In- 
ly 
‘nt 
ife 
ly 
ire 
he 
it- 
ves 
his 
cts 
T= 
‘les 
ure 
NO- 
ter 
are 
- of 
nd 
ent 
Its 
ed 
ab- 
not 
ive 
ity 
the 
zed 
aaa 
MONEY AND THE STYLE OF MODERN LIFE 243 
tionships and an increasing proximity in the impersonal, 
objective relationships. 
The microscope and the telescope have brought the 
world of nature nearer to us in a purely rational sense, but 
this distance in its subjective aspect has become greater 
than it ever was in the days of anthropomorphism and 
mythology. The relations of man to his social environ- 
ment show this same tendency. He differentiates himself 
more from his immediate circle and approaches the widest 
circles. The growing individualism means a weakening of 
family ties and a strengthening of purely rational bonds 
with the widest circles. 
The function of money in this double process is visible 
first of all in its service in the conquest of distance. Only 
the transformation of values into money makes possible 
the existence of economic relationships which are independ- 
ent of space. Only money makes possible and creates the 
situation wherein a German laborer or a German capitalist 
becomes interested in a change of cabinet in Spain, the 
production of African gold mines, or the results of a South 
American revolution. But the function of money for the 
opposite tendency is even more significant. The dissolu- 
tion of the family is the result of the relative self-sufficiency 
of the individual members, and the latter is possible only 
in a money economy which can give them a subsist- 
ence even if they fully specialize their particular one-sided 
talents. 
With regard to the distance between man and his cul- 
tural products, between man and the factual contents of 
life, money fulfils a function similar to that which it ful- 
fils in the case of the distance between man and his fel- 
low-man. This function of money has already been re- 
ferred to in the preceding pages, and we need therefore 
only mention here that in that field of life the tendency to