Abstract: Simmel’s analysis of modern urban culture foreshowed a contemporary academic interest. Based on neoKantianism, Simmel made a distinction between content and form, and used the phenomenon of the metropolis as an arena to illustrate distinctions and relations between form and content. Simmel argued that the mental life of metropolis mainly involved as follows: (1) the intensification of nerve stimulation, (2) sense of interpersonal distance, (3) “blaze attitude”, (4) “indifference” and “reserve”, and (5) calculating exactness. Simmel believed that the above mental phenomena of the metropolis resulted from combining effects of monetary economy, division of labor, and intellectualism. Although his diagnosis was insightful and delicate, Simmel’s nonhistorical and sociological impressionist methods led him to cultural pessimism.