Whether he is examining a social process or a developmental pattern, a world of culture or a philosophic system, a historic individual or a personality type, the logic of Simmel's inquiry is the same. His method is to select some bounded, finite phenomenon from the world of flux; to examine the multiplicity of elements which compose it; and to ascertain the cause of their coherence by disclosing its form. Secondarily, he investigates the origins of this form and its structural implications.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 66