MONEY AND THE STYLE OF MODERN LIFE 235

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 ends by impersonal means. In its functional aspect
it has become the basis of economic individualism and the
grossest egoism. Because it has no character of its own,
but adapts itself to any purpose, it allows the individual
who makes use of it the expression of his full individual
peculiarity. The case of intelligence is not different.
Knowledge of the actuality in its factual aspect is impersonal,
 open to all, but it can be used for the expression and
the full realization of individual differences and for the satisfaction
 of the egoistic impulse.
Both money and intellect are indifferent to the individual
 peculiarities of life’s contents. But because they
give form and direction to these contents to which they are
in principle indifferent, they create the contradictions of
practical life. Because of the formal equality of their relationships
 to all contents, they become a means for the
realization of the grossest factual inequalities.
There is another characteristic of modern life which is
also closely related to both rationalism and the money
economy. That is the tendency of man to deal with his
world in terms of arithmetically defined magnitudes. Modern
 man is above all else a mathematician, a statistician,
and an accountant. His theoretical world is to be understood
 in terms of mathematical formulae. His practical
world is to be weighed and measured in terms of quantities
of pleasure and pain. His political world is to be run on the
basis of counting votes.
This whole tendency is in intimate causal relation with
our economic world. The money economy has made our
daily life a series of mathematical operations. Most of our
acts involve monetary considerations, and their values are
to be calculated with minute precision and compared in
their minute details. It is the money economy which has
given us a practical world which is to be dealt with by