Introduction

Abstract

The rise of our modern historical consciousness or historicism has long been the subject of careful analysis and study.¹ Most scholars agree that it arose in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century and that it constituted a definite reaction to the Enlightenment’s emphasis upon universal, immutable, and all-sovereign natural law. Where Voltaire and Turgot were convinced that the general rather than the particular was the chief concern of historical investigation — “ ‘The core is always the same’ ” as Voltaire stated — men like Herder, Hegel, and Ranke placed great stress upon the concreteness and particularity of individual historical phenomena. Moreover, in direct opposition to Voltaire’s interest in “ ‘that great society of all-wise men which exists everywhere and which is everywhere independent,’ ”² they emphasized the importance of the various national units and their unique and peculiar historical development.