 Those sciences, such as mathematical physics, whose goal is to produce general laws are called “nomothetic”; those sciences, such as history, whose goal is to know a unique, singular individual, are called “idiographic”. The individual that is the subject of idiographic sciences need not be an individual human being, such as Caesar. It could be a unique event or sequence of events (the fall of the Roman empire); an individual nation, language, religion, or culture (Florence during the Renaissance); or a unique artifact of literature, art, or science (Homer’s Iliad). The important point is that an idiographic science has as its goal to understand an individual in all its  uniqueness.[25]  Nomothetic sciences want to know laws; idiographic sciences want to know unique processes. The nomothetic seeks the general, and what happens invariably; the idiographic seeks the particular, and what only happens once. Nomothetic sciences begin with what is given to intuition [Anschauung], but ascend to what is abstract and no longer intuitive; idiographic sciences proceed in the opposite direction, attempting to resurrect and reproduce a unique individual in all its vitality, detail, and intuitiveness [Anschaulichkeit].