THE SCIENCE IN HISTORY 497 



Furthermore, the biological historian slights the great internal fact 

 which separates the social organism from all others and makes it a 

 unicum, to the study of which the biological laws are not applicable, 

 namely, the social psychic life which is such a large factor in the evo- 

 lution of man. It is a characteristic of highly organized society to 

 wean itself from that dependence on the physical environment which 

 is such an important element in the lives of animals and savages. 

 Therefore a community of human beings can not be treated as an 

 unconscious organism, wholly conditioned by its material surround- 

 ings which create blind forces determining its development. Organic 

 needs do not make psychic factors subservient to them, rather the op- 

 posite is the case. Mind exercises a control over the material needs and 

 directs the exertions of society. The vague use of the terms of biological 

 science, natural and sexual selection, when employed in speaking of 

 the social evolution, seem more metaphorical than real; for on this 

 higher plane of life the two laws play but a very subordinate part, 

 both being subservient to intelligent choice without the necessary result 

 of the elimination of the weak and " unfitted." The mental life of man, 

 which takes the forms of religion, science, art, and mechanical inven- 

 tions, creates an environment of a wholly unbiological character and 

 becomes by accumulation a tradition, a psychic environment, or rather 

 it is the soul of the organism ; for the individual men, the cells of the 

 organism, change but little from generation to generation and do not 

 alter their physiological character, nor do they, as ages pass, acquire 

 any great increase of power, mental or spiritual. The evolution, in 

 fact, during the historical period is transferred from the individuals 

 of society to the social psychic environment of the community, which 

 undergoes changes from age to age, as the activities of men of successive 

 generations add their portion to history. Thus no physical and phys- 

 iological analysis of this peculiar organism can satisfy the requirements 

 of our science. After the study of the economic struggles and the 

 institutions of any period, which also have a psychic side, there remains 

 for the historian the tracing of the mental and spiritual life in its 

 various and complicated forms. 



Certain theorists claim that we have in this psychic environment a 

 means of determining the sufficient causes of historical events. The 

 physical and psychical environment together reveal the sufficient reason 

 for the acts of any generation. There can be no question of arbitrary 

 self-determination : for, born into certain conditions, man acts as the 

 forces physical and spiritual compel him. Given the territory, the 

 national characteristics, the institutions, the social psychic environ- 

 ment and we have history a connected whole with cause and effect veri- 

 fied as in the natural sciences. The activities of individuals in relation 

 to these great forces are like the waves on the surface of the deep 



VOL. LXXXTV. — 34. 



