498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ocean. A man may raise himself above the level a moment but sinks 

 back, having affected the whole so little that the historian can eliminate 

 the free-will acts of individuals and treat only the life history of 

 generic man. " The new direction of historical investigation," says 

 Professor Larnprecht, the leader of this movement, " has first brought 

 pure causality into history, because it seeks to prove the causal coherence 

 of the generic life of man, and does not confine itself to the deeds of 

 eminent men." It is not to be denied that such an historical hypothesis 

 has value, but it is one-sided and, as far as our knowledge goes, is but 

 half a truth. 



It has been already shown that from the nature of the subject 

 matter, history is concerned with the particular rather than the general. 

 It is the personal act amidst the almost never changing activities of the 

 masses that interests us. This personal act, however, is an unknown 

 quantity in every generation. The generic man is but an average of 

 the community, within which there are numerous variations, just as is 

 found by the naturalist among the individuals of any species of animals. 

 These variations are not due wholly to the physical and psychical 

 environment, but come partly from the accidents of birth, which the 

 historian can not trace to their first cause. The forces which are to 

 produce historical movements are not existent except in the souls of 

 these individuals of which the average of any given community would 

 take no account. The social psychic environment will affect and 

 develop these variants in different ways, and the sum total of these 

 variations will give rise to historical phenomena which would not be 

 perceived in the external causes acting on the community. 



After the fact we can know the effect, but why there was that par- 

 ticular effect instead of many possible others escapes our search. Within 

 the zone where past tradition meets present variations, we can not 

 follow the intricate working of forces. In the last analysis, therefore, 

 an important cause of historical phenomena lies in the soul of the indi- 

 vidual and must be sought in his variations from the multitude, a 

 mystery locked in the secret chambers of the germ cell, in his relation to 

 the past, which constantly changes with the person, in his motives of 

 action, which can not be massed with those of his fellows. Infinite 

 knowledge may follow amidst the complex mingling of will and will, 

 desire and desire, of the millions of individuals the line of cause and 

 effect, but man with human intelligence stands in the presence of any 

 generation as before the entrance of a dark cavern into whose innermost 

 recesses his eyes can not penetrate. 



The higher the civilization the greater these variations from the 

 average.. Savages are much more similar psychically than the more 

 civilized, just as plants conform to the type closer in the natural state 



