In a previous article I criticized at some length the various approaches to the problem of cultural generations or age-groups in German thought from Goethe to the present day. As pointed out there, it was Wilhelm Dilthey who really developed this concept as a methodological principle. In this connection he once recommended the application of statistical methods to literary research. In spite of the great amount that has otherwise, particularly in recent years, been written on the subject in Germany, this suggestion of Dilthey's has never been followed up. To be sure, some authors, e.g. Hans von Müller, have given us long and laboriously compiled catalogues of authors listed according to their birth dates and on that basis periodized in age-groups. But neither the selection of names nor the dividing lines between the groups are based on any objective principle. Müller imposes a self-devised system of periodization on a self-selected list of representative writers. Nor is such subjectivity limited to this particular case. The entire methodological idea of age-groups based on birth dates has therefore widely fallen into disrepute as an unsound subjective fantasy. In my above-mentioned paper I expressed the hope of enhancing the validity of the age-group principle by trying to establish a truly objective basis. This problem had first presented itself to me in connection with studies in very recent German “Geistesgeschichte” and had led me to a statistical approach even before I was aware of Dilthey's demand for such.