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How did German historiansā use of original documents impress Hippolyte Taine?
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Leopold von Ranke
Ranke, detail of an oil painting by J. Schrader, 1868; in the National-Galerie, Berlin
Hippolyte Taine believed that the superiority of German historians rested on two primary foundations. He was impressed that they were not only philologists who went straight to original documents but also philosophers, which provided them with the habit of generalizing and viewing objects in masses.1