The reaction of this philosophy of the new natural science and of the new social philosophy upon historiography appears in the writings of what is conventionally known as the "Ration alistic School" of historians, or the historians of the "Aufklirung." While the writings of this school varied so greatly that it is custom ary to divide the writers into several groups. there was a fundamental unity of method and interest which makes it possible to summarize the general nature of the rationalistic histori ography of the 18th century. Much the most important innovation of this school was their uniform tendency to broaden the field of his tory, so that it would extend beyond the polit ical intrigues of church or state and embrace the history of commerce, industry, and civil ization in its widest aspects. The historians of the discoveries had shown a similar tendency, but their work had been confined to a discussion of the new world and they had not constituted a general European school of historians. With the rationalists, no matter what the period or country dealt with, there was an effort to adopt a broad cultural approach to history and to infuse embryonic sociological principles into historical analysis. Scarcely less important was their attempt to discredit superstition and the theological theories of historical causation, and to substitute for these purely natural causes. Their general theory of historical causation was crude and elementary, being the notorious so called "catastrophic theory of history," whereby great movements or policies are accounted for as the result of a single personal act or of some isolated natural or political event. Being the first attempt in the history of historiography to provide a purely natural theory of causa tion, it was bound to be imperfect and unsatis factory, but it was a great advance over the previous theory of supernatural or miraculous causation. It led, however, to an exaggerated emphasis upon the possibility of abrupt and artificial changes in social and political institu tions. The "Romanticists° arose primarily as a reaction against this particular phase of the historical doctrines of the rationalists. Even the political history of the rationalists was given a new and more promising cast. It was no longer limited to the field of political apolo getics, but became a truly critical political his tory as far as its attitude towards policies was concerned. It was not usually written by mem bers of the governing classes nor under their patronage, but by representatives of the new bourgeoisie or third estate, who had little influ ence in the several European governments at that period. It became an agency of criticism and of agitation for reform but rarely for rev olution. It must be remembered, however, that the critical powers of the rationalists were limited almost wholly to their attitude towards the general subject-matter of their history and were not exhibited to any comparable degree in their handling of the sources of information. As research scholars in the use and criticism of printed and manuscript documents they did not even approximate the level of the school of Mabillon.
The founder of the rationalistic school of his torians and the master mind of the movement was Francois Arouet, more commonly known as Voltaire (1694-1778). The two dominating factors in Voltaire's political and historical Philosophy were his great admiration for the English civilization of his time and his peer less powers as a critic. An apologist of an en lightened despotism allowing the free develop ment of bourgeois culture and prosperity, he saw in the England of Walpole his political ideal, and his agitation for reform in France was limited wholly to a desire to create in France what he beheld in England. As a critic he has never been equalled in any age, pri marily because of the fact that he was utterly devoid of reverence or respect for any institu tion and was, thus, wholly free to give full expression to his reactions against every phase of obscurantism. His most finished historical work was the 'Si&le de Louis XIV,> which Fueter describes as "the first modern historical work?) In it he broke wholly with the annal istic, and even with any strict chronological sys tem, and for the first time divided an historical work in accordance with the topical system of arrangement. Again, it was the first time that the civilization of a great European state had been described in its totality. Voltaire's work was no mere skillful compilation; it was an attempt to exhibit the main currents of develop ment in the whole life of a powerful state and a cultured society. As was the case with all the internationally-minded rationalists, there was little of that chauvinism in his work which disfigured the work of the political historians of the following century. Much less thorough, but equally significant was his sur les Moeurs,> generally regarded as the first univer sal history in the true sense of the term. It
was planned as a vast alCulturgeschichte)) of all ages and peoples. While Voltaire did not possess the knowledge or the leisure requisite for its execution and the work was ill-propor tioned and marred by serious and almost fatal omissions, it was, nevertheless, one of the great landmarks in the development of historiography. It was the real foundation of the history of civilization in its modern sense; it was the first work in which credit was given to the non Christian contributions, especially of the Arabs, to European civilization; it first put political history in its proper relations to economic and social history in the general development of humanity; and it silenced forever the theological and providential interpretations which had pre vailed from Orosius to Bossuet. The most fundamental point in his philosophy of history, the notion of the "genius of a people,'" was later adopted by the Romanticists, with some grotesque exaggerations, in their conception of a f
Voltaire's point of approach found several distinguished representatives in England. There was one important difference, however; among the English writers there was no underlying im pulse towards reform. In the case of the Eng lish historians of the period there was that same complacent self-satisfaction over the final perfection of English institutions that was evi dent in the legal works of Blackstone which aroused the fury of Bentham. The best ex ample of this tendency was David Hume (1711— 76). His