Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/593

 THE PRESENT STATUS OF SOCIOLOGY IN GERMANY 579

ing of the power of cognition to consideration of itself a cri- tique and a theory of knowledge. For natural philosophy Kant elaborated the categories which we read into experience, and with the help of which experience becomes possible and intelli- gible. Simmel makes the attempt to demonstrate in the case of historical experience, and for the knowledge of historical occurrences, the same a priori element, which must be given as presumption or major premise in order that understanding and explanation of the historical occurrences, as minor premise, may be possible.

Historical comprehension is nothing else than the reproduc- tion in the mind of the investigator of the psychical conditions fundamental to the historical occurrences. If it were impossi- ble for us to reproduce in ourselves the psychical processes of all historical actors, history would be for us not merely uninter- esting but totally incomprehensible. " If there were such a thing," says Simmel, "as a psychology as the science of law, historical science would then be applied psychology, in the same sense in which astronomy is applied mathematics" (p. 2).

In overcoming these difficulties of historical interpretation crass historical materialism is of no assistance. So long as the search is for an explanation of historical occurrences it will be essential for the historian to transport himself, so to speak, into the psychical conditions of the persons or groups whom he depicts. We may add that historical materialism not only does not remove this difficulty in cognitive theory, but rather increases and complicates it. That is, if we assume only one kind of motivation for historical acts and occurrences, as the self-sufficient and universally applicable interpretation, we at last completely defeat comprehension of history. It is not to be denied that historical materialism, with its stereotyped monism and its soulless barrenness, is much less able to sustain criticism than its counterpart idealism, with its abundance of psychical motives and view points.

A further serious difficulty is exposed by a critique of the method of historical knowledge, in the perception that the his-