18 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL
of the psychological occurrences, the laws of the psychological
processes. Psychology and sociology are both sciences
dealing with psychical phenomena, but the one deals
with the form of the psychological process, the other with
the form of the sociological process. The first deals with
the process by means of which a psychological content
arises, the second deals with the process by means of which
this content creates a form of interaction. Psychology is
interested in processes within individuals, sociology is interested
in interactions and relations between individuals.
It would seem at first that the investigation of reciprocal
relations between individuals, and especially of those
which have not yet taken superindividual form, lies in the
field of psychology, or at least in the field of social psychology.
All social occurrences have their seat in the individual
souls, and socialization is a psychological phenomenon.
A causal understanding of any social occurrence
would therefore be obtained if it could be deduced
trom psychological data according to psychological laws.
That part of the socio-historical occurrence which is
within our means of comprehension is a psychical concatenation
which we reconstruct by means of either intuitive
or methodical psychology. Only by these means can we
bring it to subjective plausibility, can we obtain a feeling
of the psychical necessity of the occurrence. The occurrence
would not be more intelligible than the merging of
clouds or the entangling of the branches of trees if we did
not recognize psychic motivations, feelings, thoughts, and
needs, not merely as the bearers of these externalities. but
as their essence. To that extent every history, every depicting
of a social condition. is an application of psychological
knowledge.
But it is of great methodological importance and immediately
significant for the epistemological principle on
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