Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/595

 THE PRESENT STATUS OF SOCIOLOGY IN GERMANY $8 1

to do, however, with heroic, or, so to speak, idealized historical personalities, this inheritance hypothesis will only add to our difficulties. The fundamental motive, and the whole mental liabitus of these supreme representatives these heroes of crime and virtue surely did not perpetuate itself by inheritance. When, nevertheless, we understand a Caesar Borgia, or a Socrates, which we do by reconstruction of their psychic con- dition, since, as Simmel very rightly claims, there is no other possible way of comprehension, this riddle surely rises to the rank of a miracle. Simmel, however, does not seem to press this thought seriously ; he throws it out simply as a conceit which makes no claim to scientific, still less to fundamental, significance.

No more has Simmel spoken a final word with reference to the relations between known and unknown motives in historical interpretation. He is content at this point with calling attention to the problem, and with showing the way which the investiga- tion must take. "A philosophy of history," says he, "should undertake to determine in what cases the historical writer, led by instinct or by reflection, abstracted from the known utilities in the actions of men ; it should discover when we must suppose that conscious volition and thought formed the basis of a given occurrence, and when we must abandon such an hypothesis" (p. 13). As method for this investigation Simmel announces empiricism : "The assumption that there was consciousness or unconsciousness behind given physical acts is to be established by enquiring of the historical conceptions, not as they should be, but as they actually were" (p. 14). Whether this path will really lead to the goal must remain undecided. There is room for a good deal of doubt, since in respect to this point the historians themselves, according to their view of the world in general, differ widely from each other. And consequently "historical conceptions as they actually were" are very difficult to determine. A Buckle would surely be inclined to see unknown powers and inevitable natural laws in operation, where a Mommsen would find conscious acts of will.