SOURCE: "A Note on Georg Simmel," in Social Problems, Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall, 1965, pp. 117-18.

In the following essay, Hughes credits Simmel with making the study of sociological phenomena accessible to a general readership.

Simmel was, in the original sense of the word, a dilettante, an amateur passions. He appears to have written about human society, art, philosophy, religion and money because he took delight in doing so. It was characteristic of nineteenth century English that it should have given the term dilettante the pejorative connotation of smatterer, a person of shallow and passing interests. Simmel was by no means a dilettante in that sense, but neither was he devoted to any particular practical problem or reform of his day. He was committed to the study of society itself, rather than to any of its particular troubles.

Thus it is that Simmel is seldom referred to for his analysis...