"unspiritual, unphilosophical, devoid of art, clannish to the point of brutality, aiming relentlessly at tangible successes, they stand between the hellenic culture and nothingness. an imagination directed purely to practical objects was something which is not found at all in athens. in a word, greek soul--roman intellect; and this antithesis is the differentia between culture and civilization. nor is it only to the classical that it applies. again and again there appears this type of strong-minded, completely non-metaphysical man, and in the hands of this type lies the intellectual and material destiny of each and every 'late' period. pure civilization, as a historical process, consists in a progressive exhaustion of forms that have become inorganic or dead." -spengler (1918)