Biographical  interest,  whether  in  mental  constitutions
and  reactions,  in  events,  or  in  cultural  materials  and
changes,  centers  upon  their  significance  in  the  unity  of
experience  and  its  ideal  development.  The  historian  of
a  people,  or  of  any  cultural  system,  likewise  conceives
his  data,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  in  the  light  of  a  spirit-
ually significant  process.  It  is  just  the  task  of  the  histo-
rian, through  the  energy  of  his  creative  imagination,  to
reconstruct  from  documents,  tradition,  arts,  and  the  like,
a  concrete  vision  of  the  life  of  races  and  cultures  that
have  passed  away;  and  to  convey  to  us,  with  the  illusion
of  reality,  a  sense  of  its  intrinsic  values  and  meaning.
364   THE  GENERAL  PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY

These  historical  materials  are,  of  course,  also  exploited
by  the  scientist  who  makes  comparative  studies  of  the
records,  subjects  them  to  statistical  treatment,  determines
identities  or  resemblances  of  type,  and  traces  their  his-
torical genesis,  dispersion,  and  decay.  In  all  this,  truth
is  indeed  being  sifted  from  error  and  the  general  basis
of  all  historical  study  circumstantially  established.  But
the  procedure  is  no  more  to  be  identified  with  the  recon-
struction of  human  history  itself  than  is  science  to  be
confounded  with  metaphysics,  because  it  is  engaged  in
continuously  elaborating  that  knowledge  of  phenomena
which  it  is  the  function  of  philosophical  reflection  at
large  to  interpret  and  appraise.
