236 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL
means of mathematical calculations, and this fact has been
of great influence on our ideals of knowledge.
In this respect the money economy is merely the sublimation
 of economic life. Money relates the purely economic
 aspects of objects just as logic relates the aspects of
objects which are intelligent and conceptual. The money
economy creates an abstract structure or system which
consists of the purely economic values differentiated from
objects. This structure or system can be dealt with in
terms of mathematics, and this fact reflects back on the
objects from which it has been abstracted. If it is true that
the predominant style of art influences our way of viewing
nature, then the quantitatively definable superstructure
of monetary relations above the qualitative actuality must
influence strongly our way of viewing that actuality. Thus
the calculating intelligence which expresses and manifests
itself in the money economy receives back from that same
money economy some of the characteristic mental energy
with which it masters modern life.

Money in Its Relations to Subjective and Objective
Culture

The differentiation between the subjective and objective
 aspects of mental life already referred to becomes once
more manifest in modern times in the separation between
subjective and objective culture. But in this particular
field the separation has apparently become so complete
that there is not even a parallel development. In certain
fields of life the objective culture outruns the subjective
cultural development, while in other fields the subjective
development outruns the growth of its objective counterpart.

If we view the contents of life as elements of culture, we
L Phil. des Geldes, pp. 480-501.