ABSTRACT
By 1900 the empirical, critical tendency was clearly dominant over the lawful, systematic tendency in scientific history. The American tradition of European history, dwelling as we have seen it on the themes of common origins, had occupied the fields of medieval and of what Americans were later to call "early modern". The expansion of the geographical framework and of the intellectual framework beyond the local fact were parts of the same process; modern Europe could be relevant to America only as an ingredient in a common conception. The role of Europe in the New History was to overlay the older schemes and assumptions based on common origins with a newer one based on common contemporary connections and common destinies. The emphasis on historiography was natural enough, for the New Historians were developing a self-conscious philosophy of history explicitly opposed to the reigning empiricism.
