xiv THE LIFE OF GEORG SIMMEL 
much that was specifically his own, to be a mere follower. 
He was original in the sense that he combined in his own 
characteristic way elements which were borrowed from 
the most divergent sources. Yet his college studies as a 
whole had a profound influence on his thought and greatly 
strengthened his natural inclinations. A great deal of 
purely historical study reinforced his predisposition to a 
historical point of view. And his work with Bastian, Laz- 
arus, and Zeller, all of whom had a historical approach 
toward their subject, fortified this tendency still more. 
The general character of his university studies may then 
perhaps be a partial explanation of his characteristic phi- 
losophy, which has a genetic, functional relativism as its 
main theme. It may perhaps partly account for a view- 
point from which all existence is seen as a phase in a proc- 
ess of becoming and all phenomena in relation to an ever 
changing environment, as functions of numerous variables. 
His philosophy is the philosophy of a man who sees the 
present as the product of the past. It is the philosophical 
expression of a historical point of view. For that reason it 
approaches in one important aspect the philosophy of 
Hegel. It is genetic and dialectic, but while for Hegel the 
absolute was the self-unfolding Idea, for Simmel the ab- 
solute was Life itself. 
Apart from his immediate teachers, the other forma- 
tive influences were Kant, Cohen, Goethe, Schopenhauer, 
Nietzsche, Hegel, and Heracleitus. To Cohen’s interpreta- 
tion of Kant he owed a great deal, even if he did not fully 
accept it. Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and the 
whole of the anti-intellectualistic movement of the nine- 
teenth century, strongly affected his thinking. Heraclei- 
tus, for whom he had the most profound admiration, un- 
doubtedly had a great influence on the formulation of his 
relativism, and there is too much similarity in Simmel’s