1. Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) History as a Professional Discipline 1) Establishing history as a professional discipline 2) Emphasis on the past in context (historicism) 3) Emphasis on critical methods (primary sources) Wie es eigentlich gewesen “To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire: it wants only to show what actually happened.”

2. David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) History as a Professional Discipline 1) Applied critical methods to history of religion 2) Publishes Life of Jesus (1835)Life of Jesus The author is aware that the essence of the Christian faith is perfectly independent of his criticism. The supernatural birth of Christ, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain eternal truths, whatever doubts may be cast on their reality as historical facts. The certainty of this can alone give calmness and dignity to our criticism, and distinguish it from the naturalistic criticism of the last century, the design of which was, with the historical fact, to subvert also the religious truth, and which thus necessarily became frivolous.

3. Charles Lyell (1797-1875) Geology as a Professional Discipline 1) Gradual causes of geological change 2) Publishes Principles of Geology (1830-33)Principles of Geology The readiest way, perhaps, of persuading the reader that we may dispense with great and sudden revolutions in the geological order of events is by showing him how a regular and uninterrupted series of changes in the animate and inanimate world must give rise to such breaks in the sequence, and such unconformability of stratified rocks, as are usually thought to imply convulsions and catastrophes. Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation More on Lyell

4. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Biology as a Professional Discipline 1) Gradual, natural causes of biological change 2) Publishes Origin of Species (1859)Origin of Species As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary, however slightly, in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. More on Darwin