Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/598

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"On Historical Laws," Simmel occupies essentially, as in the first chapter, the Kantian standpoint. In this case, again, the question is not so much with reference to a positive theory as with reference to a critique of knowledge. He exposes in the first place the difficulties which the attempt to establish his- torical laws encounters. This chapter, full of suggestive and fruitful thought, may be briefly summarized as follows : In his- toriography we are usually accustomed to discriminate normative science from pure narrative. The former is, as a rule, considered the domain of historical philosophy, whose business it is to investigate the laws of historical events and to formulate them, while narrative history is concerned with the mere discovery and registration of the facts. But this discrimination is by no means founded in the nature of the subject. Upon closer examination it will appear that the so-called historical laws are really nothing else than the demonstration of facts, of such facts to be sure as have occurred so and so frequently. The frequent repetition cannot in itself be regarded as a criterion of regularity. Law involves the claim of applicability always and everywhere, and precisely this is not demonstrated in concrete historical occurrences.

Still further : natural law posits any given phenomenon behind which a force is hidden, as cause, from which some other phenomenon must necessarily follow; in history, on the contrary, we see only effects and infer from them producing causes. This kindof conclusion produces in itself no full and complete certainty and is highly unfit to establish "laws." To this must be added that in nature the relation between cause and effect is much simpler and more immediate than in history, where the phenom- ena are invariably results of various causes in conjunction, and on that account are by no means to be derived each from a single natural law (p. 45). Summing up all this the conclusion is that "historical laws " can by no means reach the rank of knowledge that is complete and secure against all criticisms. At the same time this is not to deny to them all value as knowledge. Their value consists rather in this, that the formulation of historical