Problems of Oedipal Historicism: The Saga of John Chilembwe-the Malawian

Large numbers are constants; the persons involved variables. The abstraction is more valid than the items on which the abstractions are based: “One person commits suicide for this reason, and another for that reason, but when you have a very large number, the accidental and personal element ceases to be of interest, and what is left is—well, what is left?” The average. But, nobody has the slightest idea what the average really is, for behind the laws of collectivity there is an assumption that the particular instance does not matter: “And the highest meaning turns out to be something that can be got at by taking the average of what is most profoundly senseless.” [Ulrich, in Musil's Man Without Qualities]