68 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL

tal understanding of phenomena cannot hope to develop
the artistic form out of the preceding form alone. Social
relations, religion, intellectual levels, individual predilections
 would all have to be taken into consideration. It is
the same way with the historical development of economic
life. The phenomena observed in sequence may be purely
economic, but the energies and factors which bring about
the change from one form of production to the next are by
no means purely economic. Personal, ethical, cultural, and
physical factors all contribute in shaping the succeeding
stage. The so-called materialistic interpretation of history
is but an exaggerated form of this tendency to view economic
 situations as a unilateral causal series. Not only is
the fact ignored that each succeeding economic occurrence
is influenced by innumerable non-economic factors, but
the self-sufficiency of the economic series and its freedom
from the others is now conceived as a mastery over the
others. The totality of historical development is now
traced back to this series as its cause.!
The approach and approximation to exact knowledge
of the actual factors and forces by means of the preliminary
 formulations in terms of historical laws has therefore
an internal boundary. A further differentiation finally, dissolves
 the concept of historical law and leaves nothing but
the investigation of the historical fact and the timeless
law. By the time the historical inquiry has become exact,
its task is merely to determine the content of the historical
actuality, which is the starting-point of all knowledge and
without which no knowledge is possible.
The difference between the exact historical and the
exact scientific inquiry lies in the fact that the first is interested
 in the individual occurrence and the latter in the
law. Both are needed. because the knowledge of a timeless

\ Probl. der Gesch., pp. 94-101.