Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/76

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62 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

intellect is the rationalization of the world. Between money and intellect there are closer relations than mere analogies. Intel- lect, being only a reflex of reality, equals money in its want of interest. Both are standing beyond any personal relation to their object. Intellectualism and the rule of money impress upon our time the mark of calculation and reckoning, in science strongly influenced by the growing importance of the exact sciences ; but equally in trade in the struggle for existence, in its dependence on the totality of economic life.

The reverse of this the appearance of stronger emotions, romantic ideals, longings after a more sentimental conception of things is not to be considered an argument, but rather a reac- tion against this phenomenon. Money and intellect create the highest objectivation of the style of life ; money and intellect are exchangeable without residue. Intellect can be exchanged into thought, mediated by language and writing. Money means the exchange of everything as far as it belongs to economics. Intellect is not individual, but different only in depth ; the same we can say of money, the quality of which is its quantity. Here we have rich and nearly inexhaustible sources for the knowledge of the development since the beginning importance of money which first gave us the possibility of exactness in life.

The second part of the chapter treats of the contrast between objective and subjective culture. Objective culture is a great deal more than what Hegel means by "objective spirit." We have become ever so much richer in objective goods of science, technical science, and art ; our language is composed of a much greater vocabulary, and yet it seems as if the individual had to give up its possessions that they might enter into objective cul- ture. This becomes clear by an explanation by which Simmel descends into the deepest depths of the soul. Plato has called our knowledge a recollection. Simmel approaches the meaning of this interpretation when he says : " We feel our thinking to be the fulfilment of an ideal model ;" and farther on : " Percep- tion is to us nothing else than the realization of those concep- tions within our consciousness, which seems to have waited for us there." We feel our knowledge to be a necessity, because for every intellect truth is preformed.