  By contrasting the generalizing method of the natural sciences dealing with value-free objects and the individualizing (i.e., historical) method of the cultural sciences dealing with value-related objects, Rickert does not mean to say that values play no role in the natural sciences or that generalizing procedures and general objects are completely absent form the cultural sciences. On the contrary, he emphasizes that “natural science is not free of valuations” (Rickert 1986, 93). In a way that anticipates much late twentieth century philosophy of science (see for instance Laudan 1985; Lacey 1999; Allchin 1999) Rickert insists that natural science and, for that matter, science in general obeys “logical values to which the investigator is committed, and which are implicitly presupposed in all scientific concept formation” (Rickert 1986, 94). What remains ‘value-free’ is the material that the natural sciences investigate. To stay with the above example, for a mineralogist studying diamonds the Koh-i-noor will be merely an instance of some general law of crystallization as much as any other diamond. It is not considered in its relation to culturally acknowledged values. On the other hand, the historical sciences do not completely dispense with elements of generality. Rickert identifies four senses in which ‘the general’ is at play in historical research.  “First, the elements of all scientific concepts are general” (Rickert 1986, 115). This means that, for example, in order to form the concept ‘French Revolution’ we have to use general concepts such as ‘French’ and ‘revolution’. However, these two general concepts are compounded in order to capture a unique historical event. In a second sense, as we saw, history has to take into account the relation of events and objects to general values. However, the fact that a certain object has a reference to a general value (e.g. the French Revolution bears a reference to the general value ‘political freedom’) does not make the concept of that object general. “Third, historical science never regards individuals in isolation, as the generalizing sciences do, but in a general nexus” (Rickert 1986, 115). We cannot understand the individual Robespierre unless we view his actions in the meaningful general context of the French Revolution. Such ‘nexus’, however, is not itself a general concept but is itself an ‘individual’, that is, a unique and unrepeatable constellation of events. Fourth, in some cases the historical scientist will deliberately study groups of individuals, say, late-medieval serfs in Holland. In this case single individuals (either people or objects) will be seen as mere examples of dynamics and characteristics pertaining to their group in a way that seems to resemble the generalizing procedure of natural science.  However, even in this case the historian is not interested in the ‘general nature’ of human groups but in the individuality of the group at issue.