“Humanity” is, if you will, an “idea,” just like “nature,” perhaps also like “society.” It is a category under which individual phenomena can be observed without saying that what is designated thereby leads an isolated existence or is to be distilled as a special quality. We can, however, ask of every human condition, quality, or action: What does this mean as a stage of the development of humanity? What preconditions must the entire species have attained for this to be possible? What has humanity as a biological, ethical, and psychic type thereby won or lost in value?

DEFINE: Clarifies that 'humanity' functions as a category of observation rather than designating an independently existing entity or special quality.

DEFINE: Distinguishes two independent evaluative viewpoints — the whole of humanity versus bounded society — that rank the same content differently.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 215