It is shown that a consideration of the Coulombic and spin-orbit interactions between the electrons of a given atomic configuration is sufficient to arrive at a lowest-energy state consistent with Hund's rule. The maximum-spin requirement of Hund's rule is a result of minimum Coulombic energy alone, whereas maximum orbital angular momentum consistent with maximum spin is a result of minimum spin-orbit energy. It is argued that, to first order, the spin-spin interaction is not a principal factor in determining the properties of this state. The simple notions used to obtain these results are extended to excited states of thenf6configuration and are shown to give results consistent with calculations based on hydrogenic wavefunctions.