222 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL 
persons, and if liberty means freedom from others, it has to 
begin with freedom from specific others. 
The money economy shows this same tendency through- 
out the economic system. It is manifest, not only in the 
relationships between man and his fellow-man, but also in 
the relationships between man and economic goods, and 
finally in the relationships between man and money itself. 
Man has become less dependent on individual persons, but 
more dependent on his group and its objective functions. 
The large increase in goods and in the number of goods and 
their decreasing marginal utility have reduced the value 
of the single object and sometimes even made it worthless. 
But not only does the whole species of such objects retain 
its value, but with advancing civilization man becomes 
more dependent on objects and dependent on more objects. 
A single pin is practically without value, but modern life 
could not be carried on without pins. The cheapening of 
money has made the single quantum less valuable, but the 
function of money as such becomes increasingly important 
and inclusive. In all these phenomena within the economic 
world, the single elements, in their singularity and individ- 
uality, lose their specific significance and become inter- 
changeable, while the factual functions which their species 
fulfil become increasingly important and make man in- 
creasingly dependent. 
This development of economic life is but a parallel of 
the development of mental life. In its original form it 
lacks a sharp distinction between the personal and the 
factual aspect and shows no clear differentiation between 
the subjective and the objective side. It is only later that 
the contents of life—property, labor, duty, knowledge, social 
position, or religion—become differentiated from the psy- 
chological experience and are conceived as having a self- 
sufficient, independent existence, be it actual or conceptual.