he same time professed
logicians, and even novelists. In this connection, Fustel de Coulanges
left a tradition behind him at the University of Paris. "He
endeavoured," we are told,[14] "to reduce the rules of method to very
precise formulae ...; in his view no task was more urgent than that of
teaching students how to attain truth." Among these men, some, like
Renan,[15] have been content to insert scattered observations in their
general works or their occasional writings;[16] others, as Fustel de
Coulanges, Freeman, Droysen, Laurence, Stubbs, De Smedt, Von
Pflugk-Harttung, and so on, have taken the trouble to express their
thoughts on the subject in special treatises. There are many books,
"inaugural lectures," "academic orations," and review-articles,
published in all countries, but especially in France, Germany, England,
the United States, and Italy, both on the whole subject of methodology
and on the different parts of it. It will occur to the reader that it
would be a far from useless labour to collect and arrange the
observations which are scattered, and, one might say, lost, in these
numerous books and minor writings. But it is too late to undertake this
pleasant task; it has been recently performed, and in the most
painstaking manner. Professor Ernst Bernheim, of the University of
Greifswald, has worked through nearly all the modern works on historical
method, and the fruit of his labours is an arrangement under appropriate
headings, most of them invented by himself, of a great number of
reflections and selected references. His _Lehrbuch der historischen
Methode_[17] (Leipzig, 1894, 8vo) condenses, in the manner of German
_Lehrbuecher_, the special literature of the subject of which it treats.
It is not our intention to do over again what has already been done so
well. But we are of opinion that even after this laborious and
well-planned compilation something still remains to be said. In the
first place, Professor Bernheim deals largely with metaphysical problems
which we consider devoid of interest; while, conversely, he entirely
ignores certain considerations which appear to us to be, both
theoretically and practically, of the greatest importance. In the second
place, the teaching of the _Lehrbuch_ is sound enough, but lacks vigour
and originality. Lastly, the _Lehrbuch_ is not addressed to the general
public; both the language in which it is written and the form in which
it is composed render it inaccessible t