18 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL
of the psychological occurrences, the laws of the psycholog-
ical processes. Psychology and sociology are both sci-
ences 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 in-
terested in interactions and relations between individuals.
It would seem at first that the investigation of recipro-
cal 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 psy-
chology. All social occurrences have their seat in the in-
dividual souls, and socialization is a psychological phe-
nomenon. A causal understanding of any social occur-
rence 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 concat-
enation 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 occur-
rence 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 de-
picting of a social condition. is an application of psycholog-
ical knowledge.
But it is of great methodological importance and im-
mediately significant for the epistemological principle on
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