Essais Science 02 Max Weber EN

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Max WEBER (1864-1920)
Theory tests
science
Second trial :
“Critical studies to serve logic
of cultural sciences ”(1906)
Translation from German and introduced

by Julien Freund
A document produced in digital version by Gemma Paquet, volunteer,

Retired professor from Cégep de Chicoutimi
E-mail: mgpaquet@videotron.ca
As part of the collection: "The Classics of Social Sciences"

Website: http://classiques.uqac.ca/
A library founded and managed by Jean-Marie Tremblay, sociologist
A collection developed in collaboration with the Library

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Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 2
This electronic edition was produced by Gemma Paquet, volunteer, pro

retired spanker from Cégep de Chicoutimi from:
Max WEBER
Essays on the theory of science

[A collection of articles published between 1904 and 1917]
Second trial :
of cultural sciences ”(1906)
A digital edition based on the book Essays on the theory of

science . Translated from German and introduced by Julien Freund. Paris: Bookstore
Plon, 1965, 539 pages. Collection: Research in human sciences.
A collection of essays published between 1904 and 1917.
Fonts used:
For the text: Times, 12 points.

For quotes: Times 10 points.
For footnotes: Times, 10 points.
Electronic edition carried out with the word processor Mi-

crosoft Word 2004 for Macintosh.
Layout on paper format: LETTER (US letter), 8.5 '' x 11 '')
Edition completed on August 2, 2006 in Chicoutimi, Ville de Saguenay, Quebec.

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Contents
Introduction by the translator, Julien Freund
First try : “The objectivity of knowledge in science and politics

social tick ”(1904)
I.
II.
Second trial : “Critical studies to serve the logic of the sciences of

culture ”(1906)
1. Elements for a discussion of the ideas of Édouard Meyer

2. Objective possibility and adequate causality in history
Third essay: “Essay on some categories of sociology comprehen-

sive ”(1913)
1. Meaning of a "comprehensive" sociology.

2. Relationship between comprehensive sociology and psychology.
3. Relationship between comprehensive sociology and legal dogmatic
than
4. Community activity
5. Socialization and corporate activity
6. The agreement
7. Institution and group
Fourth essay: “Essay on the meaning of“ axiological neutrality ”in

sociological and economic sciences ”(1917)
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MAX WEBER
ESSAYS ON THE THEORY OF SCIENCE
TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN AND INTRODUCED BY JULIEN FREUND
Paris, Librairie Plon, 1965, 539 pp. Collection: Research in human sciences
maines, no 19.
The essays published here are taken from

Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre
2. Aufl. (Tübingen, Mohr, 1951).
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Second try 1
Critical studies to serve

to the logic of science
of the culture " (37 )
By Max Weber
[1906]
Return to the table of contents
1 The notes with lowercase letters (a, b, c…) are those of Max Weber, the
others, in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3), are those of the translator. JMT.
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1. Elements for a discussion

ideas of Édouard Meyer.
[215] When one of our best historians feels the need to make
account to himself and to his colleagues about the aims and methods of his work, he does not
can only arouse an interest which goes beyond the circles of specialists, already for the
simple reason that he thus goes beyond the domain of his own discipline and tackles this
him epistemological considerations. It follows, of course, first of all a
a number of consequences of a negative nature. As a result of their development
Currently, logical categories have become the subject of a special discipline.
cialized like others. Also, when you want to handle them with real safety,
is it advisable to maintain with them a daily trade in the image of what is
passes into other disciplines. Of course, Édouard Meyer (38 ), the author of
the work Zur Theorie und Methodik der Geschichte (Halle 1902) which we al-
let us take care, cannot and will not pretend to maintain this constant
intellectual trade with the problems of logic, any more than
the author of these lines. The epistemological reflections that he offers us
in this book do not therefore constitute, so to speak, the medical report-
cin, but that of the patient, and it is as such that they must be appreciated and
understand. The specialist in logic and the theory of knowledge finds
For this reason, many formulations of E. Meyer and maybe there
will he ultimately discover nothing new for his own ends. But that does not harm
to the importance of this writing for the particular disciplines neighboring the history
roof 2 . Precisely [216] the most important works of specialists in
theory of knowledge use arrays formed "ideally" portrayed
both on the aims and methods of knowledge in the different sciences and
2 I hope that for this reason we will not put this criticism, which deliberately protests
poses precisely to unravel the weaknesses of the formulations of this historian, on behalf of
the "mania of the one who thinks he knows everything better" [ Besserwisserei ]. The mistakes a
eminent writer are more instructive than the exactitudes of a nullity in science. We
therefore have no intention of accounting for the positive work of É. Meyer: at
on the contrary we just want to learn, thanks to his imperfections, how he tried
to solve with more or less success certain important problems of the logic of history
roof.
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hover therefore so high, above the heads of the practitioners, that they
hard to recognize oneself with the naked eye in the midst of these discussions. For this reason the
methodological discussions originating in their own environment can sometimes
help them become more aware of their own problems, by
spite and, in a sense, because of the imperfect formulation of the point of view
of the theory of knowledge. Due to his penetrating clairvoyance, the exposition
of Ê. Meyer precisely offers specialists in neighboring disciplines the possibility
to build on a whole series of points in order to settle some questions of
logic that is common to them with "historians" in the narrow sense of the term.
This is the purpose of the discussions which follow. We will begin by elucidating
one after the other a number of particular logical problems, in reference to
reference to Meyer's work, to then examine on the basis of the point of view
to which we have reached a certain number of recent works on logic
cultural sciences. We will purposely start with pu-
surely historic, and it was not until during the subsequent discussions we
we will rise to social disciplines in search of "rules" and "laws",
as a result of the so frequent attempts hitherto made to delimit the partial nature
theory of the social sciences in relation to the natural sciences. He mingled
always the tacit presupposition that "history" is only a pure compilation.
tion of materials or at least a simple "descriptive" discipline which,
so much for the best, would with difficulty accumulate "facts" intended to serve
from building stones to the “real” scientific work that would begin from then on. It
is true, professional historians have unfortunately contributed a great deal
to consolidate this prejudice by the way in which they sought to found the original
nality of "history" in the specialized sense of the term, insisting on the fact that the
"historical" work would be something qualitatively [217] distinct from
"scientific" work, for the reason that "history" would have nothing to do with
"Concepts" and "rules". Since under the persistent influence of
“Historical school”, we also usually give nowadays a “historical” foundation.
risk ”to political economy and that, just as twenty-five years ago, the report
with the theory continuing to remain problematic, it seems judicious to ask
der once again what is basically understood by "historical work" in the sense
logic. It is good to settle this question first on the ground of what
without discussion and by universal consent we call “historical” work,
question with which precisely the work which is the subject of this criticism deals with
first place. Édouard Meyer begins by warning us against
timation of the significance of methodological studies for the practice of history
roof. The most extensive methodological knowledge is not yet helpful.
sounds a historian; inaccurate methodological designs do not determine
necessarily an erroneous historical practice, but prove in the first place
only that the historian has formulated and misinterpreted the correct maxims
your own work. On this point we must essentially agree with Meyer.
The methodology can never be anything other than a reflection on the means
which have been verified in practice, and the fact of taking expressly
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science can no more be the presupposition of fruitful work than the

knowledge of anatomy is not the presupposition of a "correct" approach.
Just like the individual who would like to constantly control the way he walks
according to his anatomical knowledge, the specialist may eventually stumble.
list could experience the same misfortune if it sought to determine the goals
of its work on external bases, based on mediocre considerations.
methodological 3 . If the methodological work - thus obeying what is true -
its purpose - can come to the aid directly at one point or another in the practice
that of the historian, it is precisely because he gives him the strength not to let himself be
to be imposed once and for all by a colorful dilettantism of philosophy. A
science does not allow itself to be founded and its methods progress only by raising and
solving problems which relate to facts [ sachlich ] , but never in-
However, purely epistemological and methodological speculations have not played a role.
a decisive role. These kinds of considerations do not usually take the
lift for the scientific [ Betrieb ] company that [218] when, following
considerable displacement [ Verschiebungen ] from the "points of view" under the
which a subject becomes the object of a study, one comes to think that the new
These "points of view" also require a revision of the logical forms of which
the traditional "enterprise" had hitherto been satisfied and that the result is a
some insecurity about the “nature” of his own work. It is undisputed
table that history is currently in this situation. That is why
Meyer's opinion on the principle insignificance [ Bedeutungslosigkeit ] of the
methodology for "practice" did not prevent him, with good reason, from doing
even of the methodology.
He first devotes his talk to the theories which have recently sought to
transform historical science from methodological points of view and it
thus formulates the conception that he especially submits to critical discussion
(pp. 5 and following):
1. It should be considered as insignificant for history and therefore

as strangers to a scientific presentation:
a) the "accidental",
b) the "free" decision of concrete personalities,
c) the influence of "ideas" on human activity;
However
2. it will be necessary "to consider as a true object of scientific knowledge

than :
3 This could also happen to Meyer if he wanted - as will be shown again - to take
some of his assertions too seriously.
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a) “mass demonstrations” as opposed to individual activity,
b) the “typical” as opposed to the “singular”,
c) the development of "communities," especially of "social classes.

the "or" nations ", as opposed to the political activity of individuals;
and finally
3.historical development should be conceived as a process which

obeys "laws", since it is scientifically intelligible only by research
causes, so that the real goal of historical work would consist in the de-
covered with the "stages of development" of successive human societies
in a necessarily “typical” way and in the integration of historical diversity.
than in this development.
In the following lines we will temporarily leave aside all the

points of Meyer's presentation which serve to discuss more specifically the concept
tion of Lamprecht (39 ). [219]. I also take the liberty of regrouping at my
way the arguments of É. Meyer and neglect some others, even if it means repeating them.
further in the particular discussion of the other sections, following the requirements
gences of these studies which are not, moreover, intended to be simply a criticism.
than Meyer's work.
Meyer first opposes the conception that he combats the considerable role that
play in history and in life in general the "free will" [freier Wille ] and
the "chance" [Zufall], - two concepts which, in his opinion, are "perfectly established
and clear ”.
Regarding first the discussion of chance (pp. 17 and following) É

Meyer obviously does not understand this notion as the objective "absence" of
causes [ Ursachlosigkeit ] ("absolute" chance in the metaphysical sense) nor
as the absolute subjective impossibility of knowing the causal conditions (the
"absolute" chance in the epistemological sense) 4 which presents itself repeatedly.
tive about each new case of a series of events (for example during
of the dice game). He sees it as a "relative" chance, in the sense of a local relationship.
geology between complexes of causes considered separately [ gesondert gedachten
Ursachenkomplexen ] . Despite a formulation which may not always be
"Correct", he takes this term roughly in the sense that the theory of specific logic
cialisée continues to hear it today, mainly referring to the first
mier Windelband work ( 40), despite some detail retouching. In total
4 This “chance” is, for example, the basis of “so-called games of chance” such as the game of dice or the
lottery. The absolute impossibility of knowing the connection between certain aspects of the conditions
which determine the result and the result itself is constitutive of the possibility of
of probabilities ”in the narrow sense.
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he also makes an exact distinction between the causal concept of chance (the "ha-
sard said relative ”) and 2) the totally different concept of teleological chance .
In the first case, the "accidental" effect is opposed to that which should be "expected"
according to the causative elements of an event that have been brought together in a unit
conceptual, which means that the "accidental" is what it is not possible to
cause a causal drift , according to the general rules of becoming, of the conditions
which alone are taken into account, but which results from the intervention of a
factor which is "outside" of them (pp. 17-19). In the case of chance t-
leological, the "accidental" [220] is opposed to the "essential" [Wesentliche], namely that it
it is a matter of constructing for the purposes of knowledge a conception eliminating
certain elements of reality "not essential" for knowledge (those which are
called "accidental" or "singular"), or whether it is a question of judging certain ob-
real or ideal jets as likely to serve as "means" for a
"End", in which case some properties pass alone as practical means.
mentally "important", the others becoming practically "indifferent" (pp. 20-
21) 5 . To tell the truth, the way in which Meyer expresses himself leaves much to be desired (particularly
at the bottom of page 20 where he conceives of this opposition as that of "events
things ”and“ things ”); we will also see later (during the sec-
2), when we discuss his position on the concept of development
ment, that he has not fully explored the logical implications of this problem.
However, what he says is sufficient for the purposes of historical practice.
What interests us at the moment is how it comes back a bit

later, in a passage on page 28, on the concept of chance. " Sciences
of nature, he writes, [...] can say that if we set fire to dynamite a
explosion will take place. But it is impossible for them to foresee in particular cases
if and how it will take place and if on this occasion a determined man will be hurt-
killed or saved, because it all depends on chance and the free will that
natural sciences ignore but which history takes into account. »What strikes
first in this text it is because it links very closely the two notions of
"Chance" and "free will". This becomes even more evident in the
second example that he borrows from astronomy. He declares on the one hand that he is
possible to "calculate" with certainty the appearance of a constellation with the
means of astronomy, that is to say on condition that no "disturbance" affects
tervienne (for example a foreign celestial body that would stray in the system
solar) and on the other hand that it is not "possible" to say in advance if one "observes
vera ”this constellation predicted by the calculation. This example calls for some re-
brands ( 43). In the first place, the intrusion of the celestial body which "goes astray" is
5 This sort of concept of "chance" cannot even be ignored by a discipline which

is only relatively historical (eg biology). LM Hartmann ( 41) do not
mentions in Die geschichtliche Entwicklung (pp. 15 and 25) where he clearly refers to É.
Meyer that this concept of chance as well as that of "pragmatic chance" of which it will be
tion later in the footnote on page 224. Therefore, despite the incorrect wording,
he does not make the "absence of a cause a cause" as Eulenburg believes ( Deutsche Litera-
turzeitung, 1905, no 24) ( 42).
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also, "unpredictable" according to [221] Meyer's hypothesis, and consequently not

only history, but also astronomy knows "chance" in this sense; in
secondly, one can normally "predict" very easily that an astronomer
will seek to "observe" the constellation predicted by the calculation and that it will be carried out
tively observed if "accidental" disturbances do not occur. We have
the impression that, although Meyer interprets "chance" in a definite way,
nist, he has vaguely in mind, without expressing it clearly, that there is an affinity
particularly close between "chance" and "free will" and which it deter-
would undermine a specific irrationality of historical development. Let's examine this from
closer.
What Meyer calls "free will" contains nothing new, in his opinion (p.
14}, no contradiction with the "axiomatic principle of sufficient reason"
which, from his point of view, also possesses in the field of human activity
an unconditional value. He thinks that the opposition between "freedom" and
"Necessity" finds its solution in a simple distinction of our way of
see things. In the latter case we consider the "become" [ das Gewor-
deme ] , so that the activity, including the decision that was actually taken,
then passes for "necessary". In the first case we consider the course of
things "in the process of becoming" [werdend], that is to say as not yet being given and
therefore as not being "necessary", but as a "possibility" among a
infinity of others. From the point of view of a development "in the making" we cannot
never say that a human decision could not have taken another
meaning that the one she actually took (later). " We can not,
he explains, we do without "I want" [ich will] whatever the human action.
Maine. "
A question immediately arises: does Meyer really believe that this

opposition in the way of seeing (between development "in the making" and
for this reason conceived as "free" and the fact "become" that it is necessary for this
reason conceived as "necessary") applies only in the sphere of
human motivation and not at all in that of "inert" nature? Given
that he declares (p. 15) that whoever would know "the personality and the circumstances
these "could predict" perhaps with a very high probability "the outcome,
that is to say the decision "in the making", he seems not to accept this distinction.
Indeed, a truly exact "forecast" [ Vorausberechnung ] of a sin-
gular from given conditions is related in the sphere of nature "inert"
to [222] the following two presuppositions:
1) to the fact that it is purely and simply of elements of the given which are
"Calculable", that is to say which can be represented quantitatively, and
2) that "all" the important conditions of development be known

actually and measured exactly.
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Otherwise - and this is the absolute rule when it comes to the

concrete singularity of a phenomenon, for example the weather which will be one of the
chain days - neither can we get by other than with ju-
gings of probability each time implying a very variable degree of certainty.
But then "free will" would have no special status and the "I want"
would be that the purely formal "fiat" of consciousness according to W. James that the
deterministic criminologists for example 6 have no difficulty in adopting them
also from the point of view of the logic of their theory of responsibility. "Free
will ”means in this case that we attribute a causal meaning to the
"Decision" as, in fact, it is engendered by causes that perhaps we
can never fully discover, but which are nevertheless "sufficient".
No believer in strict determinism would doubtless find fault with it. If he
is therefore only that, we do not understand why the concept of the irrational
ity of the history, discussed on the occasion of the presentation on "chance", cannot
suffice.
However, if Meyer's point of view is interpreted in this way, he must

seem strange that he found it necessary to insist in this context on the "li-
freedom of will "understood as a fact of intimate experience", essential
sand to the individual for his responsibility with regard to his "voluntary participation"
[ Willensbetätigung ] . This would only be plausible if he sought to give history
the mission of "judging" the heroes. It is therefore good to ask oneself in which me-
sure Meyer actually shares this point of view. He notes (p. 16): “We are looking for
to discover [...] the motives which led the political leaders ”- for example
Bismarck in 1866 (44 ) - "to make their decision and we carry, according to this,
a judgment on the correctness of their decision and (Nota bene!) on the value of their
personality. This sentence could lead us to believe that Meyer considers that the
supreme task of history would be to formulate value judgments about the
“historically acting” personality. However, not only its position with regard to
"Biography" that we will mention later (at the end of this section), [223]
but also his very relevant remarks on the incompatibility between "value
intrinsic ”[Eigenwert] of historical figures and their causal significance.
sale (pp. 50 and 51) show undoubtedly that by the notion of value of the
personality referred to in the previous sentence we must or at least we
can logically understand nothing other than the causal "meaning" of
certain actions or qualities of the concrete people in question-
qualities which according to the possible value judgment may be positive, but also
negative, as in the case of Frederick William IV (45 ). As for the "judge-
ment ”concerning the“ correctness ”of these decisions, it can in turn mean
different things: or else 1) again a judgment that is made on the "va-
their ”of the goal which is at the base of the decision, for example the value of the ob-
effective, considered from the point of view of the German patriot, to push Austria out of
of the German Empire - or 2) an analysis of this decision in order to know, if
6 See for example the work by Liepmann, Einleitung in das Strafrecht (1900).
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or rather - since history has answered this question in the affirmative - For-
what the decision to go to war was precisely at that moment the means
property to achieve the goal of the unification of Germany.
We will not raise the question whether subjectively. Meyer has cleared
in fact distinguished between these two ways of posing the problem: only the second
conde 'would obviously be suitable for an argument on historical causality.
than. In fact, in an exposition which proposes to be, not a work of re-
cettes for diplomats, but of "history", this second aspect which consists by its
form in a "teleological" judgment on the historical situation under the
categories of "means" and "end" clearly has the meaning of facilitating a
on the historical and causal significance of the facts, therefore to establish
that at that time we did not "lose the opportunity" to make this decision, because
that - according to Meyer's expression - the "carriers" of the decision had the
"Strength of soul" to stick to it firmly, despite all obstacles. He thus establishes
what causal value should be attributed to this decision and its preconditions
[ Vorbedingungen ] of characterological order and others, therefore in what
extent and in what sense, for example, the presence of these "qualities of character"
constituted a "factor" of historical significance. We must obviously distinguish very
strictly this sort of problem which causally brings back a becoming
history determined by the actions of concrete men of the problem of
tion and the importance of ethical “responsibility” .
[224] One could interpret this last expression of Meyer in the sense
purely "objective" of a causal attribution of certain effects to the qualities
Given "characteristics" and "motives" of the participating personalities,
these being explained in their turn by these character qualities and by
many other circumstances of the "environment" and the concrete situation. Alone-
one thing is sure to strike us is that Meyer just points to-
ment in another passage of his work (pp. 44, 45) the "search for mo-
tifs ”[ Motivenforschung ] as“ secondary ”in history 7 . He alleges as
reasons that this research mostly exceeds the limits of what we
7 It is not clear what is meant here by "search for motives". In any case-,
it goes without saying that we do not regard the decision of a concrete personality as a fact
truly "ultimate" only on condition that it appears to us as "pragmatically" ac-
cidental, that is, if it seems not to be accessible to a reasonable interpretation or
not deserve it, following the example of the confused ordinances of Tsar Paul, inspired by
mence. Moreover, one of the most indisputable tasks in history has always been
to understand the external "actions" given empirically as well as their results in
function of the "conditions", " ends" and "means" of action given historically.
Even Meyer does not do otherwise. In addition, the "search for patterns" - that is to say
the analysis of what has been effectively “wanted” and of the “reasons” for this will - is of a
share the means of preventing this analysis from degenerating into a non-historical pragmatics and
on the other hand one of the main sources of "historical curiosity", - because we also want to
(among others) see " how the will" of man is transformed in its "meaning"
under the action of the web of “historical destinies”.
Page 14
can know with certainty, that it is often only a simple "formu-

genetic relationship 'of an action which it is difficult to explain in the light of the
rials available, so it is better to look at it simply as a
"do ". Although this argument is often relevant in detail, it
is however difficult to logically make it a criterion of distinction with respect to
the explanation of concrete "external" manifestations which often remains just as
problem. Anyway, this design, together with the fact that
Meyer strongly insists on the importance in history of the purely formal factor
of the "voluntary decision" and together with the remark already quoted on the
responsibility, in any case gives us the impression that in reality the design
ethics and the causal conception of human activity or even the "evaluation" and
the "explanation" have in him a certain tendency to be confused. No matter
that we consider the formulation of Windelband, according to which the idea of
sability would be an abstraction of causality 8 , as sufficient or not for
positively found the normative dignity of moral conscience [225] - it has
however the merit of characterizing in a relevant way the way in which the
world of "norms" and "values", seen from the point of view of causality
scientific and empirical, is delimited in relation to the latter.
The judgment which recognizes the correctness of a mathematical theorem has absolutely no
have nothing to do with an investigation seeking to establish how we arrived
psychologically to establish this theorem nor with that which would have for
object to see if the highest form of "mathematical imagination" would not be
possibly that an epiphenomenon [ Begleiterscheinung ] of certain abnormali-
anatomical tees of the "mathematician brain" ( 47). Likewise, it does not serve as a
vantage before the forum of the "consciousness" of knowledge by empirical science
that the personal motive of which we have taken the moral measure is quite simply
causally conditioned. Likewise, finally, when we judge the aesthetic value
than a mess, it is absolutely useless to be convinced that its realization
tion should be regarded as as determined as the work of the genius who
painted the Sistine Chapel. Causal analysis never delivers judgmental judgments.
their 9 and a value judgment is absolutely not a causal explanation.
It is for this reason that the appreciation [ Bewertung ] of a phenomenon, by
example the "beauty" of a phenomenon of nature, moves in another sphere
than that of its causal explanation. For the same reason, making the
historical actors "responsible" to their own conscience or to the
court of a god or a man, as well as any other intrusion of the problem
8 Windelband, Über Willensfreiheit (last chapter), specially chooses this formulation

to eliminate the problem of "freedom of will" from discussions of a criminalist nature.
than. Only one can wonder if it satisfies the criminologists, because
the question of the nature of the causal connection is not unimportant for the application
criminal law standards ( 46).
9 This in no way means that the causal examination of the genesis of an object (for example a
work of art) could not bring very important elements to the "psychological" capacity
to " understand" its axiological meaning. We will come back to that.
Page 15
philosophy of "freedom" in the methodology of history, would remove

as much its character of empirical science as the interpolation of miracles in
its causal chain. Referring to Ranke (p. 20), Meyer naturally dismisses
the miraculous intervention by invoking the pretext of a "strict border
between historical knowledge and religious conception of the world ”. In my opinion it
would have been better not to be seduced by certain developments of Stam-
to which it refers explicitly (p. 16, note 2) and not to abolish the border
equally rigorous between history and ethics. We immediately see how much
[226] methodologically, the confusion between these
various ways of looking at things, when Meyer considers that "this ma-
"(p . 20) - thanks to the ideas of freedom and responsibility given empirically.
cally - a "purely individual factor " would be given in historical becoming.
that, who would never "allow themselves to be reduced to a formula" without "losing the same
suddenly its essence ”and that on the other hand he seeks once again to illustrate
this assertion by invoking the eminent historical (causal) significance of the
singular decision of the various personalities. This old error 10 is particularly
quite dangerous from the point of view of the defense [Wahrung] of originality
logic of history, owing to the fact that it transposes into the sphere of historical science.
that problems which arise from quite other spheres of research and
that it makes believe that a certain philosophical conviction (anti-determinist)
would constitute the presupposition of the validity of the historical method.
What is wrong with the supposition which suggests that the "freedom of
to want ", no matter how one understands it, would be identical to" irrationality "
activity or that the latter would be determined by the former, skip to
eyes. The specific ability to "confuse all predictions", which is also great,
but no more than that of the "blind forces of nature", is the privilege
- of the fool 11 . Indeed, these are the actions that we are aware of having carried out.
FOA rationally we accompany the contrary the highest degree of
empirical feeling of "freedom", which means those we have acquired
compline in the absence of a physical or psychic "constraint", of "affections"
passion and "accidental" disturbances disturbing the clarity of judgment,
in short those by which we pursue a clearly conscious "goal" with
recourse to "means" which are the most adequate according to our knowledge,
that is, according to the rules of experience [227]. If history had only to do
10 I did. a detailed critique of this view in my study, Roscher und Knies

und die logischen Probleme der historischen Nationalökonomie ( 48).
11 We watch the actions of Emperor Paul of Russia at the end of his chaotic reign
as as unlikely to rational interpretation and therefore as also
resistant to any calculation than the storm that destroyed the Spanish Armada . In a case like
in the other, we renounce the "search for motives" not obviously because
we interpret these facts as "free" events, nor only because
their concrete causality would necessarily remain hidden from us - because in the case of the emperor
Paul pathology could perhaps provide us with some information - but because they don't
do not interest us sufficiently from a historical point of view. We'll talk about it again later.
Page 16
activity "free" in this sense, that is to say rational, its task would be infinite.
ment facilitated. Indeed, we could then infer unambiguously the goal, the
"Motive" and the "maxim" of the agent from the means implemented, and all
the irrationalities which form in the vegetative sense of the equivocal expression that
constitutes the “personal aspect” of an activity would be eliminated. As long as
any action which develops in a strictly teleological sense is an application
cation of rules of experience which indicate the appropriate "means" to attain
dyeing a goal, history would be nothing more than an application of these rules 12 .
The fact that the action of the individual cannot be interpreted in such a pu-
rationally rational and that not only irrational "prejudices",
reflection and errors on the facts, but also the "temperament", the "affections
tions ”and“ states of mind ”disturb his“ freedom ”, and consequently also
that its activity participates in very different proportions to the "absence of
empirical "gnification" of the becoming of nature, all this contributes to making it im-
possible a purely pragmatic story. However, human activity shares a precise
this kind of "irrationality" with the singular events of nature.
Consequently, whenever the historian speaks of the "irrationality" of activity
human vity as a factor that disturbs the interpretation of the causal connections
dirty and historical, it does not at all compare empirical historical activity with
the future of nature, but with the ideal of a purely rational activity, it is
that is, with an activity determined quite simply by its end and absolutely oriented
ment according to the appropriate means.
If Édouard Meyer's presentation on the categories of “chance” and “free

will 'specific to historical study tends to introduce more or less
confused with heterogeneous problems in the methodology of history, it is necessary to
in addition to observing that [228] his conception of historical causality contains
striking contradictions. On page 40 he expressly insists that the
historical research is concerned with establishing causal series everywhere and always
proceeding in the direction of the effect to the cause. Just this idea - such as
Meyer's formula 13 - is already questionable. Indeed it is quite possible in itself
to present in the form of a hypothesis the effects that a
12 See on this question the explanations I gave in my study on Roscher and Knies
( 49). A strictly rational action - this is how it could be called - would be a
Pure and simple "adaptation" to the given "situation". Menger's theoretical schemes
(50) include, for example, as a presupposition in itself the strictly ra-
tional to the "market situation" and clearly present the consequences in the sense
of an "idealtypical" purity. History would be nothing more than a "pragmatics of adapting
tation '- to which LM Hartmann, for example, would like to reduce it - if it were not simply
that an analysis of the genesis and the interweaving of the various "free" activities, that is to say ab-
firmly rational from the teleological point of view, accomplished by singular individuals. -
If we strip the concept of adaptation of its teleological and rational meaning as
Hartmann, he ends up becoming totally tasteless for the story, as well as we will still have
the opportunity to show it further.
13 He still says to this place in an unhappy way; “Historical research proceeds by inference
relationship of the effect to the causes. "
Page 17
historical event which is given as a fact or as a phenomenon in

become of recent date and then verify this hypothesis by examining the
"Facts". In reality, as we will see further on, Meyer is thinking of quite another
thing, to this new principle, called "teleological dependence" [teleologische
Dependenz] ( 51) which would govern the causal curiosity of the story. It is further
also incorrect to claim that the escalation of the effect to the cause would be a
peculiarity specific to the story alone. Indeed, the causal "explanation" of a
“Concrete event of nature” proceeds in exactly the same way. Finally,
if Meyer expresses on page 14, as we have seen, the idea that what "is
become ”is to be considered as“ necessary ”and that what is“ in the process ”
is only valid as a simple "possibility", on page 40 on the contrary it puts such
emphasis on the particularly problematic aspect of the relation of the effect to
the cause that he comes to wish that we avoid the very use of the term
"Cause" in history, and that, as we have seen, it discredits the "research
of patterns ”.
We could try to resolve this last contradiction in the mind

even of Meyer in saying that the problematic element of the relation of the effect to the
cause would come from the possibilities limited by principle of our knowledge and
that determinism would remain the ideal postulate. Only, on page 23, he refuses
categorically this way of seeing and on page 24 and following he opens a dis-
discussion which again raises serious objections. Few years ago,
in his introduction to his History of Antiquity, É. Meyer had identified the
relation of the "general" and the "particular" with that of "freedom" and
"Necessity", the two relations being in turn identified with the report of the
"Singular" and "totality", to come to the conclusion that "freedom" and
consequently (see above) the “singular” would reign in the “detail” while
say that the "law" or respectively the "rule" would reign in the "great li-
genes ”of historical becoming. This conception which continues to survive in
many "modern" historians [229] and which, of course, is entirely false
in this formulation, Meyer explicitly disavows it on page 25, referring to
owing partly to Rickert and partly to von Below ( 52). The latter was very particu-
sorely offended by the idea of development "governed by laws" 14 About
of the example chosen by Meyer in the quoted introduction, in which he explains
that the development of Germany towards a unified nation corresponded to
a "historical necessity", while the time and form of this unification
under the aspect of a federal state comprising 25 members insisted on the "singularity
factors operating in history ", von Below made the following objection:"
couldn't things be otherwise? »É. Meyer gives uncondi-
tally right to this criticism. Only it seems to me that it is easy to
see that such a criticism - whatever the judgment one makes on the formulation -
tion of Meyer fought by von Below - proves too much and therefore proves nothing
at all. It is clear, in fact, that this same objection would also be justified where
14 Historische Zeitschrift, LXXXI (1899), p. 238.
Page 18
we all apply, without any difficulty, and certainly von Below and Meyer
understood, the concept of "development governed by law". The fact that a being is
born or will be born of a fetus really appears to us as a regulated development
by laws and yet it is indisputable that things can "take place au-
trement ”, under the influence of external“ accidents ”or of a“ defective ”constitution.
theological ”. During the controversy waged against the theoreticians of the "development
loppement 'it can obviously be nothing other than to grasp correct-
the logical meaning of the concept of "development" and of delimiting its scope,
because obviously it is not possible to eliminate it purely and simply by
arguments like this. Meyer himself is the best example. Indeed,
two pages later already, in a note on page 27 where the concept of Moyen
Age is referred to as a "well-established" concept (?), It again proceeds
entirely according to the outline of his introduction to the History of Antiquity which he
just disavowed. And in the text of the same page he states that the
term "necessity" means only. in history that the "probability" (of a
historical effect resulting from given conditions) "is very high, so that
development as a whole exerts pressure in the direction of an event.
is lying ". However, he certainly did not want to say more with his remark on
the unification of Germany. And, when he emphasizes in this regard that,
despite everything, this unification could possibly not have been done, it is appropriate
to recall that he had also insisted on the possibility of a "disturbance"
[230] of the astronomical forecast by a celestial body which goes astray. In fact, he
there is in this respect no difference compared to the singular events of the
nature, because even in the explanation of nature, as soon as we are dealing with it
of concrete events, the judgment of necessity is neither the only form nor even
the most important under which is manifested the category of causality. It would be
Too long to explain this question in detail 15 .
We will probably not be on the wrong track in assuming that Meyer has come to
be wary of the concept of "development" following his discussions with J.
Wellhausen ( 54 ). We know that these turned essentially (not exclusively)
ment) around the following opposition: should we interpret the development of
Judaism as having been determined essentially from the "inside" (hence
in an evolutionary way) or by the intervention of "external origin" by
concrete historical fatalities (therefore epigenetically), mainly under
the effect of the "granting" of the "Law" on the part of the king of Persia who in this obeyed
political motives (therefore for reasons specific to Persian policy and not, inherent
annuities to the peculiar nature of Judaism); Anyway, in comparison to
the formulation of the introduction to the History of Antiquity one cannot speak
of an improvement when Meyer declares on page 46 that the "universal" appears
as a presupposition having "in substance" (?) a "negative" action or
more exactly restrictive which "would fix the borders within which the
locate the infinite possibilities of historical development ”, while at the question-
15 On this question, see my study on Roscher and Knies ( 53).
Page 19
tion: which of all these possibilities will become “reality”? he

replies that it depends on the 'higher individual factors (?) of historical life.
that ” 16 . It is obvious that by using such language one hypostasis the "universal"
[ das AIlgemeine ] , (and by this term we must understand not the "general environment"
that is sometimes wrongly confused with the "general" [ dem Generellem ] , but the
rule (p. 46), hence an abstract concept) into a force which acts behind history, and
we thus misunderstand the elementary fact, on which Meyer nevertheless clearly insists.
mentally and strongly in other passages, that there is nothing real except concrete and singular.
[231] This questionable formulation of the relations between the "universal" and the
"Particular" is not peculiar to Meyer nor even limited to historians of his
their. On the contrary! It is also at the base of the popular idea, shared
by many modern historians, - but not by Meyer - following which he
In order to rationally build the historical enterprise into a "science
of the individual ”, start by determining the“ concordances ”[ Übereinstim-
mungen ] in human developments, as a result of which a "re-
sidu "in the form of" singularities "[Besonderheiten] and" independent elements "
composables ”[Unteilbarkeiten], of which Breysig ( 56 ) once said that they constitute
killed the "finest flowers" _ In view of the naive opinion which believes that the
vocation of history would be to become a "systematic science", such a
design naturally represents a certain "progress" and it approximates
already much more from historical practice . Nevertheless, it is her turn
great naivety. The attempt to understand the "historical" significance of
Bismarck who would disregard everything he had in common with all
other men in order to retain only what was "particular" to him would constitute a
quite informative and fun attempt for a beginner. Presupposing
(as always, when it comes to logical discussions) the ideal entirety of
materials, one could for example consider as a residue, as one of these
"Fine flowers", the sign of specific recognition of "individuality"
covered by the technique of the criminal police, namely his "fingerprints
les ”, whose loss would then be simply irreplaceable for history. At
case where one would be indignant at such an example by arguing that "obviously"
only "mental" or "psychic" qualities and phenomena should
take into account the historical point of view, one could study his life
daily private. Assuming that we know her completely, she will
would certainly offer an infinity of manifestations of life which do not meet
in no other man in these combinations and constellations, and yet he
them would not be of more interest than fingerprints. If after that
it is objected that "obviously" only the historically "important" elements of
Bismarck's life come into consideration for science, logic would have to
16 This formulation recalls that of certain currents of thought in honor in the socio-school
Russian logic (Michaïlowski, Karjejew and others). In his book Problemen des Idea lis-
mus (ed. Nowgorodzow, Moscow, 1902) Th. Kistiakowski discusses it in the study consa-
created at the Russische Soziologenschule und die Kategorie der Möglichkeit in der sozialwis-
senschaftlichen Problematik. We will come back later (55 ).
Page 20
to reply that this term of "obviously" contains the problem which, in his opinion, is
decisive, given that it asks what is the logi-
only historically "important" elements.
[232] Regarding this kind of attempt, we can make two kinds of remarks.
ques. By always assuming the absolute completeness of the materials, we realize
in the first place that it cannot be completed, even in the future
distant, this exercise of subtraction, and that after having disregarded all
an infinity of "common characters" [ Gemeinsamkeiten ] there would always remain
another infinity of elements so that, even if one zealously pursued
for a whole eternity this effort of abstraction, we would not have approached a
no question: what is basically "essential" for the story in this
mass of peculiarities - We notice in the second place that for the manipulation of
these subtractions one presupposes an absolutely complete intelligence [ Einsicht ]
of the course of becoming causal in a sense such that no science in the world
can even propose it as an ideal goal. In fact, in the realm of history,
such a "comparison" [ Vergleichung ] presupposes that one has already made a
"Selection" by reference to "cultural meanings", and it is this selection
tion which positively determines the purpose and direction of the causal imputation after
to have put out of circuit [ Auschaltung ] a whole infinity of elements, as well
"General" than "particular" of the "given". The comparison of events ana-
logues then intervenes as a means of this imputation, and for sure, to my
opinion too, as one of the most important ways, although most of the
time we are far from making satisfactory use of it. We will see later what
is the logical meaning. .
As shown by the remark on page 48 to which we will come back

again, É. Meyer does not make the mistake of already seeing in the individual as such
the subject of the story. Likewise his considerations on the meaning of the general in
history, according to which the "rules" and the concepts are only
"Means", "presuppositions" of historical work (middle of page 29),
are basically, as we will see again, logically correct. Only the
manner criticized above of formulating his ideas raises, as said, objec-
from the logical point of view, because it is located in the same way as the error that
we just commented.
Despite all these discussions the professional historian will keep when
even the impression that we find in the ideas of Meyer that we criticize here
the ordinary germ of "truth". In fact, it almost goes without saying when a historian
nothing of this value tells us about its own working method [233]. Several
times, it is true, he succeeded in stating in an almost logically correct way.
recte what is exact in its conception. Especially at the top of page 27 where
he says of the "stages of development" that they are " concepts" which can be
serve as a "common thread" to discover and group the facts, and especially
also in the many passages where it operates with the category of "possibility".
Page 21
Only, this is where the logical problem really begins to arise. It

should, in fact, take a closer look at how the structuring of the histori-
that through the concept of development, what is the logical meaning of
the "category of possibility" and how to use it to give shape to
all historical relationships. For having omitted all this, Édouard Meyer,
who undoubtedly "sensed" the correct idea concerning the role that the "rules" of
become play in historical work, has not been able, it seems to me, to
formulate his idea adequately. We will try to do it in a section
special of this study (sub 2). After these remarks, mainly negative
by necessity, on the methodological formulation of Meyer, we want
pending consideration of the discussions he devotes to the
second (pp. 35 to 54) and in the third part (pp. 54 to 56) of his work, at
problem of the "object" [ Objekt ] of history - question that we have already ef-
flowered during the developments we have just made last.
This question can be formulated with Meyer in the following terms: "What
are among the events of which we are aware those which are "historical
ques ”? He responds first of all in a very general way: "Is historical
that which exerts an action and which is past ”[ was wirksam ist und gewesen ist ] .
The "history" therefore consists of the causally important element of a
concrete and singular connection. For now we will neglect all the others
questions which are grafted on this definition to note in the first place that
Meyer already abandons the design he proposed on page 36 on page 37.
It is clear, in his own words, that even "by limiting oneself to what has
exercised an action, the number of singular events ”still remains despite
all infinitely large ”. And then he asks himself with reason: from what
is the "selection that every historian makes among these events" oriented? D-
answer: “according to historical interest. »He adds after having made some
rations that we will examine later that in this respect there is no "standard
absolute "[234] and to show that this is so he gives an explanation which,
as said, abandon the thesis of the limitation of the "historical" to what
"Exercises an action". It takes as a pretext a remark that Rickert used to
as an example and declares: "The fact [...] that Frederick William IV renounced
German imperial crown constitutes a "historic" event, while it
is perfectly indifferent to know which tailors were
ted his uniforms ”( 57), but he adds at the bottom of page 37: “No doubt,
for political history, the tailor in question will remain historically most of the time.
completely indifferent, but we can very well admit in spite of everything
that it can represent a historical interest for a history of fashion for example-
ple or for a history of the tailoring profession or prices, etc. "
This remark is undoubtedly relevant; however, if Meyer wanted to examine
things a little closer, he could hardly escape him than the "interest"
that we find in the first case and that we find in the second
have important differences in their logical structure and that whoever
Page 22
not taking care risks confusing two equally different categories, what-
that often confused, than those of the "raison d'être" and the "raison de
know "[ Realgrund und Erkenntnisgrund ] . Since this example of the tailor
is not entirely unequivocal, let us first try to elucidate this difference by
choosing a completely different case which particularly highlights the confusion
if we.
In a study entitled Entstehung des Staates [...] bei Tlinkit und Iroke-
sen 17 , K. Breysig tried to show that there are certain phenomena among these tribes
nomenes which he interprets as constituting the "origin of the State from a
parental constitution ”, so that these phenomena would take on the importance
representative of a species. In other words, they would represent the form "typi-
that "of the constitution of the States, and consequently they would have, as he says, a
“Validity” and even “ almost universal historical significance ”.
Now, by obviously presupposing the correctness of Breysig's construction, the

things are manifestly presented in the following way: the very fact of
the formation of Indian "states" and the way in which it was carried out have never been
that a really minimal "significance" for the causal set of development-
ment of universal history. No fact , " important" of [235} the political structure
culture and culture of the globe has not been influenced by it, that is to say
lets bring it down as to a "cause". The nature of the formation of these states and
undoubtedly their very existence were "indifferent" to the conformation of
political and cultural relations of the United States today, which means
that between these two series of phenomena of causal connection does not exist
demonstrable, while for example the repercussions of certain
Themistocles are still sensitive today - annoying as that may be
for us this observation which contradicts the project of a historiography [ Ges-
chichtsschreibung ] impressive of an obedient "historical development"
to an overall plan. In case Breysig is right, the meaning of the
knowledge of the formation of these States, acquired through its analysis, would be
for our knowledge [ Wissen ] on how states are formed in general
of an importance which, in my opinion, would mark an era. Indeed, if the design of the pro-
cessus elaborated by Breysig took on the value of a "type" and constituted
"New", we would be able to construct certain concepts, which, abstrac-
tion made of their cognitive value for the construction of concepts useful for a
theory of the state, could be used at least as heuristic means.
ques in the causal interpretation of other historical developments. In addition
very. terms, this process means nothing as a historical raison d'être ,
but (according to Breysig) it has an absolutely considerable significance as a reason
its to know. Knowledge of Themistocles' decisions, on the other hand, does not
17 Schmollers Jahrbuch, 1904, p.483 (58 ). I naturally do not go into the detail of this
study to discuss its positive value. On the contrary, I presuppose the correctness of all
affirmations of Breysig as also that of all the other examples of this kind that I will have
opportunity to use as an illustration.
Page 23
means nothing for example for psychology or for any other

science that constructs concepts: we understand, without needing to do
appeal to "legal sciences", which a man in power could, in
given situation, to decide how he went about it, and the fact that we
understand it is undoubtedly the presupposition of the knowledge of
concrete causal connection, but it does not constitute any enrichment of our
conceptual knowledge of generic order [ gattungsbegriffliches Wissen ] .
Let us take an example in the field of "nature". Concrete X-rays

that Röntgen saw gushing out on his screen left some concrete traces which,
according to the principle of conservation of energy, must have even today
repercussions somewhere in the cosmic system ( 59). But the "signifi-
cation 'of these concrete rays in Röntgen's laboratory did not consist of
in their character as a real cosmic cause. On the contrary such a process -
like any "experiment" - is only taken into consideration as a
[236] because of the knowledge of certain "laws" of becoming 18 . It is
exactly the same, of course, with the cases that E. Meyer quotes in a note to
bottom of the passage we are criticizing (note 2 on page 37). He reminds us that "the
most indifferent people whom we come to know by ha-
Sard (through inscriptions or documents) acquire historical interest
because we succeed in knowing through them the circumstances
the past ". The same confusion arises even more clearly when the
even Breysig - if my memory serves me correctly - thinks he can reduce to nothing
(in a passage that I cannot find for the moment) the fact that the selection
is oriented in history according to what is "significant" and individually "important
so much ”, citing as a pretext that research has reached some of its
18 This does not mean that these X-rays could not also take the figure of "facts
historical ”, taking place for example in a history of physics. This one could
among other things to be interested in the "fortuitous" circumstances which contributed to provoke this day.
there, in the laboratory of Röntgen the constellation which brought the radiation, which by
consequently leads causally - this is only a supposition - to the discovery of the "law" in
question. It is clear that the logical status raised by these concrete rays in this framework would be
entirely different. This is possible because in this case they played a role in a
context linked to values (for example that of "scientific progress"). We might say
that this logical difference would only be the consequence of taking a leap into the
proper domain of the "sciences of the mind", by neglecting the cosmic effects of these rays
concrete. In reality, it matters little whether the concrete object "valued", for which these rays have
had significant causal "significance", was "physical" or "psychic" in nature,
provided that it had a meaning for us, that is to say that we attribute a value to it.
Once we have presupposed the effective possibility of knowledge oriented towards this
point, the concrete cosmic effects (physical, chemical or other) of these rays
concrete could (theoretically) also become, where appropriate, "historical facts",
condition however - which in truth it is difficult to construct - that the causal development
on the basis of these effects has led to a concrete result which would constitute a "historical individuality.
risk ”, that is to say which would be“ valued ”by us as universally significant in
its individual uniqueness. It's only because we don't see how it is
could be that this attempt does not make sense, although the thing is theoretically pos-
sible.
Page 24
most remarkable results thanks to "shards" [Tonscherben] or other

something like that. Similar arguments are quite "popular" today.
ment and their affinity with the "uniforms" of Frederick William IV as well as
the "indifferent persons" found on inscriptions of which Meyer speaks is
indisputable. However, the confusion we have just discussed is very much
so much. Because, as said, the "shards" of Breysig and the "indifferent people"
of Meyer - no more besides [237] the X-rays of the laboratory of Röntgen
are never integrated as a causal link in the historical whole, but
some of their characteristics become means in order to know
some historical facts. In turn these may be of importance, the
if necessary, or for the "construction of concepts", therefore again as
means of knowledge, for example to know the generic "character"
of certain artistic "eras", or else for the causal interpretation of rela-
concrete historical statements. In the logical use of the facts given in the re-
Cultural bedriddenness, therefore, must be made 19 on the one hand between:
1) the construction of concepts which uses as examples of "facts

singulars ”in the sense of“ types ”representative of an abstract concept, which
say as means of knowledge and on the other hand;
2) the integration of the "singular fact" as a link, that is to say as " reason-
his being " in all real, so concrete, using also, among others
the products of the construction of concepts, either on the one hand as heuristic means
ticks, or on the other as means intended for the presentation of a question. This
difference envelops the opposition between what Windelband calls procedure
“Nomothetic” and Rickert “naturalistic” procedure (ad 1) and on the other hand the
logical goal of the "historical sciences of culture" (ad 2) (60 ). It contains in
at the same time the only legitimate meaning allowing to call history a science of
reality [Wirklichkeitswissenschaft]. It means - and the previous expression does not
can signify nothing other than in history the singular and individual elements in-
trent into account not only as a means of knowledge, but
quite simply as an object of knowledge, just as the causal relationships
sales are important not as a reason to know, but as a reason
to be. For the rest, we shall see again how inaccurate is the popular idea and
naive according to which history is a simple description of pre-existing realities
aunts or a simple reproduction of the "facts" 20 .
19 Max Weber wrote there, on the sidelines of the princeps edition : “Jump up! To intercalate
this sentence: Where a fact comes into play as an example of a generic concept
that, it is a means of knowledge, but every means of knowledge is not the exemplary
of a kind ”.
20 The expression "science of reality" in the sense that we give it here remains whole-
ment conforms to the logical essence of the story. The misunderstanding contained in the interpretation
popular use of this expression, when she sees it only as a simple "description" without presupposition.
sitions, has been the subject of a conclusive development by Rickert and Simmel (61).
Page 25
This is the case with the example of Rickert's “tailors” [238] criticized by Meyer.
like shards or "indifferent persons" known by the inscriptions.
The fact that determined tailors delivered the King of Prussia with dis-
completed has, in all likelihood, only a causal meaning while
quite minimal, even for the historical and cultural causal set of the "evolution
of fashion ”or that of the“ tailor's trade ”. It would only matter if he
was the result of this concrete delivery of historical e ects , which means if the
personality of the tailors or if the fortune of their business had been causally
"Important", from any point of view, for the transformation of
fashion or tailor's trade and if this historical circumstance had at the same
time was causally determined by precisely delivering these uniforms.
On the other hand, it is certain that the cut of the uniforms of Frederick William IV and
the fact that they came from specific workshops (e.g. Berlin) can
have as means of knowledge for determining fashion, etc.,
exactly the same 'meaning' as any other susceptible element.
ble to facilitate fashion research at this time. In this case, the uniforms
of the king are taken into account as examples of a generic concept to
construct, they therefore only have the value of a means of knowledge, while the
refusal by the king of the imperial crown, which had served as an element of comparison
sound, is important as a concrete link in a historical whole , that is
say as real cause and effect within a series of real and determined changes
born. This distinction is absolutely fundamental from a logical point of view and it
will undoubtedly remain so for eternity. Even if these two points of view which differ
toto coelo can intersect in intertwining as varied as possible in
the practice of cultural scientists - something that happens cons-
and is the source of the most interesting methodological problems.
feeling - it is nonetheless true that no one will understand the logical essence
that of "history" which does not know how to distinguish them carefully.
All in all, Édouard Meyer presented on the relationship between these categories
logically different lines concerning what is historically "important"
two radically incompatible points of view. On the one hand he confuses, like
as we have seen, in connection with the "historical interest" that we take in what
historically exerts an "efficiency", the real links of historical connections
riques (refusal of the imperial crown) and the facts (the uniforms of Frederick
William IV, inscriptions, etc.) which may become important for history
as a means of knowledge. On the other side [239] - and that will be the question
which we will deal with now - it accentuates the opposition between
"What exerts a historical action" and all the other objects of our knowledge
actual or possible that it comes to making assertions about the limits of
the "scientific
imposing couldinterest" of history
only strongly suchtheir
deplore as allimplementation.
the friends of his
Hework already so
writes,
in fact, at the bottom of page 48: “I believed for a long time that what is characteristic
ristic, that is to say the specifically singular trait by which an institution or
an individuality is distinguished from other analogues, would be the decisive factor of
Page 26
selection that the historian must make. This is undoubtedly so, but it does not
be taken into account for history only insofar as we can
let us grasp ... the particular nature [Eigenart] of a culture only in its
characteristic features; so it is never a question, from the point of view of history, that
in a way that only helps us to understand [...] the historical action exerted
by this culture. These remarks are quite correct, as all the
your previous explanations; the same is true of the consequences that Meyer
derives from it, namely that the popular conception of the "meaning" of the individual
and personalities in history poses the problem badly, that the "personality" does not
never be in totality, but only by its causally im-
bearing in the historical context such as history constructs it, that the signifi-
historical cation of a concrete personality, as a causal factor, has nothing
common with the general "human" meaning of this same personality.
as "intrinsic value", finally that the "inadequacies" of a personal
being in a prominent position can be causally important.
This is all perfectly correct. Despite this, it remains to give an answer to the
question: is it fair, or let us say rather in what sense is it fair to say that,
from the point of view of history, the analysis of cultural contents has no other goal than that of
to understand the effectiveness of the cultural phenomena in question?
We immediately grasp the logical significance of this question when we consider
the consequences that Meyer draws from it.
He first concludes (p. 48) that “existing situations are never in

themselves object of history, but that they become so insofar as they are
historically effective ”. It follows that it would be impossible to analyze "under
all aspects ”[240] during a historical account (including a
history of literature or art) a work of art, a literary production,
constitutional provisions, mores or the like and that
this analysis would not even have a place there, given that it would always be necessary to
welcome elements that have "never had any historical action",
whereas the historian is obliged to collect in his exposition many "details
apparently secondary to a system '(for example from a legal system
constitutional) because of their causal importance. This is why he pulls in par-
of this principle of selection in history this other consequence than the
biography would be a "philological" discipline and not a historical one. Why ?
"Its object," he writes, "is the personality given in oneself, in its totality, and not
as a historically effective factor, so that the fact that a personality has
exerted an effective influence is only the presupposition, the reason which invites us
to devote a biography to him. As long as the biography remains a
biography and that it is not a history of the hero's time, it cannot
to fulfill the task proper to history, which is to expose a historical event .
Faced with such an assertion, we must ask ourselves: Why grant this status to
share with "personalities"? Is it by chance the "events" as by
example the battle of Marathon or the Persian wars would enter into "total
té ”in a historical account, including therein, in the manner of homecoming descriptions
Page 27
risks, all specimina fortitudinis? It is clear that in these cases we do not hold
also account that decisive events and conditions for the whole
historical causal ble (62 ). This is so, at least according to the logical principle, of-
then that history separated from the mythology of heroes. And now that
is it really biography? It is clearly wrong (or else it is a
simple rhetorical hyperbole) to say that "all the details [...] of the external life
and intimate of the hero ”must enter into a biography - although the“ studies
goethean ”which Meyer thinks perhaps can lead him to believe. It's about
only in the latter case to collect the materials in order to collect everything
which could possibly be of importance to Goethe's story, either to
title of direct element in a causal series - therefore as historically "fact"
important - either as a means of acquiring knowledge of historically important facts
so many, therefore as “sources”. However, it remains clear that in a biography
of Goethe's scientist do not come into consideration as part of the description
tion than the facts which are truly "significant".
[241] We come up against here, it is true, an ambiguity of the logical meaning of the
concept of meaning. It must therefore be subjected to an analysis which, as
will see, is able to shed light on what is basically "grounded" in the design
de Meyer, but also the inadequacies in the formulation of his theory, in
as long as it only makes "what historically exercises an action" the object
Of the history.
To clearly grasp the different points of view from which the "facts" of
cultural life can come into scientific consideration, we will choose
as an example the letters from Goethe to Mme de Stein. It is certainly not -
let's say it right off the bat - the given and perceptible "fact" of the scribbled paper that comes in
taken into account for the story. It is, in fact, only a means of knowing this
another "fact", namely that Goethe felt the impressions he expresses, that he
put them in writing and sent them to Mrs. de Stein and that he received from her
answers whose approximate meaning can be guessed by correctly interpreting
the "content" of Goethe's letters ( 63). This fact, which must be inferred by <4 interpreted
tation ”of the meaning of his letters, possibly using“ scientific ”means
auxiliaries, but which in truth we understand on reading could first
1) be integrated directly, as such, into a historical causal whole.

The asceticism for example of this period of his life associated with a passion of a
unheard-of violence has obviously left deep traces in the development
of Goethe, who did not even fade when his existence took another turn-
nant during his trip to the South. However, one of the indisputable tasks of
ture of the literature consists in inquiring about their effects on the "personality"
literary works of Goethe, to look for traces of them in his creations and to "interpret them
ter ”causally, as far as possible, by showing their relation to the experiments.
riences that he lived during these years. The facts to which these letters relate
testimony are here "historical" facts, which means that they constitute,
Page 28
as we have seen, real rings of a causal chain. But ad-

let us now - naturally, the likelihood of, this supposition and
others that we will sometimes do not matter at all - that we can prove
sit in some way or other that these experiences have absolutely had no
no influence on the personal and literary development of Goethe, which
say that none of the expressions in his life that "interest " us [242] would have
been influenced. Then
2) these experiences could nevertheless arouse interest as a

means of knowledge. They could first of all present, as they say
usually something "characteristic" for the historical singularity of
Goethe. This means that they might give us some hints - it doesn't
not whether it was really so - on a way of driving and
to conceive of life [ eine Art von Lebensführung und Lebensauffassung ] which was
specific to Goethe throughout its existence or for a fairly long period.
and who had a decisive influence on expressions of character
personal and literary, which we are interested in from a historical point of view.
than. The "historical" fact that in this case we will integrate as a real link in
the causal connection of his life will be, then this "way of conceiving life" -
that is to say the collective conceptual set [ eine ko1lektiv-begrifflicher Zusam-
menhang ] of Goethe's personal "qualities", innate or acquired through education.
tion, environment and during the various fortunes of life and (perhaps) also of
"Maxims" that he consciously appropriated, according to which he oriented
his life and which partly determined his behavior and his creation. Being
given that this "way of conceiving life" is a conceptual collectivum which
is "expressed" in the various singular events of his life, the experiences
experienced in contact with Mme de Stein would undoubtedly also be
real elements of a "historical reality", but, in the case of our hypothesis, it
is clear that basically they would not be taken into account as such
for our sake, but as "symptoms" of this "way of conceiving
life ”, that is to say as a means of knowledge. Their logical relationship with
the object of knowledge has therefore taken on another meaning.
Let us admit further that this is not so and suppose that these experiences
do not contain anything characteristic in any respect for Goethe's originality
compared to his contemporaries and that they would constitute something which
responds only to a "type" of conduct of life specific to certain environments
Germans of that time. In this case they would not add any new element.
calf for the historical knowledge of Goethe, but they could
3) under certain conditions arouse our interest as a paradigm com-

mode and usefulness of this "type" of conduct of life, in short as a means of knowing
sance of the originality "characteristic" of the spiritual habitus of these environments. In
this case, the "historical" fact would consist, according to our hypothesis, in the natural
particular of this habitus "typical" of these environments and in the way of expressing
Page 29

this conduct of life unlike that which we meet at other times
[243], among other nations and other social strata. This fact would be interesting
manage as real cause and effect in a causal whole of the history of culture
and one could "interpret" it causally from the historical point of view within
of a "history of German customs" by contrasting it for example with the sigisbée
Italian or other customs of this kind, or, in the event that these differences na-
nationalities would have no meaning, in a general history of the customs of this period.
than. - Suppose further that the content of these letters would be of no use
in this case. We could still show that with regard to certain points
"Essential" phenomena of the same kind are regularly encountered under
certain cultural conditions and that relatively to this point the experiences in
question do not reveal any particular connection to German culture or to the culture
18th century, but manifestations common to all species of
culture; under certain conditions to be formulated in a precise concept. In this case,
it would be for example
4) the role of a “cultural psychology” or of a “social psychology” of

determine by means of analysis, of insulating abstraction [ isolierende Abs-
traktion ] and generalization of the conditions under which these elements
muns usually present themselves, to "interpret" the reason for this regular order
and express the "rule" resulting in a genetic concept of nature generalized
rique [ genetischen Gattungsbegrff ] . These absolutely generic elements of the former
experiences of Goethe without any importance for the determination of his
individual originality would, however, be of interest in so far as they are
would simply be the means to develop this generic concept. - And in-
end,
5) it must be admitted a priori that it is possible that these "experiences"

contain absolutely nothing characteristic for any social strata nor
for no cultural era. In the absence of any reason likely to arouse
an interest of a "scientific and cultural" nature, one could conceive that in this
case - it does not matter that this is indeed the case - a psychiatrist interested in
to the psychology of eroticism could use them under all kinds of points of
"convenient" view as "idealtypical" examples of certain aberrations
ascetic, just as Rousseau's Confessions can, without a doubt,
be of interest to the neurologist. It is of course also necessary to take into
consideration that certain various elements of the content of these letters may serve
at the same time all these different scientific aims of knowledge - of which
our enumeration is far from exhausting all the "possibilities" - just like [244]
the same elements can serve any of these different purposes 21 .
21 It goes without saying that this does not prove, for example, that logic would be in error when it
draws a rigorous distinction between these views - possibly even within
of the same scientific presentation. This misunderstanding is the basis of some absurd objections
made to Rickert.
Page 30
Let's recap. We have seen that the letters to Mme de Stein or more precisely
the content of Goethe's expressions and experiences that they share with us.
vrent have taken on various "meanings". Going up from the last to the
first we see that
a) in both cases (nos. 4 and 5) they are the example of a genre and they are
therefore means of knowing the general essence of the experiences
in sense 4 and 5; - than
b) they constitute a "characteristic" element of a collectivum and by

therefore they are means of knowledge of the singular and indi-
video of this collectivum (nos. 2 and 3) 22 ; - than
c) they are a causal element of a historical whole (no 1). In the cases
(a) (that is to say nos 4 and 5) one cannot speak of "signification" from the point of view
of history only insofar as the generic concept constructed using this
singular example can become important under certain conditions - that we
we will see later - for the use of the control [ Kontrolle ] of the historical proof-
than. On the other hand, when Meyer limits the "sphere of history" to "what is
effective ”- following what corresponds to No. 1 or (c) of the previous table - it
is impossible that this could mean that the second category of cases of "if-
gnification ”(those in division (b) remain outside the scope of history.
in other words, there are facts which are not themselves elements of series
historical causal factors, but which serve to reveal the facts that deserve to be
grés in these causal series. This is the case, for example, with the elements of the
response from Goethe who "illustrate", that is to say, make known
the decisive “originality” of its literary production or else the essential aspects
tials of the development of manners in cultivated society of the eighteenth century. [245]
In short, there can be no question of history neglecting once and for all this
category of facts, either in a "Goethe story" (in case no. 2), or in
a "history of manners" in the 18th century (in case no. 3). Besides the work
Even de Meyer shows that he cannot do without this kind of means of
awareness. What is meant by this is that these elements are unique-
ment of "means of knowledge" and not "of the elements of the historical whole.
risk ”. However, the biography and the "studies on antiquity" do not use in another
meaning these "characteristic" details. It is therefore clear that it is not here that
finds the stumbling block for É. Meyer.
22 The discussion of this special case will be the subject of a more precise study in one of the sections
following. We will therefore intentionally leave open the question of knowing in
to what extent it should be considered from a logical point of view as a separate case. For reasons
sounds of greater security we will only add for the moment that this does not disturb any
nothing the clarity of the logical opposition between historical use and nomothetic use
facts. In fact, in no case does the concrete fact come into play in this regard in a way.
"historical" lesson, that is to say as a link in a concrete causal series, in the sense
that we have established here.
Page 31
But there is still another kind of higher "meaning" which dominates.

all of the ones we have analyzed so far. Let's stay in our example
ple. Goethe's experiences are not only meaningful to us
of "cause" or "means" of knowledge. It may be indifferent to us that she-
them tell us about anything new or even known about
from the conception of the life of Goethe or the culture of the 18th century or even
the “typical” development of cultural events; in the same way it can be us
indifferent to knowing that they have causally had any influence whatsoever on the
development of Goethe. As it is and without eyeing [ Schielen ] towards "signi-
external fications which it does not contain, the content of these letters is for
us an object of appreciation [ Bewertung ] in its singularity and it would even be
if we didn't know anything about the author at all. Two things interest us here
in the first place: first of all the fact that this "appreciation" is attached to what in
the object is singular, incomparable, unique and irreplaceable from the literal point of view.
and then the fact (this is the second point) that this evaluation [ Wertung ]
of the object in its individual singularity is a reason for making it the object of
meditation as well as intellectual elaboration - we purposely avoid
speak for the moment of "scientific" elaboration - which we call interpretation -
tation. This "interpretation" ( 64) can almost always take two directions
confused in fact, which must however be rigorously distinguished from the point of view
logic. It can be and is first of all an axiological interpretation [ Wertin-
terpretation ] , which means that it prepares us to "understand" the content
"Spiritual" of the correspondence in question, therefore to be made explicit and
to raise [246] in the light of the articulated "evaluation" [Werten] what we "feel"
tones' confusedly and indistinctly (65 ). To this end, the interpretation is null
itself obliged to issue or "suggest" a value judgment
[ Werturteil ] . What it actually "suggests" during the analysis is rather
of opportunities to bring the object to the values [ Wertbeziehung ] . In addition, the
"Taking a position" that the object evaluated arouses in us obviously does not need
no positive index: for example the ordinary pedant who stigmatizes the morals
modern as well as the Catholic moralist will face the relations between
Goethe and Mme de Stein, even if they "understand" them, an essential attitude.
totally negative.
If we take successively the Capital of

Karl Marx, Faust, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Rousseau's Confessions ,
the experiences of Saint Teresa of Avilla, of Mme Rolland, of Tolstoy, of Rabe-
lais, of Marie Bashkirtseff or the Sermon on the Mount, the result is a diver-
infinite number of "axiological" positions and the "interpretation" of these
objects, so different in value, possesses, on condition that it is worth the
effort and that we apply to it what we presuppose here for the needs of the
cause a single common element, of a formal character , which tends by its meaning to us
reveal the different "views" and "application points" possi ble of
" Evaluation ". It is not in a position to grant a precise assessment, only if it is
Page 32
patible with "science", only where, for example about the value of pen-
EEM Capital of Marx, standards are taken into account (for pre-
feels those of thought). But even in this case an objective "evaluation"
of the object (in our example, the logical "correctness" of the categories
lines of Marx) is not something that necessarily corresponds to the goal of a
"Interpretation" and elsewhere where we are dealing with "cultural values" and
no to "standards" it would constitute a task which goes beyond the limits of
the “interpretation”. It is open to an individual to deny personally, without
no logical or practical absurdity - for that is the question - any "validity"
to the products of the literary and artistic culture of Antiquity or to the feeling
religiously contained in the Sermon on the Mount, as it may
to refuse it to this mixture of ardent passion and asceticism with all the
fine flowers of the poetic life contained in the letters to Madame de Stein. It does not
In no way follows that this negative “interpretation” [247] would therefore be “undermined”.
cloud of all value ”, because it can notwithstanding and precisely for this reason him
bring a "knowledge", in the sense that it broadens as we usually say its
Intimate "life" and its "intellectual horizon", that it makes it capable of seizing pos-
sibilities and nuances of a certain lifestyle and to reflect on them, to develop
per intellectually, aesthetically and morally (in the broadest sense
of the word) by differentiating his own ego and making his "soul" so to speak
more “value sensitive”. The "interpretation" of intellectual creation is
thetics and ethics operate here in the same way as the previous one and there is therefore
so many "legitimate" reasons to affirm that "history" is in a certain sense of
the “art” than to designate the “sciences of the mind” as “sub-
jectivantes ”[ subjektivierend ]. But here we are reaching the limit at the same time
extreme of what we can still call "reflexive elaboration of the empirical",
because it is no longer a question of "historical work" in the logical sense.
It is clear that what Édouard Meyer calls (on page 55) "a philological study
that of the past ”corresponds to this form of interpretation which starts from relations by
timeless essence of "historical" objects, that is to say of their "validity
axiological ”[Wertgeltung], and helps us to“ understand ”them. This is what indi-
that the definition he gives of this aspect of scientific activity, when he
states on page 55 that it "transposes the products of history into the present and
considers them for this reason statically [zuständlich] ”, that it treats its ob-
jet "not in the making or as exercising an action in history, but as
of being ”[seiend] and therefore considers it, unlike history,
in all its aspects [ allseitig ]. This is therefore an "exhaustive interpretation
singular creations ”, first of all literature and art, but it also aims,
as Meyer expressly says, political and religious institutions,
customs and representations and "finally the whole of the culture of a period
considered in its unity ”. It goes without saying that this kind of "interpretation" has no
nothing "philological" in the sense of a specialized discipline in the field of
linguistic. Indeed, the interpretation of the literal "meaning" of a literary object and
the "interpretation" of its "ideal" content or of its "meaning" understood as
Page 33
a value-oriented meaning can actually go hand in hand too

often as possible and even with good reason, it is nonetheless true that they are
two fundamentally different processes from a logical point of view. One, the
Literal "interpretation", [248] constitutes - less because of the value and the in-
intensity of intellectual work that it demands that because of its logical status - the
elementary preliminary work of all forms of scientific elaboration and
the use of "sources". Considered from the point of view of history, it is a
technical means to verify "facts": it is therefore a tool of history
(as also many other disciplines). The other, interpretation in the sense
of an "axiological analysis" [Wertanalyse] - we will thus designate ad hoc the
process that we described above last 23 - does not maintain in all
case not this kind of relationship with history. Given. that this form of inter-
interpretation ”is neither oriented towards the search for“ causally ”important facts
for a historical connection or towards the abstraction of "typical" elements used.
sands by the construction of a generic concept, but that on the contrary it
designs his objects "for themselves" (in the sense in which Meyer speaks of the "totality
of a culture ”in its unity, for example that of Greek civilization in its
apogee)
be in anyand thatcategories
of the it makes people aware ofwhich
of knowledge their relationship to values,
we have studied more it does not
high the direct or indirect relations with the "historical". Above all, we would not know
not consider it as an "auxiliary science" of history - in the sense in which Meyer
understands it from "philology" at the bottom of page 54 - since it considers its object to
from totally different points of view than in history.
If we had to look for the difference between these two ways of seeing only in
what one (axiological analysis ") considers its objects" statically "and the other
be (the "history") as subject to a "development" or again in that
one would be a "transverse" section and the other a "longitudinal" section in
in the past, their opposition would obviously have very little importance. For
hatching his sons (we see it in Meyer's own work), the historian is also
obliged to start from certain “given” preliminary points that he presents “stati-
cement ”, and during the presentation it always happens that at some point he gathered
seems the "results" of "development" into a "state" [Zustand] by a
kind of cross section. Meyer will undoubtedly not refuse the quality of work
"Historical" to a monographic description devoted to the composition so-
church of the Athenian ecclesia at a determined period [249], provided that it was
proposes to contribute to the elucidation of the causal and historical conditionality of
this assembly on the one hand and its influence on the "state" of the political situation.
than in Athens on the other. Likewise Meyer will certainly admit that the difference
between these two ways of seeing lies in the fact that the "philological" work
(in the sense of an "axiological analysis") takes where appropriate and perhaps norma-
23 We call it this essentially to distinguish it from the interpretation which is only literal.
rale. The fact that in reality this distinction is regularly neglected cannot constitute a
obstacle to their logical separation .
Page 34
take into consideration the facts which are also important for
the “history”, but possibly also others which remain foreign to the “history”.
toire ”, therefore facts which 1) are not themselves rings of a
historical causal chain, and which 2) cannot be used as
means of knowledge of the facts of the first category, in short which do not generally
ral with the "history" none of the reports we have reviewed so far.
What can these other relationships be? Or should we admit that the analysis
axiological would be foreign to any relation with historical knowledge,
whoever she is ?
To advance the discussion let us return to our example of letters to

Mme de Stein and add Karl Marx's Capital as a second example .
These two works can obviously become not only the object of a
Literal "interpretation", which we will however leave out of place, but
also of an interpretation in the sense of "axiological analysis" which helps us to
"Understand" the relationship to values contained in these works; what wants
say that the letters to Mme de Stein are analyzed and interpreted "psychologically"
in the same way that we interpret Faust or examine the sum
ideas of Marx's Capital and that we expose its ideal - and not historical -
ques - with other thought systems that debate the same issues. TO
This effect, the "axiological analysis" first treats its objects, following the terminology
de Meyer, in a "static" way, which means more exactly: she starts
of theirhistorical
purely particularand
quality of "value",
causal, regardless
insofar as of any
this "value" liesmeaning
beyond
history. It remains to be seen whether she confines herself to this role. Of course not! And
this as well in the case of an interpretation of Goethe's letters as of that
the Capital of Faust, of the Oresteia or paintings of the Sistine Chapel. Indeed-
fet, she is forced to remember, if only to achieve her own goal,
that this ideal object of value has historically been conditioned, that many
nuances and turns of thought and feeling remain "incomprehensible"
as long as [250] we do not know the general conditions, for example the "environment
social "and the very concrete circumstances of the days during which
Goethe wrote these letters or as long as we neglect the situation and the problems which arise
posed at the time when Marx was writing his work, as well as the evolution of his
sée. The success of the "interpretation" requires a careful historical examination of the
conditions under which these letters came into being, both as regards
the more modest than the vastest conditions of personal life and do-
mestic of Goethe, but also of the whole of the cultural life of the world
"Surrounding" in the broadest sense of the term, insofar as it has had a meaning
causal as to the particular character of these letters - that is, he had a
influence in Meyer's sense. Indeed, the knowledge of all these conditions
causalities helps us to "understand" the psychic constellation which gave birth to
Page 35
sance to these letters and at the same time the letters themselves 24 [251], all true
that it is moreover that the causal "explanation" taken in itself and practiced
à la Düntzer ( 67) here, as everywhere else, only provides "information
fragmentary ”. It goes without saying that the interpretation which we have called "analysis
axiological ”is the guide of the other, of that which is“ historical ”, that is to say
causal. The first reveals the "valued" elements of the object whose explanation
causal constitutes the problem of the second or even the "axiological analysis"
creates the starting points where the causal regression is tied and gives it the
Determining "points of view" without which it could only move towards
24 In spite of himself, Voßler testifies on this point when he analyzes a fable by

La Fontaine in his work as brilliant from the point of view of style as it was intentionally
partial, Die Sprache als Schöpfung und Entwicklung (Heidelberg 1905, p. 84). The only task
legitimate of the "aesthetic" interpretation consists in his opinion (as in B. Croce, of whom he is
close) to prove that literary creation is an adequate “expression” and in what
sure she is. He cannot, however, prevent himself from referring to "psychic" particularities.
quite concrete of La Fontaine (p. 93) and even beyond to have recourse to the "environment" and to
the “race” (p- 94). It is not possible to understand why the causal imputation as well as the ex-
plication of development which also and ceaselessly calls upon generalizing concepts
(we will come back to this later) should be abandoned, hence why they would become
unnecessary for interpretation where the sketch really becomes most attractive and
more informative. When Voßler comes to repudiate again the concessions he had just made
do so on the pretext that he accepts "spatial" and "temporal" conditionality only in relation to
the "matter" (p. 95) and declares that the "aesthetic form", which alone is essential, is
a "free creation of the mind", we must not forget that it adopts a terminology close to
that of Croce: the notion of "freedom" becomes the equivalent of that of "conformity to standards.
mes ”, the form being considered, according to Croce's opinion, as the exact expression and
as such identical to the aesthetic value . This terminology is questionable because it
creates confusion between “being” and “norm”. The great merit of the brilliant work of Vo-
ßler consists in the fact that, in the face of glottologists and positivist linguists, he again puts
emphasis with, force on the following points:
1) that alongside the physiology or psychology of language, "historical research
ques' and studies on phonetic laws there is another scientific task entirely
autonomous which consists in the interpretation of the "values" and "norms" of literary works.
res and
2) that personal understanding and individual experience of these values and norms
are an indispensable presupposition of the causal interpretation of development and
conditionality of intellectual creation, as long as the creator of a literary production
raire or the valid expression "lives them by experience". However, it should be noted that
in the latter case, where they are means of causal knowledge and not standards of
value, they are taken into account from a logical point of view [251] not as
"Norms", but on the contrary to that of pure facticity, in so far as they constitute
“possible” empirical values of a “psychic” becoming , in principle no other than the illu-
sion of a paralytic. I believe that Voßler's terminology as also that of Croce which
tends constantly to the logical confusion between "evaluation" and "explanation" and to the negation
autonomy of the latter weakens the persuasive force of the argument. The tasks of
purely empirical work are and continue to remain absolutely independent of both
logical point of view and from the practical point of view, besides that which Voßler designates by the
name of "aesthetic". The fact that causal analysis is currently referred to as
"Collective psychology" or even by that of "psychology" quite simply, is only the consequence.
quence of a terminology in vogue, but ultimately this does not change the posi-
tive of this way of studying things (66).
Page 36
a boundless expanse. It can happen - and many people believe -

that there is really no need to implement all this labor apparatus
historical to give a historical "explanation" of a series of "letters
of love ”, however sublime they may be. Sure! But we can say the same thing, if
disrespectful as it sounds, the Capital of Karl Marx and in general all the
objects of historical work. Knowledge of the materials Marx used
to build his work or the elements that conditioned the genesis
of his thought, as well as any historical knowledge of the constellation of
current political power or the development characteristic of the German state,
may appear entirely bland and empty or at least secondary and even de-
clouds of meaning when taken care of for themselves; logic or experience
scientist cannot dispute it, as Meyer expressly agrees
himself, in a way, it is true, somewhat casual.
It is worthwhile for our purpose to stop a few moments longer at

the logical essence of this "axiological analysis". We tried to interpret and
refute for good the idea [252] very clearly developed by Rickert, following
which the construction of the "historical individual" is conditioned by a "relation
port to values ”, by“ alleging ”that this relationship is identical to a subsumption
under general concepts 25 . It would be concepts such as 'state',
"Religion", "art" and the like which would constitute the "values" in
question, and the fact that history "relates" to it its objects and thus obtains
Specific "points of view" would not present - some add - no different
rence with the proper way of analyzing "chemical, physical aspects" etc.,
events in the natural sciences 26 . These are curious misunderstandings.
due about what one hears and which is only possible to hear under the no-
tion of "relation to values". An immediate "value judgment" on an object
concrete or else the theoretical exposition of its relations to "possible" values
all the same do not mean that I subsume them under a specific generic concept.
undermined, for example under that of "love letters", "political training" or
of "economic phenomenon". On the contrary, "value judgment" means
that I "take a position" in a concrete and determined way in the face of the singularity
concrete object. And the subjective sources of my position, of my
Decisive "axiological points of view" do not constitute a
"Concept", nor a fortiori an "abstract concept", but a "feeling" and a
“Will” entirely concrete, of a totally individual nature and composition.
dual or even, where appropriate, the awareness of an absolute "duty" [Sollen].
also concrete. If I now pass from the stage of immediate appreciation
diate of the object to that of the theoretical and interpretative reflection of the "relations of
25 See Schmeidler in the Oswalds Annaleen der Naturphilosophie, III, p. 24 (68).

26 To my astonishment I also read similar remarks in Franz Eulenburg in
the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft. His controversy against Rickert and "his friends" (?) Is not possible
in my opinion that because he excludes from his considerations the object which it is precisely a question of submitting-
be to logical analysis, namely "history".
Page 37
value "possible, that is, if I transform these objects into" historical individualities
risks ”, this means that I myself become aware and I make people aware of
cience to others, by means of interpretation, of the concrete, singular
the sole and ultimately unique "ideas" (let us for now use this
term borrowed from metaphysics) in which the political structure in question
tion (for example the "State" in the time of Frederick the Great) or [253] the persona
ity in question (for example that of Goethe or Bismarck) or the literal work
in question (for example, Marx's Capital ) were "incarnated" and "ac-
compline ”. And, if we set aside the always dangerous metaphysical language and
elsewhere superfluous, one can also formulate things as follows: this means that I
lopps in an articulated form the points of application of the "evaluative attitudes
ves' possible that the segment in question of reality reveals and because of which
he claims to have a more or less universal meaning - that we must distinguish between
greedily for its causal "meaning" .
Marx's Capital shares the quality of "literary production" with the

ink and paper combinations of the weekly catalog of editions
Brockhaus and what makes him, in our eyes, a "historical" individuality, this
is not all the same its belonging to the genre called "literary products", but
instead the "content of ideas" absolutely unique that we find con-
annoyed. Likewise the bourgeois of the Café du Commerce , emptying his beer bottle in the evening.
beer shares the quality of "political event" with the complex of papers
printed and written, talking, exercises on a maneuvering field, thinking
clever, but also extravagant views of our princes, diplomats, etc.
we bring together in the singular table of thought called "German Empire",
because we attribute to it a determined "historical interest", which for
"We" is absolutely unique and linked to innumerable "values" (which are not
not all of a “political” nature). To think that one could express the "signifi-
cation ”of such content (for example that of an object like Faust
according to its "relation to values." possible, or in other words, the content of interest
RET we carry a historical individuality) by a generic concept is
obviously absurd. Indeed, the impossibility of exhausting the richness of the "content"
of these objects in patterns likely to grab our interest constitutes precisely
the characteristic of "first" rank individuality. Certainly we are looking for
sometimes to classify certain “important” orientations in relation to historical values
toric rings and we then make this classification the basis of the division of the
work in the cultural sciences, but this obviously does not change anything
fact that 27 [254] would be just as extraordinary to think that a "value" having
a “general meaning” (= universal) can become a “universal” concept.
27 When I look at the economic and social conditions of the formation of an “ex-
concrete pressure ”of Christianity or of Provençal chivalrous poetry, I do not
at all of these manifestations [254] phenomena which have "value s" only by virtue of
their economic significance . The way in which the different scientists or the various disciplines
traditionally separated demarcate their "domain" for purely technical reasons.
The issues relating to the division of labor are obviously of no logical importance here.
Page 38
salt ”(= general) than to believe that one could express the truth in one
proposition or to accomplish morality in a single act or to incarnate the beautiful in one
only work.
But let us return to Édouard Meyer and his efforts to take a closer look at the
problem of historical "significance". The reflections that we have just
have, in fact, moved us away from the sphere of methodological problems in order to
bring us to touch those of the philosophy of history. At the level of a re-
bending which is maintained strictly on the ground of the methodology there is no
another way to justify the selection of certain singular elements in order to
be the subject of a historical study than that which proceeds by reference to the present
this effctive of a corresponding interest. At this level where we do not take care of the meaning
of this interest, the relation to values could not effectively signify more.
So Meyer is reassured, and rightly so if we place ourselves at this point of
view, considering that the existence of this interest, however mediocre it may be, is sufficient for the
roof. However, certain obscurities and contradictions in his explanations
trent with sufficient clarity how annoying is the absence of an orienta-
tion of its reflection according to the philosophy of history.
“The selection (in history), says Meyer on page 37, is based on historical interest
risk that the present finds to an effect or a result of development, so
that she feels the need to follow in the footsteps of the elements that produced her. " And one
a little further on, on page 45, he interprets this sentence by saying that the "historian
finds in himself the problems which allow him to approach his subject ”. Those
statements agree entirely with what we have said; in addition, it is
there from the only exact meaning that it is possible to give to Meyer's declaration (which
we have criticized above) saying that in history we "go back from the effect to the
cause ”. It is therefore not [255] question as he believes that there is a way
proper to history to handle the concept of causality, because the "historical causes
significantly ”are only those that the regression, starting from one segment
of culture to which one “attributes a value”, must necessarily welcome
read as an essential element in itself: this is what has been called the principle-
of "teleological dependence", although this notion is quite ambiguous. Se
then asks the question: should the starting point of causal regression always
be an element of the Present, as Meyer suggests if we trust the text
that we have just quoted? In reality, Meyer does not have a well-defined position on
this point. We note, as all our explanations have already shown, that
that especially with him a clear indication of what he basically means by "efficaci-
historic tee ”. Indeed, following the objections made to it by others, if
we admit that only "that which exerts an influence" [ was wirkt ] finds place in
history, one cannot escape, whatever the subject of the historical account, by
example its History of Antiquity, to the following cardinal question: what state
final [ Endzustand ] and what elements of this state should be taken as a basis for the title
effect caused [ Bewirkte ] by development. history to be described and by
therefore to decide which facts to eliminate as historically
Page 39
insignificant because they had no demonstrable causal "meaning"

for any of the elements of this final state? Certain expressions of Meyer for-
would make us believe that the objective situation of contemporary "civilization"
raine - I summarize very quickly - would in fact be decisive. Would not enter
therefore in a History of Antiquity that the facts whose influence would still have
nowadays causal significance for our present political condition
that, economic, social, religious, ethical, scientific and other aspects of our
cultural life, therefore those whose "action" we still directly perceive
in our contemporary world (see p. 37), while another fact would be fine
to have had an absolutely fundamental meaning for the particular structure
of ancient civilization, it would have absolutely no importance (see below
on page 48). If Meyer set out to apply this principle in earnest, his
vre would end up reducing to almost nothing - I am thinking for example of the volume it has
devoted to Egypt - not to mention that many people would find there
more what they expect from a history of Antiquity.
At the top of page 37, however, he leaves another way out by writing:
“We can also be educated on what has been historically effective
[256] in contact with the past, as we imagine one of its moments as
here. »In this case we can, of course, start from any point of view.
and introduce by the imagination any element of civilization as a
"efficient" factor, but then the delimitation that Meyer wanted precisely
establish collapses. In spite of everything, the following question would always be asked: what is
the element that a history of antiquity chooses as a selection criterion for
determine what is important to a historian? By adopting the way of
see Meyer, we would have to admit a "final state of the history of antiquity",
that is to say a cut [ Einschnitt ] which would pass for the "final moment" ap-
property. But what is it? The reign of Emperor Romulus or that of Justinian
where perhaps more probably that of Diocletian? In this case, all that is
"Characteristic" of this terminal period , of this "age of old age" of the
tiquity would undoubtedly and fully enter the description as
figuring its outcome, since these characteristics would form the ob-
throw of the historical explanation; moreover, before anything else, all
the facts that have been causally essential (effective) in this process of
"Aging". On the other hand, it would be necessary to eliminate from an exposition devoted for example
ple to Greek civilization all that at that time (at the time of the emperor
Romulus or Diocletian) no longer exerted any “cultural influence”. Being
given the state of literature, philosophy and in general of civilization to
at this time, we should exclude a terribly important part of what has
general "price" in our eyes in a History of Antiquity. Fortunately
we do not have to deplore the absence of it in Meyer's work itself.
A history of Antiquity which would propose to retain only what exercised

influence causal on a any later period appear - over-
all if we look at political events as the real backbone of
Page 40
history - as just as empty as a "Goethe story" which, following

Ranke's expression, "would mediate" this author for the benefit of his epigones, that is
that is, who does not retain among the elements of Goethe's originality and among the
manifestations of his life that those who continued to "have an influence" in
Literature. On this point, the scientific "biography" is in principle not different.
unlike other historical genres delimited in another way. The thesis of
Meyer therefore turns out to be inapplicable in [257] the formulation he gave it.
But perhaps there is also a way out allowing the contradiction to be lifted.
between his theory and his practice. We have already encountered with him the idea that the history
torien finds his problems "in himself", to which he adds this remark:
“The historian's present is a factor that cannot be eliminated from any former
historical pose. »Should we conclude that we are already in the presence of
of "efficiency" which quite simply confers on a fact its "historical" quality.
because a modern historian is interested in the singularity of an event because
that it happened thus and not otherwise [ so-und-nilcht-anders-
Gewordensein ] and that he manages to interest his reader in this way? In
reality Meyer's explanations clearly confuse (on the one hand p. 36 and
the other pp. 37 and 45) two different concepts of "historical fact": on the one hand the
elements of reality which are, so to speak, "evaluated for themselves" as
objects that arouse our curiosity by virtue of their concrete singularity; from au-
include the elements called "causes", that is to say historically "effective"
in Meyer's sense, that our need to understand historical conditionality
“assessed” elements of reality encounter during causal regression.
We can call the former historical individualities, the latter causes
(real) historical or even distinguish them in the manner of Rickert by designating the
some as "primary" historical facts and the others as historical facts.
"secondary" risks (69 ). It is obviously not possible for us to limit strictly-
a historical description to the only historical "causes", that is to say to the
"secondary" facts from Rickert or "effective" from Meyer, only on condition
to have previously established unambiguously what historical individuality is
that which will be exclusively the subject of the causal explanation.
Whatever the immensity of the primary object that we have chosen - let us take
as an example the current state of the whole of "modern civilization", that is
say the Christian civilization, capitalist and constitutionalist which, of Europe,
"Radiates" over the whole world, therefore a formidable aggregate of ë va-
their cultural "which is considered as such under the" points of view "
more diverse - the causal regression which proposes to "explain" it historically -
ment will be forced to neglect, especially if it dates back to the Middle Ages and
antiquity, an enormous quantity of objects, because, at least in part, they do not
are not causally important. However, objects thus neglected can awaken
our "evaluative" curiosity "for themselves" [258] considerably and
thus become in their turn "historical individualities" who call for their
aside a new "explanatory" causal regression. Of course you have to agree
that in this case "historical" curiosity remains specifically mediocre, because
Page 41
sound of the absence of causal significance in relation to a universal story

of contemporary civilization . The development of the civilization of the Incas and
of the Aztecs left - proportionately - only a very small amount
of historically important traces, so that a universal history of ge-
nesis of contemporary civilization in the sense that Meyer understands it, can possibly
you can afford to pass them over in silence without any inconvenience. If he
is thus - it is only a presupposition on our part - all that we know of the
development of these civilizations will not be taken into account in the first place nor
as a “historical object” nor as a “historical cause”, but essentially
as a means of knowledge for the construction of theoretical concepts
of the culture. In the latter case, for example, they will have a positive interest in
construction of the concept of feudalism of which they will be a specific example and
unique or negative in so far as they will serve to delimit certain concepts that
we use in the history of European civilization as opposed to
heterogeneous contents of these other civilizations, and we will thus grasp genetically
with more rigor, thanks to the comparative method, the historical singularity of
development of European civilization (70). It is naturally the case with
even elements of ancient civilization that Meyer should strike out from a historical
roof of Antiquity oriented according to the state of contemporary civilization, if
wanted to be consistent with himself, since they were not historically
"Effective". However, as regards the Incas and Aztecs, we cannot
despite everything logically or practically exclude the possibility of attributing to certain
some singular contents of their civilization the character of an "individuality"
historical, which means that they can become the object of an analysis "interpreted
tative ”in relation to their“ relationship to values ”, but also of a
"Historical", so that the causal regression will question certain facts of the
development of these civilizations which will become in relation to this object
Historical "causes".
When a historian composes a history of Antiquity, it would be a heavy

mistake to believe that it would only contain facts which have causally exercised
an "action" on contemporary civilization, because it deals only with facts
which seem significant to us, either in their "primary" aspect in so far as they are
“Evaluates” as “historical individualities”, or in their “se-
condaire ”in so far as they have causal importance (in relation to“ individua-
"preceding" or to others), therefore insofar as they are "causes" [259].
It is our interest oriented according to "values" and not only the relation
causal relationship between our present civilization and that of the Greeks which
states the limits of the field of cultural values that are decisive for a history
roof of Greek civilization. Thus, the epoch that we consider most of
time - by an evaluation which is moreover entirely "subjective" - as
killing the "apogee" of Greek civilization, that which goes roughly from Aeschylus to
Aristotle, will occupy its place in all history of. Antiquity, including that of
Meyer, by virtue of the "intrinsic value" of its cultural content. This situa-
tion can only change if, in some future, we do not find
Page 42

more in the cultural works of this period than an immediate "relation" to
values' which would be just as low as the one we currently find
in a "song" or in a "conception of the world" of a tribe of the interior
of Africa, which arouses our interest only as a representative of a
gender, therefore as a means for constructing concepts or as a "cause"
( 71).
The only meaning that can be given to Meyer's concept of "efficiency"

understood as a criterion of "history" lies in the fact that, as
men of our time, we have a somewhat im-
carries which, allowing to "characterize" [Ausprägung] the singularity of
contents of ancient civilization. On the other hand, we see how much the concept of "ef-
ficacity ”as Meyer understands it is an assembly of heterogeneous elements in
considering the way in which it motivates the specific curiosity that the story carries
to "civilized" peoples. "This is based, he considers (on page 47), On the fact
that these peoples and civilizations have had an influence infinitely more
rable than others and continue to exercise it over the present. This remark is
undoubtedly correct, but it is by no means the only reason for the interest
determinant that we bring to their significance as a historical object, and we
in particular cannot deduce from this that this interest becomes all the stronger as,
as Meyer puts it (in the same place), "they (civilized peoples) are more
advanced ”. Indeed, the question of the "intrinsic value" of a civilization that
one starts here has nothing to do with that of its historical "influence". Edward
Meyer here confuses "that which has a value" with "that which is causally important.
so much ". So exact that it is without any restriction that any "story" is written in
starting from points of view founded on axiological interests [Wertinteressen] of the
present time and that consequently each to historical matter, since the in-
interest changes under the influence. ideas of value, it is, however, just as certain
tain that this curiosity can attribute a "value" and the character of "individual
historical duality to elements of a "dead" civilization, that is to
elements to which no factor of contemporary civilization [260] can be found.
lets report by causal regression . This is true of minor objects like
letters to Madame de Stein as well as larger objects such as
elements of Greek civilization whose influence on contemporary civilization
raine has not been felt for a long time. We have seen it, Meyer concedes it
himself, without however drawing the consequences, when he admits (p. 47) that he is
possible to "imagine" as present a moment in the past - albeit
fter the remarks made in the middle of page 55, only "philology" could
basically do it. In truth he recognizes precisely by this that the elements of a
"dead" civilization can also become historical objects, without
respect for the presence of an "influence" which would still be felt by our
days, and that consequently the "characteristic" values specific to Antiquity
for example, can also be decisive for the selection of facts and
the orientation of historical work in a history of Antiquity. - But there is
more.
Page 43
When, to explain that the present does not become the object of "history",
Meyer invokes exclusively the reason that we do not yet know and that we do not
can not yet know what are the elements that will prove to be "effective
cient 'in the[ future,
historicity it is certain that(subjective)
Ungeschichilichkeit] this allegation concerning
of the present isthe non- at least
relevant,
within certain limits. It is only the future that will definitively decide the
causal significance of the events of the present, as "causes". It's not
however not the only aspect of the problem, even if as here one makes natural-
of external elements, such as the absence of sources, for example
full of archives, etc. Not only has the immediate present not yet become
a historical 'cause', but neither is it a historical 'individuality'.
that no more than a "lived experience" [Erlebnis] is the object of empirical knowledge.
that at the moment when it is accomplished "in me" or "around me". Any "eva-
to express ourselves in this way, a “contemplative” moment.
tif ": it not only contains neither the first value judgment im-
medium of the "subject" which takes a position, but its essential content is, as
as we have seen, a knowledge of possible "relations to values" ; she presupposes
therefore, at least theoretically, the faculty of changing "point of view" with regard to
of the object. We usually express this by saying that we must first find a
"objective" attitude [261] with regard to the experience lived before it is
comes "object of history", which precisely does not mean in this case
that it exerts a causal "action".
We do not intend to prolong the discussion here on the relationship between

“Lived” and “know”; it suffices that these long considerations make it clear-
not only that Meyer's definition of the concept of "history" by
"effective action" is not satisfactory, but also why it is not.
What is lacking above all is the logical distinction between the historical object
"Primary" or cultural individuality that one "evaluates" and to which one is attached
the interest we take in causally “explaining” its development and the
"secondary" historical facts to which causal regression attributes the structure
singular of the "individuality" that one has "evaluated". We do this imputation with
the intention to prove in principle its "objective" validity as an experimental truth.
knowledge in a manner as absolute as that of any other knowledge
experience in general, and only the greater or lesser abundance of
tériaux settles the question, which is not at all logical but practical, of the possibility of
dye this goal, like what happens in the field of the explanation of a
concrete event of nature. What is "subjective" in the determined sense that
we will not discuss again, it is not the determination of the "causes
its ”history of the given object to be explained, but the delimitation [Abgrenzung]
of the historical "object", of "individuality" itself because in this matter the
decision belongs to the "relations to values" whose "conception" is
setting to historical variations. Consequently it is on the one hand incorrect to believe
with Meyer (on page 45) that we are never able to achieve a
Page 44
"absolute and unconditionally valid" knowledge of anything eh

history: this assertion is not justified with regard to the "causes", - and
on the other hand, it is just as incorrect to say that it is not “otherwise” with the
validity of knowledge in the natural sciences than that of
historical knowledge: this assertion is not justified in the case of
dividualités "historic, that is to say about the my Niere whose values"
play a role in history and the modality of these values (no matter how
one conceives the "validity" of these "values" as such, since in any case
cause it remains in principle different from the validity of a causal relation understood
due
bothasasexperimental truth,
also ultimately eventoifstandards).
linked by chance it was necessary to conceive of philosophical
Because the "points of view" oriented according to "values" [262], under which we
consider the objects of culture and thanks to which these generally become
objects of historical research, are variable, and since they are and
as long as they are, ever new "facts" become historical.
torically "essential" in an ever new way - assuming all
days that the "sources" remain the same, which it is essential to admit
when it comes to logical discussions. This kind of conditionality by
of "subjective values" remains in any case foreign to the natural sciences
tend towards the model of mechanics and it constitutes precisely the opposite
specific relation between history and natural sciences.
Let’s sum up. Insofar as the "interpretation" of an object, is, in the

common sense of the term, a "philological" interpretation of the "literal meaning by
example ”, it constitutes a preliminary technical work for the use of history.
Insofar as it analyzes "interpretatively" what there is
that in the peculiarity of certain cultural periods, of certain personalities
or of certain singular objects (a work of art, a literary object), it is
service of historical construction of concepts. Considered from the point of view of
logic then either plays the role of auxiliary, insofar as it contributes to
know causally certain significant elements of a historical whole
concrete as such or conversely that of direction and orientation, as
that it interprets according to the possible "relations to values" the content of an object
- Faust, Orestia (72 ), the Christianity of a specific period, etc., and it poses
thus to the historical work of "tasks", that is to say, it becomes their Presupposition.
sition. The concept of the "civilization" of a people or of a concrete period,
that of "Christianity", of Faust, but also for example - something that we have -
Too easily blamed - the concept of "Germany", etc. are concepts of value
singular in so far as they constitute the object of historical work , in so far as they
are formed by relationships with valuable ideas.
Let us finally focus on this question: when we take as the object of a

analyzes the "evaluations" by which we approach the facts, we
let us engage, according to the aim of our study, or in the way of the philosophy of
history or in that of the psychology of historical curiosity. And, if by
Page 45
against we submit to an "axiological analysis" a concrete object, that is

say if we "interpret" its particularity to penetrate it "by suggestion"
its possible "evaluations" or that we propose, as we say [263]
usually (in a very incorrect way) to "relive" [Nacherleben] a work
cultural, we have not yet accomplished historical work. This is what he
there is some truth in Meyer's formulation. However, this moment constitutes the strong-
my absolutely essential formans of the historical "interest" that we carry
to an object, from its "primary" conceptual elaboration into "individuality" and
finally, causal work in history which then becomes possible and acquires a meaning.
It may be that in most cases - as happens at the start of any "history -
toire ”of political communities, mainly that of the State of which we are
member - the assessments of everyday life instilled by education have already
given its form to the object and paved with prejudices the avenues of historical work,
so that the historian may believe that by approaching the study of these objects "firmly
established ”which
no longer need apparently
a special - I mean
axiological apparently and
interpretation, it is according to ordinary usage -
found in its
"Real" domain. However, as soon as he tries to leave the main road for
get new and insightful views on the "particular political nature"
of a State or of a political genius, he is then obliged, from the logical point of view, to
proceed exactly like an interpreter of Faust. Meyer is absolutely right
to say that there. where the analysis remains at the stage of an "interpretation" of the value
trinsic of the object, where we neglect the work of causal imputation and where we
avoids asking the question of the causal "meaning" of this object in relation to
other more significant and more current cultural objects, we are not yet
truly entered into historical work, for the historian can only see in it
building stones for historical issues . Which, in my opinion, is insulting
ble is only the way Meyer justifies his point of view. In particular
to link, when he does the "static" and "systematic" elaboration of a subject
the fundamental antithesis of history and also when Rickert in turn (73 ) -
after having previously seen in the "systematic" the specific element of
natural sciences and naturalistic processes in the sphere of life
social and spiritual as opposed to the processes specific to the sciences of
culture - recently began to formulate the concept of systematic science of
culture, it seems to me appropriate to raise in a later section the question
tion: what are basically the various meanings of the notion of "systematic" and what
are the various relations [264] that they maintain as well with the explanation
historical than with that which is specific to the natural sciences 28 .
The way of treating ancient civilization, especially Hellenic,

that Édouard Meyer calls "philological method", in short the configuration of
"Classical studies", is first of all practically ordered by the precondition.
alable of knowledge of the language in order to master the materials. However
28 Indeed, it is only then that one can approach the discussion on the different
possible principles of a "classification of sciences".
Page 46
However, these "studies" are not only conditioned by this, but also by
the originality of certain eminent specialists and above all by the "importance"
that the culture of classical antiquity has had until now for our own
education of the mind. Let us therefore try to formulate in a radical way and therefore
purely theoretical the points of view which it is in principle possible to adopt from
before ancient civilization.
1) The first affirms the absolute validity of the value of ancient culture;
we find its imprint in humanism or also for example in the work
by Winckelmann (74 ) and finally in all the varieties of what is called the
"Classicism" that we will obviously not examine. in detail. According to this
conception, in case we push it to its extreme consequences and for
as much as the "Christian" character of our civilization and the products of rationalization.
lism do not introduce "complements" or "modifications", the elements
elements of ancient culture are quite simply the at least vir-
tual of the culture in general, not because they had a "causal influence" in
sense of Meyer, but because they must exert a causal action on our
education by virtue of the absolute validity of their value. Also ancient culture
is it in the first place the object of the interpretation in usum scholarum with a view to raising
his own nation at the height of a cultivated people. This is how philology in
broadest sense of "knowledge of what is known" (Erkenntnis des Er-
kannten) (75 ) sees in principle. in antiquity something suprahistoric
and timeless validity.
2) The second point of view, of a modern character, is fundamentally opposed to the

previous. For him, ancient culture is so infinitely foreign to us in its
singularity that it is absurd to want to give "to the very large number" a glimpse
of its true "essence". It is a sublime object of evaluations for
few rare men who absorb themselves in this highest form of human-
nity, definitely gone, which it is not possible to repeat in its essential features.
sential, so that it becomes for the latter an "object of aesthetic enjoyment.
that " 29 . [265] And finally:
3) The last point of view consists of a study of Antiquity understood in

the sense of a scientific direction of our curiosity. She then becomes a mine
singularly abundant in ethnographic materials allowing us to
boring general concepts, analogies and rules of development, not
only for the prehistory [ Vorgeschichie ] of our civilization, but of
"Any" civilization. Let us think only of the development of comparative history.
reign of religions whose current rise would not have been possible without the huge party
that we were able to extract from ancient history with the help of the strict discipline imposed
developed by philology. In this case Antiquity takes on importance in the measure
29 It could well be U's "esoteric" doctrine. von Wilamowitz, which moreover in

first place the attack of Édouard Meyer (76).
Page 47
where its cultural content is suitable for becoming a means of knowledge with a view to
the construction of general "types". But in contrast to the first "concept
tion ”it is not a valid cultural norm on a permanent basis and in contrast to
the second it is not the absolutely unique object of its kind of an evaluation
contemplative and singular.
We immediately see that these three conceptions, as said, "theoretical"

each interested for its own purpose in the practice of the history of Antiquity
under the aspect of "classical studies", and we also see without comment
that in fact the curiosity of the historian does not find its account in any, since
all have as their primary end something other than “history”. If Meyer wanted by
against erasing for good from the history of Antiquity all that from the point of view
present no longer has any "influence", it would give, in the eyes of those who seek
in Antiquity more than a simple historical "cause", reason for its adver-
saries. And all the friends of his great work would be happy if he didn't take
letter his recommendations and they hope he will even avoid any attempt to
put them into practice only out of love for a theory formulated in such a way
wrong 30 .
30 The prolixity of the explanations that we have just given obviously has no relation to
the immediately practical result that can be "drawn" from it for the methodology. We can only
do not recommend to those who consider them for this reason as idle to renounce
quite simply to wonder about the question of the "meaning" of knowing and to be satisfied with
to acquire “valid knowledge” through practical work. It's not the historians
who took the initiative to ask these questions, but those who put forward the wrong idea and
continue to assert today with variations that "scientific knowledge
that ”would be identical to“ search for laws ”. Whether we like it or not, this is a pro
issue relating to the "meaning" of knowledge.
Page 48
2. -Objective possibility
and adequate causality in history.
[266] "The outbreak of the Second Punic War," says E. Meyer (p. 16),
is the consequence of a decision of Hannibal, that of the Seven Years' War of a
decision of Frederick the Great, that of the War of 1866 a decision of Bis-
marck. They could all have made another decision, and other personalities
[...] would undoubtedly have taken another; as a result, the course of history
would have been quite different. "He adds in footnote 2 at the bottom of the same page:" He does not
This is in no way a question of asserting or contesting that in these cases the wars in
cause would not have taken place; this question is absolutely insoluble and idle. "
Apart from the ambiguous relation between this second sentence and the declarations
previous rations of Meyer on the relations between "freedom" and "necessity" in
history, it is important to speak out against this position which asserts that questions
to which we cannot give an answer or at least an incontestable answer.
ble would therefore be simply "idle". It would be unfortunate, even
for empirical science, if the supreme problems to which we do not
no answer had never been raised. In truth, this is not about this
sort of "supreme" problems, but of a question which on the one hand is "beyond
sée ”by events, to which on the other hand we cannot positively give
no unequivocal answer in the state of our current knowledge. and possible and which, finally,
if we consider it from a strictly "deterministic" point of view, calls into question
dice consequences of something which "could not happen" as it is
"determining circumstances". Despite this, there is absolutely nothing "oi-
seux ”to ask the question: what could have happened if Bismarck had not taken the
decision to go to war? It concerns, in fact, the decisive point for the struc-
historical turation of reality, namely: what causal meaning must be
to attribute to this individual decision within the totality of the infi-
very many who had to be arranged precisely in this way and
not from another to bring about this result, and what is the place of this decision
in the historical account? If history claims to rise above a simple
chronicle of events and personalities, he has no other [267] way
than asking questions like this. And as far as she is a
science, it has always done it that way.
Page 49
What is correct in Meyer's formulation that we have mentioned

above, when he says that history considers events "in the making" and
that consequently its object is not subject to the "necessity" proper to "deve-
nu ', is that the historian proceeds' in the appreciation of the causal meaning
of a concrete event in a manner analogous to that of the historical man who
takes a party or a decision and who would not act if his action appeared to him
as “necessary” and not just as “possible” 31 ? There is however
owing to a difference: the man who acts, insofar as his action is strictly
"Rational" - what we assume here - weighs [ erwägen ] the "conditions" of the
future development in which he is interested, which are "independent" from him and who,
within the limits of his knowledge, are given in reality and he intersperses in
thought, in the causal connection, the various "possible ways" of understanding each other.
bear itself as well as the consequences to be expected, linked to these “in-
dependent ”, to then decide, according to the results thus conceived (in consideration
sée), in favor of one or the other behavior which corresponds to its "goal".
Torien by against has a superiority over his hero: he knows in any case has
posteriori if the estimation of the "independent" conditions of the hero which
had given within the limits of his knowledge and the hopes that he expected
really corresponded to the real situation at the time; he knows it by "success"
effective action. About the ideal maximum of knowledge of the conditions
we want and can take here as a theoretical basis , since it is a question of
only in this case of elucidating logical questions - even if in
in reality this maximum can only very rarely be reached or perhaps even
never - the historian can make in retrospect, in thought, the same estimate.
that his hero had made more or less clearly or that he "could have done".
He can therefore raise with more favorable chances than Bismarck the question:
what consequences would have been "expected" if another decision had been
socket ? It is clear that such an examination is very far [268] from being idle ”.
All in all, Meyer himself (p. 43) applies this process to

About the example of the two gunshots which directly provoked, during
the days of March in Berlin, the outbreak of street fights (77). To his
opinion the question of the origin of these shots has been "historically without im-
lift ”[ irrelevant ] . But why would it be less important than the discus-
Zion of the decisions of Hannibal, Frederick the Great or Bismarck? "The situation
tion, he explains, was such that some incident had to trigger the
conflict " (!). We see that here Meyer himself gives an answer to the question above.
tense "idle", wondering what "would" have happened without these two blows
of rifle, and thus resolves the problem of their historical "significance" (in
concluding in this case that they are irrelevant). On the other hand, at the time of
decisions of Hannibal, Frederick the Great and Bismarck, the "situation" was
clearly different, at least from Meyer's point of view; she was such
31 This remains true despite (the criticism of Kistiakovski ( loc. Cit. P. 393) which remains external to
this concept of "possibility".
Page 50
that if the decision had been different it would not have evolved into conflict, nor
in general nor under the action of political constellations which determine
The course and development of events were born in these various periods. Because
otherwise this decision would not have historically been more important than the
fire. The judgment affirming that, if one modifies or omits in thought a
singular historical event [ einzelne Tatsache ] in a complex of condi-
historical relationships, it would have followed, with regard to certain historical relationships
cally important, a development different from historical events,
therefore appears to be of considerable value in determining the "significance
history of this event, even if the historian believes in praxi not to have to
to develop and to base consciously and explicitly such a judgment which
in exceptional cases, in particular when there is a dispute about this
Historical "significance". It is evident that this fact should have prompted examination.
of the logical nature of this sort of judgment which relates to the outcomes
what "should" have been expected in the event of omission or modification of an item
causally singular in a complex of conditions, and invite to a study of
their importance for history. We will try to get some clarity on this
topic.
One understands, among other things, the distress of the logic of history 32 [269] in the fact that
decisive research on this important question has not been undertaken
by historians or theorists of historical methodology, but by
representatives of specialties far removed from this discipline.
The theory of what is called the "objective possibility" which will be discussed
here is based on the work of the eminent physiologist von Kries 33 (78 ) and using
currentation of this concept on the works of those who claim to be von
Kries or criticize him, first of all the criminalists and then the jurists, specialists
especially Merkel, Rümelin, Liepmann, and recently Radbruch 34 ( 79). In the
32 It seems appropriate to state here expressly that the categories which we will continue to discuss
tion in the following pages find application not only in the sphere of specia-
ciality usually called "history" but also in any "historical" imputation
of any singular event, including those of inert nature. The category of
"Historical" is taken here as a logical concept and not as a technical concept
specific to a specialty.
33 Über den Begriff der objektiven Möglichkeit und einige Anwendungen desselben, Leipzig
1888. Von Kries had already set out important preliminaries of these discussions in his
Prinzipien der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung.
ture of the historical Note
"object", there are only the in advance
most that,
elementary as a result
rudiments ofof
thethe na- of
theory
von Kries which are important for historical methodology. Not only is he not
possible to take into account in the causal examination of history the principles of what we know
shovels in the narrow sense the "calculus of probabilities", but already the simple attempt to use
similarly his points of view call for great caution.
34 The most penetrating critique of the application of von Kries theory to legal problems
ques has been made so far by Radbruch
Page 51
methodology of the social sciences, the series of studies

of von Kries as in Statistics 35 . It is from elsewhere
in Die Lehre von der adäquaten Verursachung, t, 1, new series, notebook 3

des Abhandlungen des Lisztschen Seminar. This is also where we find the
most important literature on this issue. We will not be able to do justice to
his principled analysis of the concept of "adequate causality" that later a
once we have exposed this theory in the simplest possible way (and
therefore, as will be seen, in a purely provisional manner and not
final). It is normal that [270] jurists and in particular criminalists have
were the first to deal with this problem, since the question of guilt,
criminal law is a question of pure causation in so far as it involves the problem
next: under what conditions can we say that by his activity an individual has
35 Among the statistical theorists who come closest to von Kries' conceptions
we must cite L. von Bortkiewitsch, Die erkenntnis-theoretischen Grundlagen der Wahrschein-
lichkeitsrechnung in the Conrads jahrbücher, 3 Folge, t. XVIII (see also t .. XVIII
), and in DieTheorie der Bevö1kerungs- und Moralstatistik nach Lexis (ibid. t. XXVIT). Of
even A. Tschuprow places himself on the ground of von Kries' theory, but I have unfortunately
I could not read his article on Moralstatistik in the Brockhaus-Ephronschen Enzy-
klopädischen Wörterbuch (80 ). However, see his article onAufgaben der Theorie der Statis-
tik in Schmollers Jahrbuch, 1905, p. 421. I cannot approve the criticism of Th. Kistia-
kovski (in his work on Problemen des Idealismus, pp. 378 et seq.) which, it is true, does not
only sketch the question, subject to a more detailed discussion to come. He blames this
theory (p. 379) to use a false concept of causation based on Stuart Mill's logic, and
more particularly to use the categories of "compound cause" and "cause by-
tielle ”, categories which would be based on their side on an anthropomorphic interpretation of
causality (in the sense of "efficiency"), this point is also pointed out by Rad-
bruch, op . cit. p. 22. However, this idea of "efficiency or, to use a newer expression
be which is absolutely identical to it in terms of meaning, the "causal link" is absolutely
inseparable from any causal study that reflects on the series of qualitative changes indi-
viduals. As for the need (and the obligation) not to burden this link with presuppositions
superfluous and dangerous metaphysics, we will come back to this later (on questions of
plurality of causes and elementary causes, see the considerations of Tschuprow, op. cit .
p. 436). Let us add only one remark: the "possibility" is a "constitutive" category.
( formend), i.e. its function is to determine the selection of the links
causality to be collected in the historical account. Matter formed historically on the other hand
does not contain "possibilities", at least ideally; subjectively, the historical account
very rarely succeeds in establishing judgments of necessity, but, objectively, the former
posed. is undoubtedly always subordinate to the presupposition that the causes to which we
"Imputes" the effect are to be considered as the "sufficient reasons" for the appearance of this effect.
fet, - of course, together with the infinity of "conditions" which, because they do not
not of "historical interest", are only summarily indicated in the discussion. This is
why the use of this category does not at all imply the conception, for a long time
time exceeded by the theory of causality, according to which certain links of the
actual causal connection would have somehow remained 'in abeyance' until the moment of
their intervention in the causal chain. Von Kries (op. Cit. P. 107) exposed, to my
opinion, absolutely convincingly the opposition between his theory and that of Stuart
Mill. (On all this, see also below). One thing is certain, is that "Stuart Mill has
he too discussed the category of possibility and even incidentally formed the concept of causal-
adequate ty (see Stuart Mill, Werke, deutscheAusgabe by Gomperz, III, p. 262).
Page 52
was the "cause" of a determined external effect? This question clearly has the
same logical structure as that of historical causality. Indeed, just like
history, problems concerning the practical social relations of men
between them, and especially those of justice, are oriented in an "an-
thropocentric ”, which means that they take care of the meaning
human "actions" . As with causal conditionality
of an event having resulted in a damage which must be expiated according to the
the penal code or repair according to the civil code, the problem of causality in his-
toire is also and always oriented towards the attribution of concrete effects to causes
its concrete, and not towards a deepening of " legalities " [ Gesetzlichkeiten ]
abstract. It is true, at the end of this common part of the road, the case law
dence and especially criminology slant towards a way of posing the problem.
problem which is specific to them, since there is another question: under what conditions
tions [271] and when the objective purely causal attribution of an effect to
is the action of an individual sufficient to qualify it as an act involving subjection
t really the "guilt" of the agent? Indeed this question is no longer a pro-
purely causal problem which could be resolved by observation of the facts
bling "objectively" by causal perception or interpretation; on the contrary he
it is a problem of forensic policy oriented according to ethical values.
ques and others. Indeed, it is a priori possible, really frequent and current-
commonly understood that the meaning of legal norms which is explicitly notified or
that must be elucidated by interpretation leads to the existence of a "fault",
within the meaning of the criminal law in question, is to be subordinated in the first place to certain
subjective circumstances on the agent's side (intention, determined capacity sub-
jectively to "predict" the outcome and the like); by that the meaning
fication of categorical differences in the ways of making connections
causal factors can be significantly altered 36 . However, for the first
stages of our discussion, this difference in the purpose of the research has
it doesn't matter. Also, together with legal theory will we try
to ask at this level: how the attribution of a concrete "effect" to a
In principle, is a singular "cause" possible and achievable, given that there is always
days in truth an infinity of causative elements which determined the appearance of a
Singular "event" and that in fact the totality of the singular causative elements
was necessary for the event to occur in its concrete form?
36 Modern law targets the agent and not the act (cf. Radbruch, op. Cit. P. 62) and is interested in the
Subjective 'fault', whereas history, in so far as it claims to remain a science, is
relies on the objective reasons of concrete events and the consequences of concrete “acts”,
without trying to indict the “agent”. Radbruch rightly founded his cry
von Kries' tick on this fundamental principle of modern law - which, however, is not valid -
lable for any right. This is why he recognizes the validity of von
Kries in some cases like those of the so-called crimes which caused unsuccessful results.
wanted (p. 65) or those of responsibility for "abstract possibilities of interference
these ”(p. 71), responsibility for lost profits and the responsibility of“ ir-
responsible ”, in short wherever objective causality is the only one involved (p. 80). However, the story is
is precisely in a very similar logical situation.
Page 53
The possibility of a selection in the infinity of determining elements is

first of all conditioned by the character of our [272] historical curiosity . When
we say that the object of history is to causally understand concrete reality
of an "event" in its singularity, one should not understand naturally by
there, as we have already seen, that it would have the task of explaining causal-
ment and to fully "reproduce" this event in all of its
singular features: this task would not only be impossible in fact, but absurd
in principle. History seeks exclusively to causally explain the "elements
ments ”and“ aspects ”of the event in question which have a“ significant
general ”under specific points of view and which offer For this reason a
historical interest , just as the judge never brings into his
ciation the total and singular course of an act, but only the elements which are
essential for subsumption below standards. What interests the judge - us
let us completely disregard the infinity of "really" trivial details - this
are not the elements that could be of interest for other orders
research such as natural sciences, history or aesthetics. He ... not
not want to know if the fatal blow which "caused" the death was followed by an accident.
secondary teeth which could be extremely interesting for the physiolo-
gist, nor whether the laying of the corpse or the assassin's attitude could have
an artistic presentation; nor if this death, for example, allowed a "subal-
dull ”not complicit in“ climbing a rung ”in the hierarchy of civil servants.
res - how such a death would causally be a "good deal" for this
deny - or finally whether it has become for the police a pretext to take certain
security measures or even if it may have been the cause of international conflicts.
naux and has thus become "historically" important. The only thing that
important is to know if the causal chain between blow and death and if the habitus
subjective view of the murderer and his behavior in front of the crime require the application
of a certain penal standard. Which in turn interests the historian, for example
in Caesar's death, it was not forensic or medical problems.
cals that this "case" could have presented, nor the details of the murder as far as they
were not important enough, either to "characterize" the personality of Caesar
or the situation of the parties in Rome - so in so far as they are not
"Means of knowledge" - or to understand the "political consequence"
of this death - therefore insofar as they were not real "causes". A
only thing preoccupies him in the first place [273], it is the fact that this death is pre-
sharply intervened at that time in the middle of a political constellation
concrete, and in this connection he discusses the question which is naturally attached to it.
also: has this fact had considerable "consequences" for the development
ment of world history?
It follows that historical imputation eliminates, just like legal imputation

dique, an infinity of elements of the real course of things, because they do not present.
no "causal significance". As we can see, a singular fact is therefore insignificant
for the historian not only when he had no relation to the event in
discussion, so that it can be omitted in thought without any modification
Page 54
fication does not intervene in the real course of events, but already when the
essential elements in concreto and only interesting ones seem not to have been
causal relationship with him
Our real question is then this: by what logical operations

do we manage to grasp that such a causal relation exists between these "elements
essential ”of the event and certain elements taken in the infinity of moments
determinants, and how do we come to justify it with evidence? It is evident
tooth that this is not done by simple "observation" of the course of events -
especially if by that we mean a mental 'photograph', without 'any presupposition.
sition ”, which would simply reproduce all the physical and psychic elements
occurred in the portion of space and time in question, even when such
process would be possible. On the contrary, causal imputation is done in the form
of a thought process [ Gedankenprozess ] which contains a Series of abstrac-
tions [ Abstraktionen ] . The first and most decisive of these is just-
ment to modify in thought, in a specific sense, one or more components
uncontested causatives of the course of events, to then ask us if,
after this sort of modification of the conditions of becoming, we "could have
expect ”the same result (in the“ essential ”points) or another
be and which. Let us take an example from Meyer's own work. Nobody has
better than him, in a pleasant and clear manner, the historical and univer-
saddle of the Persian wars for the development of Western culture (81 ).
How did he proceed logically? For the most part, he showed that the battle
de Marathon made the decision between two possibilities: on the one hand, that of a culture
theocratico-religious, of which we find the seeds [274] in the mysteries and
the oracles, and which would have taken place under the aegis of the Persian protectorate of which we know
that he used everywhere, as much as possible, for example with regard to the Jews, the reli-
national gion as an instrument of domination, and on the other hand the victory of
the free Hellenic spirit, turned towards the goods of this world, which gave us the gift of
cultural values that we continue to nurture today- This "ba-
size "of small dimensions was therefore the 4th prerequisite" essential
the construction of the Attic fleet and / also the further development of the
struggle for freedom, for the preservation of the independence of Greek culture and
for the impetus that gave birth to historiography specific to the West, to the
complete development of the drain and all the singular spiritual life that
performed - considering things quantitatively - on this little stage [ Duo-
dezbühne ] of world history.
The fact that this battle provoked the "decision" between these two "possi-
bilities ”, or at least influenced it considerably, clearly constitutes -
for us who are not Athenians - the only reason that we are there-
generally of historical interest. It would not be possible to establish the "meaning
fication ”without estimating these“ possibilities ”and irremediably cultural values.
which, according to our retrospective study, “depended” on this decision,
otherwise we wouldn't really see why we wouldn't put on this battle
Page 55
on the same level as a brawl between two Caffres or Indian tribes neither for-
what we should not take more seriously in order to deepen the stu-
pide "fundamental idea" of the history of the world according to Helmholt ( 82), such
that it is exposed in the well-known “modern” collective work 37 .
When certain modern historians, after having been constrained by the force of
things, to delimit the "meaning" of a concrete event by a reflection
explicit and an explanation of the 'possibilities' of development, in particular
come to apologize after the fact [275] for having used this category apparently
indeterminist of 'possibility', this attitude cannot be logically justified.
ment, nothing. We find an example of this in the work of K. Hampe on
Conradin ( 83). In it we see the author making an extremely informative account of
the historical "significance" of the battle of Tagliacozzo in the light of a
study of the various "possibilities" between which the purely "accidental outcome"
such ”of the battle“ decided ”(following very specific tactical incidents)
liers) and then suddenly change his mind to add: "But history does not know
no possibilities. "To this we must answer: becoming conceived as" objecti-
vé ”[ objektiviert ] thanks to the deterministic axioms does not“ know ”the possibilities.
bled, because in general he does not know the concepts - but the "history" them
still knows , assuming it claims the title of science. Each line of
any historical account and even any selection of archives and sources intended for
the publication contain or more exactly must contain "judgments
possibility ”, if the publication claims to have a“ knowledge value ”
session ”.
What do we mean when we speak of several "possibilities" between

which these various battles would have "decided"? This means above all that
we create - do not be afraid of words - imaginary paintings [Phantasy-
bilder] by abstraction of one or more elements of "reality" given effecti-
in reality and by ideal construction of a course of events altered in relation to
tively to one or more "conditions". Thus, the first step towards constituting
kill a historic judgment is already - and. I insist on it - a process of abs-
traction that progresses by analysis and isolation in thought [Analyze und ge-
dankliche Isolierung] of the elements of the immediate given - that we look at sim-
plement as a complex of possible causal relations -and which must lead to
a synthesis of the "real" causal set. Therefore, convert the "reality"
given into a historical "fact", is a first step which already transforms it into a
table of thoughts: to speak like Goethe we will say that there is "theo-
laughs ”at the very heart of the“ fact ”( 84).
37 It goes without saying that this judgment does not concern all the studies included in this work.
collective, because there are also works that are absolutely "old-fashioned"
as to the method, others which are remarkable. The idea of a kind of political "fairness"
social in history who would like - finally! - grant to the Kaffir and Indian peoples-
nes, so outrageously neglected until then, a place at least as important as
Athenians and who, to mark very clearly this "equity", would establish a distribution of the
historical material according to geography, is simply naïve.
Page 56
If we now study even more precisely these "judgments of pos-

sibilities ”- that is to say the statements which express what could have happened in the event
elimination or modification of certain conditions - and if one wonders
how we actually manage to form them, there can be no doubt that
we are always in the presence of processes that operate in isolation and by
generalization [276]. This means that we decompose the “ given” into “element-
ments ”until each of them allows itself to be inserted into a“ rule of
experience ”[Regel der Erfahrung ] and that we are able to determine
the consequence that "should have" been "expected" from each of them, according to a rule
gle of experience, when the other elements are given as "conditions".
A "judgment of possibility", in the sense that we give here to this concept, means
therefore always trust the reference to rules of experience. The category of, "pos-
sibility is therefore not applied in a negative form , in the sense that it would be
as opposed to assertoric or apodictic judgment, the expression of a non-
knowledge or respectively an incomplete knowledge [ Nicht- resp. Nichtvollständig-
Wissens ] ; on the contrary, it means precisely a reference to a positive knowledge of
"Rules of becoming" or, as we usually say, to our knowledge "nomologi-
than ".
When, to the question: has such and such a train already passed such and such a station? we respond :
it is possible, it means that the one who answers thus does not know subjectively
no fact which would exclude the possibility of it, but also that it is not in me either.
sure to assert the fact. It is therefore a question of not knowing. But when Meyer judges
that in Greece, at the time of the Battle of Marathon, a theocratic development
religious was "possible" or "probable" in certain circumstances, it means
on the contrary that certain elements of the historical data were objectively pre-
sents, which means that they can be established with objective validity, and that if
we eliminate in thought the battle of Marathon (and of course another
considerable number of other elements of the actual course of events) or if
we think it could have happened otherwise, these elements would have been
positively "able" (to use a familiar criminologist phrase)
gie), following the general rules of experience, to lead to this development
is lying. The "knowledge" on which this sort of judgments is based to motivate [ be-
gründen ] the "meaning" of the battle of Marathon is, according to all these
considerations, on the one hand a knowledge of certain "facts" which can be proven by
the sources that they belonged to this historical situation (namely "ontolo-
") and on the other hand - as we have already seen - a knowledge of certain rules
Known experience, especially of how the
men are used to reacting to given situations [277] (namely "nomolo-
gique ”). We will examine later the nature of the "validity" of these "rules
of experience ”. One thing is in any case certain: to justify his decisive thesis
on the "significance" of the battle of Marathon, Meyer would be obliged in the event of
challenge to break down this "situation" into its "elements" until
our "imagination" could apply to "ontological" knowledge the "no-
Page 57
mological ”empirical, drawn from our own individual experience and from the
knowledge of the behavior of others, to enable us to judge posi-
tively that this combined action [ Zusammenwirken ] of the facts - under the condi-
we have modified in thought in a specific sense - "was at,
even ”to lead to the result which is affirmed as“ objectively ”possible.
corn. Which only means that, if we conceive "in thought" this result
as having to actually take place, we would grant these facts thus modified.
thought the value of "sufficient causes" [zureichende Ursachen ] .
This very simple state of affairs that we have been obliged to present
somewhat complicated way to avoid any ambiguity shows us that,
when we formulate a historical causal connection, we are not using
not just abstraction in the two forms of the process of isolation and
that of generalization, but still that the simplest historical judgment
concerning the historical "significance" of a "concrete fact" is far from being - a
simple recording of facts which are "given". It is not alone-
a categorically formed table of thoughts , but it does not acquire objective
ment of validity only because we add [ hinzubringen ] to reality "don-
born ”all the treasure of our empirical knowledge of a“ nomological ”order.
To all that we have just said, the historian will not fail to object 38
that the actual process in historical work as well as the content ef-
effect of the historical account are quite different. It is the "tact" [Takt] or the "intui-
tion ”[ Intuition ] of the historian, and not the generalizations and knowledge of
"Rules" which would allow causal connections to be inferred: the difference with the
work specific to the natural sciences would consist precisely in the fact that the historian
would have to deal with the explanation of events and personalities who would leave
"To interpret" and "to understand" directly by analogy with our own es-
spiritual sence; with regard to the exposition, it would still be [278] "tact" and
suggestive intuitiveness of the story that would allow the reader to 'relive' the rela-
tion in a manner analogous to that in which the historian would have experienced it and
vement and not discovered by subtle reasoning. It is further argued
that the objective judgment of possibility regarding what "would" have happened
according to the general rules of experience, if one omits or modifies in thought a
singular causal component, would very often be uncertain; more frequently
yet it would be impossible to establish it, so that this basis of the "imputation"
history would, in fact, always be doomed to failure and could in no way be
constitutive of the logical value of historical knowledge. - In the arguments
statements of this kind we confuse above all different things, on the one hand the
psychological process of the formation of scientific knowledge and the
"artistic" form of the presentation of what we have just grasped in order to influence
38 For more details on what will follow, see the explanations in my study on Roscher and
Knies ( 85 ).
Page 58
psychologically the reader and on the other hand the logical structure of
session.
Ranke "guessed" the past and, in view of the progress of knowledge, he

would be very unfortunate for a historian of an inferior quality not to possess this
gift of "intuition"; he will never be more than a sort of junior employee of
the story. - But it is absolutely no different with the real big ones
knowledge of mathematics or physics: they often appear to be
“intuitive” way in the imagination in the form of hypotheses that we “verify”
then according to the facts, that is to say one examines their "validity" by using the
knowledge acquired through experience and ultimately "formulated" in a logical manner.
absolutely correct. It is exactly the same in history. When we insist
tones on the necessary connection between the knowledge of what is "essential" and
the use of the concept of objective possibility, we do not mean by any means
pronounce on the problem which is psychologically interesting but which
remains irrelevant, however, namely: how does a historical hypothesis arise
it in the mind of the scientist? On the contrary, we are only interested in this
question: by means of which logical categories can we demonstrate
valid way this link in case of doubt or dispute? - because she alone
determines the logical "structure" of the story. Moreover, when the historian
communicates to the reader in the form of the narrative the logical result of his judgments
history of causality without giving details of its sources of information and that it
"Suggests" the course of events instead of "reasoning" as a pedantic, [279] his
exposed would only be a historical novel and not a scientific relation, if the
the skeleton of causal imputation was lacking in the external arrangement of
artistic presentation. It is this skeleton that alone matters to arid knowledge
that is logic, because the historical account also claims to the "validity" of "v-
rity ”. And this validity can only be established by the most important phase of
the elaboration that we have limited ourselves to considering exclusively so far,
namely that of causal regression, provided that, in the event of a dispute, it
has undergone the test of isolation and generalization of the causative components
individual, through the use of the category of objective possibility and the
imputant synthesis that it makes possible.
It is now clear that the causal analysis of a personal action proceeds,

from the point of view of logic, in exactly the same way as the develop-
causal aspect from there, the "historical significance" of the Battle of Marathon and that it
in turn uses the processes of isolation, generalization and
truction of judgments of possibility. Let us immediately take a borderline case, that
of reflective analysis of our Clean activity. Our sense of uneducated logi-
that leads us to believe that it certainly does not present any kind of
"Logical problems", given that - on the assumption that we are
"Sane" - it is immediately given in the lived experience, which it
is "understandable" without more and that for this reason it leaves itself natural-
immediately "reproduce" [ nachbildbar ] in our memory. Very
Page 59
simple considerations show us that things do not happen yet

so and that the "valid" answer to the question: why did I do this? constitute
kills a categorically formed picture that cannot be raised in the sphere of
demonstrable judgment that by using abstractions - although the "demonstra-
tion ”is carried out before the conscience court of the“ agent ”.
Suppose a young mother with a strong temperament finds herself irritated by

disobedience of her child and that as a good German she administered a
slap, without regard for the theory contained in this beautiful stanza of Busch ( 86):
“The slap is superficial / only the strength of the spirit / penetrates to the soul. "
Suppose in addition that she is sufficiently "stirred by the pallor of thought"
to worry after the fact, "for a few seconds" or about the "opportunity
pedagogical ”or of the“ legitimacy ”of the slap, or at least of the“ expenditure
of considerable energy ”deployed on this occasion, or - better still - [280]
let us suppose that the cries of the child awaken in the pater familias, convinced
like any German of his superior intelligence in everything, including
the education of children, the need to remonstrate with his wife under certain
some "teleological" points of view. She will start to think and find how
I'm sorry if at that point she hadn't been pissed off, let's assume, by the
cook, she would never have applied this punishment or at least "under a
other form ”, and she will eventually be inclined to make this confession to her husband” - “You
I know very well that in general I do not do this. »In saying this, she appeals that
the latter knows from experience of his "constant motives for acting" which, among the number
preponderant of all possible constellations in general, would have led her to
a less irrational gesture. In other words, she claims that this slap is
kills on his side an "accidental" reaction to the behavior of his child and
that it was not determined by an "adequate" cause, to use by antici-
pation a terminology that we will explain in a moment.
This simple conjugal dialogue was therefore already sufficient to make this "experience
lived ”an“ object ”categorically formed, and, like the bourgeois of Mo-
liere who learned to her amazement that throughout his life he had spoken "in
prose ”, this young woman would certainly be just as astonished if a logician
taught her that she made a "causal imputation" in the manner of the historian,
that it has formed “objective judgments of possibilities” for this purpose and that it has
even operated with the category of "adequate causality", which we will explain
soon - because in front of the logic forum there is no difference. An acquaintance
reflective session, even from our own lived experience, can never be
a real "revival" or a simple "photograph" of lived experience, because
the “lived experience”, by becoming an “object”, is always enriched with perspectives
and relationships of which we are precisely not "aware" at the moment when we have it.
" lives ". The representation that one makes by the memory of a personal action
is in no way different in this respect from that which one has of a concrete event
past of "nature" that we have experienced ourselves or that has been reported to us
by others. It is probably not necessary to comment further on the
Page 60
general validity of this assertion by means of more complicated examples [281]

qués 39 and to establish explicitly, that in connection with a decision of Napoleon or
Bismarck [282], we do not proceed from a logical point of view otherwise than the
German mother from the previous example. As for the difference according to which
39 We will briefly examine an example that K. Voßler analyzes, ( op. Cit. P. 101),
to illustrate the "powerlessness" of building "laws". he mentions some idiocy
forming within his own family an "Italian linguistic flow in the high seas of the
German guise ”that his children shaped, that parents sometimes imitated in their
conversation with children and whose origin goes back to very concrete reasons that remain
perfectly clear in memory. In this regard, he asks the question: "What is the explanation?
than collective psychology (and we could add, without betraying its thought, no matter what
which science of a "legal" character) could well provide in these cases of linear development.
guistic? "- Considered by itself this phenomenon is, in fact, sufficiently explained pri-
my face, but that does not mean that it could not yet become the object of use and
of a more complete elaboration. First of all the fact that the causal relation is determinable
with certainty (in thought, for that alone matters here) could be used as a heuristic means.
tick with a view to verifying, in connection with other phenomena of linguistic evolution, whether it is possible
possible to discover there the same causal relation, which requires, from the local point of view
geology, the insertion of the concrete case in a general rule. Voßler himself formulated
this rule (p. 102): "The forms used more frequently exert an attraction on
those which are more rarely. " That's not all. The causal explanation that we are pre-
suffices, we have said, prima facie . However, it should not be forgotten either that any
singular causal connection , even the simplest apparently, can be analyzed and de-
infinitely composed and that each time the limits of our causal curiosity fix the point where
we stop. In the present case, it is absolutely not certain that our curiosity
causal must consider itself satisfied with the "effective" course of things as it is presented to us.
An exact observation could possibly teach us, for example, that this "at-
traction ”which conditioned the linguistic transformation in children as well as the imitation
by
verythedifferent
parents ideas
of these linguistic
about creations
the various formsofoftheir offspring
words, was
and one madewonder
might in propor-
whether
is not possible to see why either of these forms occurs more frequently
or more rarely or even not at all. Our causal curiosity would not be satisfied in this case.
only if the conditions of these. appearances were, stated in the form of rules and if the case
concrete was "explained" as a particular constellation resulting from the competition of these
rules under concrete conditions. ¢ would thus open up in the privacy of his home the hunt for
rules and procedures of isolation and generalization which he loathes so much. And for
fills, by his own fault. Indeed, his general conception that the "analogy is
a question of psychic power ”necessarily obliges us to ask the question:
it is not possible to discover and express anything general about these "psy-" conditions.
chiques ”of this sort of“ psychic power relations ”? And we see at first
at a glance that by asking the question in this way, one apparently forcibly introduces into the debate
Voßler's main enemy: "psychology". If in the specific case we content ourselves with
tones of a simple presentation of the concrete course of things, we do it for two reasons: either
we admit first that these "rules" that one could discover by an analysis
in the concrete case do not present any new view for science.
- that is to say that the concrete event has no significant significance as a "means of
knowledge ”[282 [or secondly only the concrete event itself, not having had
efficiency only in a restricted domain, has no universal significance for linear evolution.
guistic and therefore of no importance as a “real historical cause” either.
It is therefore only the limit of our interest and not any logical absurdity that makes
that this phenomenon peculiar to the Voßler family has apparently spared him
I “conceptual elaboration”.
Page 61
the action to analyze is given to us in this case directly in our own

memory by its "intimate side", whereas we have to "interpret" from the "exterior"
laughing "that of a third party, it is, despite a naive prejudice, only of degree, in this sense
that the "materials" are more or less accessible and complete. Indeed, as soon as
we find that the "personality" of a being is "complicated" and difficult to understand.
interpret, we are always inclined to believe that this one should be in good condition
to provide us with the appropriate clarifications, as long as he wants to
be sincere. However, this is not the place to explain at greater length than
actually the reverse happens most often and why.
Rather, let's move on to a more in-depth look at the category of "possibility

objective ”which we have, until now, indicated only in a very general way.
general function and let us deal more specifically with the question of the modality of
"Validity" of judgments of possibility ". An objection awaits us: the introduction
Does not the term “possibilities” in “causal considerations” mean
not in general that we renounce all causal knowledge, so that, despite
all that has been said above on the "objective" basis of the judgment of possibility
bility, and since in fact the determination of the "possible" course of things must always
days be left to the imagination, the recognition of the importance of this category
gorie practically means that we leave doors and windows open to arbitrariness
subjective in "historiography" and that consequently this discipline would not be
more a science? In fact, to the question: what would happen if we changed
somehow a concomitant element [ mitbedingendes Moment ] determined?
- it often happens that we cannot give it with some probability mar-
give a positive answer on the basis of the general rules of experience, even
in the event that the “ideal” totality of information sources is available 40 . To the
truth, it is not absolutely essential. There reflection on the meaning
causal, of a historical fact begins first with [283] this question: if we
excludes this fact from the complex of factors which come into play such as
co-conditioning elements or if it is modified in a certain sense, the course of
events could, according to the general rules of experience, have followed a
any other direction, relative to decisive points for our research
che? For, the only thing that matters is how the "aspects" of the
phenomenon that interest us have been influenced by these singular elements
co-conditioning. If in response to this essentially negative question there is no
Nor is there any way of obtaining a corresponding “objective judgment of possibility”.
dant or - which says the same thing - if according to the state of our knowledge it is necessary, according to
the general rules of the experiment, to "expect" even in the event of elimination or
modification of the fact in question to a course of events identical to that which had
actually take place, relatively to historically important points, i.e.
that interest us, this fact is then in reality of no causal importance, and it does not
40 The attempt to construct positively what "would" have happened can, when undertaken,
lead to monstrous results.
Page 62
be absolutely not in the sequence that the causal regression of history

wants and must establish.
The two rifle shots on the night of March in Berlin come in approximate-
ment, according to Édouard Meyer, in this category, - but perhaps not entirely
because, even adopting his point of view, we can still think that they
at least helped to determine the moment when the fighting broke out,
whereas if they had erupted a little later they could have meant a course
different from events.
In case we have to admit from our empirical knowledge that, relatively

at the essential points of the concrete examination, one element was causally important.
so much, the objective judgment of possibility which expresses this importance is then
susceptible of a whole scale of degrees in determination. The point of view
by Édouard Meyer that Bismarck's decision "provoked" war
of 1866 in a way other than the two shots (during the revolution of 1848)
implies the assertion that in the event that one puts [Ausschaltung] out of circuit this dis-
cision, the other determining elements present at that time would require us to
admit a "high degree" of objective possibility in favor of another course of
events (in the "essential" points!), - for example the end of the Italian treaty
Prussian, the peaceful cession of the Veneto, a Franco-Austrian coalition or
at least a shift in the political and military situation which would have
reality of Napoleon III the "master of the situation". [284] The objective judgment of
"Possibility" therefore gives rise by its very essence to gradations [ Gradabs-
tufungen ] and the logical relation can be represented by relying on the principles
principles used in the logical analysis of "probability calculus". here is
how: we first isolate in thought the causative components that condition
the "possible" effect to which the judgment relates by opposing them to the set of
all the other conditions which can be imagined in general as causes
concomitant, and one wonders how the circle [Umkreis ] of conditions,
whose intervention was such as to allow the previous isolated components
in thought of producing the "possible" effect behaves in relation to the circle of
conditions the intervention of which would not have "probably" contributed to
reduce this effect. It is evident that by this operation one could not in any way
to establish between these two "possibilities" a relation which one could, in a sense
arbitrary, evaluate "numerically".
This is only possible in the domain of "absolute chance" (in the logical sense)
- for example in the game of dice or in that which consists in shooting
different colors of an urn which always contains the same mixture -that is-
say when, in a very large number of cases, certain simple and uni-
voices remain absolutely the same, while all the others vary from
way which is entirely beyond our knowledge, and that the "possibility" of
this "aspect" of the result that matters to us (in the dice game the number of
points, in the game of balls the color) is determined by these conditions
Page 63
constant and unequivocal (nature of the die, distribution of the balls), in such a way that
all other conceivable circumstances present In relation to these "pos-
sibilities ”no causal relationship likely to fall under a general rule.
rale of experience. The way I grab the cup and shake it before I
play are absolutely determining components of the number of points that
I will obtain in concreto, - however , in spite of the superstition of "pro players
professional ”, there is no possibility of imagining only a rule of experimentation.
rience which would express that a certain way of executing these two movements
physical would be "able" to favor the chance of obtaining a number of -points
determined. This causality is therefore absolutely "accidental", that is to say we,
are justified in saying that the physical movement of the player [285] does not favor
not in general the chance to obtain a certain number of points: occasionally
with each movement the chances of leaving one or the other of the faces appear
as "equal". On the other hand, there is a general rule of experience which says
that, when the center of gravity of the die is eccentric, there is for one of the faces
from this "false" dice more favorable chances of getting out, together with other
very decisive concrete, and one can even express "numerically" the
proportion of these “more favorable chances” of “objective possibility” in repeated
both jets with sufficient frequency.
Despite the recommendations for caution that are usually given correctly
title to those who want to transpose the principles of the calculus of probabilities in
other areas ,. it is however clear that this last case is not without analogy.
in the domain of all concrete causality and therefore also in that of causality.
historical dirtiness, with the reservation that the numerical determination which presupposes
firstly poses "absolute chance" and secondly "aspects" or
quantifiable events as the sole object of interest, is totally dis-
should. Yet despite this shortcoming, we can not only very well formu-
there are general judgments indicating that certain situations "favorably
feels »more or less an identical way of reacting by certain traits in the
beings who face them, but still, when we formulate a proposition of
this kind, we are also able to designate a huge mass of cir-
constancies that could possibly be added to it without altering this general chance.
neral "favorable". Finally, if it is not possible for us to assess in an equi-
evokes, even by the calculation of probabilities, the degree of favorable chance that certain
certain "conditions" exert on a determined effect, we are nevertheless in
measure to assess the relative "degree" of this favorable general luck, thanks to the
comparison with the way in which certain other conditions, modified in the
sée, the “would have” favored it; and when we do in "imagination" this com-
parison thanks to a sufficient number of conceivable modifications of the constellations.
tions, it is always possible, at least in principle, to design a proportion
significant enough determinability to make a judgment on the "degree" of
objective possibility - a problem which alone interests us here in the first place. This
is not only in [286] daily life, but also and above all in his-
that we constantly employ judgments of this sort on the "de-
Page 64
"good" luck ", and without them it would simply be impossible to

distinguish between what is causally "essential" and "insignificant".
Meyer also uses them without hesitation in the work we are discussing pre-
feeling. While the two shots that have been repeatedly referred to have
was of no causal "importance", on the pretext that "any incident of-
was going to start the conflict ”, at least according to the opinion of Meyer of which we do not
do not want to discuss the merits here, it means that in the his-
given toric it is possible to isolate in thought certain "conditions" which
would lead to this result with the possible intervention of a number
considerable other conditions, while the circle of causative elements conce
values whose intervention would lead us to regard as probable another
result (in the “essential” points!) seems relatively very weak to us. Well
that Meyer uses the term "should", we cannot however admit-
be with him that this possibility was equal to zero, since, moreover, he insists
strongly on the irrationality of the story.
We will therefore adopt the use that since the work of von Kries the jurists,
causality theorists, have established and we will speak of "adequate" causality
in the cases which correspond to the logical type we have just indicated, it is
ie those which express the relation between certain complexes of "conditions"
grasped in their unity by historical reflection and considered in isolation and the effect
which intervened (these conditions being the adequate causes of the elements of the effect
in question). And, just as Meyer does - although he did not elaborate the no-
tion with precision - we will speak of accidental causation when the facts which
exerted an influence on the elements of the event which historically entered
taken into account resulted in an effect which was not "adequate" in this sense.
a complex of conditions grasped by thought in its unity.
To come back to the examples used above, it is therefore necessary to determine logi-
cally the "significance" of the battle of Marathon according to the conception of
Meyer no Not in the sense that a victory for the Persians should have been
consequence a development [287] totally different from the Hellenic culture
and as a result of world civilization - moreover it would not be possible to for-
to emulate this judgment - but in the sense that this other development "would have" been the
adequate consequence of this victory. In the same way we will conceive in a lo-
gically correct Meyer's judgment on the unification of Germany, to which
von Below found fault, if we try to make it intelligible in the light
general rules of experience, considering this unification as the
"adequate" consequence of certain previous events, just like the de-
also comes the March revolution in Berlin if we look at it as the consequence.
adequate quence of a certain general "situation" of a political and social order.
On the other hand, if we were able to persuade us that without these two fire courses in front of
the Berlin castle the revolution "could have" very probably been avoided,
because one could prove according to the general rules of experiment that without
them the combination of the other "conditions" would not have "favored", or
Page 65
less weakly, its triggering - "favoring" being taken in the indi-

as above - we would then have to speak of an "accidental" causality; It would be
then obliged to 'impute' causally (something, it is true, hardly conceivable
ble) the March Revolution with just those two shots. In the example of the uni
fication of Germany, we must not, as von Below believed, replace the
term "accidental" by that of "necessary" but by that of "adequate",
in the sense indicated above with reference to von Kries 41 ; it is important to
stick strictly to this: it is not a question of seeing in this opposition a
ference in the "objective" causality of the real course of historical events and
of their causal relations, but always a process of isolation by which we
abstracts part of the conditions that we discover in the "matter" of becoming
and which we are subject to "judgments of possibility", in order to obtain by this
see, in the light of the rules of experience, a clear view of the "meaning"
causal of the singular elements of becoming. To untangle causal relationships
real [ wirkliche ] , we construct unreal [ unwirkliche ] .
[288] It is too often overlooked that these are abstractions, and even a
quite specific way which finds its analogue in the doctrines of certain
certain jurists, theorists of causality, whose views refer to the conceptions
by Stuart Mill that the aforementioned work by von Kries moreover criticizes in a way
very convincing 42 . Based on Mill who believed that the mathematical quotient
that of probability would indicate, within the complex of existing causes ("objecti-
event ”) at a given moment, the relation between the “ causes ”which “ produce ”
the effect and those that “upset” it, Binding (87 ) also admits that between
conditions which "tend towards an effect" and those which "oppose" it would exist
objectively a relation which would be numerically determinable or at least
evaluable (in particular cases), or which would be under certain conditions
in a "state of equilibrium", and that the process of causality would mean the preponderance
rancid of the first on the seconds 43 . It is obvious that we take in this case
as the basis of the theory of causality the phenomenon of the "conflict of motives" which
manifests itself in the form of an immediate lived experience at the time of
deliberation in human actions. Whatever importance one may
grant to this phenomenon 44 , it remains certain that a rigorous causal knowledge
41 We will see later if we have the means (and which ones) to evaluate the "degree" of
adequacy and if the so-called "analogies" then play a role (and which), especially
in the decomposition of a "complex set of causes" into its "elements" - especially
that we objectively have no key to operate this division. Our way of us
expressing here is therefore necessarily provisional.
42 The extent of von Kries' views' looting 'in this place as in the previous passages
teeth becomes almost embarrassing to me, especially since the formulation is often, by the force of
things, far from equaling in precision that of von Kries. All this is however inevitable,
given the purpose of this study.
43 Binding, Die Normen und ihre Übertretung, I, pp. 41 and following. and von Kries, op. cit . p. 107.
44 H. Gomperz (Über die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Willensentscheidung, Wien 1904, Separat-
druck aus der Sitzungsberichten der Wiener Akademie, Phil.-Hist. KI., T. CXL) makes it the basis
Page 66
reuse, including historical knowledge, cannot accept this kind of anthro-

pomorphism 45 . Not only the representation of two "forces" acting by
opposite direction is a spatio-physical image which cannot be applied without risk
to delude oneself only to phenomena [289] of a mechanical and physical order
that 46 , where, of the two "contrary" effects in the physical sense, one is the result of
one of these forces and the other of the other, but we must stick once and for all to
that a concrete effect can never be considered as the result of a
conflict between certain causes which tend towards the effect and others which oppose it.
On the contrary, the set of all the conditions to which the re-
causal gression from a given "effect" had to "combine" in such a way.
and not from another to produce the concrete effect in such and such a form or not in a
other: in any empirical science of a causal character the appearance of an effect
can not be established from a given moment, but from "all eternity".
Also, when we speak of conditions which "favor" a given effect and of other
very which "upset" him, we can in no way understand by this that some
have, in a specific case, sought in vain to counteract the effect which finally
produced, while the others eventually produced it despite the resistance of the pre-
cedent. On the contrary, this way of speaking always and without exception means
that certain elements of reality, chronologically prior to the effect and that
has isolated in thought, usually "favor" in a general way, according to the
general rules of experience, an effect of this kind, which means, as
as we have seen, that in the surplus [ Überzahl ] of conceivable combinations
possible with other conditions, these elements usually produce this ef-
fet, while others generally produce not this effect, but another.
When, for example, we hear Meyer speak of cases "where everything contributes to a
determined effect ”(p. 27) it can only allude to an abstraction which proceeds
by isolation and generalization and not to a reproduction of a course of events
ments that actually took place. Formulated in a logically correct way,
this means that we can observe causative "elements" and isolate them in
thought and that the expected effect must be conceived as being adequate for them, because
we can only imagine relatively few combinations of these elements.
isolated elements with other causative elements, which would allow us to "wait
dre ”, according to the general rules of experiment, another result. In the cases
where things present themselves [290] to our "interpretation" to the way in which
dement of a phenomenological theory of "decision". I will not allow myself to wear

a judgment on the value of this development (88). It seems to me that regardless of
this, the analytical identification of a purely conceptual order that Windelband establishes - at
breast, for the needs of its cause - between the "strongest" motive and the one towards which "
cline ”ultimately the decision, is not the only possible way to deal with this problem. See from
this author, Über Willensfreiheit, p. 36.
45 To this extent Kistiakovski ( op. Cit .) Is right.
46 See von Kries, loc. cit. p. 108.
Page 67

Meyer has just described them, we usually talk about the existence of a tendency
development oriented towards the effect in question 47 .
This last expression, as also the use of images of the kind of cel-
the "driving forces" or conversely "obstacles" to a development - to
that of capitalism, for example - or even turns of the kind that
express that a certain "rule" of the causal relation has been "annulled" [ auf-
gehoben ] in a concrete case by sequences of determined causes or
same (formula still more imprecise) when we say that a (i law "has been" annulled)
enacted ”by another“ law ”- all these names no longer present any danger if
we remain aware of their ideal character, that is to say if we do not lose sight of
that they are based on the abstraction of certain elements of the causal chain
real, on the ideal generalization of other elements in the form of judgments
objectives of possibility and on the use of these to order the becoming in
a causal relation of a determined structure 48 . Nevertheless it is not enough for us
not in this case that we recognize and know consciously that all our
"Knowledge" extends to a categorically structured reality and that the "cause
dirt 'for example is a category of our thought, because, with regard to the
"Adequacy" of causality, things are presented in this respect in a way
very special 49 . Although we do not intend to make the ex-
haustive of the appropriate causal category, it seems, however, necessary to
the sole purpose of clarifying and making intelligible the relative nature (conditioned by
each time by the concrete goal of the research) of the opposition between "causality
adequate ”and“ accidental causation ”, to set out at least briefly how
the extremely imprecise content in certain cases of the statement which expresses a
judgment of possibility agrees despite everything with its claim to a "validity"
and despite everything also with the effective possibility of using it in training.
tion of a historical causal series 50 .
47 This expression is certainly not beautiful, but it does not change the existence of the logi-
than.
48 It is only in the event that this is forgotten - as happens too frequently - that the objec-
statements of Kistiakovski ( loc. cit .) against the metaphysical character of this conception of
causality are justified.
49 With regard to these questions, the essential points of view are in part explicitly
exposed, only partly touched upon by both von Kries (op. cit.) and by Radbruch
( op. cit. ).
50 The third section which was to follow was not written.
Page 68

Notes from the translator, Julien Freund,
for the second test:

of cultural sciences ” (1906)
( 37 ) These unfinished studies first appeared in

the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, t. XXII, in 1906.
( 38 ) Édouard MEYER (1855-1930) was one of the great German historians of

beginning of this century. Before the work analyzed here he had published two other works
to which Weber often alludes in the following pages: Die Ent-
stehung des Judentums (1896) and Geschichte des Altertums, 5 volumes (1884-
1902, 20th ed. 1926-1930), French translation, History of Antiquity, 3 volumes
(Paris 1912-1926). He later wrote another equally important work:
Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, 3 volumes (1920-1923)
( 39 ) These three points of the alleged new direction of history that Weber
lists following Meyer, were exhibited by historian Karl LAMPRECHT
(1856-18i5) in his work: Moderne Geschichtswissenschaft (1st ed., 1905).
See also other works of methodology by the same author: Alte und
neue Ricktungen der Geschichtstswissenschaft (1896) and Einführung in das histo-
rische Denken (1912), who all claim to be naturalistic psychologism and
everything from collective psychology ( Vö1kerpsychologie ) and Logic by W.
Wundt.
( 40 ) This is the work Die Lehre vom Zulall (Tübingen 1870). According to Rickert
(preface to the 3rd and 40th ed. des Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbil-
dung, p. XXIII) Weber was initially extremely critical of
Windelband and especially with regard to its famous rectorial conference
de Strasbourg (1894), Histoire et science de la nature published in Präludien (go
ed., Tübingen 1924), t. II, pp. 136-160, which nevertheless had a very great impact
sement in Germany in circles dealing with the human sciences. By
Page 69
the sequel, however, Weber approached Windelband and, as we will see more
far, he will always quote it with deference.
( 41 ) LM HARTMANN (1865-1924), historian and politician (socialist)

Austrian. He was the first Austrian Ambassador to Berlin in the aftermath of the
World War I and a declared supporter of Anschluß (see his brochure:
Großdeutsch oder Kleindeutsch? , 1921). Weber distorts the title of the book
which he is referring to here. Its exact content is: Über historische Entwicklung,
Sechs Vorträge (Gotha 1905).
( 42 ) The relationship between Weber and Eulenburg (a trader who became a

before entering teaching) seem to have been very ambiguous. EU-
LENBURG wrote an article for the Erinnerungsausgabe für Max Weber (1923)
entitled: Sind historische Gesetze möglich?
( 43 ) See RICKERT, Grengen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung (5th

edits. 1929, pp. 402-407).
( 44 ) This is Bismarck's decision to wage war on Austria. This is

ended with the Prussian victory at Sadowa.
( 45 ) Frederick William IV, which will often be discussed in the following pages.
wind, was King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861. Let us recall that he never succeeded in
commoder of the parliamentary regime, that he had to face the riot revolution-
naire of 1848, that he refused the imperial crown proposed to him by the
Frankfurt in the aftermath of the events of 1848 and which he practically abandoned
power until his death in 1861 to his brother, the future Emperor William I
who called Bismarck to power.
( 46 ) On this point, see the Essay on some categories of comprehended sociology.

hensive, p- 471, and the Essay on the meaning of axiological neutrality, p. 517.
( 47 ) Über Willensfreiheit (1st ed. Tübingen / Leipzig, 1904 and 4th ed. 1924).
Weber will return later in section 2, pp. 270-271 of these same Studies
critiques on the issue of causal imputation in criminology. See also
ment the study on Roscher und Knies, pp. 132 and following.
( 48 ) This study on Roscher and Knies is the first epistemological work of

Weber (see Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, pp. 1-145. Weber makes
allusion to pp. 46, 124, 132 et seq., 138 et seq. of this pamphlet.
( 49 ) In particular at pp. 114 et seq., 27 et seq. of this study.
( 50 ) Karl MENGER (1840-1921), Austrian economist and main representative

of the marginalist school. See his Grundsätze der Volkswirtschalftslehre, 1871.
Page 70
( 51 ) For this notion, see RICKERT, Die Grenzen der natur-

wissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, 5th ed., chap. IV, § § 3 and 5, as well as Max
WEBER, Roscher und Knies und die logische Problemen der historischen Natio-
nalökonomie, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre , p. 86.
( 52 ) G. VON BELOW (1858-1927) was one of the very important German historians
mands from the Wilhelminian era. His main works are Die Entstehung
der deutschen Stadtgemeinde (1889); Der Ursprung der deutschen Staatsverfas-
sung (1892); Das ältere deutsche Städtewesen (1898, 3rd ed. 1925); Territorium
und Stadt (1900, 2nd ed. 1923) and Probleme der Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1920).
Like Max Weber and Édouard Meyer he fought the conception of history
by Lamprecht in Die neue historische Methode (1898).
( 53 ) In particular at pp. 56, 64 et seq. and 133 et seq.
( 54 ) J. WELLHAUSEN (1844-1918), German theologian and orientalist whose

main works were on ancient Israel and Arabism. The controversy at
which Weber alludes to was prompted by an article by Wellhausen in the
Göttinger Gelehrten Anzeigen from February 1897 in which he reported on
the work of MEYER, Die Entstehung des Judentums , 1906. The review of Göttin-
gen having refused the latter the possibility of replying in his columns, he published
a small brochure, Julius Wellhausen und meine Schrift: Die Entstehung des
Judentums (Halle 1897).
( 55 ) N. MICHAILOWSKI (1842-1904) Russian sociologist and music theorist

populist vement (narodniki). Complete works in 10 vol. 4th ed., Saint-
Petersburg, 1908-1914). Appeared by him in French: What is progress?
(Paris 897). - N. KARJEJEW (1850-1931), Russian historian and sociologist, friend of
Dilthey and Simmel. Appeared by him in French: The peasants and the question of
paysannerie (Paris 1899), and The sections of Paris during the French revolution
(St. Petersburg 1911). B. KISTIAKOWSKI (1868-1920), philosopher and socio-
Russian logue, representative of neokantism in Russia. In addition to the work cited by We-
ber he also published Gesellschaft und Einzelwesen (1899) and Sozialwissens-
chaft und Macht (1906). Student of Windelband, friend of Rickert and Simmel, he
also frequented Weber's house in Heidelberg. It was he who gave during
three months of Russian lessons to Max Weber who already spoke French, English,
Italian and Spanish.
( 56 ) K. BREYSIG (1866-1940), German historian, pupil of Lamprecht, promotion

founder of the so-called Entwicklungsgeschichte concept based on so-called laws
general development. See Der Stufenbau und die Gesetze der Weltges-
chichte (1904, 2nd ed. 1927) and Geschichte der Menschheit (1936-1955).
Page 71
( 57 ) RICKERT, Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, (5th ed.

1929), p. 294.
( 58 ) K. BREYSIG, Die Entstehung des Staates aus der Geschlechterverfassung

bei Tlinkit und Irokesen in Schmollers Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung , XXVIII
(1904), pp. 483 and following.
( 59 ) At the time Weber was writing these lines, little was said about the interaction
universal, even in physics. It is also necessary to bring this text closer to what it
said on the previous page of the influence of the decisions of Themistocles. All these
developments are correlative of his conception of infinity as a diversity
inexhaustible from the extensive and intensive point of view and its doctrine of the idealype.
( 60 ) In the rectoral speech already cited (Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft , 1894)

Windelband opposes the nomothetic procedure (specific to the natural sciences)
to the idiographic procedure (specific to the cultural sciences), although We-
ber did not like the term "idiographic because it was too aesthetic." Likewise
Rickert contrasts the generalizing method of the natural sciences and the method
individualizing cultural sciences. See RICKERT, Kulturwissenschaft
und Naturwissenschaft (Tübingen 1899, 7th ed. 1926) and Probleme der Geschich-
tsphilosophie (Heidelberg 1904, 3rd ed. 1924)
( 61 ) RICKERT, Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, 5th ed.,

for example pp. 225 and following. or Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie
3rd ed., Pp. 29 et seq .. As regards Simmel, the problem is more delicate,
because there was an evolution from the first to the third edition of Probleme der Ges-
chichtsphilosophy . At the time when Weber was writing these pages he referred without
doubt in the first edition of this work (Leipzig 1892). Nevertheless, relative-
to the problem in question, Simmel maintained the same position. View by
consequently the Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie (5th ed. 1923), in particular
pp. 25, 76 and 198.
( 62 ) On this question of the relationship between singular acts and the whole, cf. SIM-
MEL, Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie (5th ed. 1923), P. 139.
( 63 ) We do not have the letters from Mme de Stein to Goethe.
( 64 ) In this place the original text says: Diese Interpretation oder, wie wir sagen
wollen, Deutung , etc. Since we have, properly translated Deulung by
interpretation we have left aside the part of the sentence which has only one
expletive character.
( 65 ) On the notion of axiological interpretation, see the study on Roscher and Knies,
pp. 67 et seq., Pp. 89 and 122 as well as the Essay on the meaning of axiological neutrality.
that, pp. 498 and 510.
Page 72
( 66 ) On the relationship between Croce and Voßler, see Briefwecksel Benedotto Croce-
Karl Voßler (Berlin / Frankfurt 1955).
( 67 ) The original text says: “à la Düntzer”, which implies a pejorative nuance.

H. DÜNTZER (1813-1901) was a philologist, historian of classical literature.
German and a somewhat pedantic specialist of Goethe, in the sense that some
of these specialists quote this author about everything and nothing.
( 68 ) B. SCHMEIDLER, historian of German cities and of Italy in the Middle

Age.
( 69 ) H. RICKERT, Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung , 5th ed.,

pp. 432-435.
( 70 ) All in all, this is the subject of the three volumes of the sociology of religion,
in which Weber tries to specify the originality and the specific characteristics
of European civilization compared to other major world civilizations
the. On this subject, see in particular the foreword to Protestant Ethics and the
of capitalism as well as the Introduction to the Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen
in Gesammelte Aufsätze on Religionssoziologie t. 1, pp. 235-275.
( 71 ) While Weber agrees with most historians that the

the possibility of better explaining and understanding the present is one of the
elements of historical interest, he did not however see this as an exclusive reason. In
Indeed, the present also helps to better grasp the past and, therefore, the human experience.
General maine allows us to better understand history and therefore man.
In addition, certain events or periods become more prominent than the
others and seem to be worth by themselves, which means that they appear
as borderline situations likely to shed light on human destiny in its entirety
seems. In this sense there is an aesthetic aspect of the story, but also, as
Weber says it a little later, a "contemplative" aspect.
( 72 ) This is obviously the trilogy of Aeschylus comprising: Agamemnon, the

Choéphora and the Eumenides.
( 73 ) Weber here expresses his disagreement with the conception set out by RICKERT
in Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophi e (Heidelberg 1904); see 3rd edict.
1924, c. III, particularly pp. 125 and following.
( 74 ) J. WINCKELMANN (1717-1768) was with his Geschichte der Kunst im Alter-

tum (1864), the initiator of art history in Germany.
( 75 ) Definition of philology by A. Boeckh (1785-867): s Hiernach scheint die

eigentliche Aufgabe der Philologie das Erkennen des vom menschlichen Geist
Page 73
Producierten, dh des Erkannten zu sein ”or again:“ So ist die Philologie -

oder was dasselbe sagt, die Geschichte, Erkenntnis des Erkannten ”in his or-
posthumous book Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Philologischen Wissenschaf-
ten, published by Bratuscheck (Leipzig 1877), pp. I0 and 12.
( 76 ) U. VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORF (1848-1931), other philologist

German known for his work on Plato , 2 vols. (1919), Pindaros (1922) and
Der Glaube der Hellenen , 2 Vol- (193I-I9l2).
( 77 ) These are the incidents which were immediately at the origin of the revolt
lutionary in Berlin in March 1848.
( 78 ) J. VON KRIES (1853-1928), physiologist, specialist in sensation, which

led him to reflect on the problems of psychology and knowledge in
general. See his Allgemeine Sinnesphysiologie (Leipzig 1923). The Prinzipien
der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung appeared in 1886. He gave a systematic form
matic to its methodological conceptions in a Logik, Grundzüge einer
kritischen und formalen Urteilslehre (Tübingen 1916).
( 79 ) A. MERKEL (1836-1896) in Lehrbuch des deutschen Strafrecht (1889)

and V ergeltungsidee und Zwechgedanke im Strafrecht (1892); - Max VON RÜ-
MELIN (1861-1931) in Zufall im Recht (1896), Die Verwendung des Kausals-
begriff (1900) and Das Verschulden (1909); - Mr. LIEPMANN (1869-1928) already
cited by Weber in the same Critical Studies p. 222, in Einleitung in das
Strafrecht RADBRUCH (1878-1949), jurist and politician since he was
Minister of Justice under the governments of Chancellors Wirth and Strese-
mann. He is also known for his works on the philosophy of law, Einführung in
dei Rechtswissenschaft, 1910, Grundzüge der Rechisphilosophie , 1914 and Der
Mensch im Rech t, 1927.
( 80 ) L. VON BORTKIEWITSCH (1868-1932), professor in Germany, high-

Russian civil servant, then professor at the University of Berlin. Question specialist
demographic statements: Die mittlere Lebensdauer (1893); Das Gesets der Akinen
Zahlen (1898) and Die Iteration , (1917). - A. TSCHUPROW, which Weber orthogra-
phie also CUPROV ( Die Wirtschaftsgeschichte , p. 32), a Russian sociologist who
seems to have been a friend of Weber's. He is hardly known as an author: Die
Feldgemeinschaft, tint morphologische Untersuchung , Strasbourg 1902 and at the len-
tomorrow of the Soviet revolution, The decomposition of Bolshevism (Stockholm
1919). - The Brockhaus-Ephronschen Enzyclopädischen Wörterbuch was the subsidiary
Russian (in St. Petersburg) from the German publishing house Brockhaus.
( 81 ) See Ed. MEYER, Geschichite des Altertums , t. IV, I of the 4th edict. 1944.
( 82 ) H. HELMHOLT (1865-1929), supporter of an anthropological conception and

geographical history, quite close to the theses of Lamprecht and Breysig.
Page 74
The work referred to here is the Weltgeschichte in 9 vol. (1899-1907,

26 ed. 1913-1922).
( 83 ) The battle of Tagiacozzo (23 August 1268) ruined the hopes of the dynasty of
Hohenstaufen. The work by K. HAMPE (1869-1936) mentioned by Weber is the
Geschichte Konradins von Hohenstaufen (Innsbruck 1894), and the sentence to which
he alludes to says this: "Freilich, die Geschichte kennt kein" wenn ", p. 327.
( 84 ) “The supreme moment would consist in understanding that everything is already

theory ”GOETHE, Maximen und Reflexionen, no 575 (Schriften der Goethe
Gesellschaft, t.XXI).
( 85 ) In particular at pp. 108 and following.
( 86 ) W. Busch (1832-1908), poet and cartoonist. These verses are taken from
l'Abenteuer eines Junggesellen, part 1 of the Knopp Trilogy (1875-1877). The
quote from the third line seems incorrect. Instead of "dringet in die Seele
ein ”should read“ schneidet in die Seele ein ”. See W. Busch, Såmtliche
Werke in 2 Vol. (1959), t. II, p. 169. The expression of the pallor of thought is
also borrowed from another work by Busch, Pflisch und Pflum: “Der Ge-
danke macht ihn blaß ”, ibid. t. II, p. 456.
( 87 ) BINDING (1841-1920). He has worked most of his life at this immense

work, Die Normen und ihre Übertretung, t. 1 (1872), t. He (1877), t. III (1918), t.
IV (imparted 1912 and 2nd part 1920).
( 88 ) H. GOMPERZ (1873-1942), son of the historian of philosophy Theodore

Gomperz. See of him Das Problem der Willensfreikeit (1904), Sophistik und Rhe-
torik (19l2) and Über Sinn und Sinngebilde. Erklären und Verstehen (1929). In
this last work he takes a position in the positivist sense with regard to the distinction
tion between explaining it and understanding it which agitated at that time the methodology
of humanities in Germany.

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Page 1

Max WEBER (1864-1920)

Translation from German and introduced

A document produced in digital version by Gemma Paquet, volunteer,

As part of the collection: "The Classics of Social Sciences"

A collection developed in collaboration with the Library

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 2

This electronic edition was produced by Gemma Paquet, volunteer, pro

Essays on the theory of science

A digital edition based on the book Essays on the theory of

A collection of essays published between 1904 and 1917.

For the text: Times, 12 points.

Electronic edition carried out with the word processor Mi-

Layout on paper format: LETTER (US letter), 8.5 '' x 11 '')

Edition completed on August 2, 2006 in Chicoutimi, Ville de Saguenay, Quebec.

Introduction by the translator, Julien Freund

First try : “The objectivity of knowledge in science and politics

Second trial : “Critical studies to serve the logic of the sciences of

1. Elements for a discussion of the ideas of Édouard Meyer

Third essay: “Essay on some categories of sociology comprehen-

1. Meaning of a "comprehensive" sociology.

Fourth essay: “Essay on the meaning of“ axiological neutrality ”in

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 4

ESSAYS ON THE THEORY OF SCIENCE

TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN AND INTRODUCED BY JULIEN FREUND

The essays published here are taken from

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 5

Critical studies to serve

Return to the table of contents

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 6

1. Elements for a discussion

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 7

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 8

science can no more be the presupposition of fruitful work than the

1. It should be considered as insignificant for history and therefore

2. it will be necessary "to consider as a true object of scientific knowledge

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 9

a) “mass demonstrations” as opposed to individual activity,

b) the “typical” as opposed to the “singular”,

c) the development of "communities," especially of "social classes.

3.historical development should be conceived as a process which

In the following lines we will temporarily leave aside all the

Regarding first the discussion of chance (pp. 17 and following) É

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 10

What interests us at the moment is how it comes back a bit

5 This sort of concept of "chance" cannot even be ignored by a discipline which

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 11

also, "unpredictable" according to [221] Meyer's hypothesis, and consequently not

A question immediately arises: does Meyer really believe that this

2) that "all" the important conditions of development be known

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 12

Otherwise - and this is the absolute rule when it comes to the

However, if Meyer's point of view is interpreted in this way, he must

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 13

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 14

can know with certainty, that it is often only a simple "formu-

8 Windelband, Über Willensfreiheit (last chapter), specially chooses this formulation

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 15

philosophy of "freedom" in the methodology of history, would remove

10 I did. a detailed critique of this view in my study, Roscher und Knies

If Édouard Meyer's presentation on the categories of “chance” and “free

Max Weber, Essays on the Theory of Science. Second attempt (1906) 17