intimately blended with the imaginations and the hearts
of Germans, that every individual participated in them; manly doings
and sufferings appeared so worthy of reverence, that the feeling for
what was significant and characteristic animated in a new way the
German historical inquirer, and his precepts for the nation attained a
higher meaning.

It was not, indeed, immediately that the Germans gained the sure
judgment and political culture which are necessary to every historian
who undertakes to represent life of his nation. It was remarkable that
the historical mind of Germany deviated so much from that of England
and France, but it developed itself in a way that led the greatest
intellectual acquisitions.

And these new blossoms of intellectual life in Germany, which were
unfolded after the year 1750, bore a thoroughly national character;
indeed, their highest gain remains up to the present time almost
entirely to the German. It began to be recognised that the life of a
people develops itself, like that of an individual, according to
certain natural laws; that, through the individual souls of the
inventor and thinker, a something national and in common penetrates
from generation to generation, each at the same time limiting and
invigorating it. Since Winckelman undertook to discern and fix the
periods of ancient sculptural art, a similar advance was ventured upon
in other domains of knowledge. Semler had already endeavoured to point
out the historical development of Christianity in the oldest church.
The existence of old Homer was denied, and the origin of the epical
poem sought in the peculiarities of a popular life which existed 3000
years ago. The meaning of myths and traditions, striking peculiarities
in the inventions and creations of the youthful period of a people,
were clearly pointed out; soon Romulus and the Tarquins, and finally
the records of the Bible, were subjected to the same reckless
inquiries.

But it was peculiar that these deep-thinking investigations were united
with so much freedom and power of invention. He who wrote the "Laocoon"
and the "Dramaturgie" was himself a poet; and Goethe and Schiller, the
same men whose springs of imagination flowed so full and copiously,
looked intently into its depth, investigating, like quiet men of
learning, the laws of life of their novels, dramas, and ballads.

Meanwhile all the best spirits of the nation were enchanted with their
poems; the beautiful was