Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/78

 64 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Besides the contrast between subject and object there is that between our ego and the external world. The last part of the chapter treats of the distance between us and things, men, ideas, and relations. Very cleverly Simmel explains how it comes to pass that the ideas of space deducted from the external world become the standard for our ego. Here he speaks of the part distance plays in art, of our modern tendency to prolong the distance between us and things. The modern mind is strangely fascinated by everything distant. We do not prefer what is clear, perspicuous, and self-evident, but what is symbolic, apho- ristic, sketchy. We understand what Voltaire meant by saying: " Pour etre ennuyeux il faut tout dire." We have a predilection for distant styles of art, for enigmatic symbols. We want to enjoy everything from a distance. Yes, Simmel, who himself follows this doctrine, sees the greatest delicacy of literary style, not in grasping things tightly, but in only grazing them. Mod- ern philosophy does not want to come as close up to things as materialism did; things are separated by the medium of the soul ; the principle of utility which made cause and effect draw near to each other, has had to give way to a greater separation of the two. The interpolation of new media into the succession of purposes removes the nearest to a distance. Hand in hand with this tendency toward a widening of distance goes an oppo- site one. Technical science as the overcomer of space and time brings distant things into relation, so that the result is a widen- ing of the distance with regard to our inner life, a shortening of the distance with regard to our outward life.

Money plays a most important part within both tendencies. It makes it possible at the same time to loosen the bonds of primitive dependence within the family and to put us into rela- tion with a great number of people. Credit, which, as is often maintained, does not stand beyond the economic stage charac- terized by money, but rather is essential to it, is here psycho- logically explained. It creates distances and overcomes them. Credit itself is nothing else than a phenomenon of the wholt style of our modern life. Which of us is not struck by the trutl of the following words: "Through modern time, and especially