The German social scientist Max Weber (1864-1920) was a founder of modern sociological thought. His historical and comparative studies of the great civilizations are a landmark in the history of sociology.

The work of Max Weber reflects a continued interest in charting the varying paths taken by universal cultural history as reflected in the development of the great world civilizations. In this sense, he wished to attempt a historical and analytical study of the themes sounded so strongly in G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy of history, especially the theme, which Weber took as his own, of the "specific and peculiar rationalism of Western culture." Along with this emphasis on universal cultural history, Weber's detailed training as a legal and economic historian led him to reject the overly simplistic formulas of economic base and corresponding cultural superstructure that were so often used to account for cultural development and were a strong part of the intellectual environment of Weber's early years as student and professor. His historical and comparative erudition and analytical awareness required that he go beyond both the Hegelian and Marxian versions of historical development toward a deep historical and comparative study of sociocultural processes in West and East.

Weber was born on April 21, 1864, in Erfaut, Thuringia, the son of a lawyer active in political life. An attack of meningitis at the age of 4 and his mother's consequent overprotectiveness helped contribute to Weber's sedentary yet intellectually precocious youth. He read widely in the classics and was bored with the unchallenging secondary education of his time, which he completed in 1882. He then attended Heidelberg University, where he studied law, along with history, economics, and philosophy.

After three terms at Heidelberg, Weber served a year in the military, which he found to be largely an "incredible waste of time" with its continued attempts to regiment the human intellect. Resuming his studies at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen in 1884, he passed his bar examination in 1886 and would later practice law for a time. He completed his doctoral thesis in 1889 with an essay on the history of the medieval trading companies, which embodied his interests in both legal and economic history. His second major work, a customary "habilitation" thesis that would qualify him to teach at the university level, appeared in 1891 and involved a study of the economic, cultural, and legal foundations of ancient agrarian history.

In 1893 Weber married Marianne Schnitger. The following year he received an appointment as professor of economics at Freiburg University; in 1896 he accepted a professorship at Heidelberg. Shortly after his father's death in 1897, Weber began to suffer from a psychic disturbance that incapacitated him almost completely until 1902. By the next year he was well enough to join Werner Sombart in editing the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft and Sozialpolitik (Archives for Social Science and Social Policy), the most prominent German social science journal of the period.

Protestantism and Capitalism

Having assumed his full work load again, Weber began to write perhaps his most renowned essays, published in the Archivin 1904-1905 under the title The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In them he attempted to link the rise of a new sort of distinctly modern capitalism to the religious ethics of Protestantism, especially the Calvinist variety, with its emphasis on work in a calling directed toward the rational ascetic mastery of this world.

Weber argued that, when the asceticism of the medieval Catholic monastery, oriented toward salvation in a world beyond this one through self-denial exercised by a religious few, was brought into the conduct of everyday affairs, it contributed greatly to the systematic rationalization and functional organization of every sphere of existence, especially economic life. He viewed the Reformation as a crucial period in western European history, one that was to see a fundamental reorientation of basic cultural frameworks of spiritual direction and human outlook and destined to have a great impact on economic life as well as other aspects of modern culture. Within the context of his larger questions, Weber tended to view Protestant rationalism as one further step in the series of stages of increasing rationalization of every area of modern society.

In 1904 Weber was invited to attend the St. Louis Exhibition in Missouri and to deliver a popular sociological lecture. While in America, he had substantial opportunity to encounter what he saw as added evidence for his special thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, as well as for his more general philosophic and historical concerns. In the United States the religious foundations of modern economic life had seen perhaps their greatest fruition in the enormous "towers of capital, " as Weber called them, of the eastern industrial centers of the country. However, he also recognized that the contemporary American economic life had been stripped of its original ethical and religious impulse. Intense economic competition assumed the character almost of sport, and no obvious possibilities appeared for the resuscitation of new spiritual values from what appeared to be the extensive mechanization of social and economic existence.

Employing a method that isolated the similarities and differences between features of sociocultural development in different societies, Weber attempted to weigh the relative importance of economic, religious, juridical, and other factors in contributing to the different historical outcomes seen in any comparative study of world societies. This larger theme formed one of his central intellectual interests throughout the remainder of his life, and it resulted in the publication of The Religion of China (1915), The Religion of India (1916-1917), and Ancient Judaism (1917-1919). Although he also planned comparable works on early Christianity, medieval Catholicism, and Islamic civilization, he died before they could be completed.

Later Work

After the essays of 1904-1905, Weber took on an even heavier burden of activities than before his illness. His break with the Verein für Sozialpolitik (Union for Social Policy), a long-standing German political and social scientific organization, over the question of the relation of social scientific research to social policy led to the establishment in 1910, with the collaboration of other great social scientists of his day, of the new Deutsche Soziologische Gesellschaft (German Sociological Society).

Weber and his collaborators argued that social science could not be simply subordinated to political values and policies. Rather, there was a logical distinction between the realms of fact and value, one which required a firmly grounded distinction between the analyses of the social scientist and the policies of any political order. Social science must develop "objective" frames of reference, ones "neutral" to any particular political policies and ethical values. This ever-renewed tension between particular ethical stances and "objectivity" in the sciences remained a central part of Weber's concerns in his political activities during and after World War I as well as in his academic writings and lectures.

Economy and Society

In 1909 Weber took over the editorship of a projected multivolume encyclopedic work on the social sciences entitled Outline of Social Economics. It was to contain volumes authored by prominent social scientists of the time. Although he was originally to contribute the volume Economy and Society to this effort, difficulties in obtaining completed manuscripts from some participants led Weber to expand his contribution into what became a prodigious attempt at the construction of a systematic sociology in world historical and comparative depth, one which was to occupy a large portion of his time and energies during the remainder of his life. He published his first contributions in 1911-1913, other still unfinished sections being published after his death.

Economy and Society differed in tone and emphasis from Weber's comparative studies of the cultural foundations of Chinese, Indian, and Western civilizations. This massive work was an attempt at a more systematic sociology, not directed toward any single comparative, historical problem but rather toward an organization of the major areas of sociological inquiry into a single whole. Weber never believed it possible to write a truly systematic sociology that would have separate analytical sections on each area of interest and that would form a general system of theory. Containing large sections on sociological analysis, the economy and social norms, economy and law, domination, and legitimacy, and still unsurpassed sections on religion, the city, and political rulership, Economy and Society remains today perhaps the only systematic sociology in world historical and comparative depth.

Last Years

Despite time spent in the medical service during World War I, Weber's efforts were largely devoted from 1910 to 1919 to the completion of his studies on China, India, and ancient Judaism and to his work on Economy and Society. Many younger as well as more established scholars formed part of Weber's wide intellectual circle during these years. Always desirous of championing the cause of scholars whose work was judged unfairly because of religious, political, or other external criteria, Weber on numerous occasions attempted to aid these young scholars - despite sometimes substantial intellectual differences with them - by securing for them the academic appointments they deserved. Often these attempts were unsuccessful and led Weber into bitter conflicts with many established scholars and political figures over the relation of science to values and the application of extrascientific criteria to the evaluation of a writer's work.

In 1918 Weber resumed his teaching duties. One result was a series of lectures in 1919-1920, "Universal Economic History, " which was published posthumously from students' notes as General Economic History. Along with this lecture series, Weber delivered two addresses in 1918, "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation, " in which he voiced ethical themes that had occupied him in his scholarly work and in his numerous discussions of social policy. In these two addresses he contrasted the ethic of unalterable ultimate ends so characteristic of uncompromising religious and political prophets with the ethic of consequences so necessary in political life, in which possible outcomes of actions and policies are agonizingly weighed and the least undesirable course determined in light of a plurality of given goals. Variants of this distinction pervaded much of Weber's own view of political and religious life and formed a central aspect of his ethical philosophy.

Thus, Weber sounded ethical themes that have become a central part of the "existentialist" philosophical orientation of our time. Understanding the dilemma of modern men caught between the older religious systems of the past and the cynical power politics of the present, he gave no simple solutions and was willing neither to wait for new prophets nor to abdicate all ethical responsibility for the conduct of life because of its seeming ultimate "meaninglessness."

Weber died in Munich on June 14, 1920. His work forms a major part of the historical foundation of sociology.

Further Reading

Biographical background on Weber as well as an analysis of his major intellectual orientation can be found in the "Introduction" to From Max Weber:Essays in Sociology, edited by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (1946). An interpretation of Weber's life and work, emphasizing analytical motifs derived from Freudianism and the sociology of knowledge, is provided by Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage: An Historical Interpretation of Max Weber (1970).

There are a number of readily accessible general treatments of Weber's sociology. Volume 2 of Raymond Aron, Main Currents of Sociological Thought (2 vols., 1965-1967), contains an excellent treatment of Weber, recommended for beginning students. Julien Freund, The Sociology of Max Weber (1966; trans. 1968), is overly systematic, yet chapters 1 and 2 are helpful as an introduction to Weber's vision of society and his method. Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (1960), gives a depth analysis of Weber's historical works but is recommended for more advanced study. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937; 2d ed. 1949), gives a penetrating and difficult treatment of some elements of Weber's theoretical perspective.

In addition to Mitzman's study, helpful insights into the social, political, and intellectual background of the period are in Koppel S. Pinson, Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization (1954; 2d ed. 1966), and Walter M. Simon, Germany: A Brief History (1966).

(1864-1920) German sociologist; one of the most influential figures in the history of the discipline. Born in Erfurt, and moving to Berlin in 1869, Weber grew up in a prosperous household intimately connected with the academic and political life of Bismarckian Germany. His father, a worldly politician, became a member of the Reichstag whilst his mother was guided by a strong sense of religious duty. Weber read law, history, economics, and philosophy at the universities of Heidelberg, Göttingen, and Berlin, also attending seminars at Strasbourg during his military service. 1886 he qualified as a junior barrister whilst working towards the first of his doctoral theses on the legal and economic history of medieval trading companies, awarded in 1889, and followed two years later by his ‘habilitation’ thesis on the agrarian history of Rome. Weber took up a professorship of economics at Freiburg after some teaching in Berlin. A chair in politics at Heidelberg (1896) marked a high point in his teaching career. The following year saw a quarrel with his father (mainly over the latter's treatment of Weber's mother) who died unreconciled to his son. This conflict seems to have precipitated the psychological and physical breakdown of Weber's health. He did not return to teaching until towards the end of his life when he held professorships in Vienna and Munich.

Prior to his breakdown Weber had written on the stock exchange and ‘traditionalism’ amongst farm workers; topics which gave some impetus to later works. He became active in nationalist politics, joined the Pan-German League but withdrew on health grounds and because of disagreements over policy. After several years of illness a new phase of productivity began in the period 1902-4 when he took an honorary professorship at Heidelberg; worked on a series of methodological essays; and began his study of the formation of the modern world order, the first fruit of which was The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Thereafter Weber expanded his interests into a comparative study of the ‘economic ethics of the world religions’ which, when combined with the studies of Rome and the Middle Ages, provided an analysis of cultures on an unmatched scale. Even so he would be the first to admit that they were incomplete. Such incompleteness was both a practical matter and an issue of epistemological principle: all knowledge was necessarily partial. The last years of his life were mainly devoted to drawing together these strands in Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology (see also General Economic History). Like Marx's Capital, Weber's Economy and Society is a vast, complex, but ultimately incomplete text.

During the First World War Weber worked on the organization of military hospitals; he was a member of the German Delegation to the 1919 Versailles Conference; became a member of the executive of the German Democratic Party and, in that year, commenced his teaching at the University of Munich. After a short illness he died of pneumonia on 14 June 1920.

An outline of Weber's work can best set out from the philosophical, methodological, and ethical outlook which colours so much else. Epistemologically speaking, the essential antinomy is that between the infinite complexity of the potentially knowable and our finite capacity to know. For Weber, reality cannot be reduced to a set of brute facts; knowledge of that reality is formed by the interdependence of ‘fact’ and ‘theory’. The central issue is the understanding and explanation of action. This focus is often misinterpreted as a will to believe in our psychological capacity to rethink or relive the actor's thoughts and to be incongruously matched to a model of explanation drawn from the natural sciences. Neither point does justice to Weber's methodology. The capacity to understand rests, not on psychological insights, but upon historical scholarship, empirical research, and ultimately upon the humanist assumption that the actor's intentions are in principle accessible, however difficult such access may, in practice, prove to be. Similarly the model of explanation is rooted, not in natural science, but in jurisprudence and legal theories of causality.

Weber's anti-empiricist stance rules out the possibility of direct observation of social life. His concepts or ‘ideal types’ are abstract exaggerations of phenomena which, in their pure form, cannot be found in reality. Idealizations of this kind (e.g. ‘class’, ‘status’, ‘party’, ‘power’, ‘charisma’, ‘feudalism’, ‘sect’, and so on) are, for Weber, not the main goal of sociological analysis but they do assist the understanding of the complexities of social phenomena. The very unreality of the ideal types highlights the empirical details, contradictions, and ambiguities of the subject-matter. Precisely because ideal types can be constructed from varying points of view, analysis knows no final resting point.

The analysis of power and domination illustrates something of Weber's approach. ‘Power’ is defined as any situation in which actors can realize their ends despite the resistance of others. ‘Domination’ is more specific, referring to the exercise of power through a command and the probability that such commands will be obeyed. Here the assumption is that power will normally be exercised through an administrative staff. The most enduring forms of domination are those to which, on whatever basis, ‘legitimacy’ is ascribed by the participants. Thus Weber seeks to develop a set of ideal types of legitimate domination through which the historical and contemporary variety of political arrangements might be analysed. These types are belief in legitimacy grounded in ‘traditional’ (an immemorial order), ‘charismatic’ (the special qualities—often divinely ordained—of the leader), or ‘legal’ (the due process of law) criteria.

The idea of legitimacy rests upon the actor's subjective belief (or lack of it) in the system—an orientation which blends with the focus on the ‘meaningful’. Weber does not confuse these idealized forms with reality. A conceptual framework structured around an actor's subjective beliefs in legitimacy does not require acceptance of the claim that such legitimation actually exists. Nothing could be further from Weber's view of the political order as an arena of conflict—largely between classes, status groups, and parties, all of which are phenomena of the distribution of power. Finally, the typology of domination is not a portrayal of specific political structures but is, rather, a range of concepts through which a system can be analysed. The point being that the existence of all forms of domination is a contingent matter and this contingency rules out a deterministic progression from one form to another. Certainly legal and bureaucratic elements are very strongly present in Weber's view of the modern order but there is no neat development from, say, charisma to traditionalism to legality. Quite to the contrary, Weber saw, even in the modern world, the possibility of charismatic leadership as a source of revolutionary breakthroughs.

The analysis of domination forms a considerable part of Weber's sociology but it would be wrong to restrict the ‘political’ to this area. The social implications of religions are, for example, a theme to which he frequently returns. The concept of legitimacy resonates with theological issues—justification, salvation doctrines, and theodicies. Those having the good things in life wish to legitimate their holdings and one of the most powerful roots of such legitimation is a belief in divine approval of the existing arrangements. These observations raise the question of the relationship between morality, politics, and science. Weber's underlying premiss is that actors have a will to believe in the ‘meaningful’ nature of their endeavours and that social science must explore this. Such exploration confronts the world of values head on.

There are a number of strands to this confrontation. Weber had no intentions of rejecting the world of values in the search for scientific analysis. Often the aims of investigation included the desire to force both analyst and audience to face moral and political issues as well as the pursuit of knowledge. However, Weber found it both logically untenable and morally repugnant to claim that research could underpin questions of ultimate value. Science could not tell us how to live or what to do, but this prohibition did not prevent him from a vigorous advocacy of German national interests. Of course Weber never thought that these views could masquerade as science. The latter provided clarity, analysed means to ends, and indicated the possible consequences of action. None of these achievements replace the obligation to make political and moral choices. To live for science and for politics are, to Weber, matters of intense commitment (in contrast to the lack of passion in Nietzsche's ‘last men’) the poignancy of which was heightened by the ‘polar night of icy darkness and hardness’ confronting post-1918 Germany. The politician confronts this darkness through the ‘ethic of responsibility’: that is, one in which responsibility for the consequences of action is ever at hand. Weber contrasts this with an ‘ethic of conviction’ rooted in absolute and ultimate ends which leave aside worldly consideration of the consequences of that action.

This concern with the demands of the day is rooted in Weber's analysis of the development of rationalization and of capitalism in both its ‘adventure’ or ‘booty’ form and as the distinctive characteristic of the modern economic order. In this order, formally rational bourgeois capitalism and bureaucracy proceeded apace—although the growth of bureaucracy is, for Weber, by no means restricted to capitalism. He sees socialism as at least an equal contributor to this growth.

There are many views on the significance of Weber, and deep divisions remain as to the interpretation of his work. Criticisms include the ‘unreality’ of ideal types and, frequently, a rejection of his views on the separation of facts and values. Nevertheless, few would doubt his place as a thinker of the first rank. In methodology, comparative sociology, economic history, and the sociologies of law, religion, and politics, he left an enduring legacy in

(1) A refusal to confuse scientific and moral propositions whilst maintaining an awareness of their complex relationships.
(2) The production of a multilayered, multicausal, and self-consciously incomplete picture of the social world. Here explanation is frustratingly elusive and stands apart from closed meta-narratives based upon ‘laws’, ‘structures’, and the ‘logic of history’.
(3) An important perspective upon the great transformation to modernity.

— Ivan Oliver

For more information on Max Weber, visit Britannica.com.

Weber, Max (1864-1920) German sociologist and philosopher. Born in Berlin into a liberal legal family, Weber studied law and the history of law at various universities. He had a brief academic career as professor of economics in Freiburg and Heidelberg, before retiring through the onset of ill-health in 1897. Weber is remembered philosophically first for insisting on the distinction between fact and value, and for insisting that the conduct of the social sciences must be value-free. He is remembered secondly for his adherence to the Verstehen tradition of Dilthey. On the first issue, Weber argued that scientific, historical, and philosophical analysis of a period could never by itself provide the criteria necessary for a definitive solution of evaluative questions, including those of politics. The social scientist must strictly distinguish between that which exists, and that which ought to be: the importance Weber attached to this reflects his concern at the increasing power of faceless, impersonal bureaucracy, making evaluative decisions on purely ‘scientific’ and technological criteria. On the second, connected, issue he recognized that sociological study must recognize that actions have a meaning in the eyes of agents, and no scientific approach to them that ignores that dimension can be adequate. The sociologist must be able to place himself in the mind of those he studies. The subjectivity that this might seem to introduce is avoided by the discipline of describing the ‘ideal type’, embodying the objective spirit of bureaucracy, Calvinism, capitalism, etc.

Weber insisted that no understanding is complete without including the moral, political, and religious dimension of the concerted activities of human agents. His most famous work, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1922, trs. as The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1930), connected the rise of capitalism with the complacent Protestant desire to find a sign of predestined salvation in worldly success (see also elective affinity). Weber realized that such studies require comparative analysis of other cultures and times, and much of his writing addresses that problem. Important theoretical works include Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1922, trs. as Economy and Society, 1968) and the collected papers translated in The Methodology of the Social Sciences (1949).

(mäks vā'bər) , 1864–1920, German sociologist, economist, and political scientist. At various times he taught at Berlin, Freiburg, Munich, and Heidelberg. One of Weber's chief interests was in developing a methodology for social science, and his works had a considerable influence on 20th-century social scientists. As a technique of sociological analysis, he devised the concept of “ideal types,” generalized models of historical situations that could be used as a basis for comparing societies. He opposed the orthodox Marxian view of the time that economics was the preeminent determining factor in social causation and instead stressed the plurality and interdependence of causes. Weber emphasized the role of religious values, ideologies, and charismatic leaders in shaping societies. In his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1920, tr. 1930) he developed a thesis concerning the intimate connection between the ascetic ideal fostered by Calvinism and the rise of capitalist institutions. A keen observer of politics in his own time, he first admired, then repudiated Otto von Bismarck, and he later advocated for Germany a democratic form of government somewhat on the American model. He has also been influential in using statistical sociology in the study of economic policy. Among his other books are Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft [economy and society] (4th ed. 1956) and General Economic History (1924, tr. 1927).

Bibliography

See From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (with a biography and appraisal by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 1946); studies by J. Freund (1968), A. Mitzman (1969), W. G. Runciman (1972), D. Beetham (1974), W. J. Mommsen (1974), G. Roth (1979), and J. Alexander (1983).

(vay-buhr)

A German sociologist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Weber maintained that modern capitalist society is created when technical advances require administration by a bureaucracy. Disagreeing with Karl Marx, Weber argued against the inevitability of revolution by the proletariat and the triumph of socialism, maintaining that social and political ideology can act independently of economic and material conditions. He also wrote extensively on the Protestant work ethic. Weber's research methods established the foundations of social science research, as distinct from the natural sciences.

Max Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who is best known for his theory of the development of Western capitalism that is based on the "Protestant Ethic." In addition, Weber wrote widely on law and religion, including groundbreaking work on the importance of bureaucracy in modern society. He also worked to establish the discipline of sociology based on an objective scholarship.

Weber was born on April 21, 1864, in Erfurt, Germany, into a wealthy manufacturing family. He studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin and joined the faculty at Heidelberg in 1896. A prolific writer and scholar, Weber resigned his professorship in 1907 after coming into an inheritance that made him financially independent, allowing him to devote all his energies to scholarship.

Weber's most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905), introduced the concept of the "Protestant Ethic." Weber theorized that certain Protestant religious beliefs promoted the growth of capitalism. He claimed a relationship existed between success in capitalist ventures and Protestant (in particular, Calvinist and Puritan sects) theology. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination posited that individuals could never know if they were to receive God's salvation. This doctrine bred psychological insecurity in John Calvin's followers, who eventually looked for signs that might indicate they were in God's grace. From this search for signs developed the Protestant Ethic, which called for unceasing commitment to work and ascetic abstinence from any enjoyment of the profit realized from such labors. The result, Weber argued, was the rapid accumulation of capital that fueled the rise of Western capitalism.

Weber also analyzed how politics, government, and law have developed in Western and non-Western cultures. He proposed the idea of the charismatic leader, who exhibited both religious and political authority. Weber was more interested, however, in the development of modern government and the growth of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a method of organization based on specialization of duties, action according to rules, and a stable order of authority. For Weber, bureaucracy was an expression of "rationality," which in his terminology meant the use of rules and procedures to determine outcomes rather than sentiment, tradition, or rules of thumb.

Weber's sociological theories had a great impact on twentieth century sociology. He developed the notion of "ideal types," which were examples of situations in history that could be used as reference points to compare and contrast different societies. This approach analyzes the basic elements of social institutions and examines how these elements relate to one another.

Weber died on June 14, 1920, in Munich, Germany.

Quotes:

"Only by strict specialization can the scientific worker become fully conscious, for once and perhaps never again in his lifetime, that he has achieved something that will endure. A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized ac"

"The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world. Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental."

"Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say In spite of all! has the calling for politics."

"One can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion."

"No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time. One cannot with impunity try to transfer this task entirely to mechanical assistants if one wishes to figure something, even though the final result is often small indeed."

"The nation is burdened with the heavy curse on those who come afterwards. The generation before us was inspired by an activism and a naive enthusiasm, which we cannot rekindle, because we confront tasks of a different kind from those which our fathers faced."

See more famous quotes by Max Weber