in Germany and was available in translation the world over. This work made what he presented in the lecture hall the common possession of hundreds of thousands. In the preface he himself characterizes his work as not so much a scholarly endeavor as a persuasive and agitating one. He made no claim, he said, to widen or deepen historical knowledge. He only aimed to take the historical knowledge at hand and through an appropriate treatment make it accessible to the layperson and not only to enrich the reader of average education but also strengthen the moral will, and especially influence the character and attitude of young people coming of age. This goal the author reached in full measure. Rotteck appealed to the flawless vigor of the life of the people, to the love of freedom and fatherland; he alluded to equalizing justice in the development of nations. This little affected the relationship of the author to his closest contemporaries, but for hundreds of thousands into whose hands the book came, those who smarted under the yoke of Napoleon, it was taken as a balm in times of suffering, a call to persevere, a promise of better times. The later volumes in the series, published after Napoleon's defeat, found a different situation in the world. In contrast to the oppressive attitude of the German governments which so sorely disappointed the fighters in the war of liberation, the pathos of Rotteck's presentation of history, its exaltation of the free development of the spirit of the people, the fight for justice and self-determination over willfulness and tyranny, found a genuinely thankful and enthusiastic public. Through the publication of a four-volume extract from his Allgemeine Geschichte, Rotteck made its contents accessible to the widest possible audience. Political scientist At the university, where the revitalization of the critical method of historical research posed more earnest requirements to the practitioner than those which Rotteck could fulfill, in 1818 Rotteck exchanged his history pulpit for one in political science and natural law. In this field as well, his inclination to practical achievement felt the need to spread his teaching beyond the walls of his lecture hall, and from 1829 to 1836, he published in four volumes his Primer of political science and rational law () which in his mind promised to outdo the almost unprecedented success of his world history in its effect on contemporary public opinion.