From the many contents which offer themselves as means for individual development, the self selects circumspectly. Its receptive capacity is limited by the degree of unity and closure it has already attained as well as by the limitations of time and energy of each individual life. The development of objective culture, on the other hand, knows no such limits. It can draw on the contributions of numberless individuals over many generations. “There is no reason why it should not be multiplied in the direction of the infinite, why book should not be added to book, work of art to work of art, or invention to invention. The form of objectivity as such possesses a boundless capacity for fulfillment.”

XREF: Connects to Simmel's broader thesis on the tragedy of culture — the widening gap between subjective and objective culture central to The Philosophy of Money.

QUESTION: This tension between finite individual receptivity and infinite cultural accumulation suggests a real puzzle: how do individuals ever keep pace with culture? Worth probing what this means for modern information overload.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 33