A method for early detection of developing damage in a bearing caused by flow of a bearing current includes evaluating a long-term measurement of a measured variable representative of a bearing current amplitude of a bearing current during a bearing operation, representing—based on the evaluation—measurement results in form of a histogram which displays a number of bearing currents per time interval in each interval of the bearing current amplitude, and evaluating the histogram representation of the measurement results through pattern comparison. A device for carrying out the method is also disclosed.