My knowledge of everyday life is structured in terms ofrelevances

My knowledge ofeveryday life has the quality of an instrument that cuts a paththrough a forest and, as it does so, projects a narrow cone oflight on what lies just ahead and immediately around ; on allsides of the path there continues to be darkness

The validity of my knowledge of everyday life is taken forgranted by myself and by others until further notice, that is,until a problem arises that cannot be solved in terms of it

In other words,'what everybody knows' has its own logic, and the same logiccan be applied to order various things that I know. Forexample, I know that my friend Henry is an Englishman, andI know that he is always very punctual in keeping appointments. Since 'everybody knows' that punctuality is anEnglish trait, I can now integrate these two elements of myknowledge of Henry into a typification that is meaningful interms of the social stock of knowledge.

Typically, I have little interest in going beyond this pragmatically necessary knowledge as long as the problems canindeed be mastered thereby

hungry

My interaction with others ineveryday life is, therefore, constantly affected by our commonparticipation in the available social stock of knowledg

By virtue of this accumulation a social stock ofknowledge is constituted, which is transmitted from generation to generation and which is available to the individual ineveryday life

Or, to take another example, thesum of linguistic objectifications pertaining to my occupationconstitutes another semantic field, which meaningfully ordersall the routine events I encounter in my daily work. Within thesemantic fields thus built up it is possible for both biographicaland historical experience to be objectified, retained and accumulated.

Language is capable not only of constructing symbols that arehighly abstracted from everyday experience, but also of'bringing back' these symbols and appresenting them as objectively real elements in everyday life.

They are 'located' in onereality, but 'refer' to another.

moment

Put simply, through language an entire worldcan be actualized at any moment

The same typification,however, entails anonymity. Not only I but anyone (moreaccurately, anyone in the category of son-in-law) can have'mother-in-law troubles'. In this way, my biographical experiences are ongoingly subsumed under general orders of meaning that are both objectively and subjectively real

Put differently, language ispliantly expansive so as to allow me to objectify a great varietyof experiences coming my way in the course of my life. Language also typifies experiences, allowing me to subsume themunder broad categories in terms of which they have meaningnot only to myself but also to my fellowmen

What is more, I hear myselfas I speak; my own subjective meanings are made objectivelyand continuously available to me and ipso facto become 'morereal• to m

oth of us hear what each says atvirtually the same instant, which makes possible a continuous,synchronized, reciprocal access to our two subjectivities, anintersubjective closeness in the face-to-face situation that noother sign system can duplicat

n this way, language is capable of becoming theobjective repository of vast accumulations of meaning andexperience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit tofollowing generations

Language, which may be defined here as a system of vocalsigns, is the most important sign system of human societ

his 'detachability' from the immediate expressionsof subjectivity also pertains to signs that require the mediatingpresence of the body

Such asign, which has no purpose beyond indicating the subjectivemeaning of the one who made it, is also objectively availablein the common reality he and I share with other men. I recognize its meaning, as do other men, and indeed it is available toits producer as an objective 'reminder' of his original intentionin making it.

, but the very fact that he can overcome them and reconstruct from an artifact the subjective intentions of men whosesociety may have been extinct for millennia is eloquent proofof the enduring power of human objectivations.

hese indices are continuously availablein the face-to-face situation, which is precisely why it affordsme the optimal situation for gaining access to another's subjectivity.

The weapon, then, is both ahuman product and an objectivation of human subjectivity.

individual

The degree of interest and the degree ofintimacy may combine to increase or decrease anonymity ofexperience.

repeated

This, of course, is not the whole story. There are obviousdifferences in my experiences of mere contemporaries.

Nevertheless, as long as myfriend Henry is available in the plenitude of expressivity of theface-to-face situation, he will constantly break through mytype of anonymous Englishman and manifest himself as aunique and therefore atypical individual - to wit, as my friendHenry.

Thus, most of the time, my encounters withothers in everyday life are typical in a double sense - I apprehend the other as a type and I interact with him in a situationthat is itself typical

t this point, of course, my typtficatory_scheme w�llhave to be modified, and the evening planned differently maccordance with this modification. Unless thus challenged,though, the typifications will hold until further notice and willdetermine my actions in the situation

. Thus I apprehend the other as 'aman' 'a European', 'a buyer', 'a jovial type', and so on. Allthese'typifications ongoingly affect my interaction with him as,say, I decide to show him a good time on the to_wn bef?retrying to sell him my product.

Put negatively, it is comparativelydifficult to impose rigid patterns upon face-to-face interaction.Whatever patterns are introduced will be continuously modified through the exceedingly variegated and subtle interchangeof subjective meanings that goes on.

hat is more,such reflection about myself is typically occasioned by theattitude towards me that the other exhibits. It is typically a'mirror' response to attitudes of the other.

The other, however, isso appresented in the face-to-face situation. 'What he is',therefore, is ongoingly available to me. This availability iscontinuous and prereflective. On the other hand, 'What I am'is not so available. To make it available requires that I stop,arrest the continuous spontaneity of my experience, and deliberately turn my attention back upon myself.

Only here is the other'ssubjectivity emphatically 'close'. All other forms of relating tothe other are, in varying degrees, 'remote'

continuousreciprocity of expressive acts is simultaneously available toboth of us.

The most important experience of others takes place in theface-to-face situation, which is the prototypical case of socialinteraction. All other cases are derivatives of i

The temporal structureof everyday life not only imposes prearranged sequences uponthe 'agenda' of any single day but also imposes itself upon mybiography as a whol

Both my organism and my societyimpose upon me, and upon my inner time, certain sequencesof events that involve waiting. I may want to take part in asports event, but I must wait for my bruised knee to heal. Oragain, I must wait until certain papers are processed so thatmy qualification for the event may be officially established. Itmay readily be seen that the temporal structure of everydaylife is exceedingly complex, because the different levels ofempirically present temporality must be ongoingly correlated

Temporality is an intrinsic property of consciousness.

Yet all these - dreamer, physicist, artist andmystic - also live in the reality of everyday life. Indeed, one oftheir important problems is to interpret the coexistence ofthis reality with the reality enclaves into which they haveventured

As the curtain falls, the spectator 're�s to reality', that is, to the paramount reality ofeveryday life by comparison with which the reality presentedo? .the stage now appears tenuous and ephemeral, however�Vld the prese�qation may have been a few moments preVIOus.l�.

In.dee�, my conclusion that my colleagues have gonemad unplies tpso facto that they have gone off into a worldthat is no longer the common world of everyday life

It will deal with it, though, as aproblem, rather than simply reintegrating it into the unproblematic sector of everyday life.

As long as the routinesof everyday life continue without interruption they are apprehended as unproblematic

I have tomake an extreme transition

It is simply there, as self-evident and compelling facticity. I know that it is real.

The reality of everyday life is taken for granted as reality

Common-sense knowledge is the knowledge I share withothers in the normal, self-evident routines of everyday life.

My 'here' istheir 'there'. My 'now' does not fully overlap with theirs. Myprojects differ from and may even condict with theirs. All the.same, I know that I live with them in a common world

Closest to me is the zone of everyday life that isdirectly accessible to my bodily manipulation. This zone contains the world within my reach, the world in which I act so asto modify its reality, or the world in which I work. In thisworld of working my consciousness is dominated by thepragmatic motive, that is, my attention to this world is mainlydetermined by what I am doing, have done or plan to do in it.In this way it is my world par excellence

This 'here and now' isthe focus of my attention to the reality of everyday life.

This is the reality of everyday life.Its privileged position entitles it to the designation of paramount reality. The tension of consciousness is highest ineveryday life, that is, the latter imposes itself upon consciousness in the most massive, urgent and intense manner. It isimpossible to ignore, difficult even to weaken in its imperative.presence

As I move from one reality toanother, I experience the transition as a kind of shock. Thisshock is to be understood as caused by the shift in attentiveness that the transition entails. Waking up from a dreamillustrates this shift most simply

What interests us here isthe common intentional character of all consciousness

C-:mmon sense contains innumerable pre- and quasi-scientific interpretations about everydayreality, which it takes for granted. If we are to describe thereality of common sense we must refer to these interpretations,just as we must take account of its taken-for-granted character- but we do so within phenomenological brackets

: How is it possible that subjective meanings becomeobjective facticities? Or, in terms appropriate to the aforementioned theOretical positions : How is it possible thathuman activity (Handeln) should produce a world of things(chases)? In other words, an adequate understanding of the'reality sui generis' of society requires an inquiry into themanner in which this reality is constructed. This inquiry, wemaintain, is the task of the sociology of knowledge

is a study in social theory, not theories. Its interest is not inthe separate and discrete propositions to be found in the works ofthese men, but in a single body of systematic theoretical reasoning.

Yet, with veryfew exceptions, the discipline thus misnamed has approached theproblem of the social distribution of knowledge merely from theangle of the ideological foundation of truth in its dependence uponsocial and, especially, economic conditions, or from that of thesocial implications of education, or that of the social role of theman of knowledge.

All typifications of common-sense thinking are themselves integral elements of the concrete historical socio-cultural Lebensr.oeltwithin which they prevail as taken for granted and· as sociallyapproved

knowledge

ut differently, only a few are concerned with thetheoretical interpretation of the world, but everybody lives ina world of some sort.

Only a very limited groupof people in any society engages in theorizing, in the businessof 'ideas', and the construction of Weltanscluluungen. Buteveryone in society participates in its 'knowledge' in one wayor another.

But our theorizing refersto the empirical discipline in its concrete problems, not to thephilosophical investigation of the foundations of the empiricaldiscipline

epistemological and methodological problems that botheredboth of its major originators

American middle class

work

Merton'sown concepts of 'manifest' and 'latent' functions are appliedto the sphere of ideation, the distinction being made betweenthe intended, conscious functions of ideas, and the unintended,unconscious ones.

events

thought

ubstructure' and 'superstructure' are best understood if one views them as, respectively, human activity and the world produced by thatactivit

reality

Socio�o�.cal �terc:st in questions of'reality' and'knowledge'IS thus 1Illtially JUStified by the fact of their social relativity.What is 'real' to a Tibetan monk may not be 'real' to anA:merican businessman.

social psychology

If one holds with Cooley that"sociology makes us more at home in the world of men,"^" then any disciplinedmethod that is conducive to that end is welcome

"He sought to encompass society in his ownmind, believed that others did the same, and made this activity a scientificprinciple.

Cooley led a withdrawn and retiring life not because he was unconcernedwith his audience but because he was overly "audience conscious." The notionof the looking-glass self has a strongly autobiographical flavor.

he University of Michigan provided for Cooley that protective environ-ment without which he might never have been able to become a productivescholar.

weal

They wanted to take American scholarship out of the handsof tired Brahmins and the satisfied classes and bring it into a closer connectionwith the strivings and interests of the common man.

He began with the distinction between the /, the self as knower, andthe Me, the self as known, as the sum total of everything a man can designateas mine.

psycho-physical context

Were it not that Baldwin lacked Cooley 's stylistic felicity, one could easilytake this passage as having come from Cooley's pen

tkmaiy

Cooley was imiwaled eanry to an dEUiuuuuiaiy point ok ivicw^ tfasan^k histfaoroi]^ reaiing of Dtnwin

father

career

but a complex of institutions shaped byhabit, custom and law, and "administered by a class, which will largely con-trol its operation."

matters

"Communicated differences are the hfe of opinion, ascross-breeding is of a natural stock."^

He must nevertheless be reckoned among the pioneers in socio-logical method. Like Max Weber and his co-thinkers in Germany, Cooleyemphasized that the study of the human social world must be centered uponattempts to probe the subjective meanings human actors attribute to theiractions, and that such meanings must be studied in part through "understand-ing" rather than through exclusive reliance on the reporting of behavior

"Durkheim was the theorist of society as an object in the externalworld; Cooley was the theorist of society as part of the individual self

awareness

that human progressinvolves the ever-widening expansion of human sympathy so that primarygroup ideals would spread from the family to the local community, to thenation, and finally to the world community.

ensitivity to the thought of others—respon-siveness to their attitudes, values, and judgments that is the mark of the matureman according to Cooley—can be cultivated and fostered only in the close andintimate interactions of the primary group

associations

hat she would consider scandalousexploitation in outside employment, she finds acceptable within the family, forshe views it as a service to the collectivity.

f the other as a person, and appreciation ofothers does not result from anticipation of specific benefits that he or she maybe able to confer.

men may be related to one an-other because each derives a private benefit from that interchange or inter-action.

He stressed that it isusually a competitive unit, admitting of self-assertion and passionate conten-tions. But he held that "these passions are socialized by sympathy, and come,or tend to come, under the discipline of a common spirit. The individual willbe ambitious, but the chief object of his ambition will be some desired placein the thought of the others.

psychologically, is a certain fusion of individualities in acommon whole, so that one's very self, for many purposes at least, is thecommon life and purpose of the group

If ... we say that society is an organism, we mean . . . that it is acomplex of forms of processes each of which is living and growing by inter-action with the others, the whole being so unified that what takes place in onepart affects all the rest. It is a vast tissue of reciprocal activity

imagine your mind, and especially what your mind thinks about my mind,and what your mind thinks about what my mind thinks about your mind.

he action of the others upon the self and of the self upon theothers becomes simply the interaction of ideas upon each other within mind.

The imagination of our appearance to the other person, the imagina-tion of his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such aspride or mortification.

o in imagination weperceive in another's mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims,deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by i

One's consciousness of himself isa reflection of the ideas about himself that he attributes to other minds; thus,there can be no isolated selves.

Society" and "individuals"do not denote separable phenomena, but are simply collective and distributiveaspects of the same thing

When the limitation of consumption is combined with thisrelease of acquisitive activity, the inevitable practical result isobvious: accumulation of capital through ascetic compulsion tosave.

But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanicalfoundations, needs its support no longer

For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells intoeveryday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did itspart in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern eco-nomic orde

exploitation

the psychological sanc-tion of it through the conception of this labour as a calling, asthe best, often in the last analysis the only means of attainingcertainty of grace.

Finally, it gave him the comforting assurance that the unequaldistribution of the goods of this world was a special dispensationof Divine Providence, which in these differences, as in particulargrace, pursued secret ends unknown to men

The power of religious asceticism provided him in additionwith sober, conscientious, and unusually industrious workmen,who clung to their work as to a life purpose willed by God

A specifically bourgeois economic ethic had grown up. Withthe consciousness of standing in the fullness of God’s graceand being visibly blessed by Him, the bourgeois business man,as long as he remained within the bounds of formal correctness,as long as his moral conduct was spotless and the use to which heput his wealth was not objectionable, could follow his pecuniaryinterests as he would and feel that he was fulfilling a duty in doingso.

This worldly Protestant asceticism, as we may recapitulate upto this point, acted powerfully against the spontaneous enjoy-ment of possessions; it restricted consumption, especially ofluxuries. On the other hand, it had the psychological effect offreeing the acquisition of goods from the inhibitions of trad-itionalistic ethics. It broke the bonds of the impulse of acquisi-tion in that it not only legalized it, but (in the sense discussed)looked upon it as directly willed by God.

Man is only a trustee of the goods whichhave come to him through God’s grace. He must, like the servantin the parable, give an account of every penny entrusted tohim,75 and it is at least hazardous to spend any of it for a purposewhich does not serve the glory of God but only one’s ownenjoyment.76

Old Testament morality was able togive a powerful impetus to that spirit of self-righteous and soberlegality which was so characteristic of the worldly asceticism ofthis form of Protestantism

s astock remark about those good men48 who had successfully fol-lowed the divine hints

The emphasis on the ascetic importance of a fixed callingprovided an ethical justification of the modern specialized div-ision of labour. In a similar way the providential interpretation ofprofit-making justified the activities of the business man.

Hence the faithful Christian must follow the call bytaking advantage of the opportunit

A man without a calling thuslacks the systematic, methodical character which is, as we haveseen, demanded by worldly asceticism

Even the wealthy shall not eat without working, for eventhough they do not need to labour to support their own needs,there is God’s commandment which they, like the poor, mustobey.

“He who will not workshall not eat” holds unconditionally for everyone.25 Unwilling-ness to work is symptomatic of the lack of grace

Labour is, on the one hand, anapproved ascetic technique, as it always has been20 in the West-ern Church, in sharp contrast not only to the Orient but toalmost all monastic rules the world over.21 It is in particular thespecific defence against all those temptations which Puritanismunited under the name of the unclean life, whose rôle for it wasby no means small.

t does not yet hold, with Franklin, that time ismoney, but the proposition is true in a certain spiritual sense. Itis infinitely valuable because every hour lost is lost to labour forthe glory of God

Waste of time is thus the first and in principle the deadliest ofsins

The real moral objection is to relaxation in the security ofpossession,8 the enjoyment of wealth with the consequence ofidleness and the temptations of the flesh, above all of distractionfrom the pursuit of a righteous life

Hence he permitted them to employ their means profitably.Examples of the condemnation of the pursuit of money andgoods may be gathered without end from Puritan writings, andmay be contrasted with the late mediæval ethical literature,which was much more open-minded on this poin

Wealth as such is a great danger; its temptations never end, andits pursuit 7 is not only senseless as compared with the dominat-ing importance of the Kingdom of God, but it is morally suspect.asceticism and the spirit of capitalism 103

. But naturally, even in the first generation, the strictly apos-tolic way of life was not maintained as absolutely essential to theproof of rebirth for everyone. Well-to-do bourgeois there were,even in this generation and even before Menno, who definitelydefended the practical worldly virtues and the system of privateproperty; the strict morality of the Baptists had turned in prac-tice into the path prepared by the Calvinistic ethic

The purpose of this silent waiting is to over-come everything impulsive and irrational, the passions and sub-jective interests of the natural man. He must be stilled in order tocreate that deep repose of the soul in which alone the word ofGod can be heard

But all Baptist communities desired to be pure Churches in thesense of the blameless conduct of their members. A sincererepudiation of the world and its interests, and unconditionalsubmission to God as speaking through the conscience, were theonly unchallengeable signs of true rebirth, and a correspondingtype of conduct was thus indispensable to salvation. And hencethe gift of God’s grace could not be earned, but only one whofollowed the dictates of his conscience could be justified in con-sidering himself reborn.

Baptist communities, and this principle ofavoidance of the world never quite disappeared so long as theold spirit remained alive

to resist its coming by a sinful attachment to the world.

t consisted rather intaking spiritual possession of His gift of salvation. But thisoccurred through individual revelation, by the working of theDivine Spirit in the individual, and only in that way

reated only a supplement to the pure doctrine of works, areligious basis for ascetic conduct after the doctrine of pre-destination had been given up

from our view-point the Methodist ethic appears to reston a foundation of uncertainty similar to Pietism. But the aspir-ation to the higher life, the second blessedness, served it as a sortof makeshift for the doctrine of predestination.

On the onehand by increased emphasis on the normative authority of theBible and the indispensability of proof ; 161 on the other by, ineffect, strengthening Wesley’s anti-Calvinistic faction within themovement with its doctrine that grace could be lost

For thoseMethodists who were adherents of the doctrine of predestin-ation, to think of the certitudo salutis as appearing in the immediatefeeling 159 of grace and perfection instead of the consciousness ofgrace which grew out of ascetic conduct in continual proof offaith—since then the certainty of the perservantia depended onlyon the single act of repentance—meant one of two things

henever Wesley attacked the emphasis on works ofhis time, it was only to revive the old Puritan doctrine that worksare not the cause, but only the means of knowing one’s state ofgrace, and even this only when they are performed solely for theglory of God.

ecause it finally guarantees the certitudo salutis and sub-stitutes a serene confidence for the sullen worry of the Calvin-ist.

pure feeling of abso-lute certainty of forgiveness, derived immediately from the tes-timony of the spirit, the coming of which could be definitelyplaced to the hour.

he methodical,systematic nature of conduct for the purpose of attaining thecertitudo salutis

contrasted with other Churches lay in an activeChristian life, in missionary, and, which was brought into con-nection with it, in professional work in a calling, 143 remained avital force with them.

hese were: (1) that themethodical development of one’s own state of grace to a higherand higher degree of certainty and perfection in terms of the lawwas a sign of grace; 124 and (2) that “God’s Providence worksthrough those in such a state of perfection”, i.e. in that He givesthem His signs if they wait patiently and deliberate methodic-ally. 125 Labour in a calling was also the ascetic activity par excellencefor A. H. Francke; 126 that God Himself blessed His chosen onesthrough the success of their labours was as undeniable to him aswe shall find it to have been to the Puritans.

penetration of methodically controlled and super-vised, thus of ascetic, conduct into the non-Calvinistic denomin-ations

han the mere worldly respectability ofthe normal Reformed Christian, which was felt by the superiorPietist to be a second-rate Christianity.

Moreover, the emotion wascapable of such intensity, that religion took on a positively hys-terical character, resulting in the alternation which is familiarfrom examples without number and neuropathologically under-standable, of half-conscious states of religious ecstasy withperiods of nervous exhaustion, which were felt as abandonmentby God

t wished tomake the invisible Church of the elect visible on this earth.Without going so far as to form a separate sect, its membersattempted to live, in this community, a life freed from all thetemptations of the world and in all its details dictated by God’swill, and thus to be made certain of their own rebirth by externalsigns manifested in their daily conduct

Modifi-cations in the constitution of the Church resulted from theattempt to separate regenerate from unregenerate Christians,those who were from those who were not prepared for thesacrament, to keep the government of the Church or someother privilege in the hands of the former, and only to ordainministers of whom there was no question

his conscious-ness of divine grace of the elect and holy was accompanied by anattitude toward the sin of one’s neighbour, not of sympatheticunderstanding based on consciousness of one’s own weakness,but of hatred and contempt for him as an enemy of God bearingthe signs of eternal damnation

he idea of the necessity of proving one’sfaith in worldly activity

he drain of asceticism fromeveryday worldly life had been stopped by a dam, and thosepassionately spiritual natures which had formerly supplied thehighest type of monk were now forced to pursue their asceticideals within mundane occupations.

the world the spiritual aristocracy of the predestined saints ofGod within the world

In practice this means that God helps those who help them-selves.63 Thus the Calvinist, as it is sometimes put, himselfcreates64 his own salvation, or, as would be more correct, theconviction of it. But this creation cannot, as in Catholicism, con-sist in a gradual accumulation of individual good works to one’scredit, but rather in a systematic self-control which at everymoment stands before the inexorable alternative, chosen orthe religious foundations of worldly asceticism 69

They are the tech-nical means, not of purchasing salvation, but of getting rid of thefear of damnation. In this sense they are occasionally referred toas directly necessary for salvation61 or the possessio salutis is madeconditional on them

Deep-lying differences of the mostimportant conditions of salvation 50 which apply to the classifica-tion of all practical religious activity appear here. The religiousbeliever can make himself sure of his state of grace either in thathe feels himself to be the vessel of the Holy Spirit or the tool ofthe divine will.

so to speak, be considered the mostsuitable means of counteracting feelings of religious anxiety,finds its explanation in the fundamental peculiarities of religiousfeeling in the Reformed Church, which come most clearly tolight in its differences from Lutheranism in the doctrine of justi-fication by faith.

On the other hand, in order toattain that self-confidence intense worldly activity is recom-mended as the most suitable means.47

The exhortation of the apostle to make fast one’s own callis here interpreted as a duty to attain certainty of one’s ownelection and justification in the daily struggle of life.

So far as predestination was not reinterpreted, toneddown, or fundamentally abandoned, 44 two principal, mutuallyconnected, types of pastoral advice appea

How was this doctrine borne36in an age to which the after-life was not only more important,but in many ways also more certain, than all the interests of lifein this world?

Brotherly love, since it may only be prac-tised for the glory of God33 and not in the service of the flesh, 34is expressed in the first place in the fulfilment of the daily tasksgiven by the lex naturæ and in the process this fulfilment assumes apeculiarly objective and impersonal character, that of service inthe interest of the rational organization of our social environ-ment.

This makes labour in theservice of impersonal social usefulness appear to promote theglory of God and hence to be willed by Him.

. In spite of the necessity of mem-bership in the true Church 27 for salvation, the Calvinist’s inter-course with his God was carried on in deep spiritual isolation

There was not only no magical means of attaining the grace ofGod for those to whom God had decided to deny it, but nomeans whatever.

The genuine Puritan even rejected all signs of religious cere-mony at the grave and buried his nearest and dearest withoutsong or ritual in order that no superstition, no trust in the effectsof magical and sacramental forces on salvation, should creep in

his, the complete elimination of salvation through the Churchand the sacraments (which was in Lutheranism by nomeans developed to its final conclusions), was what formed theabsolutely decisive difference from Catholicism.

important thing in life, his eternal salvation, he was forced tofollow his path alone to meet a destiny which had been decreedfor him from eternity.

Furthermore, what con-crete aspects of our capitalistic culture can be traced to them

On the other hand, however, we have no intention whateverof maintaining such a foolish and doctrinaire thesis32 as that thespirit of capitalism (in the provisional sense of the termexplained above

Calvin

ne may attain salvation in any walk oflife; on the short pilgrimage of life there is no use in layingweight on the form of occupation.

But at least onething was unquestionably new: the valuation of the fulfilment ofduty in worldly affairs as the highest form which the moralactivity of the individual could assume

Rationalism is an historical concept which coversa whole world of different things. It will be our task to find outwhose intellectual child the particular concrete form of rationalthought was, from which the idea of a calling and the devotionto labour in the calling has grown, which is, as we have seen,so irrational from the standpoint of purely eudæmonisticself-interest, but which has been and still is one of the mostcharacteristic elements of our capitalistic culture

o speak here of a reflection ofmaterial conditions in the ideal superstructure would be patentnonsense

rich

Their life-work was, so long as they clung to thetradition of the Church, at best something morally indifferent. Itwas tolerated, but was still, even if only on account of the con-tinual danger of collision with the Church’s doctrine on usury,somewhat dangerous to salvation

In such circumstances men’s commercial andsocial interests do tend to determine their opinions and atti-tudes. Whoever does not adapt his manner of life to the condi-tions of capitalistic success must go under, or at least cannot rise.But these are phenomena of a time in which modern capitalismhas become dominant and has become emancipated from its oldsupport

The ability to free oneself from the commontradition, a sort of liberal enlightenment, seems likely to be themost suitable basis for such a business man’s success. And to-daythat is generally precisely the case. Any relationship betweenreligious beliefs and conduct is generally absent, and where anyexists, at least in Germany, it tends to be of the negative sort. Thepeople filled with the spirit of capitalism to-day tend to be indif-ferent, if not hostile, to the Church.

here was repeated whateverywhere and always is the result of such a process of rational-ization: those who would not follow suit had to go out of busi-ness. The idyllic state collapsed under the pressure of a bittercompetitive struggle, respectable fortunes were made, and notlent out at interest, but always reinvested in the business.

But it was traditionalistic business, ifone considers the spirit which animated the entrepreneur: thetraditional manner of life, the traditional rate of profit, thetraditional amount of work, the traditional manner of regulatingthe relationships with labour, and the essentially traditional cir-cle of customers and the manner of attracting new ones.

Neverthe-less, they may all be carried on in a traditionalistic spirit

And we shall see that at the beginning of moderntimes it was by no means the capitalistic entrepreneurs of thecommercial aristocracy, who were either the sole or the pre-dominant bearers of the attitude we have here called the spirit ofcapitalism

o describe thatattitude which seeks profit rationally and systematically in thethe spirit of capitalism 27

nterprises, namely, which are carried on by privateentrepreneurs by utilizing capital (money or goods with amoney value) to make a profit, purchasing the means of produc-tion and selling the product, i.e. undoubted capitalistic enter-prises, may at the same time have a traditionalistic character.

abour must, on the con-trary, be performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, acalling. But such an attitude is by no means a product of nature. Itcannot be evoked by low wages or high ones alone, but can onlybe the product of a long and arduous process of education. To-day, capitalism, once in the saddle, can recruit its labouring forcein all industrial countries with comparative ease.

his is anexample of what is here meant by traditionalism. A man doesnot “by nature” wish to earn more and more money, but simplyto live as he is accustomed to live and to earn as much as isnecessary for that purpose

he most important opponent with which the spirit of capit-alism, in the sense of a definite standard of life claiming ethicalsanction, has had to struggle, was that type of attitude and reac-tion to new situations which we may designate as traditionalism.

The auri sacra fames is as old as the historyof man. But we shall see that those who submitted to it withoutreserve as an uncontrolled impulse, such as the Dutch sea-captain who “would go through hell for gain, even though hescorched his sails”, were by no means the representatives of thatattitude of mind from which the specifically modern capitalisticspirit as a mass phenomenon is derived, and that is what matters.

It is an obliga-tion which the individual is supposed to feel and does feeltowards the content of his professional11 activity, no matter inwhat it consists, in particular no matter whether it appears onthe surface as a utilization of his personal powers, or only of hismaterial possessions (as capital

heearning of money within the modern economic order is, so longas it is done legally, the result and the expression of virtue andproficiency in a calling;

At the same time itexpresses a type of feeling which is closely connected with cer-tain religious ideas

an isdominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultim-ate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer sub-ordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his materialneeds

The circumstance that he ascribes his rec-ognition of the utility of virtue to a divine revelation which wasintended to lead him in the path of righteousness, shows thatsomething more than mere garnishing for purely egocentricmotives is involved

hat in the former case was anexpression of commercial daring and a personal inclinationmorally neutral,5 in the latter takes on the character of an ethic-ally coloured maxim for the conduct of life. The concept spirit ofcapitalism is here used in this specific sense,6 it is the spirit ofmodern capitalism. For that we are here dealing only with West-ern European and American capitalism is obvious from the wayin which the problem was stated. Capitalism existed in China,India, Babylon, in the classic world, and in the Middle Ages. Butin all these cases, as we shall see, this particular ethos waslacking.

Is itnot possible that their commercial superiority and their adapta-tion to free political institutions are connected in some way withthat record of piety which Montesquieu ascribes to them?