The discipline of history has had to struggle from the outset with the philosophical challenge to its status as a “science.” Hermeneutic historicism has been the most plausible basis for a consistent response to this challenge. In this chapter I trace the disciplinary constitution of history via hermeneutic historicism in the works of Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Johann Gustav Droysen, and Wilhelm Dilthey. One of my objectives is to displace a conception of the rise of the discipline identified too closely with Leopold von Ranke, and instead to situate Droysen as the key theoretical progenitor of modern historical self-understanding and practice.