254 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
the first — an extension of its scope, so that it shall try to take in not merely a few individuals, but all the psychical factors that contribute to the influ- ences of the times under investigation.
Thus the individualizing tendency finds the very widest field in attempt- ing to solve the problem of the spirit of a given time by the biographical method. This method is adopted by historians who believe in the " great man" theory. Nevertheless, even such historians emphasize, and perhaps unduly, the psychical medium which cannot be traced to distinct individuals.'
This characteristic of the biographers is closely connected with their attention to the individual. Every attempt to realize the course of the indi- vidual's development tends to call up the external conditions under which this development occurred. The closer we get to the personality of people in the past, the more we must come in contact with the outward circumstances which are the mold as well as the product of their personality. Hence it comes about that the one-sidedness which at first springs from the principle of subjective judgment presently finds its corrective in complete study of the most appropriate object for the application of the principle, viz, the indi- vidual.
Since the principle of dependence upon the psychical environment leads to extension of subjective judgment so as to cover many individuals who are in relations of psychical reciprocity, we reach judgments about many psychical influences which are not individual in their nature, or at least cannot be traced to definite persons. Language, customs, beliefs, constitute a psy- chical atmosphere around every man. Without these, no man would exist in his own peculiarity. These may not be precisely estimated, yet they may weigh more in determining each individual character than any of the special influences. Besides these there are many circumstances, which are, in the last analysis, of an individual sort, but their individual source cannot be traced ; so that they are parts of the general medium which surrounds the individual. Such, in a measure, is, e. g., in America, the Monroe doctrine. Such was the Washingtonian temperance movement, which has become a permanent factor in American thought. Such was the Channing influence, which has afifected all American theology, etc. In each of these instances, and in connection with everything that has occurred within the scope of these influences, an explanation of events must of necessity involve some sort of appraisal of the relative effect of the universal and of the particular factor. The true explanation will exclude neither of these influences, but will find
" For example, Lehmann's biography of Schamhorst enters into an extensive description of the martial spirit of the time, which, according to the author, surrounded his hero with molding impressions from the cradle. Hayms (Hegel und seine Zeit) traces the scholastic, and at the same time string architektaniiche Darstellungsform of the Hegelian logic to Hegel's early occupation as a teacher in the Gymnasium and to his life in Niirnberg — " eine Stadt, wo er von Bau- und Skulpturwerken ieutscher Kunst umgeben -war " ! !
