 Nineteenth-century philosophers and (especially) historians are commonly credited with the modern “discovery” of history, especially political history, via developing the discipline of evidence-based, interpretive and explanatory historiography. Hegel historicized Kant at the beginning of that century, but it was primarily German historians such as Ranke, Droysen, Windelband, Dilthey, Rickert, and Weber who developed competing conceptions of what is required for rigorous historical research. (For an in-depth survey, see Beiser 2011.) These historians were concerned to develop historiography as wissenschaftlich but autonomous from the natural sciences, where positivism reigned. They also rejected the grand, Hegel-type philosophies of history. Toward the end of the century, this opposition produced the Methodenstreit, the vehement debate over differences between the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) and the socio-historical sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). Historicists saw naturalism and materialistic mechanism as threats.