More important still, however, was his next great work, the long series of historical novels 'Die Ahnen' (The Ancestors: 1872-80), an ambitious plan, born of the stirring events of the Franco-Prussian War and the resultant awakening of the new spirit of nationality, to trace the development of the German people from the earliest time down to the present day. To carry out this purpose he accordingly selects a typical German family, which he describes under the characteristic conditions of each period, with the most conscientious attention to manners and customs and social environment. The same family thus appears from generation to generation under the changing conditions of the different epochs of German history, and the whole forms together the consecutive _Culturgeschichte_ of the nation. This whole long series of 'The Ancestors' stands as a monument of careful research into the most minute factors of German life in their time of action. Freytag's antiquarianism is not of the dilettante kind that is content to masquerade modern motives in ancient garb and setting. He was fully conscious of all the elements of his problem, and he sought to reproduce the intellectual point of view of his actors, and to account for their motives of action, as well as to picture accurately their material environment. It is in his super-conscientiousness in these directions that the inherent weakness of the novels of this series lies. They are too palpably reconstructions with a purpose. Their didacticism is wrapped around them like a garment; and much of the time, that is all that is visible upon the surface. As the series advances this fault grows upon them. They are in reality of very unequal interest. 'Ingo' and 'Ingraban' are the sprightliest in action, and have been as a consequence the most widely read of these later works, many of which are, in part at least, far too serious of purpose to play their part conspicuously well as novels. The novels of 'The Ancestors' are a culmination of Freytag's literary evolution. As a playwright he will no doubt be forgotten except for 'The Journalists'; in which he has, however, left an imperishable play which German critics have not hesitated to call the best comedy of the century. The two novels of modern life from his middle period form together his greatest work, although here, and particularly in 'The Lost Manuscript,' he has overweighted his material with abstract discussion, in which his perspective has sometimes all but disappeared. Subsequently, both the 'Bilder' and 'Die Ahnen' show his decided predilection for historical studies. The struggle in his own case was between the scholar and the man of letters, in which the scholar eventually won possession of the field.