THE LIFE OF GEORG SIMMEL xxix

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aloofness left him a lonely figure. He saw from his objective
 standpoint better than others what was happening to
Europe, and he suffered more deeply than those who had
been carried away by the rampant chauvinism of the time.
Simmel died like an ancient philosopher. Fully conscious
 of the fact that his days were limited, resigned to
his fate, he occupied himself with the corrections of his
last work. It has been felt as the final tragedy of his career
 that he should begin the synthetic period of his thinking
 when his bodily existence had begun its decay, that he
should formulate a metaphysics of life when death had already
 called him. Perhaps it was his greatest triumph.
He at any rate did not feel that tragedy. In the utterances
of his last days there was complete resignation. According
to himself, he had given the world all he had to give. New
applications, new formulations of his ideas he might have
given, had he continued to live, but nothing fundamentally
 new could have been expected of him. In that feeling
of having given his best he found the strength to die a
beautiful death amid great physical suffering and grave
doubts regarding the future of European culture.

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