Unconscious Motives Underlying the Personalities of Great Statesmen and their Relation to Epoch-Making Events (I. A Psychologic Study of Abraham Lincoln)1

While no one would have the temerity in the present status of the development of historical science to revive the rather discredited theory of Carlyle that history is but the collective biography of a few conspicuous public figures, it cannot be denied that there is often a residuary influence to be detected in the course of events which must be assigned to the part played by the dominating personalities of the time. The present article will be concerned with suggestions regarding a more intensive and scientific study of the latter.

Critical periods in national life are often imperfectly understood because current events only are considered in their interpretation. Intensive study of the personalities of great statesmen of any epoch has but recently become an object of psychological research. When the events in the political and social order are properly coordinated with the conscious and unconscious personal motives and desires of its contemporary leaders, we may then expect a sounder and broader view of historic interpretation. At the culmination of a crisis in national life we find there have often been comparatively few issues that have shaped a final national outcome, and that two or three