The new individualism might be called qualitative, in con- trast with the quantitative individualism of the eighteenth cen- tury. Or it might be labeled the individualism of uniqueness [Einzigkeit] as against that of singleness [Einzelheit]. At any rate, Romanticism perhaps was the broadest channel through which it reached the consciousness of the nineteenth century. Goethe had created its artistic, and Schleiermacher its metaphysical basis: Romanticism supplied its sentimental, experiential foundation.

DEFINE: Introduces the distinction between qualitative/uniqueness individualism and quantitative/singleness individualism, a conceptual framework worth keeping.

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 2905