The dominant idea which distinguished this school of thought was the insignificance of the individual as compared with society past and present.

Thus Herbert Spencer, who was its most systematic exponent, opens his work on the _Study of Sociology_ with an elaborate attack on what he calls "The Great Man Theory," according to which the explanation of the main events of history is to be sought in the influence of exceptional or great men--the men who, in vulgar language, are spoken of as "historical characters." Such an explanation, said Spencer, is no explanation at all.

Great men, however great, are not isolated phenomena.

Whatever they may do as the "proximate initiators" of change, they themselves "have their chief cause in the generations they have descended from," and depend for the influence which is commonly attributed to their actions, on "the multitudinous conditions" of the generation to which they belong.

Thus Laplace, he says, could not have got far with his calculations if it had not been for the line of mathematicians who went before him.