HISTORY FROM A BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 493 



3. History, then, records the behavior of human Environ- 

 beings, so constituted, under different environmental h n u e 1 jf an lld 

 conditions. It has consequently two aspects, the his- nature 

 torical in the broad sense, and the biographical. In the 



first, it seeks to determine the effects of the environment 

 on mankind in general, or on races of mankind. At the 

 same time it asks, What is the duty of man ? What is 

 to be expected of this particular sort of creature in this 

 world of ours ? Such investigations emphasize the 

 continuity of the germinal substance, the sameness in 

 the midst of diversity. 



4. On the other hand, the biographical method The unique- 

 emphasizes the peculiarities of the individual. The 

 common characters are forgotten, and all the emphasis 



is laid upon the uniqueness of the heroes or villains who 

 people the stage. This uniqueness appears to spread 

 beyond themselves and to color the lives of their fellows, 

 so that a whole nation partakes of certain characteristics 

 because it has within it an outstanding personality. 



5. It is a common fault of historians to overempha- Thesig- 

 size the importance of individuals and events, con- 

 sidered as causes of what follows. Just as we all have events 

 a vague idea that certain simple propositions were first 

 formulated in the Bible or by Shakespeare, because we 

 there find the classical expression of them, so the his- 

 torian is too liable to see a new birth in a salient event. 



On the other hand, he is likely, from no fault of his own, 

 to be unaware of the time and place of the genuine 

 mutations in human thought and deed. However the 

 stars in their courses may have been moving toward the 

 birth of a new idea, there is a specific moment of time 

 when that idea emerges into the field of human con- 

 sciousness ; and that is a genuinely historic event, 

 possibly tingeing and changing the lives of subsequent 



