THE LOGIC OF HISTORY 309 



meaning of " rules " only, for they are far from being 

 elemental, they are not " principles ' : in any sense. And 

 there are other sorts of " rules " at work for exceptional 

 cases : revolutions have their rules, and imperialism, for 

 instance, has its rules also. 



Now, as the consecutive phases of history have been 

 shown to be true cumulations, it follows that the rules 

 which are revealed by our analysis, are rules relating to 

 the very origin of cumulations also. The real element 

 upon which the cumulation-phases, and the cumulation- 

 rules together rest, is the human individual as the bearer 

 of its psychology. Nobody, it seems to me, has shown 

 more clearly than Simmel that it is the human individual, 

 qua individual, which is concerned in every kind of history. 



History, viewed as a series of cumulations, may in fact 

 claim to satisfy the intellect by " explaining " a good deal 

 of historical facts. It explains by means of the elemental 

 factor of individual psychology, which every one knows 

 from himself, and by the simple concept that there is a 

 cumulation, supported by language and by writing as its 

 principal factors, which both of course rest on psychology 

 again. Psychology, so we may say, is capable of leading to 

 cumulation phenomena ; the cumulations in history are 

 such that we are able to understand them by our everyday 

 psychology ; and history, so far as it is of scientific value, 

 consists exclusively of cumulations. 



No doubt there is much truth in such a conception of 

 history ; but no doubt also, it puts history in the second 

 rank as compared with psychology ; just as geology stands 

 in the second rank as compared with chemistry or physics. 

 Geology and human history may lead to generalities in the 



