What is the aim of civilization? All civilization is merely an intense effort to make life beautiful. If life is trivial, then civilization is vanity and vexation of the spirit. What profits man to wear out body and mind in the service of civilization? Civilization has been developed on a metallic basis. Tools, implements, instruments and machinery form the landmarks of the different civilizations. The gold of Ophir, the copper of Sinai, the silver of Laurium were part of the web and woof of the early civilization. In modern times industrialism has become nearly the sum total of our civilization. The highest boast of our present civilization is wireless, aeroplanes, telephones, telegraphs, railroads, all mere facilities of living and communication. If life is mere vanity, then all civilization or progress is a figment. Another kind of ethical valuation has been proclaimed by the “moralists of work.” It has first found eloquent expression in Zola’s so-called four evangelia, especially in ‘Le Travail’ and in ‘La Fécondité.’ The sermon preached there is work for work’s sake. The god worshiped is the god of things material. Man is told to go forth with a high and noble purpose toward the god of things. These new preachers of the morality of work have almost succeeded to create a certain frenzy for work. The success virus of things material is being steadily pumped into men and even women, so that life has become simply a whirl of things of no survival value whatsoever. The crude materialism and realism of our times have created a feverish and almost insane craving for things, a quenchless fever for things material. The spirit of the hour is the material world-building, the lust for material things, the intoxication of work.[DK] Hence the high-pressure requirements of modern existence which have created in the people a total lack of proportion, a lack of all sense of relative values. The relative value of a thing, representing its power to relieve man’s wants, has become confounded with positive values which only timeless things possess.