62 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL

whether the historical movement is a self-sufficient unity
or of value and significance only in relation to cosmic movements.
 It deals with the transcendental purpose and the
transcendental reality which lie behind the historical actuality
 as the noumena behind the phenomena.
These and similar questions may leave the historical
investigation itself largely untouched. They can be answered
 differently for the same historical facts. The acceptance
 of a personal God who guides the historical development
 for a purpose unknown or revealed would only
change the causal into a teleological series without changing
 its content or the relations between its elements. The
metaphysics of history takes the theoretic historical knowledge
 for granted. In so far as it deals with value judgments
it is a non-theoretic accentuation of the historical series
crystallized into a special structure.!

Historical Inquiry and the Search for Historical Laws

The essential characteristic of the exact historical inquiry
 is an interest in the historical actuality as such directed
 toward the factualness of its content and free from all
metaphysical sublimation.
But the distinction between the exact and the metaphysical
 thought form, which are conceived as separate
and distinct concepts in a methodological inquiry, is not
maintained in the actual historical investigation. Historical
 interpretations, especially those which are formulated
in terms of historical laws, are the result of both forms of
inquiry. The reason for this is that an inquiry into the
existence of historical laws is guided by a thought form
which bears a much closer resemblance to philosophic speculation
 than to the method of exact science.

L Probl. der Gesch., pp. 126-32.