And so he who yields to the temptation to deliver an opinion on the probable future of our culture will do well to remind himself of the difficulties just indicated, and likewise of the uncertainty that attaches quite universally to every prophecy. It follows from this that in hasty flight from so great a task I shall seek out the small tract of territory to which my attention has hitherto been directed, as soon as I have defined its position in general. Human culture—I mean by that all those respects in which human life has raised itself above animal conditions and in which it differs from the life of the beasts, and I disdain to separate culture and civilization—presents, as is well known, two aspects to the observer. It includes on the one hand all the knowledge and power that men have acquired in order to master the forces of nature and win resources from her for the satisfaction of human needs; and on the other hand it includes all the necessary arrangements whereby men’s relations to each other, and in particular the distribution of the attainable riches, may be regulated. The two tendencies of culture are not independent of each other, first, because the mutual relations of men are profoundly influenced by the measure of instinctual satisfaction that the existing resources make possible; secondly, because the individual can himself take on the quality of a piece of property in his relation to another, in so far as this other makes use of his capacity for work or chooses him as sexual object; and thirdly, because every individual is virtually an enemy of culture, which is nevertheless ostensibly an object of universal human concern. It is remarkable that little as men are able to exist in isolation they should yet feel as a heavy burden the sacrifices that culture expects of them in order that a communal existence may be possible. Thus culture must be defended against the individual, and its organization, its institutions and its laws, are all directed to this end; they aim not only at establishing a certain distribution of property, but also at maintaining it; in fact, they must protect against the hostile impulses of mankind everything that contributes to the conquest of nature and the production of wealth. Human creations are easy to destroy, and science and technical skill, which have built them up, can also be turned to their destruction.