18 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL 
The different metaphysical systems are contradictory 
in content and relative in value, but metaphysics as fune- 
tion has a value and significance independent of and be- 
yond any contradictions in material content. The differ- 
ent exact sciences treat only a relatively small aspect of 
the actuality, but science as function has a value which lies 
beyond the fragmentary character of its special fields. The 
different types of art seem unrelated and mutually exclu- 
sive, but art as function has a meaning which lies beyond 
all discrepancies in style and technique. The different 
religions may be fundamentally diverse, but religion as 
function has a value beyond all the contradictions in 
dogma. 
As function these forms of the mind have a fixity and 
universality in relation to their contents, but in relation 
to each other they have only a relative value. No single 
field of mental activity takes a position of superiority in 
relation to any other field. Neither religion, nor meta- 
physics, nor science, nor art is the one and absolute form 
to which the others must eventually be converted. They 
are autonomous worlds in which the totality of existence 
is expressed in a fully adequate language. 
What is universal in relation to each of these worlds, 
because it co-ordinates and transcends all of them, is life 
itself. Life on the intellectual plane, as mind, is the cre- 
ator of these worlds. They are adaptational products, in- 
struments of adaptation, produced in the contact of life’s 
processes with an environment. Mind lives in these forms 
and categories, is these forms and categories, just as the 
vital force lives in the forms and structures of individual 
organisms. But, although the product of life’s processes, 
they cannot be defined in terms of processes alone. They 
are objective systems possessing an independent existence 
and confronting life’s processes as external structures.