原始主义有两种形式，即编年原始主义和文化原始主义。它们在18世纪德国伟大的历史学家和美学家赫尔德的作品之中均得到了较早的表达。赫尔德坚持整体人格的自然进展，这就决定了他以一种清楚明白的原始主义的方式将“自然”用作规范。他以同样方式回答两个问题：什么样的最佳环境产生了创造性人格？何种环境产生了均衡人格？赫尔德为完成《历史哲学观念》而提出的学说让他背离了其早期作品的审美主义。人类的“青春”不复是唯一有价值的时代；因此，一种文化相对主义的精神已经显山露水。我们不妨大而化之地把1784年前赫尔德的原始主义架构描述为一种影响深远的“世界循环单极无限论”
The two chief forms of primitivism，chronological and cultural，are alike given early expression in the works of the great eighteenth-century aesthetician-historian，Johann Gottfried Herder.Involved in Herder's insistence upon the natural development of the integral personality is a distinctly primitivistic use of“nature”as a norm.Herder's the Speculations on Philosophy of Historyhad brought him some distance from the aestheticism of the earlier works.The “youth”of mankind is no longer the only period with values；a more relativistic spirit is beginning to manifest itself even in Herder's more mature work.We can in general，however，describe the primitivistic outlook of Herder before 1784 as predominantly a unilateral-infinitist theory of world-cycles.These last are unquestionably present in Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings，as is also the characteristic feature of all of Herder's work-the constant use of nature as norm.
