242 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL

sion of labor, a far-going specialization, while yet maintaining
 the functional unity of the economic system. It is only
after the introduction of money and the full development
of the money economy that the factual contents of life
reach their complete objective independence. And only
after that stage has been reached can the objective culture
outrun the subjective culture. But money also helps the
realization of the other form of discrepancy. It places itself
 between man and this objective factual world and gives
him a self-sufficient existence. It guards and protects his
personal life from the immediate contacts with objects
and thereby enables the personal energies to grow unhampered.

The function of money in these growing discrepancies
is most important in the fields in which objective culture
outruns subjective culture. That it also serves the opposite
 form of discrepancy merely shows its specific character
as a historical force. It belongs to those forces which are
characterized by the fact that they have no character of
their own, that they are purely formal, functional, and
quantitative, and can therefore serve the most divergent
tendencies and paint life in the most varying colors. Its
significance for the style of modern life is not diminished
because it serves both types of relationship between subjective
 and objective culture, but rather increased; not
denied, but rather proven.!

Money as the Symbol of Modern Life

Not only the quantitative relation between subjective
and objective culture, but also the distance or proximity
between man and his culture, is an important item in the
style and perspective of life. Modern life is characterized
by an increasing distance in the personal, subjective rela-1
 Phil. des Geldes, pp. 501-33; Philosophische Kultur, pp. 240-53.