limited and anomalous. But within the limitations of our knowledge of
things and of the inner necessity of events we can at least try to
understand in broad outlines the ways of Providence, which we may also
term the principles of development. We shall thus obtain useful guidance
for our further investigation and procedure.

The agency and will of Providence are most clearly seen in the history
of the growth of species and races, of peoples and States. "What is
true," Goethe once said in a letter to Zelter, "can but be raised and
supported by its history; what is false only lowered and dissipated by
its history."

The formation of peoples and races, the rise and fall of States, the
laws which govern the common life, teach us to recognize which forces
have a creative, sustaining, and beneficent influence, and which work
towards disintegration, and thus produce inevitable downfall. We are
here following the working of universal laws, but we must not forget
that States are personalities endowed with very different human
attributes, with a peculiar and often very marked character, and that
these subjective qualities are distinct factors in the development of
States as a whole. Impulses and influences exercise a very different
effect on the separate national individualities. We must endeavour to
grasp history in the spirit of the psychologist rather than of the
naturalist. Each nation must be judged from its own standpoint if we
wish to learn the general trend of its development. We must study the
history of the German people in its connection with that of the other
European States, and ask first what paths its development has hitherto
followed, and what guidance the past gives for Our future policy. From
the time of their first appearance in history the Germans showed
themselves a first-class civilized people.