I should not like to give the impression that I have wandered far away from the chosen path of my enquiry. I will therefore expressly assert that it is far from my intention to estimate the value of the great cultural experiment that is at present in progress in the vast country that stretches between Europe and Asia. I have neither the special knowledge nor the capacity to decide on its practicability, to test the expediency of the methods employed, or to measure the width of the inevitable gulf between intention and execution. What is there in course of preparation eludes investigation, for which it is not ready; for this our long consolidated culture presents the material. CHAPTER II We have glided unawares out of the economic plane over into the psychological. At first we were tempted to seek the essence of culture in the existing material resources and in the arrangements for their distribution. But with the discovery that every culture is based on compulsory labour and instinctual renunciation, and that it therefore inevitably evokes opposition from those affected by these demands, it became clear that the resources themselves, the means of acquiring them, and the arrangements for their distribution could not be its essential or unique characteristic; for they are threatened by the rebelliousness and destructive passions of the members of the culture. Thus in addition to the resources there are the means of defending culture: the coercive measures, and others that are intended to reconcile men to it and to recompense them for their sacrifices. And these last may be described as the psychical sphere of culture.