So that whatever characteristic articles of general theory the historical school may enrich the science with are to be looked for at the hands of those men who, like Professor Schmoller, have departed from the strict observance of the historical method. A peculiar interest, therefore, attaches to his work as the best accepted and most authoritative spokesman of that branch of historical economics which professes to cultivate theoretical inquiry. It serves to show in what manner and degree this more scientific wing of the historical school have outgrown the original "historical" standpoint and range of conceptions, and how they have passed from a distrust of all economic theory to an eager quest of theoretical formulations that shall cover all phenomena of economic life to better purpose than the body of doctrine received from the classical writers and more in consonance with the canons of contemporary science at large. That this should have been the outcome of the half-century of development through which the school has now passed might well seem unexpected, if not incredible, to any who saw the beginning of that divergence within the school, a generation ago, out of which this modernised, theoretical historical economics has arisen. Professor Schmoller entered the field early, in the sixties, as a protestant against the aims and ideals then in vogue in economics. His protest ran not only against the methods and results of the classical writers, but also against the views professed by the leaders of the historical school, both as regards the scope of the science and as regards the character of the laws or generalisations sought by the science. His early work, in so far as he was at variance with his colleagues, was chiefly critical; and there is no good evidence that he then had a clear conception of the character of that constructive work to which it has been his persistent aim to turn the science. Hence he came to figure in common repute as an iconoclast and an extreme exponent of the historical school, in that he was held practically to deny the feasibility of a scientific treatment of economic matters and to aim at confining economics to narrative, statistics, and description. This iconoclastic or critical phase of his economic discussion is now past, and with it the uncertainty as to the trend and outcome of his scientific activity. To understand the significance of the diversion created by Professor Schmoller as regards the scope and method of economics, it is necessary, very briefly, to indicate the position occupied by that early generation of historical economists from which his teaching diverged, and more particularly those points of the older canon at which he has come to differ characteristically from the views previously in vogue.