MONEY AND THE STYLE OF MODERN LIFE 237

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ascribe to them a value which they do not possess in their
mere factual significance. They can be elements of culture
only if their properties and qualities have been developed
and extended beyond their natural stage. Natural objects
become elements of culture only if they have been given
a form and structure which they did not possess by nature.
They must give expression to our will, our emotions, our
intellect, and react back on our subjective, mental life. In
so far as they are elements of culture, they are the embodiment
 of our thoughts and feelings; and this holds good
whether they are cultivated plants or works of art or machines.
 And it holds good, not only for that part of culture
which develops out of man’s relations to objects, but also
for that part which develops out of man’s relations to his
fellow-men and to himself, such as language, religion, morality,
 mores, and law. In cultivating things we cultivate
ourselves.
Cultivation means increasing the total value beyond
that of the natural mechanism. It is a value-increasing
process which works both on nature outside of us and on
nature inside of us. If we view the contents of life as cultural
 elements, we deny the self-sufficiency of their aesthetic,
 moral, or scientific value. To view them as elements
of culture is not to view them in any of these static factual
aspects, but to view them in their functional relationship
to man. It is to view them as a phase in the process which
goes from man through these values back to man, as elements
 which contribute to man’s development beyond his
own natural state. In so far as man cultivates objects, he
cultivates himself, and in so far as the transnatural development
 of the energies of these objects is a cultural process,
 it is the visible and objective expression of the development
 of his own energies.
One of the characteristic phenomena of the cultural