the requisite laborious research in so many different
directions art, letters, science, economics, politics, social life, and
what not. The History of Civilization, as understood by Riehl, embraces
the results gained in all the special branches of historical study,
political history included.

By a formulation so comprehensive and exacting, Riehl himself stood
committed to the investigation of the national life not only in the
breadth and variety of its general aspect, but also in its minuter
processes that had so far been left unheeded. But under his care even
the study of seemingly trite details quickened the approach to that
fixed ideal of a History of Civilization that should have for its
ultimate object nothing less than the revelation of the spirit of
history itself. The goal might never be attained, yet the quest for it
would at all events disclose "the laws under which racial civilizations
germinate, mature, bloom, and perish."

Personally Riehl applied the bulk of his labors to the two contiguous
fields of Folklore and Art History. Folklore (_Volkskunde_) is here
taken in his own definition, namely, as the science which uncovers the
recondite causal relations between all perceptible manifestations of a
nation's life and its physical and historical environment. Riehl never
lost sight, in any of his distinctions, of that inalienable affinity
between land and people; the solidarity of a nation, its very right of
existing as a political entity, he derived from homogeneity as to
origin, language, custom, habitat. The validity of this view is now
generally accepted in theory, while its practical application to
science must necessarily depend upon the growth of special knowledge. In
_The Palatine People_ Riehl presented a standard treatise upon one of
the ethnic types of the German race, an illustration as it were of his
own theorems.

Among Riehl's contributions to the History of Art, the larger number
concern the art of music. He was qualified for this work by a sure and
sound critical appreciation rooted in thorough technical knowledge. Here
again, following his keen scent for the distinguishing racial qualities,
he gave his attention mainly to the popular forms of composition; at the
same time his penetrating historic insight enabled him to account for
the distinctive artistic character of the great composers by a due
weighing of their individual attributes against the controlling
influences of their time. It