obviously
corresponds to Comte's social dynamics, and the comparative method,
on which Comte laid so much emphasis, is the principal instrument of
Lamprecht.

19. I have dwelt on the fundamental ideas of Lamprecht, because they are
not yet widely known in England, and because his system is the ablest
product of the sociological school of historians. It carries the
more weight as its author himself is a historical specialist, and his
historical syntheses deserve the most careful consideration. But there
is much in the process of development which on such assumptions is
not explained, especially the initiative of individuals. Historical
development does not proceed in a right line, without the choice of
diverging. Again and again, several roads are open to it, of which it
chooses one--why? On Lamprecht's method, we may be able to assign the
conditions which limit the psychical activity of men at a particular
stage of evolution, but within those limits the individual has so many
options, such a wide room for moving, that the definition of those
conditions, the "psychical diapasons," is only part of the explanation
of the particular development. The heel of Achilles in all historical
speculations of this class has been the role of the individual.

The increasing prominence of economic history has tended to encourage
the view that history can be explained in terms of general concepts or
types. Marx and his school based their theory of human development on
the conditions of production, by which, according to them, all social
movements and historical changes are entirely controlled. The leading
part which economic factors play in Lamprecht's system is significant,
illustrating the fact that economic changes admit most readily this
kind of treatment, because they have been less subject to direction or
interference by individual pioneers.

Perhaps it may be thought that the conception of SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
(essentially psychical), on which Lamprecht's "psychical diapasons"
depend, is the most valuable and fertile conception that the historian
owes to the suggestion of the science of biology--the conception of
all particular historical actions and movements as (1) related to and
conditioned by the social environment, and (2) gradually bringing about
a transformation of that environment. But no given transformation can be
proved to be necessary (pre-determined). And types of development do not
represent laws; their meaning and