dominant category. In face of the totalitarian unison with which the Minima moralia eradication of difference is proclaimed as a purpose in itself, even part of the social force of liberation may have temporarily with- drawn to the individual sphere. If critical theory lingers there, it not only with a bad conscience. PART ONE All this is not meant to deny what is disputable in such an attempt. The major part of this book was written during the war, under conditions enforcing contemplation. The violence that expelled me hereby denied me full knowledge of it. I did not yet admit to my- lf the complicity that enfolds all those who, in face of unspeakable collective events, speak of individual matters at all In each of the three parts the starting-point is the narrowest private sphere, that of the intellectual in emigration. From this follow considerations of broader social and anthropological scope: they concern psychology, aesthetics, science in its relation to the subject. The concluding aphorisms of each part lead on thematically also to philosophy, without ever pretending to be complete or definitive: they are all intended to mark out points of attack or to furnish models for a future exertion of thought. The immediate occasion for writing this book was Max Hork heimer's fiftieth birthday, February 14th, 1945. The composition took place in a phase when, bowing to outward circumstances, we strate gratitude and loyalty by refusing to acknowledge the inter- Life does not live ruption. It bears witness to a dialogue interieur: there is not a motif in it that does not belong as much to Horkheimer as to him who Ferdinand Kiirnberger found the time to formulate it The specific approach of Minima Moralia, the attempt to pres pects of our shared philosophy from the standpoint of subjective experience,necessitates that the parts do not altogether satisfy the demands of the philosophy of which they are nevertheless a part. The disconnected and non-binding character of the form, the renunciation of explicit theoretical cohesion, are meant as one expression of this. At the same time this ascesis should atone in some part for the injustice whereby one alone continued to perform the task that can only be accomplished by both, and that we do not