German Idealism

Ludwig von Mises was, to a large extent, likely discussing German Idealism when he wrote:

"Philosophers had long since been eager to ascertain the ends which God or Nature was trying to realize in the course of human history. They searched for the law of mankind's destiny and evolution. But even those thinkers whose inquiry was free from any theological tendency failed utterly in these endeavors because they were committed to a faulty method. They dealt with humanity as a whole or with other holistic concepts like nation, race, or church. They set up quite arbitrarily the ends to which the behavior of such wholes is bound to lead. But they could not satisfactorily answer the question regarding what factors compelled the various acting individuals to behave in such a way that the goal aimed at by the whole's inexorable evolution was attained. They had recourse to desperate shifts: miraculous interference of the Deity either by revelation or by the delegation of God-sent prophets and consecrated leaders, preestablished harmony, predestination, or the operation of a mystic and fabulous "world soul" or "national soul." Others spoke of a "cunning of nature" which implanted in man impulses driving him unwittingly along precisely the path Nature wanted him to take."

"Cunning of nature" is a Hegelian interpretation of Immanuel Kant's "plan of nature" doctrine. "World soul" refers to G.W.F. Hegel's weltgeist (world spirit) doctrine. According to Mises, Hegel purported to be a kind of prophet of the weltgeist. "National soul" refers to the volksgeist doctrine, also propounded by Hegel.

Mises considered these doctrines unsound, because he considered it nonsensical to posit trans-individual ends. Only individuals act, and therefore only individuals have ends. This is the principle of methodological individualism.