224 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL

ly after the economic system has developed into an objective
 system of integrated reciprocities and factual functional
 relationships has man become dependent on the
functions of all other men and completely independent of
their personalities.
Money is the ideal and most adequate bearer of such
relationships. It creates relationships between individuals,
but it leaves their individuality outside of these relationships.
 It is a perfect equivalent for factual services, but
a very inadequate substitute for what is personal and individual,
 and the factual relationships which it creates form
an excellent background from which to differentiate and
distinguish the individuality and its liberty.!
Possession as Activity

The increased liberty which is brought to the individzal
 by the introduction of the money economy is also manfest
 in the new form of property which it makes possible.
The acquisition of objects and, in a wider sense, the labor
 involved in obtaining them, and also the enjoyment of
objects, have often been thought of in terms of movement.
In contrast to these two forms of activity, possession was
then thought of as a situation of rest related to the former
as being is to becoming. But a full understanding of the
significance of possession can be reached only if it, too, be
thought of in terms of movement and activity.
It is a mistake to think of possession as a purely passive
 relationship and of property as an object which, in so
far as it is possessed, requires no further activity on the
part of the possessor. This conception is the result of a
fictitious abstraction which could be made only after property
 had reached a fairly high stage of development. Possession
 in its original form was something labile, not some-1
 Phil. des Geldes, pp. 297-321.