural component, must incorporate into itself as indispensable components. What is involved here, then, is the principal of "teleological dependence" as it has been designated in a phrase which is sure to be subject to misunderstanding. But the question then arises: must this point of departure of the regressus always be a component of the present, as might, on the basis of the quotation cited above, be believed to be Eduard Meyer's view? As a matter of fact, Eduard Meyer does not take an entirely certain position on this point. He provides no clear indication—this is apparent from what has already been said—of what he really understands by his term "historically effective." For—as has already been pointed out to him by others—if only what has "effects" belongs in history, the crucial question for every historical exposition: for example his own Geschichte des Altertums: is then: what final outcome and which of its elements should be taken as fundamental, as having been "effected" by the historical development to be described; it must also be decided, in that event, whether a fact bcause it has no causal significance for any component of that final outcome must be excluded as being historically inconsequential. Many of Eduard Meyer's assertions create the impression at first that the objective "cultural situation'' of the present—as we shall call it for the sake of brevityshould be decisive here. According to this view, only facts which still today are of causal significance, in our contemporary political, economic, social, religious, ethical, scientific, or any other sectors of our cultural life, and the "effects" of which are directly perceptible at present (cf. p. 37)belong in an "History of Antiquity"; on the other hand, however, it would be an entirely irrelevant criterion whether a fact were even of the most fundamental significance for the particular character of the culture of antiquity (cf. p. 48) Eduard Meyer's work would shrink rather badly—think of the volume on Egypt, for instance, if he took this proposition seriously and many would not indeed find precisely that which they expect in a history of antiquity if this were so. But he leaves another path open (p. 37).: we can also experience it—i.e., what was historically "effective"-"in the past to the extent that we treat any phase of it as if it were contemporaneous." In view of this, any cultural component whatsoever can surely be "treated" as "effective" from some standpoint, however chosen, in a history of antiquity—but in that case, the delimitation which Eduard Meyer seeks to establish would dissolve. And there would still arise the question: which feature of events is accepted by an "History of Antiquity" as the criterion of what is of essential importance for the historian? From Eduard Meyer's standpoint, the answer must be: the "end" of ancient history, i.e., the situation which appears to us as the appropriate "end point"—thus, for example, the reign of the Emperor Romulus, or the reign of Justinian—or probably better—the reign of Diocletian. In this event, everything in any case which is—"characteristic" of this "final epoch," this "old age" of antiquity would undoubtedly belong, to its fullest extent, in the exposition of the age's close as would all the "facts" which were causally essential ("effective") in this process of "aging." This inclusiveness is necessary because the object of historical explanation is constituted by what is characteristic of the epoch. At the same time we would have to exclude, for example, in the description of Greek culture, everything which no longer exercised any "cultural influences" at that time (i.e., during the reigns of Emperors Romulus or Diocletian), and this in the then existing state of literature, philosophy and general culture, would be a terribly large part of those very elements which render the "history of antiquity'' valuable to us and which we, fortunately, do not find omitted from Eduard Meyer's own work.

An history of antiquity which would include only what exercised causal influences on any later epoch, would—especially if one regards political relations as the true backbone of the historical,—appear as empty as a "history" of Goethe which "mediatized" him—to use Ranke's expression, in favor of his epigoni, which in other words, described only those elements among his characteristics and his actions which remain "influential" in literature; there is no distinction in principle in this regard between scientific (wissenschaftliche) "biography" and historical objects which are otherwise delimited. Eduard Meyer's thesis is not realizable in the formulation which he has given to it. Or do we have, in his case, too, an escape from the contradiction between his theory and his own practice. We have heard Eduard Meyer say that the historian derives his problems "from within himself, and he adds to this remark: "the present in which the historian works is a factor which can not be excluded from any historical presentation." Are we to regard the "effectiveness" of a "fact" which marks it as "an historical fact" as existing where a modern historian interests himself and is able to interest his readers in the fact in its particular individuality and in those features of its origins through which it has become what it is and not something else?

Obviously, Eduard Meyer's arguments (pp. 36, 37, and 45) confuse two quite different conceptions of "historical facts." The first refers to such elements of reality which are "valued," it might be said, "for their own sake" in their concrete uniqueness as objects of our interest; the second, to those components of reality to which attention is necessarily drawn by our need to understand the causal determination of those "valued" components—this second type of "historical fact" is the one which is historically "effective" in Eduard Meyer's sense, i.e., as a "cause" in the causal regress. One may designate the former as historical individuals, the latter as historical (real) causes, and, with Rickert, distinguish them as "primary" and "secondary" historical facts. A strict confinement of an historical analysis to historical "causes," i.e., to the "secondary" facts in Rickert's sense, or, in other words, to the "effective" facts in Eduard Meyer's sense is, naturally, only possible for us if it is already unambiguously clear with which historical individual the causal explantion is to be exclusively concerned. However inclusive this primary object might be—it might be, for example, the total "modern culture," i.e., the presentday Christian capitalistic constitutional (rechtsstaatliche) culture which "radiates" from Europe and which is a phantastic tangle of "cultural values" which may be considered from the most diverse standpoints—the causal regress which explains it historically must, if it extends back into the Middle Ages or Antiquity, nonetheless omit, because they are causally unimportant, a great wealth of objects which arouse to a high degree our "interest" "for their own sake." These latter facts can become "historical individuals" in their own right from which an explanatory causal regress might have its point of departure. It is certainly to be granted that "historical interest" in these latter facts is particularly slight in consequence of their lack of causal significance for a universal history of contemporary culture. The cultural development of the Incas and Aztecs left historically relevant traces to such a relatively very slight extent that a universal history of the genesis of modern culture in Eduard Meyer's sense could perhaps be silent about it without loss. If that is so—as we shall now assume—then what we know about the cultural development of the Incas and Aztecs becomes relevant to us, in the first instance, neither as an "historical object," nor as an "historical cause" but rather as an "heuristic instrument" for the formation of theoretical concepts appropriate to the study of culture. This knowledge may function positively to supply an illustration, individualized and specific, in the formation of the concept of feudalism or negatively, to delimit certain concepts with which we operate in the study of European cultural history from the quite different cultural traits of the Incas and the Aztecs ; this latter function enables us to make a clearer genetic comparison of the historical uniqueness of European cultural development Precisely the same considerations apply, of course, to those components of ancient culture which Eduard Meyer—if he were consistent—would have to exclude from a history of antiquity oriented towards present cultural situation, because they did not become historically "effective."

Despite all this, it is obviously neither logically nor in the nature of facts, to be excluded in regard to the Incas and the Aztecs, that certain elements of their culture in its characteristic aspects could be made into an historical "individual," i.e., they could first be analyzed "interpretatively" with respect to their "relevance to values," and then they could once more be made into an object of "historical" investigation so that now the regressive inquiry into causes would proceed to the facts concerning the cultural development of those elements which become, in relation to the historical individual, its "historical causes." And if anyone composes an "History of Antiquity" it is a vain self-deception to believe that it contains only facts which are causally "effective" in our contemporary culture because it deals only with facts which are significant either "primarily" as evaluated "historical individuals" or "secondarily" as "causes" (in relation to these or other "individuals").

It is our interest which is oriented towards "values" and not the objective causal relationship between our culture and Hellenic culture which determines the range of the cultural values which are controlling for a history of Hellenic culture. That epoch which we usually—valuing it entirely subjectively—view as the "pinnacle" of Hellenic culture, i.e., the period between Aeschylus and Aristotle, enters with its cultural contents as an "intrinsic value" (Eigenwert) into every "History of Antiquity," including Eduard Meyer's. This could change only if, in the event that some future age became only as capable of attaining a direct "value-rapport" (Wertbeziehung) to those cultural "creations" of antiquity as we are today in relation to the "songs" and "world view" of a central African tribe, which arouse our interest only as instances of cultural products, i.e., as means of forming concepts or as "causes." The matter then may be put as follows: we human beings of the present day possess "value-rapport" of some sort to the characteristic embodiments of ancient culture and this is the only possible meaning which can be given to Eduard Meyer's concept of the "effective" as the "historical." How much, on the other hand, Eduard Meyer's own concept of the "effective" is made up of heterogeneous components is shown by his account of the motivation of the specific interest which history shows in the "advanced cultures." "This rests," he says (p. 47) "on the fact that these peoples and cultures have been 'effective' to an infinitely higher degree and still influence the present." This is undoubtedly correct but it is by no means the sole reason for our decided "interest" in their significance as historical objects; it is especially impossible to derive from this proposition another proposition according to which as Eduard Meyer asserts (ibid.), "the interest becomes greater the more advanced they (i.e., the historically advanced cultures) are." The question of the "intrinsic value" of a culture which we touch on here, has nothing to do with the question of its historical "effectiveness";—here Eduard Meyer merely confuses "valuable" with "causally important." Howeve unconditionally correct it is that every history is written from the standpoint of the value-interests of the present and that every present situation poses or can pose new questions to the data of history because its interest, guided by value-ideas, changes, it is certain that this interest "values" and turns into historical "individuals" cultural components that are entirely of the past, i.e., those to which a cultural component of the present day cannot be traced by a regressive causal chain. This is just as true of minor objects like the letters to Frau von Stein as of major ones like those components of Hellenic culture whose effects modern culture has long since outgrown. Eduard Meyer, has, as we saw, indeed conceded this implicity through the possibility which he proposed: namely, that a moment in the past can be "treated," as he put it, as contemporaneous²⁷ (p. 47). With this he has, in fact, admitted that even "past" cultural components are historical objects regardless of the existence of a still perceptible "effect" and can, e.g., as the "characteristic" values of antiquity, supply the standards for the selection of facts and the direction of historical research in a "History of Antiquity." And now to continue.

When Eduard Meyer cites as the exclusive reason why the present does not become the object of "history," the argument that one does not yet know and cannot know which of its components will show themselves to be "effective" in the future, this proposition concerning the (subjective) unhistoricity of the present is right at least to a qualified extent. Only the future "decides" conclusively about the causal significance of the facts of the present as "causes." This is not, however, the only aspect of the problem, even after, as is here understood, one disregards such incidental factors as the lack of written sources and records, etc. The really immediate present has not only not yet become an historical "cause," but it has not yet become an historical "individual'' —any more than an ''experience" is an object of empirical "knowledge" at the moment in which it is occurring "in me" and "about me." All historical "evaluation" includes, so to speak,, a "contemplative'' element. It includes not primarily, and only, the immediate valuation of the "attitude-taking subject"—rather is its essential content, as we have seen, a "knowledge" of the object's possible "relations to values" (Wertbeziehungen). It thus presupposes a capacity for change in the "attitude" towards the object, at least theoretically. This used to be expressed as follows: we "must become objective" towards an experience before it "belongs to history'' as an object—but this does certainly not imply that it is causally "effective."

But we are not to elaborate further this discussion of the relationship of "experiencing" and "knowing" here. It is enough that in the course of the foregoing extensive exposition, it has become quite clear not only that, but also why, Eduard Meyer's concept of the "historical" as the "effective" is inadequate. It lacks, above all, the logical distinction between the "primary" historical object, that very valued cultural individual to which attaches the interest in the causal explanation of its coming to be, and the "secondary" historical facts, the causes to which the "valued" characteristics of that "individual" are related in the causal regress. This imputation of causes is made with the goal of being, in principle, "objectively" valid as empirical truth absolutely in the same sense as any proposition at all of empirical knowledge. Only the adequacy of the data desides the question, which is wholly factual, and not a matter of principle, as to whether the causal analysis attains this goal to the degree which explanations do in the field of concrete natural events. It is not the determination of the historical "causes" for a given "object" to be explained which is "subjective" in a certain sense which we shall not discuss here again —rather is it the delimitation of the historical "object," of the "individual'' itself, for in this the relevant values are decisive and the conception of the values is that which is subject to historical change. It is therefore incorrect in the first place when Eduard Meyer asserts (p. 45) that we are "never" able to attain an "absolute and unconditionally valid" knowledge of anything historical—this is not correct for "causes." It is, however, also equally incorrect when he then asserts that the situation is "no different" with respect to the validity of knowledge, in the natural sciences from what it is in the historical disciplines. The latter proposition is not true for the historical "individuals,'' i.e., for the way in which "values" play a role in history, nor does it hold for the mode of being of those "values." (Regardless of how one conceives of the "validity" of those "values" as such,-the "validity" of the values is in any case something which is different in principle from the validity of a causal relationship which is an empirical truth, even if both should in the last analysis also be conceived of philosophically as normatively bound.) The "points of view," which are oriented towards "values," from which we consider cultural objects and from which they become "objects" of historical research, change. Because, and as long as they do, new "facts" will always be becoming historically "important" (wesentlich), and they will always become so in a new way—for in logical discussions such as these we assume once and for all that the source materials will remain unchanged. This way of being conditioned by "subjective values" is, however, entirely alien in any case to those natural sciences which take mechanics as a model, and it constitutes, indeed, the distinctive contrast between the historical and the natural sciences.

To summarize: insofar as the "interpretation" of an object is, in the usual sense of the word, a "philological" interpretation, e.g., of its linguistic "meaning," it is a technical task preliminary to the historical work proper. Insofar as it analyzes "interpretatively" what is characteristic of the particular features of certain "cultural epochs" or certain personalities or certain individual objects (such as works of art or literature), it aids in the formation of historical concepts. And indeed from the point of view of its logical role, it functions either as an auxiliary insofar as it aids in the recognition of the causally relevant components of a concrete historical complex as such; it functions, conversely, as a source of guidance and direction, insofar as it "interprets" the content of an object—e.g., Faust, Orestes, Christianity of a particular epoch—with respect to its possible relation to values. In doing the latter it presents "tasks" for the causal work of history and thus is its pre-supposition. The concept of the "culture" of a particular people and age, the concept of "Christianity,'' of "Faust," and also—there is a tendency to overlook this—the concept of "Germany," etc., are individualized value-concepts formed as the objects of historical research, i.e., by relations with value-ideas.

If these values themselves with which we approach the facts are made the objects of analysis, we are—depending on the aim of our knowing—conducting studies in the philosophy of history or the psychology of "historical interest." If, on the other hand, we treat a concrete object from the standpoint of "value analysis," i.e., "interpreting" it with respect to its particular characteristics so that the possible evaluations of the object are "suggestively" made vivid to us, an "empathic experience" ("Nacherleben") as it used to be called (albeit very incorrectly), of a cultural creation is aimed at, this is still not "historical work"—this is the "justified kernel" in Eduard Meyer's formulation. But even though it is not historical work, it is the inevitable "forma formans" of historical "interest" in an object, of its primary conceptualization into an "individual" and of the causal work of history which only then becomes meaningfully possible. In ever so many cases, the adduced evaluations of daily life have formed the object and paved the way for historical research—this occurs even in the beginnings of all historical writing in political communities, especially in the historian's own state. The historian might thus come to believe when he confronts these fixed and firm "objects" which apparently—but only apparently and only in the range of familiar, routine use—do not require any special value-interpretation, that he is in his "proper" domain. As soon, however, as he leaves the broad highway and seeks also to achieve great new insights into the "unique" political "character" of a state or in the "unique character" of a political genius, he must proceed here, too, as far as the logical principle is concerned, as does the interpreter of Faust. But, of course —and here Eduard Meyer is correct, where an analysis remains at the level of such an "interpretation" of the intrinsic value of the object, the task of the ascertainment of causes is left undone and the question is not even raised in regard to the object, as to what it "signifies" causally with respect to other more comprehensive, more contemporaneous cultural objects. At this point, historical research has not yet got under way and the historian can perceive only the raw materials of historical problems. It is only the way in which Meyer tries to ground his belief that is in my opinion untenable. Since Eduard Meyer perceives especially the "static," "systematic" treatment of data as representative of the opposite principle from that of history, and since, e.g., Rickert too, after having seen the "systematic," which is characteristic of a "natural science" view even in the social and mental sphere, in opposition to the "historical cultural sciences," has more recently formulated the concept of the "systematic cultural sciences" —the task then is, to raise the following problem later in another section: what "systematics" can properly mean and in what different sets of relationships it stands to the historical approach and the "natural sciences."²⁸

The mode of treatment of ancient, particularly Hellenic culture which Eduard Meyer calls the "philological method," i.e., which takes the form of "classical studies," is indeed primarily actually realizable through the requisite linguistic mastery of the sources. But it is determined not only by that but also by the particular characteristics of certain outstanding scholars, and above all by the "significance" which the culture of classical antiquity has had for our own spiritual and intellectual discipline. Let us attempt to formulate those standpoints towards ancient culture which are, in principle, conceivable, in an extremely schematic and hence purely theoretical fashion. (1) One point of view would be the conception of the absolute value of ancient culture, the exemplifications of which in humanism, as expressed, for instance, in Winckelmann, and ultimately in all the variants of so-called "classicism" we shall not investigate here. According to this conception, if we follow it to its uttermost implications, the elements of ancient culture are—insofar as neither the Christian components of our culture nor the products of rationalism have "supplemented" or "re-shaped" it—at least virtual elements of culture as such. They are such, not because they have been "causally" effective in Eduard Meyer's sense of the term, but rather because on account of their absolute value they should be causally effective in our education. Hence, ancient culture is primarily an object of interpretation in usum scholarum, for purposes of educating one's own people to the level of an advanced state of culture. "Philology" in its most comprehensive meaning, i.e., as the "knowledge of what has been known," perceives in classical antiquity something which is in principle more than merely historical, something timelessly valid. (2) The other, modern point of view stands in extreme contrast: the culture of antiquity, according to this view, is so infinitely remote from us as regards its true individuality that it is entirely meaningless to wish to give the "all too many" an insight into its true "essence." It is rather a sublime valued object for the few who imbue themselves with the highest form of humanity which cannot in any essential features recur and who wish to "enjoy" it in a somewhat assthetic way.²⁹ (3) Finally, the methods of classical studies are of service to a scientific interest for which the source materials of antiquity provide primarily an uncommonly rich body of ethnographic data which can be used for the acquisition of general concepts, analogies, and developmental laws applicable in the pre-history, not only of our own culture, but of "every" culture A pertinent instance is the development of the study of comparative religion—the attainment of its present high level would have been impossible without the exhaustive survey of antiquity made possible through strictly philological training. Antiquity comes into consideration on this view insofar as its cultural content is appropriate as an heuristic means for the construction of general "types." In contrast with the first "point of view," thus one does not regard classical antiquity as providing an "enduring" cultural norm, and in contrast with the second, it does not look on classical antiquity as an absolutely unique object of individual contemplative evaluation.

We quickly see that all three of these "theoretically" formulated conceptions are interested for their own purposes in the treatment of ancient history in the form of "classical studies." We also do not need a special comment to see that, in each of them, the interest of the historian in fact falls short of exhausting their interest, since all three have something different from "history" as their primary aim. But when, on the other hand, Eduard Meyer seriously seeks to eradicate from the history of antiquity that which is no longer historically "effective" in the contemporary world, he would be justifiably open to the criticism of his opponents in the eyes of all those who look for more than an historical "cause" in antiquity. And all the admirers of his great work rejoice that he cannot at all proceed with any fidelity to these ideas, and they hope that he will not even attempt to do so for the sake of an erroneously formulated theory. ³⁰

Objective Possibility and Adequate Causation in Historical Explanation

II

"The outbreak of the Second Punic War," says Eduard Meyer (p. 16), "is the consequence of the willed decision of Hannibal; that of the Seven Years War, of Frederick the Great; that of the War of 1866, of Bismarck. They could all have decided differently and other persons would have ... decided differently. In consequence, the course of history would have been different." To this he adds in a footnote (p. 10, fn. 2): "By this we do not mean to assert or deny that hi the latter case, these wars would not have occurred: this is a completely unaswerable and superfluous question." Disregarding the awkward relationship between the second sentence and his earlier proposition about the relationship between "freedom" and "necessity" in history, we must here question the view that questions which we cannot answer, or cannot answer with certainty, are on that acount "idle" questions. It would go poorly with the empirical sciences, too, if those highest problems to which they can give no answer were never raised. We are not considering here such "ultimate" problems; we are rather dealing with a question which has, on the one hand, been "dated" by the course of events, and which, on the other, cannot in fact be answered positively and unambiguously in the light of our actual and possible knowledge—it is a question which, moreover, viewed from a strictly "deterministic" standpoint, discusses the consequences of that which was, in view of the given "determinants," impossible. And yet, despite all this, the problem: what might have happened if, for example, Bismarck had not decided to make war, is by no means an "idle" one. It does indeed bear on something decisive for the historical moulding of reality, namely, on what causal significance is properly to be attributed to this individual decision in the context of the totality of infinitely numerous "factors," all of which had to be in such and such an arrangement and in no other if this result were to emerge, and what role it is therefore to be asigned in an historical exposition. If history is to be raised above the level of a mere chronicle of notable events and personalities, it has no alternative but to pose such questions. And so indeed it has proceeded since its establishment as a science. This is the correct element in Eduard Meyer's previously quoted formulation that history consid events from the standpoint of "becoming" and that accordingly its object is not in the domain of "necessity" which is characteristic of what has already "occurred"; that the historian behaves in the estimation of the causal significance of a concrete event similarly to the historical human being who has an attitude and will of his own and who would never "act" if his own action appeared ³¹ to him as "necessary" and not only as "possible." The distinction is only this: the acting person weighs, insofar as he acts rationally—we shall assume this here—the "conditions" of the future development which interests him, which conditions are "external" to him and are objectively given as far as his knowledge of reality goes. He mentally rearranges into a causal complex the various "possible modes" of his own conduct and the consequences which these could be expected to have in connection with the "external" conditions. He does this in order to decide, in accordance with the (mentally) disclosed "possible'' results, in favor of one or another mode of action as the one appropriate to his "goal." The historian has, however, the advantage over his hero in that he knows a posteriori whether the appraisal of the given external conditions corresponded in fact with the knowledge and expectations which the acting person developed. The answer to this question is indicated by the actual "success" of the action. And with that ideal maximum knowledge of those conditions which we will and may theoretically assume here once and for all while clarifying logical questions—although in reality such a maximum be achieved ever so rarely, perhaps never—the historian can carry out retrospectively the same mental calculation which his "hero" more or less clearly performed or could have performed. Hence, the historian is able to consider the question : which consequences were to be anticipated had another decision been taken, with better chances of success than, for example, Bismarck himself. It is clear that this way of looking at the matter is very far from being "idle." Eduard Meyer himself applies (p. 43) very nearly this procedure to the two shots which in the Berlin March days directly provoked the outbreak of the street fighting. The question as to who fired them is, he says, "historically irrelevant." Why is it more irrelevant than the discussion of the decisions of Hannibal, Frederick the Great, and Bismarck? "The situation was such that any accident whatsoever would have caused the conflict to break out." (!) Here we see Eduard Meyer himself answering the allegedly "idle" question as to what "would" have happened without those shots; thus their historical "significance" (in this case: irrelevance) is decided. The "situations" were obviously, at least in Meyer's view, different in the case of the decisions of Hannibal, Frederick the Great, and Bismarck. They certainly were not such that the conflict would have broken out in any case or under the concrete political constellation which actually governed its course and *** outcome, if the decision had been different. For if otherwise, these decisions would be as insignificant as those shots. The judgment that, if a single historical fact is conceived of as absent from or modified in a complex of historical conditions, it would condition a course of historical events in a way which would be different in certain historically important respects, seems to be of considerable value for the determination of the "historical significance" of those facts. This is so even though the historian in practice is moved only rarely—namely, in instances of dispute about that very "historical significance"—to develop and support that judgment deliberately and explicitly. It is clear that this situation had to call forth a consideration of the logical nature of such judgments as assert what the effect of the omission or modification of a single causal component of a complex of conditions would have been and of their significance for history. We shall attempt to secure a clearer insight into this problem.

The poor condition of the logical analysis³² of history is also shown by the fact that neither historians nor methodologists of history but rather representatives of very unrelated disciplines have conducted the authoritative investigations into this important question.

The theory of the so-called "objective possibility" which we deal with here rests on the works of the distinguished physiologist v. Kries ³³ and the common use of the concepts in the works which follow him or criticize him. These works are primarily criminological but they are also produced by other legal writers, particularly Merkei, Rümelen, Liepmann, and most recently, Radbruch.³⁴ In the methodology of the social sciences von Kries' ideas have hitherto been adopted only in statistics.³⁵

It is natural that it was precisely the jurists and primarily the jurists specializing in criminal law who treated the problem since the question of penal guilt, insofar as it involves the problem: under what circumstances can it be asserted that someone through his action has "caused" a certain external effect, is purely a question of causation. And, indeed, this problem obviously has exactly the same logical structure as the problem of historical "causality." For, just like history, the problems of practical social relationships of men and especially of the legal system, are "anthropocentrically" oriented, i.e., they enquire into the causal significance of human "actions." And just as in the question of the causal determinateness of a concrete injurious action which is eventually to be punished under criminal law or for which indemnity must be made under civil law, the historian's problem of causality also is oriented towards the correlation of concrete effects with concrete causes, and not towards the establishment of abstract "uniformities" (Gesetzlichkeiten). Jurisprudence, and particularly criminal law, however, leaves the area of problems shared with history for a problem which is specific to it, in consequence of the emergence of the further problem: if and when the objective purely causal imputation of an effect to the action of an individual also suffices to define the actions as one involving his own subjective "guilt." For this question is no longer a purely causal one, soluble by the simple establishing of facts which are "objectively" discover able by perception and causal interpretation. Rather, is it a problem of criminal policy oriented towards ethical and other values. For it is a priori possible, actually frequent, and regularly the case today, that the meaning of legal norms, explicitly stated or elicited by interpretation, inclines to the view that the existence of "guilt" in the sense of the applicable law should depend primarily on certain subjective facts in regard to the agent (e.g., intent, subjectively conditioned capacity of foresight into the effects, etc.). Under these circumstances, the import of the logically distinctive characteristics of pure causal connection will be considerably modified.³⁶ It is only in the first stages of the discussion that this difference in the aims of investigation are without significance. We ask first, in common with juristic theory, how in general is the attribution of a concrete effect to an individual "cause" possible and realizable in principle in view of the fact that in truth an infinity of causal factors have conditioned the occurrence of the individual "event" and that indeed absolutely all of those individual causal factors were indispensable for the occurrence of the effect in its concrete form.

The possibility of selection from among the infinity of the determinants is conditioned, first, by the mode of our historical interest.

When it is said that history seeks to understand the concrete reality of an "event" in its individuality causally, what is obviously not meant by this, as we have seen, is that it is to "reproduce" and explain causally the concrete reality of an event in the totality of its individual qualities. To do the latter would be not only actually impossible, it would also be a task which is meaningless in principle. Rather, history is exclusively concerned with the causal explanation of those "elements" and "aspects" of the events in question which are of "general significance" and hence of historical Interest from general standpoints, exactly in the same way as the judge's deliberations take into account not the total individualized course of the events of the case but rather those components of the events which are pertinent for subsumption under the legal norms. Quite apart from the infinity of "absolutely" trivial details, the judge is not at all interested in all those things which can be of interest for other natural scientific, historical and artistic points of view. He is not interested in whether the fatal thrust leads to death with incidental phenomena which might be quite interesting to the physiologist. He is not interested in whether the appearance of the dead person or the murderer could be a suitable object of artistic representation; nor, for instance, in whether the death will help a non-participating "man behind the scene" to gain a "promotion" in a bureaucratic hierarchy, i.e., whether from the latter's standpoint it would therefore be causally "valuable." Nor is the judge interested in whether the death became, say the occasion of certain security measures by the police, or perhaps even engendered certain international conflicts and thus showed itself to be "historically'' significant. All that is relevant for him is whether the causal chain between the thrust and the death took such a form and the subjective attitude of the murderer and his relation to the deed was such that a certain norm of criminal law is applicable. The historian, on the other hand, is interested in connection, for example, with Cæsar's death, neither in the criminal-legal, nor in the medical problems which the "case" raises, nor is he interested in the details of the event—unless they are important either for the "particular characteristic features" of Cæsar or for the "characteristic features" of the party situation in Rome, i.e., unless they are of import as "heuristic instruments" or lastly unless they are important in relation to the "political effect" of his death, i.e., as "real causes." Rather, is he concerned, in this affair, primarily with the fact that the death occurred under concrete political conditions, and he discusses the question related thereto, namely, whether this fact had certain important "consequences" for the course of "world history."

Hence, there is involved in the problem of the assignment of historical causes to historical effects as well as in the problem of the imputation of actions under the law, the exclusion of an infinity of components of a real action as "causally irrelevant." A given circumstance is, as we see, unimportant not only when it has no relationship at all with the event which is under discussion, so that we can conceive it to be absent without any modification in the actual course of events being introduced; it is indeed sufficient to establish the causal irrelevance of the given circumstance if the latter appears not to have been the co-cause of that which alone interests us, i.e., the concretely essential components of the action in question.

Our real problem is, however: by which logical operations do we acquire the insight and how can we demonstratively establish that such a causal relationship exists between those "essential" components of the effects and certain components among the infinity of determining factors. Obviously not by the simple "observation" of the course of events in any case, certainly not if one understands by that a "presuppositionless" mental "photograph" of all the physical and psychic events occurring in the space-time region in question—even if such were possible. Rather, does the attribution of effects to causes take place through a process of thought which includes a series of abstraction. The first and decisive one occurs when we conceive of one or a few of the actual causal components as modified in a certain direction and then ask ourselves whether under the conditions which have been thus changed, the same effect (the same, i.e., in "essential" points) or some other effect "would be expected." Let us take an example from Eduard Meyer's own work. No one has set forth the world historical "significance" of the Persian Wars for the development of western culture as vividly and clearly as he has. How does this happen, logically speaking? It takes place essentially in the following way: it is argued that a "decision" was made between two "possibilities." The first of these "possibilities" was the development of a theocratic-religious culture, the beginnings of which lay in the mysteries and oracles, under the ægis of the Persian protectorate, which wherever possible utilized, as for example, among the Jews, the national religion as an instrument of domination. The other possibility was represented by the triumph of the free Hellenic circle of ideas, oriented towards this world, which gave us those cultural values from which we still draw our sustenance. The "decision" was made by a contest of the meager dimensions of the "battle" of Marathon. This in its turn was the indispensible "precondition" of the development of the Attic fleet and thus of the further development of the war of liberation, the salvation of the independence of Hellenic culture, the positive stimulus of the beginnings of the specifically western historiography, the full development of the drama and all that unique life of the mind which took place in this—by purely quantitative standards —miniature theater of world history.

The fact that that battle "decided" between these two "possibilities" or at least had a great deal to do with the decision, is obviously —since we are not Athenians—the only reason why we are historically interested in it. Without an appraisal of those "possibilities" and of the irreplaceable cultural values which, as it appears to our retrospective study, "depend" on that decision, a statement regarding its "significance" would be impossible. Without this appraisal, there would in truth be no reason why we should not rate that decisive contest equally with a scuffle between two tribes of Kaffirs or Indians and accept in all seriousness the dull-witted "fundamental ideas" of Helmolt's Weltgeschichte, as has indeed actually been done in that "modern" collective work. ³⁷ When modern historians, as soon as they are required by some inquiry to define the "significance" of a concrete event by explicit reflection on and exposition of the developmental "possibilities," ask, as is usual, to be forgiven their use of this apparently anti-deterministic category, their request is without logical justification. Karl Hampe, for example, in his Conradin, presents a very instructive exposition of the historical "significance" of the Battle of Togliacozza, on the basis of weighing the various "possibilities," the "decision" between which was made by the battle's entirely "accidental" outcome ("accidental" meaning here: determined by quite individual tactical events) ; then he suddenly weakens and adds: "But history knows no possibilities." To this we must answer: that process (Geschehen) which, conceived as subject to deterministic axioms, becomes an "objective thing," knows nothing of "possibilities" because it "knows" nothing of concepts. "History," however, does recognize possibilities, assuming that it seeks to be a science. In every line of every historical work, indeed in every selection of archival and source materials for publication, there are, or more correctly, must, be, "judgments of possibility," if the publication is to have value for knowledge.

What, then, is meant when we speak of a number of "possibilities" between which those contests are said to have "decided"? It involves first the production of—let us say it calmly—"imaginative constructs" by the disregarding of one or more of those elements of "reality" which are actually present, and by the mental construction of a course of events which is altered through modification in one or more "conditions." Even the first step towards an historical judgment is thus—this is to be emphasized—a process of abstraction. This process proceeds through the analysis and mental isolation of the components of the directly given data—which are to be taken as a complex of possible causal relations—and should culminate in a synthesis of the "real" causal complex. Even this first step thus transforms the given "reality" into a "mental construct" in order to make it into an historical fact. In Goethe's words, "theory" is involved in the "fact."

If now one examines these "judgments of possibility"—i.e., the propositions regarding what "would" happen in the event of the exclusion or modification of certain conditions—somewhat more closely and inquires: how are we really to arrive at them—there can be no doubt that it is a matter of isolations and generalizations. This means that we so decompose the "given" into "components" that every one of them is fitted into an "empirical rule" ; hence, that it can be determined what effect each of them, with others present as "conditions," "could be expected" to have, in accordance with an empirical rule. A judgment of "possibility" in the sense in which the expression is used here, means, then, the continuous reference to "empirical rules" (Erfahrungsregeln). The category of "possibility" is thus not used in its negative form. It is, in other words, not an expression of our ignorance or incomplete knowledge in contrast with the assertative or apodictic judgment. Rather, to the contrary, it signifies here the reference to a positive knowledge of the "laws of events," to our "nomological" knowledge, as they say.

When the question whether a certain train has already passed a station is answered "it is possible," this assertion means that the person who answered the question subjectively does not know the facts, which would exclude this belief, but that he is also not in a position to argue for its correctness. It means, in other words, "not knowing." If, however, Eduard Meyer judges that a theocratic-religious development in Hellas at the time of the Battle of Marathon was "possible," or in certain eventualities, "probable," this means, on the contrary, the assertion that certain components of the historically given situation were objectively present; that is, their presence was such as can now be ascertained with objective validity, and that they were, when we imagine the Battle of Marathon as not having happened or as having happened differently (including, naturally, a host of other components of the actual course of events), "capable" according to general empirical rules, of producing such a theocratic-religious development, as we might say in borrowing for once from criminological terminology. The "knowledge" on which such a judgment of the "significance" of the Battle of Marathon rests is, in the light of all that we have said hitherto, on the one hand, knowledge of certain "facts," ("ontologica!" knowledge), "belonging" to the "historical situation" and ascertainable on the basis of certain sources, and on the other—as we have already seen—knowledge of certain known empirical rules, particularly those relating to the ways in which human beings are prone to react under given situations ("nomological knowledge"). The type of "validity" of these "empirical rules" will be considered later. In any case, it is clear that in order to demonstrate his thesis which is decisive for the "significance" of the Battle of Marathon, Eduard Meyer must, if it is challenged, analyze that "situation" into its "components" down to the point where our "imagination" can apply to this "ontological" knowledge our "nomological" knowledge which has been derived from our own experience and our knowledge of the conduct of others. When this has been done, then we can render a positive judgment that the joint action of those facts—including the conditions which have been conceived as modified in a certain way—"could" bring about the effect which is asserted to be "objectively possible." This can only mean, in other words, that if we "conceived" the effect as having actually occurred under the modified conditions we would then recognize those facts thus modified to be "adequate causes."

This rather extensive formulation of a simple matter, which was required for the sake of clearing away ambiguity, shows that the formulation of propositions about historical causal connections not only makes use of both types of abstraction, namely, isolation and generalization ; it shows also that the simplest historical judgment concerning the historical "significance" of a "concrete fact" is far removed from being a simple registration of something "found" in an already finished form. The simplest historical judgment represents not only a categorially formed intellectual construct but it also does not acquire a valid content until we bring to the "given" reality the whole body of our "nomological" empirical knowledge.

The historian will assert against this, correctly, that the actual course of historical work and the actual content of historical writing follows a different path. The historian's "sense of the situation," his "intuition" uncover causal interconnections—not generalizations and reflections of "rules." The contrast with the natural sciences consists indeed precisely in the fact that the historian deals with the explanation of events and personalities which are "interpreted" and "understood" by direct analogy with our own intellectual, spiritual and psychological constitution. In the historical treatise it is repeatedly altogether a question of the "sense of the situation," of the suggestive vividness of its account report which allows the reader to "empathize" with what has been depicted in the same way as that in which it is experienced and concretely grasped by the historian's own intuition, for the historian's account has not been produced by "clever" ratiocination. Moreover, it is further asserted, an objective judgment of possibility regarding what "would" have happened according to the general empirical rules, when a causal component is conceived as excluded or as modified, is often highly uncertain and often cannot be arrived at at all. Hence, such a basis for the attribution of causes in history must in fact be permanently renounced, and thus it cannot be a constitutive element in the logical value of historical knowledge.

Arguments such as these confuse, basically, problems of distinct character. They confuse the psychological course of the origin of scientific knowledge and "artistic" form of presenting what is known, which is selected for the purpose of influencing the reader psychologically on one hand, with the logical structure of knowledge, on the other.

Ranke "divines" the past, and even the advancement of knowledge by an historian of lesser rank, is poorly served if he does not possess this "intuitive" gift. Where this is so, he remains a kind of lower rung-bureaucrat in the historical enterprise. But it is absolutely no different with the really great advances in knowledge in mathematics and the natural sciences. They all arise intuitively in the intuitive flashes of imagination as hypotheses which are then "verified" vis-a-vis the facts, i.e., their validity is tested in procedures involving the use of already available empirical knowledge and they are "formulated" in a logically correct way. The same is true in history: when we insist here on the dependence of the knowledge of the "essential" on the use of the concept of objective possibility, we assert nothing at all about the psychologically interesting question which does not, however, concern us here, namely, how does an historical hypothesis arise in the mind of the investigator? We are here concerned only with the question of the logical category under which the hypothesis is to be demonstrated as valid in case of doubt or dispute, for it is that which determines its logical "structure." And if the historian's mode of presentation communicates the logical result of his historical causal judgments to the reader with reasoning in a manner which dispenses with the adduction of the evidence for his knowledge, i.e., if he "suggests" the course of events rather than pedantically "ratiocinating" about it, his presentation would be an historical novel and not at all a scientific finding, as long as the firm skeletal structure of established causes behind the artistically formed facade is lacking. The dry approach of logic is concerned only with this skeletal structure for even the historical exposition claims "validity" as "truth." The most important phase of historical work which we have hitherto considered, namely, the establishment of the causal regress, attains such validity only when, in the event of challenge, it is able to pass the test of the use of the category of objective possibility which entails the isolation and generalization of the causal individual components for the purpose of ascertaining the possibility of the synthesis of certain conditions into adequate causes.

It is, however, now clear that the causal analysis of personal actions proceeds logically in exactly the same way as the causal analysis of the "historical significance" of the Battle of Marathon, i.e., by isolation, generalization and the construction of judgments of possibility. Let us take a limiting case: the reflective analysis of one's own action of which logically untrained sentiment tends to believe that it certainly does not present any "logical problems" whatsoever, since one's action is directly given in experience and—assuming mental "health"—is "understandable" without further ado and hence is naturally "reproducible" in memory directly. Very simple reflections show that it is not, however, so, and that the "valid" answer to the question : why did I act in that way, constitutes a categorically formed construct which is to be raised to the level of the demonstrable judgment only by the use of abstractions. This is true even though the "demonstration" is in fact here conducted in the mind of the "acting person" himself.

Let us assume a temperamental young mother who is tired of certain misdeeds of her little child, and as a good German who does not pay homage to the theory contained in Busch's fine lines, "Superficial is the rod—only the mind's power penetrates the soul," gives it a solid cuff. Let us further assume that she is sufficiently "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought" to give a few moments of reflection after the deed has been done to the question of the "pedagogical utility," of the "justice" of the cuff, or at least of the considerable "expenditure of energy" involved in the action. Or still better, let us assume that the howls of the child release in the paterfamilias, who, as a German, is convinced of his superior understanding of everything, including the rearing of children, the need to remonstrate with "her" on "teleological" grounds. Then "she" will, for example, expound the thought and offer it as an excuse that if at that moment she had not been, let us assume, "agitated" by a quarrel with the cook, that the aforementioned disciplinary procedure would not have been used at all or would not have been applied "in that way"; she will be inclined to admit to him : "he really knows that she is not ordinarily in that state." She refers him thereby to his "empirical knowledge" regarding her "usual motives," which in the vast majority of all the generally possible constellations would have led to another, less irrational effect. She claims, in other words, that the blow which she delivered was an "accidental" and not an "adequately" caused reaction to the behavior of her child, to anticipate the terminology which we shall shortly employ.

This domestic dialogue has thus sufficed to turn the experience in question into a categorially formed "object." Even though, exactly like Molière's philistine who learned to his pleasant surprise that he had been speaking "prose" all his life, the young woman would certainly be astounded if a logician showed her that she had made a causal "imputation" just like an historian, that, to this end, she had made "judgments of objective possibility" and had "operated" with the category of "adequate causation," which we shall shortly discuss more closely—yet such is precisely and inevitably the case from the point of view of logic. Refletive knowledge, even of one's own experience, is nowhere and never a literally "repeated experience" or a simple "photograph" of what was experienced; the "experience," when it is made into an "object," acquires perspectives and interrelationships which were not "known" in the experience itself. The idea formed in later reflection, of one's own past action is no different in this respect from the idea so formed of a past concrete natural event in the external world, which had been experienced by one's self or which was reported by someone else. It will probably not be necessary to elucidate further ³⁸ the universal validity of this proposition with complicated examples, or to state expressly, that we proceed logically in the same way in the analysis of a decision of Napoleon or Bismarck as we did in the example of our German mother.

The distinction that the "inward aspect" of the action which is to be analyzed is directly given to her in her own memory, whereas we must "interpret" the action of a third party from the "outside," is, despite the naive prejudice to the contrary, only a gradual continuous difference in the degree of accessibility and completeness of the "data."

We are indeed always inclined to believe that if we find the "personality" of a human being "complicated" and difficult to interpret, that he himself must be able to furnish us with the decisive information if he really honestly wished to do so. We will not discuss further at this point either the fact that or the reason why this is not so-or, indeed, why the contrary is often the case.

Let us turn rather to a closer examination of category of "objective possibility" which we have thus far dealt with only very generally in respect to its function. We shall examine in particular the question of the modality of the "validity" of the "judgment of possibility." The question should be asked: whether the introduction of "possibilities" into the "causal enquiry" implies a renunciation of causal knowledge altogether; whether in spite of all that has been said above about the "objective" foundation of the judgment of possibility —in view of the relegation of the determination of the "possible" course of events to the "imagination"—the recognition of the significance of this category is not equivalent to the admission that the door is wide open to subjective arbitrariness in "historiography." Is not the "scientific" status of historiography therefore destroyed by the very use of this category? In fact, what "would" have happened if a certain conditioning factor had been conceived of or modified in a certain way—this question, it will be asserted, is often not answerable definitely with any degree of probability by the use of general empirical rules even where the "ideal" completeness of the source materials exists.³⁹ However, that ideal completeness of source materials is not unconditionally required. The assessment of the causal significance of an historical fact will begin with the posing of the following question: in the event of the exclusion of that fact from the complex of the factors which are taken into account as co-determinants, or in the event of its modification in a certain direction, could the course of events, in accordance with general empirical rules, have taken a direction in any way different in any features which would be decisive for our interest? For we are indeed concerned only with this, namely, how are those "aspects" of the phenomenon which interest us affected by the individual co-determinant factors? It we cannot obtain a corresponding "judgment of objective possibility" to this essentially negatively posed question, or—what amounts to the same thing—if in the case of the exclusion or modification of the afore-mentioned fact, the course of events in regard to historically important features, i.e., those of interest to us, could in accordance with the state of our present knowledge, be expected to occur, in the light of general empirical rules, in the way in which it had actually occurred, then that fact is indeed causally insignificant and absolutely does not belong to the chain which the regressive causal analysis of history seeks to establish and should establish.

The two shots fired in Berlin on that March night belong, according to Eduard Meyer, almost entirely in this class of causally insignificant facts. It is possible that they do not belong there completely because even on his view of the matter, it is conceivable that the moment of the outbreak might at least have been con-determined by them, and a later moment might have led to a different course of development.

If, however, in accordance with our empirical knowledge, the causal relevance of a factor can be assumed in regard to the points which are important for the concrete study which is under way, the judgment of objective possibility which asserts this relevance is capable of a whole range of degrees of certainty. The view of Eduard Meyer that Bismarck's "decision" "led" to the War of 1866 in a sense quite different from those two shots, led to the events of '48, involves the argument that if we were to disregard this decision from our analysis, the other remaining determinants of the situation in '66 would force us to accept as having a "high degree" of objective possibility a development which would be quite different (in "essential" respects!). This other development would have included, for instance, the conclusion of the Prussian-Italian Treaty, the peaceful renunciation of Venice, the coalition of Austria with France, or at least a shift in the military and political situation which would have, in fact, made Napolean the "master of the situation."

The judgment of "objective" possibility admits gradations of degree and one can form an idea of the logical relationship which is involved by looking for help in principles which are applied in the analysis of the "calculus of probability." Those causal components to the effect of which the judgment refers are conceived as isolated and distinguished from the totality of all the conditions which are at all conceivable as interacting with them. One then asks how the entire complex of all those conditions with the addition of which those isolatedly conceived components were "calculated" to bring about the "possible" effect, stands in relation to the complex of all those conditions, the addition of which would not have "foreseeably" led to the effect. One naturally cannot in any way arrive by this operation at an estimate of the relationship between these two possibilities which will be in any sense "numerical." This would be attainable only in the sphere of "absolute chance" (in the logical sense), i.e., in cases where—for example, as in the throwing of dice, or the drawing balls of various colors from an urn, unaffected in composition by the drawings therefrom—given a very large number of cases, certain simple and unambiguous conditions remain absolutely the same. Also, all the other conditions, however, vary in a way which is absolutely inaccessible to our knowledge. And, those "features" of the effects concerning which there is interest—in the throwing of dice, the number of eyes which are uppermost, in the drawing from the urn, the color of the ball—are so determined as to their "possibility" by those constant and unambiguous conditions (the structure of the dice, the composition of the urn), that all other conceivable conditions, show no causal relationship to those "possibilities" expressible in a general empirical proposition. The way in which I grasp and shake the dice box before the toss is an absolutely determining causal component of the number of eyes which I concretely toss—but there is no possibility whatsoever, despite all superstitions about the "bones," of even thinking of an empirical proposition which will assert that a certain way of grasping the box and shaking it is "calculated" to favor the toss of a certain number of eyes. Such causality is, then, wholly a "chance" causality, i.e., we are justified in asserting that the physical style of the thrower has no influence "stateable in a rule" on the chances of tossing a certain number of eyes. With every style the "chances" of each of the six possible sides of the dice to come out facing upwards are "equal." On the other hand, there is a general empirical proposition which asserts that where the center of gravity of the dice is displaced, there is a "favorable chance" for a certain side of these "loaded" dice to come out uppermost., whatever other concrete determinants are also present. We can even express numerically the degree of this "favorable chance," of this "objective possibility," by sufficiently frequent repetition of the toss. Despite the familiar and fully justified notice which warns against the transference of the principles of the calculus of probabilities into other domains, it is clear that the latter case of favorable chance or "objective probability," determined from general empirical propositions or from empirical frequencies, has its analogues in the sphere of all concrete causality, including the historical. The only difference is that it is precisely here in the sphere of concrete causality that ability to assign a numerical measure of chance is wholly lacking since this presupposes the existence of "absolute chance" or certain measurable or countable aspects of phenomena or results as the sole object of scientific interest. But despite this lack, we can not only very well render generally valid judgments which assert that as a result of certain situations, the occurrence of a type of reaction, identical in certain respects, on the part of those persons who confront these situations, is "favored" to a more or less high degree. When we formulate such a proposition, we are indeed also in a position to designate a great mass of possible circumstances which, even if added to the original conditions, do not affect the validity of the general rule under which the "favoring" of the occurrence in question is to be expected. And we can finally estimate the degree to which a certain effect is "favored" by certain "conditions" —although we cannot do it in a way which will be perfectly unambiguous or even in accordance with the procedures of the calculus of probability. We can, however, well enough estimate the-relative "degree" to which the outcome is "favored" by the general rule by a comparison involving the consideration of how other conditions operating differently "would" have "favored" it. When we carry through this comparison in our imagination by sufficiently numerous conceivable modifications of the constellation of conditions, then a considerable degree of certainty for a judgment of the "degree" of objective possibility .is conceivable, at least in principle,—and it is only its conceivability in principle which concerns us here primarily. Not only in daily life but also and indeed in history we constantly use such judgments regarding the degree to which an effect is "favored"-indeed, without them, a distinction of the causally "important" and "unimportant?' would simply not be possible. Even Eduard Meyer in the work which we are discussing here has used them without hesitation. If both of those shots, which have been frequently mentioned, were causally "irrelevant" because "any accident whatsoever" according to Eduard Meyer's view, which we shall not criticize for actual correctness here, "must have caused the conflict to break out," this means, at any rate, that in the given historical constellation certain "conditions" are conceptually isolatable which would have led to that effect in a preponderantly great majority of instances given even the co-presence in that constellation of other possible conditions; while at the same time, the range of such conceivable causal factors, that given their addition to the original constellation, other effects (i.e., "other" with respect to aspects decisive for our interest!) would seem to us to be probable, appears as relatively very limited. We will not accept Eduard Meyer's view that the chance of any other effect was indeed equal to zero, despite his use of the words "must have" in view of his heavy emphasis on the irrationality of historical events.

We shall designate as cases of "adequate" causation⁴⁰ in accordance with the linguistic usage of the theorists of legal causality established since the work of von Kries, those cases in which the relationship of certain complexes of "conditions" synthesized into a unity by historical reflection and conceived as isolated, to an "effect" that occurred, belongs to the logical type which was mentioned last. And just like Eduard Meyer—who, however, does not define the concept clearly-we shall speak of "chance" causation where, for the historically relevant components of the result, certain facts acted to produce an effect which was not "adequate," in the sense just spoken of in relation to a complex of conditions conceptually combined into a "unity."

To return to the examples which we used above, the "significance" of the Battle of Marathon according to Eduard Meyer's view is to be stated in the following logical terms: it is not the case that a Persian victory must have led to a quite different development of Hellenic and therewith of world culture—such a judgment would be quite impossible. Rather is that significance to be put as follows: that a different development of Hellenic and world culture "would have" been the "adequate" effect of such an event as a Persian victory. The logically correct formulation of Eduard Meyer's statement about the unification of Germany, to which von Below objects, would be: this unification can be made understandable, in the light of general empirical rules, as the "adequate" effect of certain prior events and in the same way the March Revolution in Berlin is intelligible on the basis of general empirical rules as the "adequate" effect of certain general social and political "conditions." If, on the contrary, for example, it were to be argued convincingly that without those two shots in front of the Berlin Castle, a revolution "would," in the light of general empirical rules, have been avoidable with a decidedly high degree of probability, because it could be shown in the light of general empirical rules that the combination of the other "conditions" would not, or at least not considerably, have "favored"—in the sense explained before the out-break —without the intervention of those shots, then we would speak of "chance" causation and we should, in that case—a case, to be sure, very difficult to envisage—have to "impute" the March Revolution to those two shots. In the example of the unification of Germany, the opposite of "chance" is not, as von Below thought, "necessity," but rather "adequate" in the sense, which, following von Kries, we developed above.⁴¹ And it should be firmly emphasized that in this contrast of "chance" and "adequate," it is never a matter of distinction pertaining to the "objective" causality of the course of historical events and their causal relationships but is rather always altogether a matter of our isolating, by abstraction, a part of the "conditions" which are embedded in "the raw materials" of the events and of making them into objects of judgments of possibility. This is done for the purpose of gaining insight, on the basis of empirical rules, into the causal "significance" of individual components of the events. In order to penetrate to the real causal interrelationships, we construct unreal ones.

The fact that abstractions are involved in this process is misunderstood especially frequently and in a quite specific way which has its counterpart in theories of certain writers on legal causality who base their views on John Stuart Mill's views and which has been convincingly criticized in the previously cited work of von Kries.⁴²

Mill held that the fraction numerically expressing the degree of probability of an expected result indicated the relationship between causes which act to bring about the result and those which act to "prevent" the same, both kinds of causes existing objectively at the given moment of time. Following Mill, Binding asserts that between those conditions "which act for the realization of a given result" and those "resisting" it, there is in some cases a numerically determinable relationship, (or, in any case, one which can be estimated) which objectively exists; under certain conditions, in a "state of equilibrium." The process of causation occurs, according to Binding, when the former kind of condition outweighs the latter. ⁴³ It is quite clear that here the phenomenon of the "conflict of motives" which presents itself as an immediate "experience" in deliberation concerning human "actions" has been transformed into a basis for the theory of causality. Whatever general significance may be attributed to this phenomenon,⁴⁴ it is, however, certain no rigorous causal analysis, even in history, can accept this anthropomorphism.⁴⁵

Not only is the conception of two "opposed" working "forces" a spatial and physical image which can be used without self-deception only in discussing events—particularly those which are mechanical and physical in nature—which involve two physical "opposite" results, each of which can be realized only by the one or the other of the "opposed" forces. Rather it is to be emphasized once and for all that a concrete result cannot be viewed as the product of a struggle of certain causes favoring it and other causes opposing it. The situation must, instead, be seen as follows : the totality of all the conditions back to which the causal chain from the "effect" leads had to "act jointly" in a certain way and in no other for the concrete effect to be realized. In other words, the appearance of the result is, for every causally working empirical science, determined not just from a certain moment but "from eternity." When, then, we speak of "favoring" and "obstructing" conditions of a given result, we cannot mean thereby that certain conditions have exerted themselves in vain in the concrete case to hinder the result eventually realized, while others, despite the former ultimately succeeded in bringing it about, rather the expression in question must always and without exception mean only this: that certain components of the reality which preceded the result in time, isolated conceptually, generally in accordance with general empirical rules, favor a result of the type in question. This means, however, as we know, that this result is brought about by those previously mentioned components of reality in the majority of the conceivably possible combinations with other conditions which are conceived of as possible while certain other combinations generally do not produce this result but rather another. When Eduard Meyer, for example, says of cases where (p. 27) "Everything pressed towards a certain result," it is a question of a generalizing and isolating abstraction and not of the reproduction of a course of events which in fact occurred. What is meant, however, if correctly formulated logically, is simply that we can observe causal "factors" and can conceptually isolate them, and that expected rules must be thought of as standing in a relationship of adequacy to those factors, while relatively few combinations are conceivable of those conceptually isolated "factors" with other causal "factors" from which another result could be "expected" in accordance with general empirical rules. In instances where the situation is in our conception of it just as it is described by Eduard Meyer, we speak ⁴⁶ of the presence of a "developmental tendency" oriented toward the result in question.

This, like the use of images such as "driving forces" or the reverse "obstacles" to a development, e.g., of capitalism—no less than the usage which asserts that a certain "rule" of causal relationship is "transcended" in a concrete case by certain causal linkages or (still more imprecisely) a "law" is "overruled" by another "law"—all such designations are irreproachable if one is always conscious of their conceptual character, i.e., as long as one bears in mind that they rest on the abstraction of certain components of the real causal chain, on the conceptual generalization of the rest of the components in the form of judgments of objective possibility, and on the use of these to mould the event into a causal complex with a certain structure.⁴⁷ It is not sufficient for us that in this case one agrees and remains aware that all our "knowledge" is related to a categorically formed reality, and that, for example, "causality" is a category of "our" thought. Causality has a special character⁴⁸ when it is a question of the "adequacy" of causation. Although we do not in so doing intend to present an exhaustive analysis of this category of adequate causation, still it will be necessary at least to present one briefly in order to clarify the strictly relative nature of the distinction between "adequate" and "chance" causation which is determined by any of the possible goals of knowledge. This will have to be done in order to make understandable how the frequently very uncertain content of the proposition included in a "judgment of possibility" harmonizes with the claim to validity which it nonetheless asserts and with its usefulness in the construction of causal sequences which exists in spite of the uncertainty of the content.⁴⁹

Notes

It is to be hoped that the reader will not attribute the following criticism, which purposely searches out the weaknesses in Meyer’s formulations, to the need to appear clever. The errors which an outstanding author makes are more instructive than the correct statements of a scientific nonentity. It is not our intention to assess the achievement of Eduard Meyer but rather the contrary: to learn from his inadequacies in such a way that we can understand how he attempted, with very different degrees of success, to cope with certain important problems of historical methodology. ↩
This would, as we shall show, also happen in the case of Eduard Meyer if he began taking many of his own assertions with literal seriousness. ↩
This sort of “chance” lies, for example, at the basis of the so-called games of “chance” such as dice and lotteries. The absolute unknowability of the inÀuence of certain parts of the concrete determining conditions of the specific effect on the outcome of the event is constitutive for the possibility of “probability calculation” in the strict sense of the term. ↩
These concepts of ‘chance’ are not to be excluded from a discipline which is only relatively historical (for example, biology). L. M. Hartmann (Die geschichtltche Entwicklung, pp. 15 and 25) speaks only of this and the “pragmatic” concept of “chance’”-——obviously following Meyer; he does not, however, in any Case, in spite of his false formulation, do as Eulenburg claims, that is, transform ‘the causeless into the casual’ (Deutsche Literaturzeitung 1905, No. 24). ↩
See, for example, Liepmann’s Einleitung in das Strafrecht.↩
What is to be included under “investigation into motives” is not clearly stated here, but quite obviously it is understood that we regard the “decision” of a ‘concrete personality” as the absolutely “ultimate” fact only when it appears to us to be, in a ‘“‘pragmatic’’ view, accidental, that is neither accessible nor worthy of a meaningful interpretation; thus, for example, the wild decrees of Czar Paul, which were impelled by madness. However, one of the most certain tasks of history has always consisted in understanding empirically given “external actions” and their results in the light of historically given ‘“‘conditions,” “goals,” and “means” of action. Nor does Meyer himself proceed in any other fashion. The “investigation of motives’ that is, the analysis of what was really “sought” and the basis of this desire —-is on the one hand the means of avoiding the petcring out of the analysis into an unhistorical body of pragmatic rules, while on the other it is one of the major points of departure of the “‘historical interest’: we wish, indeed, among other things, to sce “how the desires” of human beings are transformed in their “significance” by the concatenation of historical “destinies.” ↩
Windelband, (Uber Willensfretheit, last chapter), selects this formulation in particular in order to exclude the question of ‘freedom of the will” from criminological discussions. However, it is a question whether it is adequate for the criminologist since the type of casual interconnection is never entirely irrelevant for the applicability of the norms of criminal law. ↩
But we do not mean by this that the “psychological’ faciliation of the “understanding” of the value-significance of an object (e.g., a work of art) does not gain something very essential from the causal analysis of its genesis. We shall come back to this later.↩
TI have criticized this error in detail in my essay “Roscher und Knies und die logischen Probleme der historischen Nationalokonomie." ↩
The actions of Czar Paul of Russia in the last stages of his mad reign are treated by us as not meaningful interpretable and therefore as “‘incalculable,” like the storm-which broke up the Spanish Armada. In the case of the one as well as the other we forbear from the “investigation of motives,” obviously not because we interpret these events as ‘free’ and also not because their concrete causation must remain hidden from us—in the case of Czar Paul pathology could perhaps supply the answer—-but because they are not sufficiently interesting to us historically. We shall deal with this more closely later. ↩
Cf. in this connection, the considerations present in “Roscher und Knies”’— strictly rational action—one could also put it thus—would be the simple and complete “adaptation” to the given “situation.” Menger’s theoretical schemata, for example, presuppose the strictly rational “‘adaptation” to the “market situation” and exhibit the consequences there of in “‘ideal-typical’ purity. History would in fact be nothing more than a body of practical patterns (pragmatics) of ‘“adaptation”—which is what L. M. Hartmann would like to make it—if it were solely an analysis of the emergence and interconnections of the particular “free,” ie., teleologically absolutely rational, actions of single individuals. If one excludes this teleological-rational meaning from the conception of ‘adaptation,’ as Hartmann does, it becomes, as we shall have further occasion to show, an absolutely indifferent idea for historical studies. ↩
He says rather unfortunately: “historical research proceeds in its inferences from effect to cause.” ↩
It would lead too far afield to examine this problem here in more detail. Cf. my “Roscher und Knies.” ↩
This formulation recalls certain modes of thought which were common in the Russian sociological school (Mikhailowski Kareyev, et al.), which are reviewed in Kistiakowski’s essay in the “Problems of Idealism” (edited by Novgorodzev, Moscow, 1902) concerning the “Russian sociological school” and the category of possibility in the problems of the social sciences. We shall return to this essay later. ↩
Schmollers Jahrbuch 1904, pp. 483 ff. Naturally I do not enter here in any way into the question of the substantive value of the work; on the contrary, the correctness of all of Breysig’s assertions will be assumed in this as in all the illustrations which I cite. ↩
This does not mean that these particular Roentgen rays could not figure as “historical” events: in a history of physics. The latter could concern itself among other things with the “accidental” circumstances which brought about the complex of factors in Roentgen’s laboratory on those particular days, which ccasioned the radiation and which thereby led causally to the discovery of the “law” in question. It is clear that the logical status of those rays would, in this context, be completely changed. This is possible because these events play a role here which is rooted in values (‘‘the progress of science’). It might perhaps be asserted that this logical distinction is only a result of having moved into the area of the subject matter of the “Geisteswissenschaften,” that the cosmic effects of those particular rays have therefore been left out of consideration. It is, however, irrelevant whether the particular “evaluated” object for which these rays were causally “significant” is ‘‘physical’” or “psychic” in nature, provided only that it ‘‘means” something for us, i.e., that it is “evaluated.” Once we assume the factual possibility of knowledge directed towards that object, the particular cosmic (physical, chemical, etc.) effects of those particular rays could (theoretically) become “‘historical facts’”— but only if-—lines of causation led from them to some particular result which was an “historical individual,” i.e., was “evaluated” by us as universally significant in its particular individual character (indtviduellen Etgenart). Such an attempt would be meaningless merely on the ground that such a relationship of the rays to a universally significant object is in no way discernible even if the causal lines could actually be established.↩
Here the author wrote on the margin of the proofs: A step in reasoning has been missed here. Add: that a fact where it is considered as an instance of a class-concept (Gattungsbegriff) is a heuristic instrument (Erkenntnis mittel). But not every heuristic instrument is a class concept. ↩
The term “science of reality” in the sense in which it is used here is perfectly adequate for the essential nature of history. The misunderstanding which contains the popular interpretation of this term as referring to a simple presuppositionless ‘‘description” has been dealt with adequately by Rickert and Simmel. ↩
This will obviously not prove, for instance, that logic is wrong in rigorously distinguishing these various standpoints which can be found within one and the same scientific presentation. Yet this is the assumption of many wrongheaded objections to Rickert’s views. ↩
The discussion of these special cases will concern us more closely in a subsequent section.. For this reason we deliberately leave untouched here the question as to the extent to which it is to be viewed as something logically unique. We wish to state here, only because of its greater certainty, that it naturally does not in any way obscure the logical distinction between the historical and nomothetic uses of “facts,” since in any case, the concrete fact 18 not being used here “historically” in the sense adhered to in this discussion, namely as a link in a concrete causal series. ↩
Here the German word Interpretation is used — and is equated by Weber with Deutung which is the term he usually employs in the text and which is elwsys translated here by “interpretation.” (E.A.S.) ↩
This is done essentially to distinguish this type of “interpretation” from that which is only texual-linguistic. The fact that this distinction does not invariably actually occur in practice should not impede the logical distinction. ↩
Even Vossler, in his analysis of a fable of La Fontaine contained in his brilliantly written, intentionally one-sided Die Sprache als Schopfung und Entwicklung (Heidelberg 1905, p. 8 and ff.), provides confirmation of this statement although he does not wish to do so. The only “legitimate” task of ‘“‘esthetic”’ interpretation is, for him, (as it is for Croce, whose position is close to his own) to show that, and to what extent, the literary “creation” is an adequate ‘“expression.”

Nevertheless he, too, is compelled to have recourse to a reference to the quite concrete “psychic” characteristics of La Fontaine (p. 93) and beyond these to “milieu” and “race” and yet we cannot discern the reasons why this causal imputation, this inquiry into the origins of what exists, which, by the way, always operates with generalizing concepts (on this point, more later) breaks off at the very point at which this very attractive and instructive sketch does or why the extension of this causal imputation for purposes of “interpretation” is thought to become useless, as Vossler seems to think at this point. When Vossler again retracts those concessions by saying that he recognizes the “spatial” and “temporal” conditionedness “only for the matter’ (Stoff) (p. 95) but asserts .hat the “form” which is alone esthetically essential, is a “free creation of the spirit,’ it must be recalled that he is following a terminology like that of Croce. Accordingly, “freedom” is equivalent to “conformity with norms” (Normgemasshett) and “form” is correct expression in Croce’s sense, and as such is identical with æsthetic value. This terminology involves the danger, however, of leading to the confusion of “existence” and “norm.”

It is the great merit of Vossler’s stimulating essay that it once more stresses very strongly, against the pure phoneticists and linguistic positivists, that (1) there exists the entirely autonomous scientific task of the interpretation of the ‘values’ and “norms” of literary creations as well as the physiology and psychology of language, “historical” investigations, and those seeking to establish “phonetic” laws; and that (2) the very understanding and ‘‘experience” of these “‘values”” and norms is also a sine qua non for the causal interpretation of the origin and conditionedness of mental and spiritual creations, since the creator of literary productions or of linguistic expressions himself “experiences” them. However, it should be noted that in this case where the values and norms are the means of causal knowledge and not standards of value they come into play in the logical role, not of ‘‘norms’’ but rather in their pure factuality as “possible” empirical contents of a “psychic” event. They are in this role, not different “in principle” from the delusions of a paralytic. I believe that Vossler’s and Croce’s terminology, which tends repeatedly towards the logical confusion of “valuation” and (causal) “explanation” and to a denial of the autonomy of the latter, weakens the cogency of the argument. Those tasks of purely empirical work themselves arc and remain, alongside of those tasks which Vossler calls “esthetics, autonomous, both in substance and in logical function. That such causal analysis is today called ‘folk psychology” or “psychology” is a result of a terminological fad; but this can not, ultimately, in any way affect the objective justification for this type of analysis.↩
This is the view of Schmeidler in Ostwald’s Annalen der Naturphilosophie III, pp. 24 ff.↩
This view, to my astonishment, was also taken by Franz Eulenberg in the Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft. His polemic against Rickert and “his men” is only possible in my opinion precisely because he excludes from his considerations the object the logical analysis of which 1s at issue, namely, “history.” ↩
When I investigate the social and economic determinants of the emergence of a concrete “embodiment” of “Christianity,” for instance, of the provencal knightly poetry, I do not thereby turn these latter into phenomena which are “evaluated” for the sake of their economic significance. The way in which the individual investigator or the particularly traditionally delimited “discipline" defines its “sphere” out of purely technical considerations of the division of labor, is of not logical significance here. ↩
Which procedure, however, according to his remarks on p. 55, can be done after all, really only by "philology".↩
With this we really enter into a discussion of the various possible principles of a "classification" of the "sciences." ↩
It could be the reputed "esoteric" doctrine of U. von Willamowitz against which Eduard Meyer's attack is primarily directed. ↩
The breadth of the foregoing discussions is obviously incommensurate with what "comes out" of them in directly practical results for "methodology." To those who for this reason regard them as superfluous, it can only be recommended that they simply avoid questions bearing on the "meaning" of knowledge edge and content themselves with the acquisition of "valuable" knowledge by concrete research. It is not the historians who have raised these questions but those who have put forward the wrong-headed view, and who are still playing variations on the theme, that "scientific knowledge" is identical with the "discovery of laws." This is definitely a question of the "meaning" of knowledge. ↩
The correctness of this proposition is not affected by Kistiakowski's criticism (op. cit., p. 393) which does not apply to this concept of "possibility." ↩
The categories to be discussed subsequently find application, as may be expressly remarked, not only in the domain of the usually so-called specialist discipline of "history" but also in the "historical" ascertainment of causes of every individual event, including even the individual events of "inanimate nature." The category of the "historical" here considered is a logical category and not one restricted to the technique of a single discipline. ↩
Über den Begriff der objektiven Möglichkeit und einige Anwendungen desselben(Leipzig 1888.) Important bases for these discussion were first set forth by Von Kries in his Prinzipien der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung. It should be noted here in advance that, in accordance with the nature of the historical "object," only the most elementary components of Von Kries' theory are significant for the methodology of history. The adoption of the principles of the so-called "calculus of probability" in the strict sense obviously not only is not to be considered for the work of causal analysis in history but even the attempt to make an analogical use of its points of view demands the greatest caution. ↩
The most deeply penetrating criticism of the use of von Kries' theory in the analysis of legal problems has been made by Radbruch (Die Lebre von der adequaten Verursachung Bd I. NF. Heft 3 of Abhandlungen des von Lisztschen Seminars in which references to the most important other literature are to be found. His analytical articulation of the concept of "adequate causation" can be taken into account only later, after the theory has been presented in the most simple possible formulation (for which reason, as we shall see, the formulation will be only provisional and not definitive). ↩
Of the theoretical statisticians, L. von Bortkiewicz stands in a very close relationship to von Kries' theories. Cf. his "Die erkenntnistheoretischen Grundlagen der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung" in Conrads' Jahrbucher, 3rd Series, vol. XVII, (Cf. also vol. XVIII), and "Die Theorie der Bevolkerungs-Moralstatistik nach Lexis" (ibid. vol. XXVII). The von Kries' theory is also basic for A. Tschuprow, whose article on "Moral Statistics" in the Brockhaus-Ephron Encyclopcedic Dictionary, was unfortunately inaccessible to me. Cf. his article "Die Aufgaben der Theorie der Statistik" in Schmoller's Jahrbuch 1905, p. 421 f. I cannot agree with Th. Kistiakowski's criticism (in the essay, cited earlier, in Problems of Idealism, p. 378 ff. ) which for the time being is, of course, presented only in the form of a sketch with the understanding that a more detailed presentation is reserved for later publication. His central charge (p. 379) is that the theory uses a false concept of cause, based on Mill's Logic; in particular the category of "complex" and "partial cause" which itself rests on an anthropomorphic interpretation of causality (in the sense of "efficacy" (Wirkens). (Radbruch also adumbrates the latter point, op. cit., p. 22 ff.) But the notion of "efficacy" (Wirkens), or as it has been callec more neutrally but with identical meaning, the "causal bond" is entirely insep cable from any study of causes which deals with series of individualized changes. We will discuss later the point that the notion of efficacy need not and must not be encumbered with unnecessary and dubious metaphysical presuppositions. (Cf. concerning causal plurality and elementary causes, Tschuprow's exposition, op. cit. p. 436.) We shall only remark here that "possibility" is a "moulding" "formende" category, i.e., it functions in such a way as to determine the selection of the causal links to be incorporated into an historical exposition. The historical material once formed, on the other hand, contains nothing of "possibility," at least, ideally. Subjectively for the mind of the historian himself the historical exposition only very seldom attains judgments of necessity but objectively the historical exposition undoubtedly is governed by the assumption that the "causes" to which the "effect" is imputed have to be regarded as unqualifiedly the sufficient conditions for its occurrence. (It is, of course, to be clearly noted that an infinity of conditions which are only summarily referred to as scientifically "without interest" are associated with the causes which are deemed the sufficient conditions of the effect.) The use of the category of objective possibility does not in the least involve the conception, long overcome by the theory of causality, that certain links in real causal connections were, so to speak, "hovering about without effect" up to the time of their entry into the causal chain. Von Kries himself has shown the contrast between his theory and John Stuart Mill's (op. cit., p. 107) in a way which is entirely convincing to me. (Concerning this, cf. infra.) Still it is true that Mill, too, discussed the category of objective possibility and in doing so, upon occasion also constructed the concept of "adequate causation." (Cf. Werke, III, p. 262, Gomperz edition.) ↩
Modern law is directed against the agent, not against the action (cf. Radbruch, op. cit., p. 62). It enquires into subjective "guilt" whereas history, as long as it seeks to remain an empirical science, inquires into the "objective" grounds of concrete events and the consequences of concrete 'actions" ; it does not seek to pass judgment on the agent. Radbruch's criticism of von Kries is rightly based on this fundamental principle of modern—but not of all—law. He himself thus concedes, however, the validity of von Kries' theory in cases of so-called unintended damage, of compensation on account of the "abstract possibility of an interfering effect," (p. 71 ) of profit insurance and of the insurance of those incapable of "responsibility," i.e., wherever "objective" causality comes clearly into question. History, however, is in exactly the same logical situation as those cases. ↩
It goes without saying that this judgment does not apply to the individual essays contained in this work, some of which are quite distinquished achievements, although some are thoroughly "old fashioned" methodologically. The notion of a sort of "social" justice which would—finally, finally!—take the contemptibly neglected Kafir and Indian tribes at least as seriously as the Athenians and which in order to make this just treatment really explicit and pronounced, resorts to a geographical organization of the data, is merely childish.↩
We will here consider briefly only one more example which K. Vossler (op. cit., p. 101 ff.) analyzes in order to illustrate why there must be failure in the construction of 'laws." He mentions certain linguistic idiosyncrasies which, within his family, "an Italian linguistic island in the sea of German speech," were developed by his children and imitated by the parents in their conversations with the children; its origin goes back to quite concrete stimuli which are still completely clear in his memory. He then asks: What does folk psychology, and we may add in accordance with his outlook, any "law-seeking science," still wish to explain in these cases of linguistic development? The event, considered in and of itself, is in fact prima facie fully explained and nonetheless, this does not imply that it cannot be an object for further elaboration and use. First, the fact that the causal relationship is definitely discoverable could (at least conceivably—we are only arguing the possibility) be used as an heuristic means in order to test other events of linguistic development in order to see whether the same causal relationship can be confirmed as probable in their case. This requires, however, from a logical standpoint, the subsumption of the concrete case under a general rule. Vossler himself has also formulated the rule as follows: "the more frequently used forms attract the less frequently used ones." But that is not enough. We have said that the causal explanation of the case in question was prima facie inadequate. But it must not be forgotten that every individual causal complex, even the apparently "simplest," can be infinitely subdivided and analzyed. The point at which we halt in this process is determined only by our causal interests at the time. And in the present case, nothing at all is said to the effect that our causal need must be satisfied with the "objective" process enunciated in the rule. Precise observation would possibly, for example, show that the very "attraction" which conditioned the children's linguistic innovations and similarly the parental imitation of this juvenile linguistic creation took place to a very different extent for different word-forms. The question could then be raised whether something might not be said about why for given word-forms, the attraction or the imitation did not happen more frequently or less frequently or did not appear at all. Our need for causal explanation would be satisfactorily met only when the conditions of this frequency of occurrence were formulated in rules and the concrete case could be "explained" as a particular constellation arising from the "joint action" of such rules under concrete "conditions." At this point Vossler would have the repulsive search for laws, isolation, generalization in the very intimacy of his home. And what is more, through his own fault. For his own general conception, "Analogy is a question of psychic power," compels us quite inescapably to ask the question whether absolutely nothing general can be discovered and stated about the "psychic" conditions of such "psychic power relations." And at first glance it forcibly draws in—in this formulation—what appears to be Vossler's chief enemy, namely, "psychology," into the question. Whenever in the concrete case, we content ourselves with the simple presentation of what concretely occurred, the reason for this may be twofold—: first: those "rules" which could be discovered, for instance, by further analysis would, in the given case, probably not afford any new insights for science—in other words, the concrete event is not very significant as a "heuristic means"; and second, that the concrete occurrence itself, because it became effective only in a narrow circle, had not universal significance for linguistic development, and thus remained "insignificant" as a "real historical cause." Only the limits of our interest, then, and not its logical meaninglessness account for the fact that the occurrence of the formulation of linguistic idiosyncrasies in Vossler's family presumably remains exempt from "conceptualization." ↩
The attempt to hypothesize in a positive way what "would" have happened can, if it is made, lead to grotesque results. ↩
Of such and such components of the effect by such and such conditions ↩
We shall deal later with the question of whether and to what extent we have the means of assuring the "degree" of adequacy, and whether so-called "analogies" play a role here, and if so, which role they play particularly in the analysis of complex "total causes" into their "components"—since no "analytical key" is objectively given to us. The present formulation is necessarily provisional. ↩
I scarcely mention the extent to which here again, as in so much of the preceding argument, I am "plundering" von Kries' ideas. While at the same time the formulation thereof is often necessarily inferior in precision to von Kries' own statement. But both of these deficiencies are unavoidable in view of the purposes of the present study. ↩
Binding, Die Normen und ihre Ubertretung, I, p. 41 ff. Cf. also von Kries, op. cit., p. 107. ↩
H. Gomperz, Uber die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Willensentscheidungen, Vienna, 1904. (Off-print from Sitzungsberichten der Wiener Akademie, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, vol. 149), has used the phenomenon referred to as the basis of a phenomenological theory of "decision." I will not take it upon myself to pass a judgment on the value of his presentation of the process. Nonetheless, it seems to me that apart from this, Windelband's—intentionally, for his own purposes—purely conceptual-analytical identification of the "stronger" motive with the one which ultimately "precipitates" the decision in its favor is not the only possible way of dealing with the problem. (Cf. Uber Willensfreiheit, p. 36 ff.) ↩
Kistiakowski is right to this extent. Op. cit. ↩
The unattractiveness of the words does not affect the existence of the logical matter in any way. ↩
It is only where this is forgotten—as happens, of course, often enough-that Kistiakowski's criticisms (op. cit.) concerning the "metaphysical" character of this causal approach are justified. ↩
Here, too, the decisive viewpoints have been in part explicitly presented, and in part touched upon by von Kries (op. cit.) and by Radbruch (op. cit.). ↩
A further essay was to have followed. ↩

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Critical Studies in the Logic of the Cultural Sciences

A Critique of Eduard Meyer's Methodological Views

I

Objective Possibility and Adequate Causation in Historical Explanation

II

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