In every instance of true "labor," subject is devoted to object; and regardless whether the product of labor reverts back to the subject, the action itself remains oriented toward an impersonal structure and finds its culmination in the forming of that structure, be it the shaping or reshaping of concepts in intellectual labor, the pedagogic forming of a pupil, or the working of physical substances. But this directly contradicts aristocracy's basic ethos [Lebensgefühl], which is absolutely personal. Its center is in the being of the subject, whose value, like the value of everything that arises directly from him, is determined by the terminus a quo. However, labor is action that is eminently a means, that is oriented toward something external, that is determined by the terminus ad quem. It is on this point that Schiller distinguishes between low natures, who pay with what they do, and noble natures, who pay with what they are.

XREF: This echoes the classical distinction between instrumental action and intrinsic worth found in Aristotle and later Arendt's division of labor, work, and action.

DEFINE: The family tree metaphor encodes a specific pre-modern ontology: individual substance is literally continuous with lineage substance, not merely genealogically related. SEED: Could be an essay angle on how metaphors of descent (tree vs. network) shape political and kinship concepts across eras.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 515